The Circular Staircase Read online

  CHAPTER V

  GERTRUDE'S ENGAGEMENT

  At ten o'clock the Casanova hack brought up three men. They introducedthemselves as the coroner of the county and two detectives from thecity. The coroner led the way at once to the locked wing, and with theaid of one of the detectives examined the rooms and the body. Theother detective, after a short scrutiny of the dead man, busied himselfwith the outside of the house. It was only after they had got a fairidea of things as they were that they sent for me.

  I received them in the living-room, and I had made up my mind exactlywhat to tell. I had taken the house for the summer, I said, while theArmstrongs were in California. In spite of a rumor among the servantsabout strange noises--I cited Thomas--nothing had occurred the firsttwo nights. On the third night I believed that some one had been inthe house: I had heard a crashing sound, but being alone with one maidhad not investigated. The house had been locked in the morning andapparently undisturbed.

  Then, as clearly as I could, I related how, the night before, a shothad roused us; that my niece and I had investigated and found a body;that I did not know who the murdered man was until Mr. Jarvis from theclub informed me, and that I knew of no reason why Mr. Arnold Armstrongshould steal into his father's house at night. I should have been gladto allow him entree there at any time.

  "Have you reason to believe, Miss Innes," the coroner asked, "that anymember of your household, imagining Mr. Armstrong was a burglar, shothim in self-defense?"

  "I have no reason for thinking so," I said quietly.

  "Your theory is that Mr. Armstrong was followed here by some enemy, andshot as he entered the house?"

  "I don't think I have a theory," I said. "The thing that has puzzledme is why Mr. Armstrong should enter his father's house two nights insuccession, stealing in like a thief, when he needed only to askentrance to be admitted."

  The coroner was a very silent man: he took some notes after this, buthe seemed anxious to make the next train back to town. He set theinquest for the following Saturday, gave Mr. Jamieson, the younger ofthe two detectives, and the more intelligent looking, a fewinstructions, and, after gravely shaking hands with me and regrettingthe unfortunate affair, took his departure, accompanied by the otherdetective.

  I was just beginning to breathe freely when Mr. Jamieson, who had beenstanding by the window, came over to me.

  "The family consists of yourself alone, Miss Innes?"

  "My niece is here," I said.

  "There is no one but yourself and your niece?"

  "My nephew." I had to moisten my lips.

  "Oh, a nephew. I should like to see him, if he is here."

  "He is not here just now," I said as quietly as I could. "I expecthim--at any time."

  "He was here yesterday evening, I believe?"

  "No--yes."

  "Didn't he have a guest with him? Another man?"

  "He brought a friend with him to stay over Sunday, Mr. Bailey."

  "Mr. John Bailey, the cashier of the Traders' Bank I believe." And Iknew that some one at the Greenwood Club had told. "When did theyleave?"

  "Very early--I don't know at just what time."

  Mr. Jamieson turned suddenly and looked at me.

  "Please try to be more explicit," he said. "You say your nephew andMr. Bailey were in the house last night, and yet you and your niece,with some women-servants, found the body. Where was your nephew?"

  I was entirely desperate by that time.

  "I do not know," I cried, "but be sure of this: Halsey knows nothing ofthis thing, and no amount of circumstantial evidence can make aninnocent man guilty."

  "Sit down," he said, pushing forward a chair. "There are some things Ihave to tell you, and, in return, please tell me all you know. Believeme, things always come out. In the first place, Mr. Armstrong was shotfrom above. The bullet was fired at close range, entered below theshoulder and came out, after passing through the heart, well down theback. In other words, I believe the murderer stood on the stairs andfired down. In the second place, I found on the edge of thebilliard-table a charred cigar which had burned itself partly out, anda cigarette which had consumed itself to the cork tip. Neither one hadbeen more than lighted, then put down and forgotten. Have you any ideawhat it was that made your nephew and Mr. Bailey leave their cigars andtheir game, take out the automobile without calling the chauffeur, andall this at--let me see certainly before three o'clock in the morning?"

  "I don't know," I said; "but depend on it, Mr. Jamieson, Halsey will beback himself to explain everything."

  "I sincerely hope so," he said. "Miss Innes, has it occurred to youthat Mr. Bailey might know something of this?"

  Gertrude had come down-stairs and just as he spoke she came in. I sawher stop suddenly, as if she had been struck.

  "He does not," she said in a tone that was not her own. "Mr. Baileyand my brother know nothing of this. The murder was committed atthree. They left the house at a quarter before three."

  "How do you know that?" Mr. Jamieson asked oddly. "Do you KNOW at whattime they left?"

  "I do," Gertrude answered firmly. "At a quarter before three mybrother and Mr. Bailey left the house, by the main entrance.I--was--there."

  "Gertrude," I said excitedly, "you are dreaming! Why, at a quarter tothree--"

  "Listen," she said. "At half-past two the downstairs telephone rang.I had not gone to sleep, and I heard it. Then I heard Halsey answerit, and in a few minutes he came up-stairs and knocked at my door.We--we talked for a minute, then I put on my dressing-gown andslippers, and went down-stairs with him. Mr. Bailey was in thebilliard-room. We--we all talked together for perhaps ten minutes.Then it was decided that--that they should both go away--"

  "Can't you be more explicit?" Mr. Jamieson asked. "WHY did they goaway?"

  "I am only telling you what happened, not why it happened," she saidevenly. "Halsey went for the car, and instead of bringing it to thehouse and rousing people, he went by the lower road from the stable.Mr. Bailey was to meet him at the foot of the lawn. Mr. Bailey left--"

  "Which way?" Mr. Jamieson asked sharply.

  "By the main entrance. He left--it was a quarter to three. I knowexactly."

  "The clock in the hall is stopped, Miss Innes," said Jamieson. Nothingseemed to escape him.

  "He looked at his watch," she replied, and I could see Mr. Jamieson'ssnap, as if he had made a discovery. As for myself, during the wholerecital I had been plunged into the deepest amazement.

  "Will you pardon me for a personal question?" The detective was ayoungish man, and I thought he was somewhat embarrassed. "What areyour--your relations with Mr. Bailey?"

  Gertrude hesitated. Then she came over and put her hand lovingly inmine.

  "I am engaged to marry him," she said simply.

  I had grown so accustomed to surprises that I could only gasp again,and as for Gertrude, the hand that lay in mine was burning with fever.

  "And--after that," Mr. Jamieson went on, "you went directly to bed?"

  Gertrude hesitated.

  "No," she said finally. "I--I am not nervous, and after I hadextinguished the light, I remembered something I had left in thebilliard-room, and I felt my way back there through the darkness."

  "Will you tell me what it was you had forgotten?"

  "I can not tell you," she said slowly. "I--I did not leave thebilliard-room at once--"

  "Why?" The detective's tone was imperative. "This is very important,Miss Innes."

  "I was crying," Gertrude said in a low tone. "When the French clock inthe drawing-room struck three, I got up, and then--I heard a step onthe east porch, just outside the card-room. Some one with a key wasworking with the latch, and I thought, of course, of Halsey. When wetook the house he called that his entrance, and he had carried a keyfor it ever since. The door opened and I was about to ask what he hadforgotten, when there was a flash and a report. Some heavy bodydropped, and, half crazed with terror and shock, I ran through th
edrawing-room and got up-stairs--I scarcely remember how."

  She dropped into a chair, and I thought Mr. Jamieson must havefinished. But he was not through.

  "You certainly clear your brother and Mr. Bailey admirably," he said."The testimony is invaluable, especially in view of the fact that yourbrother and Mr. Armstrong had, I believe, quarreled rather seriouslysome time ago."

  "Nonsense," I broke in. "Things are bad enough, Mr. Jamieson, withoutinventing bad feeling where it doesn't exist. Gertrude, I don't thinkHalsey knew the--the murdered man, did he?"

  But Mr. Jamieson was sure of his ground.

  "The quarrel, I believe," he persisted, "was about Mr. Armstrong'sconduct to you, Miss Gertrude. He had been paying you unwelcomeattentions."

  And I had never seen the man!

  When she nodded a "yes" I saw the tremendous possibilities involved.If this detective could prove that Gertrude feared and disliked themurdered man, and that Mr. Armstrong had been annoying and possiblypursuing her with hateful attentions, all that, added to Gertrude'sconfession of her presence in the billiard-room at the time of thecrime, looked strange, to say the least. The prominence of the familyassured a strenuous effort to find the murderer, and if we had nothingworse to look forward to, we were sure of a distasteful publicity.

  Mr. Jamieson shut his note-book with a snap, and thanked us.

  "I have an idea," he said, apropos of nothing at all, "that at any ratethe ghost is laid here. Whatever the rappings have been--and thecolored man says they began when the family went west three monthsago--they are likely to stop now."

  Which shows how much he knew about it. The ghost was not laid: withthe murder of Arnold Armstrong he, or it, only seemed to take on freshvigor.

  Mr. Jamieson left then, and when Gertrude had gone up-stairs, as shedid at once, I sat and thought over what I had just heard. Herengagement, once so engrossing a matter, paled now beside thesignificance of her story. If Halsey and Jack Bailey had left beforethe crime, how came Halsey's revolver in the tulip bed? What was themysterious cause of their sudden flight? What had Gertrude left in thebilliard-room? What was the significance of the cuff-link, and wherewas it?