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OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook 3rd Edition
Over 110 effective recipes to help you build and operate
OpenStack cloud computing storage networking and
automation Kevin Jackson Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Kevin Jackson, Cody Bunch, Egle Sigler
ISBN(s): 9781782174783, 1782174788
File Details: PDF, 7.93 MB
Year: 2015
Language: english
 1

www.it-ebooks.info
OpenStack Cloud
Computing Cookbook
Third Edition

Over 110 effective recipes to help you build and

operate OpenStack cloud computing, storage,
networking, and automation

Kevin Jackson
Cody Bunch
Egle Sigler

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI

www.it-ebooks.info
OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook
Third Edition

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without
warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers
and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly
or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2012

Second edition: October 2013

Third edition: August 2015

Production reference: 1170815

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78217-478-3

www.packtpub.com

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 Credits

Authors Copy Editors

Kevin Jackson Roshni Banerjee
Cody Bunch Trishya Hajare
Egle Sigler
Project Coordinator
Reviewers Milton Dsouza
Chris Beatty
Proofreader
Walter Bentley
Safis Editing
Victoria Martinez de la Cruz
Stefan Lenz Indexer
Andy McCrae Hemangini Bari

Melissa Palmer
Graphics
Sriram Rajan
Sheetal Aute

Commissioning Editor
Production Coordinator
Kartikey Pandey
Nitesh Thakur

Acquisition Editor
Cover Work
Indrajit Das
Nitesh Thakur

Content Development Editor

Akashdeep Kundu

Technical Editors
Naveenkumar Jain
Narsimha Pai

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www.it-ebooks.info
 Foreword
At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are
probing the fundamental structure of the universe. They use the world's largest and most
complex scientific instruments to study the basic constituents of matter—the fundamental
particles. The particles are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The
process gives clues to physicists about how the particles interact and provides insights into
the fundamental laws of nature.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator.
The LHC consists of a 27-kilometer ring of superconducting magnets with a number of
accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way. Inside the
accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light, before they
are made to collide. This produces 27 petabytes of data every year, which is recorded and
analyzed by thousands of computers in the CERN data centre.

With an upgrade to the LHC in 2015 to nearly double the collision energy, it was clear that
further computing resources were needed. To provide the additional capacity and be more
responsive to the users, a new approach was needed. In 2012, a small team at CERN started
looking at OpenStack, a piece of open source software, to create computing clouds. It was a
very promising technology with an enthusiastic community but a significant level of complexity.
Along with the code being very new, those were very early days for the documentation and
training. We wanted to educate people rapidly to start the project and so looked for guides
to make the new administrators productive. This was when we encountered the first edition
of the book, OpenStack Cloud Computing Cookbook. It became the standard document for
newcomers in the team to understand the concepts, set up their first clouds, and then start
work on the CERN cloud.

www.it-ebooks.info
As the cloud evolved and the OpenStack technology matured, we continued to use this guide,
even as the members of the team rotated, building small clouds to try out new concepts and
investigate the flexibility of cloud computing.

Over the years, I have frequently met Kevin, Cody and Egle at the OpenStack summits that
give the community an opportunity to meet and exchange experiences. With OpenStack
evolving so rapidly, it also gives an opportunity to get the latest editions of the cookbook,
which they have continued to keep up to date.

The CERN cloud is now in production across two data centers in Geneva and Budapest, with
over 3,000 servers running tens of thousands of virtual machines. With new staff members
joining frequently, we continue to use the cookbook as a key part of the team's training and
look forward to the updates in the latest edition.

Tim Bell

Infrastructure Manager, CERN

www.it-ebooks.info
 About the Authors

Kevin Jackson is married and has three children. He is an experienced IT professional

working with business and enterprises of all sizes at Rackspace as an OpenStack and private
cloud specialist. Kevin has been working with OpenStack since early 2011 and has extensive
experience of various flavors of Linux, Unix, and hosting environments. Kevin can be found on
Twitter at @itarchitectkev.

Kevin authored the first edition and coauthored the second edition of the OpenStack Cloud
Computing Cookbook, Packt Publishing. Kevin also coauthored OpenStack Foundation's
OpenStack Architecture Design Guide during a 5-day book sprint in California.

I'd like to thank Cody for stepping up to the plate again to go through the
pain and anguish to get another edition of the book out. Also thanks, of
course, go to Egle, whom we somehow commandeered to help get this out
the door bigger and better than before. We have a whole bunch of tech
reviewers from across the globe too who have helped keep us within reach
of our goals, so thanks for keeping it real.

I'd also like to thank my family, although I'm not sure they have realized
I wrote another one. I think I may have just about gotten away with this
one unscathed.

Finally, I'd like to thank Rackspace for giving me the opportunity and support
to pursue such endeavors and the many people I bug now for answers to
stupid questions.

www.it-ebooks.info
Cody Bunch is a principal architect in the Rackspace Private Cloud group based out of
San Antonio, Texas. Cody has been working with OpenStack since early 2012, coauthored
the second edition of this book and also coauthored OpenStack Security Guide. Cody has
extensive experience with virtualized and cloud environments in various-sized enterprises
and hosting environments. Cody can be found on Twitter at @cody_bunch.

I'd like to thank Kevin for coming along on this crazy ride, yet again. I would
also like to thank Egle, who jumped into the fray and has gone above and
beyond to make this book more awesome than the last one. This book
would not be possible without the wonderful reviewers, as well as the folks
at Packt who stepped up their game between editions.

Next up, and likely much more important, to thank are my kids and loving
wife. Without their support, well, I'm not entirely sure this edition would have
made it out the door. Also, on the time, understanding, and support list is
my employer, Rackspace.

I'd like to thank the writers, publisher, reviewers, and employer. While this
is a small army of folks who help with the writing and publishing of this
edition, I think it would be super amiss if I didn't thank the awesome-tastic
OpenStack community for whom we wrote this. Y'all provide not just the
support, technical guidance, and such, but also the "why" behind putting
another volume out in the market. Thanks!

www.it-ebooks.info
Egle Sigler is an OpenStack Foundation board member and a principal architect in the
Rackspace Private Cloud group based out of San Antonio, Texas. Egle holds an M.S. degree
in computer science. She started her career as a software developer and still has a soft spot
for all the people who write, test, and deploy code, since she has had the chance to do all
of those tasks throughout her career. Egle dreams about a day when writing, testing, and
deploying code will be a seamless and easy process—bug and frustration free for all. Egle
believes that knowledge should be shared and has tried to do this by writing this book, giving
talks and workshops at conferences, and blogging. Egle can be found on Twitter at @eglute.

She has coauthored DevOps for VMware Administrators (VMware Press Technology).

I would like to thank my husband, my love, and my technical advisor for his
constant and unwavering support while writing, traveling, installing, and
troubleshooting. For some reason, it is always the networking that needs
troubleshooting.

I ask for forgiveness from my friends and family, who didn't get to talk to me
very much while I was working on this book.

OpenStack developers, quality engineers, operators, users, and

documentation writers, thank you for making OpenStack better each day!

Kevin and Cody, thank you for bringing me along on this adventure! I
cannot believe how much quality work was already put into this book, as
well as into the Vagrant environment scripts. Technical reviewers, thank
you for volunteering hundreds of hours to review everything. Reviewers and
editors from Packt, thank you for your prompt communication and constant
feedback. Rackers, thank you for your advice and guidance. Lastly, thanks
to Rackspace for supporting my writing endeavors.

www.it-ebooks.info
 About the Reviewers

Chris Beatty is a seasoned IT professional with a varied background in systems

administration and infrastructure architecture. He is currently working for Rackspace,
helping enterprise customers design and run high-performant hosted solutions.

I'd like to thank my wife and children for giving me the time to review this
book, as well as my colleagues for asking me to help out!!

Walter Bentley is a Rackspace private cloud solutions architect. He is a new Racker

with a diverse background in production systems administration and solutions architecture.
He brings over 17 years of experience across numerous industries, such as online marketing,
financial, insurance, aviation, the food industry, and education. In the past, he has always
been the requestor, consumer, and advisor to companies to use technologies such as
OpenStack. Now, he is a promoter of the OpenStack technology and a cloud educator.

I would like to sincerely thank the authors for allowing me to be part of this
great publication and opportunity.

www.it-ebooks.info
Victoria Martinez de la Cruz is a licentiate in computer sciences from the Computer
Sciences and Engineering department of Universidad Nacional del Sur in Bahia Blanca,
Argentina. During her last years in college, she got started with OpenStack through the
GNOME Outreachy and Google Summer of Code internships. She is currently a software
engineer at Red Hat and a core member of OpenStack's Trove and Zaqar projects. Her main
interests are operative systems, networks, and databases. She is FOSS passionate and loves
to help newcomers to get involved with open source projects. Victoria can be contacted at
victoria@vmartinezdelacruz.com.

I would like to thank the authors and publishers of OpenStack Cookbook

Third Edition for giving me the opportunity to join as a technical reviewer;
it was a great experience!

Stefan Lenz works for BMW in Munich. He is a manager of the data center and cloud
services division in BMW's global IT organization. In this role, he is responsible for the
delivery of compute, storage, and network services for BMW worldwide.

He holds a PhD in nuclear physics from Erlangen University in Germany and has worked as
a postdoctoral associate at Yale university, doing nuclear research on high-performance
computers. He worked as a consultant for high-performance computing in the German
automotive industry before becoming an IT architect for high-performance computers
and engineering IT at BMW. From 2002 to 2014, he worked in several initiatives and
projects to consolidate and globalize BMW's IT organization.

He is married, lives in Munich, and likes to ski, hike, and bike in the Alps. Together
with his wife, he has written six books on hiking, mountain bike tours, and the Camino
de Santiago in Spain. You can contact him on Twitter as @stefan_km_lenz or via his
website www.serverfabrik.de.

During the summer of 2014, I spent long hours in my private computer lab
in the basement of our house, learning the basics of Openstack. My guide
on that journey was the first edition of OpenStack Cookbook. I'd like to thank
the authors, who have helped me a lot. I would also like to thank my wife for
her support, her patience, and for donating two old computers from her own
business to my lab.

www.it-ebooks.info
Andy McCrae is a software developer at Rackspace working within the Rackspace
Private Cloud team. Andy began his career in 2007 as a Linux system administrator for
Rackspace after completing master's of engineering (MEng), majoring in computer science
at University College London (UCL).

Andy specializes in Swift (Object Storage) and Ansible. Andy was the core contributor to
OpenStack-Chef and is now working on the os-ansible-deployment community projects
within OpenStack.

Recently, Andy spoke at the Vancouver OpenStack Summit on managing logging within an
OpenStack environment.

Melissa Palmer is a systems engineer and architect and a virtualization, infrastructure,

and OpenStack enthusiast. She has bachelor's and master's of engineering degrees focused
on electrical engineering and secure networked systems design. As a strong advocate of the
community, Melissa is a VMUG member and has been featured on panel discussions and
podcasts for IT architecture and community programs. She is also the creative director of the
Virtual Design Master challenge located at http://virtualdesignmaster.com. Melissa
enjoys cooking, writing, and attending rocket launches in her free time. You can find Melissa
on Twitter at @vMiss33 or on her blog at http://vMiss.net.

Sriram Rajan is a principal engineer at Rackspace, where he is responsible for designing

solutions for its customers and assists them with their automation needs. Prior to Rackspace,
he worked as a systems programmer at Texas State University, from where he also earned his
master's degree in computer science. He has more than a decade of professional experience
working with Linux systems, networks, programming, and security. In his nonprofessional life,
he spends time traveling, working on home automation, watching cricket, programming for
fun, and discussing technology.

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www.it-ebooks.info
 Table of Contents
Preface vii
Chapter 1: Keystone – OpenStack Identity Service 1
Introduction 1
Installing the OpenStack Identity Service 2
Configuring OpenStack Identity for SSL communication 5
Creating tenants in Keystone 7
Configuring roles in Keystone 8
Adding users to Keystone 10
Defining service endpoints 15
Creating the service tenant and service users 22
Configuring OpenStack Identity for LDAP Integration 28
Chapter 2: Glance – OpenStack Image Service 31
Introduction 31
Installing OpenStack Image Service 32
Configuring OpenStack Image Service with OpenStack Identity Service 36
Configuring OpenStack Image Service with OpenStack Object Storage 37
Managing images with OpenStack Image Service 39
Registering a remotely stored image 43
Sharing images among tenants 45
Viewing shared images 47
Using image metadata 48
Migrating a VMware image 51
Creating an OpenStack image 52

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Table of Contents

Chapter 3: Neutron – OpenStack Networking 61

Introduction 61
Installing Neutron and Open vSwitch on a dedicated network node 63
Configuring Neutron and Open vSwitch 66
Installing and configuring the Neutron API service 74
Creating a tenant Neutron network 79
Deleting a Neutron network 82
Creating an external floating IP Neutron network 85
Using Neutron networks for different purposes 90
Configuring Distributed Virtual Routers 95
Using Distributed Virtual Routers 102
Chapter 4: Nova – OpenStack Compute 105
Introduction 106
Installing OpenStack Compute controller services 107
Installing OpenStack Compute packages 108
Configuring database Services 110
Configuring OpenStack Compute 112
Configuring OpenStack Compute with OpenStack Identity Service 119
Stopping and starting nova services 120
Installation of command-line tools on Ubuntu 123
Using the command-line tools with HTTPS 124
Checking OpenStack Compute services 125
Using OpenStack Compute 128
Managing security groups 130
Creating and managing key pairs 132
Launching our first cloud instance 135
Fixing a broken instance deployment 140
Terminating your instances 142
Using live migration 143
Working with nova-schedulers 145
Creating flavors 146
Defining host aggregates 149
Launching instances in specific Availability Zones 153
Launching instances on specific Compute hosts 156
Removing Nova nodes from a cluster 158

ii

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 Table of Contents

Chapter 5: Swift – OpenStack Object Storage 163

Introduction 163
Configuring Swift services and users in Keystone 165
Installing OpenStack Object Storage services – proxy server 167
Configuring OpenStack Object Storage – proxy server 169
Installing OpenStack Object Storage services – storage nodes 172
Configuring physical storage for use with Swift 174
Configuring Object Storage replication 177
Configuring OpenStack Object Storage – storage services 179
Making the Object Storage rings 182
Stopping and starting OpenStack Object Storage 186
Setting up SSL access 187
Chapter 6: Using OpenStack Object Storage 191
Introduction 191
Installing the swift client tool 192
Creating containers 193
Uploading objects 194
Uploading large objects 197
Listing containers and objects 199
Downloading objects 201
Deleting containers and objects 203
Using OpenStack Object Storage ACLs 205
Using Container Synchronization between two Swift Clusters 207
Chapter 7: Administering OpenStack Object Storage 213
Introduction 213
Managing the OpenStack Object Storage cluster with swift-init 214
Checking cluster health 216
Managing the Swift cluster capacity 218
Removing nodes from a cluster 222
Detecting and replacing failed hard drives 224
Collecting usage statistics 225

iii

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Table of Contents

Chapter 8: Cinder – OpenStack Block Storage 229

Introduction 229
Configuring Cinder-volume services 231
Configuring OpenStack Compute for Cinder-volume 233
Creating volumes 237
Attaching volumes to an instance 239
Detaching volumes from an instance 241
Deleting volumes 243
Configuring third-party volume services 244
Working with Cinder snapshots 245
Booting from volumes 247
Chapter 9: More OpenStack 251
Introduction 251
Using cloud-init to run post-installation commands 252
Using cloud-config to run the post-installation configuration 254
Installing OpenStack Telemetry 257
Using OpenStack Telemetry to interrogate usage statistics 262
Installing Neutron LBaaS 267
Using Neutron LBaaS 270
Configuring Neutron FWaaS 275
Using Neutron FWaaS 278
Installing the Heat OpenStack Orchestration service 285
Using Heat to spin up instances 290
Chapter 10: Using the OpenStack Dashboard 295
Introduction 295
Installing OpenStack Dashboard 296
Using OpenStack Dashboard for key management 298
Using OpenStack Dashboard to manage Neutron networks 304
Using OpenStack Dashboard for security group management 311
Using OpenStack Dashboard to launch instances 319
Using OpenStack Dashboard to terminate instances 324
Using OpenStack Dashboard to connect to instances using a VNC 325
Using OpenStack Dashboard to add new tenants – projects 327
Using OpenStack Dashboard for user management 329
Using OpenStack Dashboard with LBaaS 337
Using OpenStack Dashboard with OpenStack Orchestration 347

iv

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 Table of Contents

Chapter 11: Production OpenStack 359

Introduction 359
Installing the MariaDB Galera cluster 360
Configuring HA Proxy for the MariaDB Galera cluster 362
Configuring HA Proxy for high availability 365
Installing and configuring Pacemaker with Corosync 371
Configuring OpenStack services with Pacemaker and Corosync 376
Bonding network interfaces for redundancy 382
Automating OpenStack installations using Ansible – host configuration 384
Automating OpenStack installations using Ansible – Playbook
configuration 389
Automating OpenStack installations using Ansible – running Playbooks 396
Index 401

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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
already been convicted of poison—!”
“Stop!” Mr. Parsons rose. “Christopher was innocent of that old
charge and he was equally innocent of the crimes which have been
committed this past week! He was mistaken in his sense of duty, but
not a murderer!”
 CHAPTER XVIII
CHECKMATE!

M CCARTY left the Parsons house a few minutes later, his mind a
chaos of conflicting impressions. With the sonorous, dignified
tones still ringing upon his ear and the deeply concerned gaze yet
seemingly bent upon him Benjamin Parsons appeared the epitome of
rectitude and righteousness, but had he been as certain of Porter’s
innocence as he claimed, and was he as ignorant of where he had
gone?
He crossed the street to Orbit’s house and glanced again into the
court between that and Goddard’s. Max was still there, but he had
lain down as though exhausted and his ribs, glistening with the rain,
showed pitifully gaunt. Why didn’t they take the poor fellow in?
McCarty stopped and spoke coaxingly to him. The dog slowly rolled
his lack-luster eyes upon him but made no other response.
For a long minute McCarty stood thoughtfully regarding the dog.
When, at last, he continued on his way there was a curiously absent
look upon his face.
Ching Lee admitted him and took him to the library where he had
first been received. A small fire of some strange, peat-like fuel was
burning on the hearth, sending out iridescent flames and a faint
pervasive odor as of sandalwood, and before it Orbit was seated,
with a stout, florid man in tweeds.
“Good-morning, McCarty. I rather thought that you or the
inspector would look in on me this morning.” Orbit turned to his
guest. “Sir Philip, this is Deputy McCarty, the official who is working
with Inspector Druet on the investigation into this hideous mystery.”
Sir Philip Devereux nodded to the ex-roundsman cordially.
 “Shocking affair, this! Shocking!” he commented. “Here for a little
private chat with Mr. Orbit, what? I’ll leave you—”
“No, don’t go, Sir Philip!” Orbit demurred smilingly. “You know all
the circumstances and McCarty and I haven’t anything private to
discuss. I hope he’s brought me some news!—You heard about what
happened to me the other night?”
“I did that,” McCarty nodded. “What do you think ’twas done for, if
nothing was taken?”
“Haven’t the remotest idea.—Sit down here by the fire, man,
you’re soaked through!” Orbit added hospitably. “I’ll have Ching Lee
bring you a touch of something from my private stock—?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Orbit; I’ve a twinge of the gout now and then,
though you mightn’t think it,” McCarty explained speciously. “I just
dropped by to see if you’d thought of anything to add to what you
told the inspector about the chloroforming?”
“Nothing. The whole thing happened so quickly and the
impressions left on my mind were so vague, that I am afraid I can
be of little use to you. One thing seems certain; the fellow didn’t
intend me to die from the effect of it, since he stopped to open the
windows and throw away the cloth he had used to anæsthetize me!”
Orbit shrugged. “The incident is absolutely inexplicable except on
the supposition that his only intention was to terrorize me, and that
is really too absurd to consider.”
“It was an outrage!” declared Sir Philip suddenly. “Damme, it
passes belief! The chap must be a fiend—or mad! What object could
he have in doing Hughes in? I say, there was a valet for you!—Then
the girl, too! That poison gas theory seems to be rot to me, too
utterly impossible with you there in the room, but the girl is dead,
isn’t she? There you are!”
He leaned back in his chair and puffed thoughtfully at his cigar. His
host turned to McCarty with a faint hint of amusement in his eyes
but it was quickly overshadowed by sadness again.
 “The girl is dead, poor creature, and I cannot help feeling that the
blame in some way rests at my door, for I invited her in. However
her death was brought about the child escaped, though; we have
that to be thankful for! We are none of us safe here on the Mall
while the murderer is free to come and go in our houses at will,
killing with impunity whenever the horrible impulse comes to him! I
was reluctant to offer my hospitality to Sir Philip under these
harrowing circumstances but he expressed himself as willing to
abide by the consequences.”
“Ripping experience!” the baronet nodded again. “Sorry I’m sailing
to-morrow! Like nothing better than to stop and see it through!—Old
chap over the way was robbed the same night, I hear; any clues left
there, McCarty?”
There was no hint of sarcasm in his tone but McCarty flushed
darkly, then he darted a quick glance at the questioner and a slow
smile dawned. The Britisher was trying to get his goat!
“Yes, sir, the same as here,” he replied. “Mr. Orbit, you’ve that
chloroform bottle? The inspector says ’twas found on a stand beside
your bed.”
“Ching Lee has it, I believe; would you like to see it?” He rang the
bell without waiting for a reply. “The cloth used was a towel from my
own bathroom; it’s evident that the fellow was familiar with the
house and knew his way about; but how he got in that side door
leading from the card-room, if Ching Lee really bolted it as usual the
night before—? Oh, Ching Lee?”
The butler had appeared silently in the doorway and now Orbit
addressed him in a rapid patter of Chinese. Ching Lee, as impassive
and wooden of countenance now as before the tragedy, bowed and
departed, and McCarty turned once more to Orbit.
“What time was it, as near as you can figure, that you were
doped?”
“I should say, around two o’clock in the morning, perhaps a trifle
before. Sir Philip and I sat up till after midnight playing chess, and
when I retired I tried for more than an hour to sleep before I took a
bromide. Things grew hazy after that and I don’t know how long I
dozed before I was conscious of some one in the room.”
“You got no whiff of anything else before the chloroform hit you?”
McCarty asked. “No smell of a pipe or cigar if the guy was a smoker,
maybe?”
“I smoke so constantly myself that I would scarcely have noticed it
even if there had been time and I were fully awake.” Orbit raised his
brows. “You smoke yourself, McCarty; could you have detected it?”
“Sure,” McCarty stated the fact modestly. “I’ve not the nose Denny
has, but ’tis easy to tell the smell of a cigar from a pipe, even if it’s
only hanging about the clothes of a person; a rich, full-flavored cigar
with a body to it leaves a scent that a man will travel with, whether
he gets it himself or not.”
“‘Denny?’” Orbit repeated. “Oh, you mean your associate,
Riordan? Yes, I remember he detected the odor of that small blaze
here a week ago, when the monkey upset the cigar lighter in my
room. Odd faculty, that, eh, Sir Philip?”
“Jolly, I fancy. I only wish I had it!” Sir Philip chuckled. “My man
makes away with my cigars at a shockin’ rate but I never can catch
him at it. I say, no one’s disturbed our board, have they?”
“Indeed, no,” Orbit replied. “I gave strict orders and we can finish
the set to-night.—Sir Philip held the amateur chess championship for
Great Britain for five years.”
He added this to McCarty and then turned as Ching Lee appeared
again and spoke to him once more in his native tongue. The butler
advanced and placed in McCarty’s hands the bottle he had seen in
Orbit’s room two nights before.
“Has it been uncorked, do you know, since ’twas found beside
you?” McCarty regarded the contents critically, removed the cork
himself for a cautious whiff. Hurriedly replacing it, he handed the
bottle back to Ching Lee and rose.
 “I don’t think so,” Orbit whipped out his handkerchief and pressed
it to his nose. “I am susceptible to that odor, at any rate, since
Wednesday night!—Sorry not to be of any greater help to you. I
shall depend on you and the inspector to keep me informed of any
developments that may arise.”
As McCarty trudged through the driving rain toward the east gate
once more, he shook his head. Come night, it would be a week since
Hughes had been done to death, and the end was not yet clear!
He made his way to the lunchroom on Third Avenue which he and
Dennis had previously visited and in deference to the day ordered
fried oysters. They were long in coming and he rested his elbows
wearily on the table. Was he getting too old for the game, after all?
In days gone by, when he was in harness, he’d have got to the truth
long since. It had been a dog’s life in more ways than one, yet he
regretted more than ever that he had left it and grown rusty....
All at once he straightened in his chair and sat staring at the
cynical warning to “watch your hat and coat” on the wall before him
as if the legend were wholly unfamiliar to him. The belated
appearance of the waitress with the oysters roused him from his
stupor and he rose hurriedly.
“Don’t want ’em!” he muttered thickly. “Gimme the check; I got to
beat it!”
Spilling a dime onto the table he took the slip of pasteboard, paid
for his untouched food at the cashier’s desk and went out as one in
a dream. Once around the corner he seemed galvanized into life and
set off briskly enough for the subway.
Twenty minutes later he presented himself at headquarters and
after being closeted with the chief of the detective bureau for some
little time he departed, armed with certain credentials for the main
office of the telephone company.
There he spent a long and seemingly unproductive hour going
over the calls from the Gotham exchange, which included the New
Queen’s Mall, for the previous Tuesday.
 Over Goddard’s private wire had gone numerous messages before
Trafford had called Blaisdell’s studio; and in the late afternoon, when
Horace’s continued absence had caused alarm, there were fully a
score of numbers registered before Goddard himself had summoned
McCarty.
Orbit’s telephone, too, had been busy, with the caterer, decorator,
florist and a musical agency, in connection with the function of the
afternoon. Three messages to the coal dealer and innumerable
others followed, presumably sent by guests until the evening was far
advanced.
Only four calls had been sent from the Bellamy house and they
appeared to have been made by the lady herself, for they were to
modiste, hairdresser, perfumer and a prominent department store.
Parsons’ telephone had been connected with a foreign consulate,
several charitable societies and a banking house, while the Sloane
household had communicated with Doctor Allonby, a drug store, an
agency for male nurses, the office number of a noted financier, and
several residence numbers of equally well-known persons.
McCarty copied one or two numbers from each list and sallied
forth to verify them, but, although the afternoon was long, twilight
had not yet come when he returned to his rooms and entered
cautiously.
They had not been intruded upon on this occasion, but he
remained only long enough to secure the page torn from the
encyclopædia and then slipped out again through the teeming rain
to the fire house which domiciled engine company 023.
Dennis was matching nickels with Mike in the dormitory and
reaping a rich harvest, but he hastily promised the loser his revenge
later and slid down the pole to join McCarty.
“I’ve looked for you all afternoon!” he declared reproachfully,
adding: “You’ve news! I can see it in the eye of you and I might
have known something would start whilst I was out of it!”
 “There’s nothing new,” McCarty responded quietly. “I’ve a queer
notion in my head, but it’s too sickening to spring even after all we
know has happened, till I get hold of something to back it up.
Parsons ’phoned for me this morning—the old gentleman himself—
and told me the truth about what was missing since Wednesday
night, which was no news. He said it was clever, the way you’d
disconnected the inside alarm arrangement—”
“Me!” Dennis’ leathery countenance blanched. “’Tis what I get for
letting you lead me into breaking the law! Now I’ll get thrown out of
the department and pinched, and Molly will change the baby’s name
—!”
“Oh, Parsons did not know ’twas you, Denny, he just said it had
been cleverly done,” McCarty hastened to explain. “I sprung it on
him about Porter and Radley and asked him what would he do if a
fellow escaped that he thought was innocent and came to him and
he spoke up quick that he’d turn him over to the authorities anyway;
’twould be his higher duty to our social fabric, whatever that is.”
“It would, would it!” Dennis ejaculated in fine scorn. “The social
fabric could go to blazes for all of me, but I’d stick to a pal, innocent
or no! Howsomever, I’ve not the grand, cold-blooded principles of
him!—You know the poor devil’s been caught, crazier than a loon?”
McCarty nodded.
“Porter knows it, too; he’s beaten it for fear he’ll be sent up for
hiding him.” He finished his account of the morning’s interview and
then drew the torn page from his pocket. “There’s more to this thing
about the Calabar bean that I didn’t read you, Denny, so I brought it
around and maybe ’twill give us an idea.—Listen: ‘Calabar Bean.
Ordeal Nut. The seed of Physostigma ven-en-osum, a twining, half
shrubby plant, native of Africa.’”
“What of it?” Dennis was frankly bored. “How is that going to
help?”
“Wait a bit.—‘The kernel is hard and white, and yields its virtue to
alcohol and less perfectly to water.—’”
 “I’ll bet it does, or they’d never have got it down Hughes, if what
we’ve heard of his habits is straight!” interrupted Dennis, his interest
once more aroused. “There you’ve got it, Mac! Find the last one he
took a drink with and you’ll have the guy that croaked him!”
“That’s not all,” McCarty began again. “‘The beans are reddish,
gray, or’—um—‘Kidney-shaped, and about the size’—never mind
that!—‘Care should be taken to avoid spontaneous—’”
“Did you trail around here in all the rain to give me a botany
lesson?” Dennis demanded indignantly. “’Tis not from any book you’ll
be learning the truth! I was that upset last night, what with the
revolver shot and all, that I never thought to ask you, but what did
the old guy you know uptown say about that bu’sted blue balloon?
Could he make out from the way it was rotting before our eyes the
kind of gas there was in it?”
McCarty hesitated and then said slowly:
“Denny, you’ll mind the other night after we had examined it I put
it in a cracker box while we went for a bite to eat and when we
came home you saw me hunting around for something?”
“You were trying to whistle, too!” Dennis nodded. “That always
means you think you’re putting something over! What was it?”
“I was hunting for that cracker box. I knew the minute we came
back into the room somebody’d been there, for there was the stale
smell of a heavy cigar on the air, not as if he’d been smoking right
then, but the scent of it was strong on him as he passed through the
place; when I found the box missing I knew what he’d come for.”
“Think of that now! Do you know what it means, Mac? The
murderer knew you and not the medical examiner’s assistant had
taken it from the conservatory! I wonder if he followed us from then
on? The sight of us parading through the streets with all them
balloons would have told him we were on, if he wasn’t blind!” Dennis
grinned. “Leave the medical examiner find out what kind of gas was
it; we know how ’twas give to her, though not what busted the
balloon right in her face nor how the gas got in it! The notion come
to me that ’twas not meant to kill Lucette, anyway.”
“Not kill her!” exclaimed McCarty. “The first whiff of it must have
knocked her cold!”
“But what if it was intended for the baby and not for her?” Dennis
lowered his voice. “What if the murderer has a craze for killing
children? I’ve heard tell of such things and so have you! Suppose
Hughes was poisoned by mistake in the first place for Ching Lee, so
that little Fu Moy wouldn’t be protected. Then Horace was taken
away and maybe killed and the Bellamy baby was next on the list—!”
“Denny, you’re running wild!” McCarty interrupted in his turn. “The
murderer’s brain has got a twist to it, but he’s not as crazy as all
that. Baby-killers are just stupid, low brutes without the shrewdness
or knowledge to plan such crimes as we’re up against now. We’re
fighting a mind, not a fist with a knife or a club in it!”
“So you’ve been saying!” Dennis retorted disgustedly. “That comes
of those books you’ve been reading! Whilst you’ve been figuring out
his ancestors and the blood that’s in him to decide is he in the ‘Born’
or ‘Habit’ class, like that Diagnostic book of yours has it, he’s been
having an Old Home Week in the Mall, kidnapping and killing right
and left! ’Twill be a week to-night—!”
McCarty beat a hasty retreat and took his solitary way to the
restaurant, where he ate a hearty dinner to make up for the
deferred lunch. Then he returned to the Mall, to prowl about like an
unquiet if somewhat too material ghost. The rain had stopped at last
and although the sky was still partially overcast the glimmer of a few
stars gave promise of a clear dawn. Lights were brilliant in the
Sloane, Parsons and Orbit residences, but low in Goddard’s and Mrs.
Bellamy’s, where the lady had been in a hysterical state since the
murder of her baby’s nurse.
Yost had been relieved from his post at the mortuary to take the
place of the night watchman, and McCarty walked up and down with
him for more than an hour, discussing the strange chain of tragedies.
All at once, as they passed the court next to the Goddard house, he
heard a low, coaxing masculine voice and came upon Trafford
bending over something which lay in the shadows.
“Come on, old fellow!” the tutor was saying. “Come along in the
house like a good boy! Horace isn’t here, Max, it’s no good waiting
—!”
“’Tis a strange acting dog and no mistake, Trafford,” McCarty
remarked.
The tutor looked up.
“He’s grieving himself to death,” he said. “He hasn’t touched a
morsel of food since Tuesday, though we’ve tempted him with
everything, and he is so weak he can scarcely stand, but he waits
about out here all the time for Horace to come home. I’ve got to get
him in now if I have to carry him!”
At this juncture, however, Max rose languidly to his feet and began
sniffing at McCarty’s boots, whining softly.
“’Tis like he was trying to talk!” the latter exclaimed.
“I wish he could, if he knows anything!” Trafford replied sadly. “If
Horace isn’t found soon his mother will lose her mind! McCarty, can’t
you people do anything? Even to know the—the worst would be
better than this horrible uncertainty and suspense!”
“The lad’s disappearance is not the half of what we’re up against,
Trafford,” McCarty reminded him. “We’re doing everything mortal to
find him and soon, maybe to-morrow, we’re going to take a big
chance.”
He watched while the tutor led the dog into the house and then
shaking his head he proceeded to Orbit’s and rang the bell. It was
little Fu Moy, resplendent in his embroidered serving jacket, who
opened the door and without announcing him, beckoned and
preceded him to the library, where the last interview had taken
place.
 The room was in deep shadow save for the glow from the hearth
and a single broad beam from a bridge lamp which played down
upon a chessboard laid out on a small table. At opposite sides of it
two silent, intent figures sat as immovably as graven images. If they
were aware of McCarty’s appearance they made no sign.
Were they hypnotized, or something? The two of them couldn’t be
asleep, sitting bolt upright like that! McCarty waited a good five
minutes and then advanced slowly into the room but still they
appeared oblivious.
Orbit was sitting forward, his eyes glued on the board, his hands
clasped and elbows resting on the arms of the chair but the florid-
faced Englishman appeared to be gazing off into space with the
intent yet absent look of one absorbed in profound concentration.
Then slowly Orbit’s right hand disengaged itself from the other
and he moved a figure upon the board, his hand almost
mechanically seeking its former position.
A little smile twitched at the corners of Sir Philip’s mouth and with
a swift intake of his breath he moved, sweeping from the board the
figure of shining white with which Orbit had just played. The latter
instantly lifted his head and raised his eyes to the high, beamed
ceiling. With the slight gesture the first sound broke the stillness, as
a muffled, barely audible exclamation came from Sir Philip’s throat.
Orbit made one more move and then glanced in amused
commiseration at his friend.
“Checkmate, Sir Philip! I shall give you your revenge in London
next season!”
“I say! That was damned clever! Led me right into ambush, what?
I wish some of the masters could have seen it!—Oh, there you are,
McCarty! Are you a chess player, by any chance?”
“No, sir.” McCarty advanced a step farther. “Mr. Orbit, Fu Moy
showed me straight in and I waited so as not to disturb you.”
 “That’s all right!” Orbit nodded pleasantly. “Our game is over.—You
have news for me?”
“Of a sort. You recall saying on Wednesday that you thanked
heaven the Bellamy baby was old enough to talk?”
“Yes!” Orbit responded eagerly. “I have tried several times to see
Mrs. Bellamy and little Maude, but the mother is still almost
overcome by the narrow escape of her child and will not permit her
out of her sight for a moment, while she herself is too prostrated to
see any one.”
“The little one talked to me the other day,” McCarty vouchsafed.
“She did? Why didn’t you tell me?” Orbit pushed back his chair
and rose. “Did she see any one, hear anything? Tell me, for God’s
sake! This may be most important!”
His fine eyes had lighted and the latent excitement seemed to
have communicated itself to his guest for Sir Philip also rose.
“No, sir. She knew no more than you or I, but she kept asking for
her balloon. It seems Lucette had bought it for her off a wop by the
gate just before you invited them in; ’twas a blue one, the baby said,
and she was persistent about it, but I recall seeing no toy balloon in
that conservatory.—Did you?”
“No.” Orbit shook his head. “I really don’t know, though; I didn’t
notice particularly. Surely it couldn’t have had anything to do with
the case, though!—What is it, Fu Moy?”
The little coffee boy spoke rapidly in Chinese and after a moment
Orbit turned with a gesture which included Sir Philip and McCarty.
“I am wanted on the telephone. You will excuse me?”
When he had left the room the Englishman glanced again at the
chessboard with the self-centered absorption of the enthusiast.
“Too bad you didn’t understand that play! Dash it all! Very clever!
On the twenty-first move, his Knight captured my pawn. Check. I
moved the King to the Queen’s square. By Jove, he moved the
Queen to Bishop’s sixth. Check. I captured his Queen with my Knight
and then Orbit moved his Bishop to King’s seventh. Checkmate!
Devilish trick, I should say. Really, McCarty, he had served me with
what is known in chess parlance as ‘The Immortal Partie!’”
“‘Checkmate,’” repeated McCarty slowly. “That means calling the
turn, then, blocking every play; not winning anything yourself but
keeping the other fellow from moving! ’Tis a poor sort of victory, to
my mind, but better than getting wiped off the board, and the secret
of it is—looking ahead!”
 CHAPTER XIX
DENNIS SUPPLIES A SIMILE

O N Saturday morning, as McCarty opened his door to proceed to

breakfast he caromed violently with Dennis at the head of the
stairs.
“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t look where you’re going!” the latter
observed. “I’ve come straight off duty without a bite or a shave to
find out what’s new, but not to be thrown downstairs!”
“Come on, let’s eat, then,” invited McCarty. “You can get a shave
after and join me back here, for I’ve had a ’phone from the inspector
and he’ll be around soon; he’s got something to tell us.”
Their meal concluded, Dennis betook himself to his favorite barber
and McCarty returned to his rooms with the usual collection of
newspapers under his arm. Before the half-open door of the antique
shop he paused. From an inner room at the rear came the deep
strains of a ’cello in a simple, oddly insistent little tune, unsuited to
the strains of a stringed instrument, until they swelled into a
sweeping arpeggio accompaniment. Girard must have finished
setting his stock in order, to be idling away the early morning hour
with his everlasting fiddle!
Nevertheless McCarty listened for a moment longer and then,
pushing open the door, he went in. The ’cello was silenced and the
little old Frenchman’s withered face peered out inquiringly from
between the curtains.
“Ah, it is you, my friend!” He came forward in welcome. “You have
heard the ’cello? She is in a bad humor because I play upon her
German music once more, but it is of a quaintness and charm, that
witch’s song from ‘Hansel und Gretel’; I go every year to hear it.”
 “Is that what you were playing?” McCarty asked politely. “Would it
be opera, now? I’m not up in them, at all.”
“It is from a fairy story for the children,” Monsieur Girard
explained. “The witch builds a castle of gingerbread in the woods to
attract the little ones and when they touch it they are destroyed.—
But tell me! You are again of the police, is it not so? You have found
the murderer of my countrywoman?”
“Not yet, Girard. I just stopped by to pass the time of day, and ask
you if you should see that red-headed limb of Satan, Jimmie Ballard,
hanging around, tell him I’ve left town; he’s too free with his pen
entirely!” McCarty returned with some heat. Then his manner
changed. “You didn’t happen to notice a man who came to see me
night before last, just around dark? I missed him by only a few
minutes.”
“But no, my friend.” Girard shook his head. “It rains with such fury
that one cannot see before the door and I close the shop while yet it
is light.—You do not come in a long time to spend an evening with
the old man!”
His tone was wistful and McCarty responded heartily:
“Sure I’ll come, just as soon as this case is over! Don’t forget
about Jimmie!”
Leaving the shop he mounted the stairs to his apartment above,
and settled himself to read the papers; but they held little of
interest, and, as the inspector still delayed in coming, he got out his
books once more and was deeply engrossed when Dennis
reappeared, freshly shaven and well-brushed, with a new collar an
inch too small embracing his gaunt neck.
“What are you dolled up for?” his host demanded. “That collar’s so
tight the eyes are bulging out of your head!”
“Leave be!” retorted Dennis with dignity. “A man has a right to
spruce up of a Saturday! So you’re at them books again! Where’s the
inspector?”
 “That’s his ring now.” McCarty rose. “Denny, mind you listen to
what I tell him about Parsons, but don’t add anything to it. What he
don’t know will save a waste of time.”
“What are you—?” Dennis began, but there was no opportunity for
him to finish his query; the inspector had taken the stairs two steps
at a time and entered without ceremony.
“Sorry I’m late, Mac.—Hello, Riordan, on the job with us again?
The medical examiner has had news from Washington.”
“Washington?—Sit down, sir!—About that poison gas, you mean?”
McCarty pushed forward the big armchair. “Did they find out what
it’s made of?”
“As much as will ever be known.” The inspector’s face was very
grave. “I don’t know whether you recall reading about it or not after
all this time, but during the last months of the war a report went out
from the Capital that a new poison gas had been invented, deadlier
than anything yet tried. The formula was a secret one, the property
of the government. The papers were full of it and preparations were
being made to supply our troops with it when the armistice came.
Nobody except the officials in charge of that department have
thought much about it since until our inquiries of the last day or two.
Last night Hinton Sherard, the man responsible for the safety of that
folio of secret documents, blew his brains out; the formula for the
poison gas had disappeared.”
“And ’tis that the murderer used?” Dennis stared. “Did he steal it
from the department?”
“Theft would have been impossible, except for some one on the
inside but the despatches in code from Washington indicate that
Sherard has been deeply involved in some foreign financial scandal.
He managed to extricate himself about two months ago by the
payment of a large sum; the affair only reached the ears of the
departmental heads when he killed himself publicly in the main
dining-room of the Weyland Hotel and as he never had as much
money as he is reputed to have paid out there’s only one
construction to be put on it. He must have sold the formula for that
gas.”
“It must have taken a mint of money to buy it,” McCarty observed
thoughtfully. “Any of them that live on the Mall could have afforded
it, I suppose, providing they wanted it bad enough but—two months
ago! The murderer sure planned a good ways ahead! Are you certain
there’s no mistake about it? If nobody knows the formula—?”
“The chemist who invented it is still living and three other men in
official Washington are familiar with its component parts. They all
agree that the effect of the gas inhaled by Lucette, as shown by the
autopsy, was identical with what would have been produced by the
action of this unnamed gas, and nothing else known to chemistry
would have had just that result.—Try one of these instead, Mac; old
Mr. Parsons gave them to me and though he doesn’t smoke himself
they ought to be good.” He had drawn a handful of fragrant cigars
from his pocket as McCarty proffered the box from the mantel. “The
important thing to us about this affair is that Washington is all
excited and determined to get our man and the formula before it
passes out of his hands, perhaps into those of some foreign power,
do you see?”
“In case there’s another war?”
“Exactly. They’re sending on some picked men from the Secret
Service to investigate and you know what that will mean; the case
will be practically taken out of our hands.”
“To the everlasting shame of the Force, and through us!” McCarty
sprang to his feet and paced rapidly back and forth. “It’s hell, ain’t it,
inspector? We’ve done all that mortal could and been blocked at
every turn, like Sir Philip in the chess game with Orbit last night;
’twould be the devil and all if we fall down on it now!”
“You’ll not!” Dennis sat up suddenly, the ashes from his pipe falling
upon the book laid open across his knee. “Don’t mind him, sir! He’s
got something up his sleeve, he as good as told me so yesterday
afternoon!”
 “Denny!” McCarty paused, grimacing horribly at the base informer.
“Don’t you listen to him, inspector! I had just a notion with nothing
to back it up, and if I sprung it now and it turned out to be wide of
the mark there’s no corner of this earth could hide us from what
would come!”
“What is it?” the inspector demanded. “For God’s sake, Mac, don’t
hold out anything now! It’s more than your record or my career that
is at stake; the pride of the whole department is in our hands! What
is this notion, as you call it?”
McCarty shook his head.
“It’s no use, sir! If I had one hint of even circumstantial evidence
to support it, I wouldn’t be loafing here this minute, but I’ll tell you
what I will do. Come noon, I’m thinking I’ll know whether there’s
anything in it or no and if there is I’ll be ’phoning to headquarters,
with a request that’ll maybe surprise you. Whatever it is you’ll let me
have it, for well you know I’d make no move unless I was sure.”
There was an unmistakable note of finality in his tone and
Inspector Druet acknowledged it with a shrug. In his troubled eyes a
renewed glow of hope had come.
“By noon?” he repeated. “I’ll be there waiting for your message,
Mac.”
“Meanwhile,” McCarty carefully avoided Dennis’ gaze, “I’ve a bit of
news for you, sir. Denny and me have managed to lay our hands on
the papers that have been missing from Parsons’ house.”
“I thought you would!” The shadow of a smile passed across the
inspector’s face. “The department doesn’t countenance burglary, of
course, but when two such deputies as you take matters into your
own hands I wash mine of the responsibility. What did you find out?”
Dennis was endeavoring to hide behind his book but his agonized
contortions bore mute testimony to his guilt. McCarty gazed at his
old superior with a world of reproach.
 “’Tis not what I expected from you, sir, after all these years, but
we’ll try to bear up under the injustice of it! The papers came to us
in a confidential way and since all Parsons wants is to get them back
again there’s no harm done.”
“Look here!” The amusement had faded from the inspector’s
countenance. “Orbit’s house was broken into that same night and he
was chloroformed—!”
“May my right arm drop off this minute if we had anything to do
with that!” McCarty’s solemn tones held the ring of truth. “I won’t
say that I’ve not my own suspicions about it, but they come to me
since and they’re all part and parcel of that notion I’ve got
concerning the whole case. However, getting back to Parsons,
maybe you’d like to look over what was stolen from his filing case in
that outrageous robbery. You’ll know then why the housemaid and
the page boy looked familiar to you.”
He handed the records of Parsons’ domestic staff to the inspector
and watched with a twinkle as the other ran quickly through them.
When his astonished comments had ceased, he produced the
manuscript notes but drew no attention to the reference to fluorine
gas, nor did he mention the leaf he had torn from the encyclopædia
as he briefly recounted the interview with the eccentric
philanthropist on the previous day.
“I left asking myself was he a crook or a crank or a saint on
earth?” he concluded. “What’s your opinion of him?”
“He may be a dreamer, with a lot of ideas for bettering the world,
that will never work out while we’re full of original sin, but I think
he’s a wonderful old character and worthy of his family,” the
inspector replied reflectively. “I was talking to one of these psycho-
analysts who is going to lecture to us in the commissioner’s new
school the other day and he knew all about them; it seems they’re
celebrated among students of heredity as a shining example of what
good blood means. There are thousands of ‘Parsons,’ I suppose, but
I’m talking about the descendants of the first David Parsons and the
old gentleman we know is the last in the direct male line.”
“I know,” McCarty remarked. “Five governors they’ve given to the
New England states, eight clergymen in America, fourteen foreign
missionaries, eleven college professors and two of them became
college presidents, and I can’t recall how many army and navy
officers and other big men. I’ve been looking them up a little,
myself.”
“The devil you have!” The inspector stared. “Keeping up with the
commissioner’s latest innovations, eh? Did you know that the
Parsons have been contrasted by these same students of heredity
with another family that’s supposed to be the worst on record?”
“I’ve no way of getting at things like those psycho-analysts,”
McCarty responded apologetically. “What about this other family?”
“I’ve forgotten the name but they died out long ago, the male
members, anyway. Every kind of crime and general crookedness was
represented among them.—But we’re wasting time. I suppose you
want me to return these papers to Parsons with the best excuse I
can think of?”
“No. We’ve an hour to spare before we can do anything, and
Denny and me thought we’d take them to him ourselves.” McCarty
gazed ceilingward through the wreaths of smoke. “Denny wants a
little talk with him.”
“Every day,” Dennis laid down his book at last. “Every day, in every
way, my friend Timothy McCarty is getting to be a better and better
liar—”
“Denny, what have you got hold of now!” McCarty flushed hotly.
“One of your new lesson books,” the other replied with immense
satisfaction. “’Tis by a foreign gentleman with a name like an
Australian bushranger’s call—”
“I bought it by mistake, thinking it was about this psycho-stuff
too, because I couldn’t understand it!” McCarty slammed the desk
drawer upon the embarrassing volume and turned to the inspector,
who had risen. “You’re going, sir? It may be a little past noon when I
call you up, but you’ll hear from me one way or the other.”
Mutual recriminations of a more or less acrimonious nature took
place after the inspector’s departure but they merely cleared the air.
Finally McCarty remarked:
“I gave myself away as well as you about breaking into the
Parsons house, but that was only after you’d told the inspector I was
holding out on him, which I wasn’t, having nothing to hold. As to
getting at criminals by way of science I’m not laughing at it, Denny,
just because I’m not on to it yet.”
“Nor me!” Dennis agreed. “Only to my mind, science is a lot like
spontaneous combustion; if you don’t handle it careful it’ll work up
its own heat and break out in a blaze.”
“Like what?” McCarty paused with his hat halfway to his head.
“Spontaneous combustion.” Dennis repeated. “When anything that
generates its own heat, like hay in a stable, is shut up too long
without air getting to it, it’s liable to take fire by itself. That’s one of
the first things ever I learned when I joined the department.”
McCarty chuckled.
“And that’s your idea of science, is it? Maybe ’tis as good as any
other!—Now let’s go and ease the old gentleman’s mind about his
stolen property.”
But they were destined to meet with still another delay, for on
entering the west gate of the Mall they encountered Mr. Gardner
Sloane. The supercilious manner had fallen from him and he greeted
them with marked cordiality.
“Horrible week we’ve been through, gentlemen!” he declaimed.
“Leaving the death of Orbit’s valet out of it, a murder, a kidnapping
and two robberies make a frightful record to contemplate. I trust you
are taking every measure to protect us here? By gad, there’s no
telling where this thing will strike next!”
 “Did you ever find your key to the gates?” McCarty asked
suddenly.
“Confound it, no; had to have another one made!” Sloane fumed.
“Let me see, it was a week ago that I missed it. I’d used it Saturday
morning to enter the east gate, I remember it distinctly, and I must
have dropped it near the Parsons house.—But I hope you’ll tell your
inspector that I depend on him to have a special watch kept over
our home; my father had a very bad turn on Tuesday and if any
excitement like a burglary were to take place it might prove fatal.”
“Did you get a good nurse for him?” McCarty asked solicitously.
“The last one you had beat it, didn’t he?”
“Otto? Oh, he’s back; came Tuesday afternoon, fortunately. Stupid
ass but a splendid attendant and my father’s used to him.—You
won’t forget to have us properly guarded?”
McCarty reassured him heartily and as they watched him swing off
toward the Avenue with a jaunty air Dennis remarked:
“So Lindholm showed up again, and we never even thought of it!
On Tuesday, too! Do you suppose—?”
“I’m through supposing!” McCarty interrupted. “We’ll stop by and
find out!”
The Sloane house, in spite of its almost oppressive luxury,
unmistakably betrayed the fact that a feminine hand had been for
long absent from its care and arrangement. There was a cold,
detached air about as though those beneath its roof were transients
with no foothold and little interest of a personal nature. Dennis
voiced his impression when the ancient butler had hobbled away to
summon the nurse.
“’Tis like a hotel!” he whispered. “Grander than most, but public
like. If ’twas the old days I’d have been minded to ask the old guy
where the café was!”
“You’re not used to the high society we’ve been moving in lately,
Denny,” McCarty replied, adding, as soft but heavy feet padded
down the wide center staircase of the reception hall: “Wisht! Here
comes the squarehead!”
The man who entered almost before the words had left his lips
was a blond, massively built giant with an up-standing brush of hair
so light as to be almost colorless, and sleepy blue eyes in a round
face ruddy with health.
“Ay Otto Lindholm.” He bent a mildly inquiring gaze upon them.
“You bane same mans dat go to my missus?”
“Sure we are!” McCarty beamed in a friendly fashion. “What the
devil did you run away for? You’d nothing to fear because of a row
with Hughes!”
“My woman!” Otto shrugged as if that settled the matter. “Ay tal
her we better stay but she has a scare on. You bane married, you
know.”
“Neither of us, thank God!” McCarty replied devoutly. “You
quarreled with Hughes on Thursday night a week ago, didn’t you?”
“Ay tal him he keep ’way from my woman or Ay bane goin’ to fix
him.” He spoke with stolid satisfaction. “Next time he write latter to
her Ay bane kick him ’roun’ de street like yaller dog. Dat’s all.”
His clear, placid eyes regarded them still in good-humored inquiry
and McCarty asked:
“When did you see him again?”
“De next night. Friday.”
“What-t!” The quiet answer had been all but overwhelming, but
Otto seemed unconscious of its portent.
“De next night,” he repeated patiently. “It bane yust start to rain
an’ he var sitting on stoop of house t’ree street down, holting on wit’
bote han’s to stomach. He var ver’ sick mans. Ay tal him Ay take him
home but he tal me go to hell. He look w’ite lak sheet, Ay t’ank he
bane soffer mooch but he say he bane goin’ walk it off. Dat’s last Ay
see of him.”
 “You went on and left him sitting there? That would be about
eight o’clock?”
“Yes, ’bout eight. Ay stay to see can Ay halp him but he get oop
an’ walk ’way. Ay t’ank to mysalf den he look lak deat’ but Ay did not
guess it var poison. He tal me he bane get sick at dinner an’ Ay t’ank
he yust eat too mooch.” Otto shook his head. “Hughes var bad mans
but murder is not so good! Dat Calabar bean he bane get here in de
Mall, sure!”
 CHAPTER XX
MAX

“I S that the poor beast you told me about?” It was an hour later,
and McCarty and Dennis were coming down the steps of the
Parsons residence. The latter pointed across the street to where Max
was prowling up and down the court.
“Yes. He’ll go on like that till he drops in his tracks.” A certain note
of grimness had crept into McCarty’s tone. “I wonder if Orbit went
down to the boat to see his friend off? I’d like a word with him if Sir
Philip has gone.”
“We’ve had words, in a manner of speaking, with more than one
this morning!” Dennis remarked. “We know as much now as we did
before but we’ve not gone a step forward and ’tis near noon.... Look
at Little Fu Moy!”
The Chinese boy, looking, in his drab, everyday attire, like some
dun-colored moth, had emerged from the side door of the house
where he was employed and approached the dog, holding a bit of
cake out in one brown little hand, but Max’s somber eyes showed no
glint of recognition and he swung out of the child’s way, staggering
in sheer weakness until he regained his poise.
Fu Moy stood still, his hand dropped to his side, and the piece of
cake falling to the pavement of the court.
“You go ring the bell, Denny, and ask for Mr. Orbit,” McCarty
directed. “I’ll be with you in a minute. If Ching Lee takes you to him
say you’ll wait for me, that I’ve something more to ask him.”
Dennis obeyed but when Ching Lee appeared and he voiced his
query the Oriental shook his head.
 “Mr. Orbit is not at home. He has gone down to the wharf with Sir
Philip, whose ship sails at noon.”
“Then I’ll wait for him.” Dennis announced firmly. “My friend
McCarty will be along in a little while. When Mr. Orbit gets back, tell
him the two of us are here.”
Ching Lee showed him to the library and with a bow left him, and
Dennis seated himself, feeling regretfully of the pipe in his pocket.
What McCarty had in mind he could not conjecture and there was no
telling when Orbit might return to find him waiting there without an
idea in his head and afraid to open his mouth for fear of balling up
the game.
Had Mac just been kidding when he told the inspector he’d know
by noon whether his notion was fact or not? He’d learned nothing
since but a lot of corroborative detail about things that didn’t matter,
anyway. Why on earth was he hanging around outside, fooling with
the dog?
Time crawled. Twenty minutes had passed by the great old
grandfather’s clock in the corner and still McCarty did not put in an
appearance. Dennis rose at last and tiptoed out across the hall and
down to the card-room, where he cautiously opened the side door
leading to the court. There stood McCarty, chinning and laughing
with the little Chink as if he’d not a care in the world!
Dennis took a tentative step forward, but at that moment McCarty
turned with a pat on the shoulder to Fu Moy and started for the rear
of the house. Dennis was forced to beat a hasty retreat lest the boy
find him spying.
What could Mac have found to talk about to the lad? Dennis knew
him too well to be taken in by that idly jocular air, and he’d not be
wasting a minute at this stage of the game. Could it be from
somebody in Orbit’s household, after all, that Hughes had got his
death-dose and poor Lucette that puff of poisoned air? Could the
boy Horace be even now hidden in some secret corner of Chinatown
or the French quarter?
 He had little opportunity to speculate further, for the front door
opened and after a moment Orbit’s tones came to him raised in
singsong Chinese. Little Fu Moy replied and then the master of the
house entered.
“Good morning, Riordan. Where is McCarty? Fu Moy says you both
wished to see me. What can I do for you?”
For a horrible moment Dennis’ tongue clove to the roof of his
mouth and then an inspiration came.
“Mac has something to ask you, Mr. Orbit, but he was stopped
outside. He’ll be in right away. ’Twas about that chloroforming the
other night that I wanted to see you. You woke up sick and found
nothing had been touched, but there was the bottle and the towel,
and the side door open downstairs. Did you happen to notice
anything else?”
“Only proof that there were two of them,” Orbit responded
thoughtfully. “I forgot to mention that to the inspector. One had big
hands, fat, and a trifle soft, but the other’s were thin and strong with
a wiry grip and a broken finger on the left one.”
“You don’t tell me!” Dennis ejaculated and his own left hand
promptly fumbled with his coat pocket as though seeking cover
there. Then in confusion it dropped to his side again. “And how
might you be knowing that? Sure, the inspector said you’d no time
to move, before the towel was clapped down over your face!”
“They had left their marks behind them.” Orbit laughed. “Fat
Hands had raised my windows higher and he must have been the
one who actually drugged me, for Broken Finger was nervous and
during that operation he gripped the post at the foot of my bed so
tightly that the impression was plainly left in the satiny finish of the
wood. The prints could have been made by none of the household
when they came in response to my ring, for Ching Lee’s hands are
very long and slender, Jean’s as thin as claws and André’s fat but
small. Fu Moy did not wake up and I would not permit Sir Philip or
his man to be disturbed.”
 “Maybe there was more than two of them,” Dennis suggested
hopefully. “Was there nothing else but just them finger marks? The
bureau don’t take so much stock in that kind of evidence any more,
what with the new science and such.”
“New science?” Orbit raised his brows. “Do you mean the crime-
detecting machines imported from some of the European capitals?
But that was some years ago.”
“No, sir.” Dennis’ thoughts went swiftly back to more than one
experience he had had with automatic informers in company with
McCarty during earlier days. “This is no test of your breathing, nor
pulse, nor sweat-glands, nor yet how quick you can think when a lie
comes in handy. ’Tis the crime itself that tells nowadays what
manner of man committed it and what kind of people he sprung
from; I’ve no doubt but that soon they’ll have it down so pat they
can tell a guy’s color and religion and politics by the turn of a knife
or the course of a bullet! It’s a wonder anybody got hung at all in
the old days!”
“Mr. Orbit?” McCarty unannounced appeared at last in the
doorway. “Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting. Has Sir Philip Devereux
gone?”
“He sailed less than an hour ago.” Orbit eyed him inquiringly.
“Your associate tells me you have something to ask me.”
“About Hughes, it was. He’d not been looking so well lately. Do
you know had he been taking any medicine?”
“Really, I couldn’t say.” He shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me to ask
him!”
“That’s that, then!” McCarty seemed lost in thought for a minute.
“Who is it drinks milk in the household?”
“Milk?” Orbit smiled. “Fu Moy, perhaps, but you will have to ask
him. The only one I know to be fond of it is Vite, the monkey; it is
one of his main articles of diet.”
 As though the mention of his name had summoned him, a little
brownish-gray shape sidled in over the doorsill, paused for a
moment and then sprang through the air to land lightly on Orbit’s
shoulder and sit chattering impertinently at the intruders.
“Silence, Vite! Where are your manners?” His owner stroked him
gently. “Why do you ask about the milk, McCarty?”
“It isn’t of any matter, sir. The medical examiner was saying that
’twas only in medicine or milk the Calabar bean powder could be
dissolved.”
Orbit moved with a slight trace of impatience.
“Surely such minor details are unimportant just at this time,
anxious as I am to have the mystery concerning Hughes’ death
cleared up! Nothing can restore him or that poor girl who died so
strangely in my house, but there is Horace Goddard! This is the
fourth day since his inexplicable disappearance and his father tells
me that no effort has been made to approach him for ransom. If the
boy has not been killed in some accident he may be in horrible
danger! He is delicate, he could not long endure hardships,
privation.” Orbit hesitated and then went on: “I don’t know whether
the suggestion may be worth anything or not, but has his own home
been searched thoroughly? It is an enormous, rambling old house
with innumerable storerooms and closets upstairs—I have
remembered them since I was a mere lad. Horace is a solitary,
meditative little chap, fond of getting away by himself. Isn’t it
possible that he may have gone up to some portion of the attic and
either fastened himself in or been locked away there by some one
who didn’t know he was around? Finding he couldn’t get out he may
have been frightened, fainted,—the possibilities are too awful to be
imagined!”
“No, there’s no chance of that, for every inch of the house has
been gone over a dozen times, but it may be, of course, that he met
with an accident somewhere and the body hasn’t come to light yet;
the inspector was saying something like that awhile ago. The lad
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