CHAPTER IX
JUST LIKE A GIRL
"Aunt Ray!" Halsey said from the gloom behind the lamps. "What in theworld are you doing here?"
"Taking a walk," I said, trying to be composed. I don't think theanswer struck either of us as being ridiculous at the time. "Oh,Halsey, where have you been?"
"Let me take you up to the house." He was in the road, and had Beulahand the basket out of my arms in a moment. I could see the car plainlynow, and Warner was at the wheel--Warner in an ulster and a pair ofslippers, over Heaven knows what. Jack Bailey was not there. I gotin, and we went slowly and painfully up to the house.
We did not talk. What we had to say was too important to commencethere, and, besides, it took all kinds of coaxing from both men to getthe Dragon Fly up the last grade. Only when we had closed the frontdoor and stood facing each other in the hall, did Halsey say anything.He slipped his strong young arm around my shoulders and turned me so Ifaced the light.
"Poor Aunt Ray!" he said gently. And I nearly wept again. "I--I mustsee Gertrude, too; we will have a three-cornered talk."
And then Gertrude herself came down the stairs. She had not been tobed, evidently: she still wore the white negligee she had worn earlierin the evening, and she limped somewhat. During her slow progress downthe stairs I had time to notice one thing: Mr. Jamieson had said thewoman who escaped from the cellar had worn no shoe on her right foot.Gertrude's right ankle was the one she had sprained!
The meeting between brother and sister was tense, but without tears.Halsey kissed her tenderly, and I noticed evidences of strain andanxiety in both young faces.
"Is everything--right?" she asked.
"Right as can be," with forced cheerfulness.
I lighted the living-room and we went in there. Only a half-hourbefore I had sat with Mr. Jamieson in that very room, listening whilehe overtly accused both Gertrude and Halsey of at least a knowledge ofthe death of Arnold Armstrong. Now Halsey was here to speak forhimself: I should learn everything that had puzzled me.
"I saw it in the paper to-night for the first time," he was saying."It knocked me dumb. When I think of this houseful of women, and athing like that occurring!"
Gertrude's face was still set and white. "That isn't all, Halsey," shesaid. "You and--and Jack left almost at the time it happened. Thedetective here thinks that you--that we--know something about it."
"The devil he does!" Halsey's eyes were fairly starting from his head."I beg your pardon, Aunt Ray, but--the fellow's a lunatic."
"Tell me everything, won't you, Halsey?" I begged. "Tell me where youwent that night, or rather morning, and why you went as you did. Thishas been a terrible forty-eight hours for all of us."
He stood staring at me, and I could see the horror of the situationdawning in his face.
"I can't tell you where I went, Aunt Ray," he said, after a moment."As to why, you will learn that soon enough. But Gertrude knows thatJack and I left the house before this thing--this horriblemurder--occurred."
"Mr. Jamieson does not believe me," Gertrude said drearily. "Halsey, ifthe worst comes, if they should arrest you, you must--tell."
"I shall tell nothing," he said with a new sternness in his voice."Aunt Ray, it was necessary for Jack and me to leave that night. I cannot tell you why--just yet. As to where we went, if I have to dependon that as an alibi, I shall not tell. The whole thing is anabsurdity, a trumped-up charge that can not possibly be serious."
"Has Mr. Bailey gone back to the city," I demanded, "or to the club?"
"Neither," defiantly; "at the present moment I do not know where he is."
"Halsey," I asked gravely, leaning forward, "have you the slightestsuspicion who killed Arnold Armstrong? The police think he wasadmitted from within, and that he was shot down from above, by someoneon the circular staircase."
"I know nothing of it," he maintained; but I fancied I caught a suddenglance at Gertrude, a flash of something that died as it came.
As quietly, as calmly as I could, I went over the whole story, from thenight Liddy and I had been alone up to the strange experience of Rosieand her pursuer. The basket still stood on the table, a mute witnessto this last mystifying occurrence.
"There is something else," I said hesitatingly, at the last. "Halsey, Ihave never told this even to Gertrude, but the morning after the crime,I found, in a tulip bed, a revolver. It--it was yours, Halsey."
For an appreciable moment Halsey stared at me. Then he turned toGertrude.
"My revolver, Trude!" he exclaimed. "Why, Jack took my revolver withhim, didn't he?"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake don't say that," I implored. "The detectivethinks possibly Jack Bailey came back, and--and the thing happenedthen."
"He didn't come back," Halsey said sternly. "Gertrude, when youbrought down a revolver that night for Jack to take with him, what onedid you bring? Mine?"
Gertrude was defiant now.
"No. Yours was loaded, and I was afraid of what Jack might do. I gavehim one I have had for a year or two. It was empty."
Halsey threw up both hands despairingly.
"If that isn't like a girl!" he said. "Why didn't you do what I askedyou to, Gertrude? You send Bailey off with an empty gun, and throwmine in a tulip bed, of all places on earth! Mine was a thirty-eightcaliber. The inquest will show, of course, that the bullet that killedArmstrong was a thirty-eight. Then where shall I be?"
"You forget," I broke in, "that I have the revolver, and that no oneknows about it."
But Gertrude had risen angrily.
"I can not stand it; it is always with me," she cried. "Halsey, I didnot throw your revolver into the tulip bed. I--think--you--didit--yourself!"
They stared at each other across the big library table, with young eyesall at once hard, suspicious. And then Gertrude held out both hands tohim appealingly.
"We must not," she said brokenly. "Just now, with so much at stake,it--is shameful. I know you are as ignorant as I am. Make me believeit, Halsey."
Halsey soothed her as best he could, and the breach seemed healed. Butlong after I went to bed he sat down-stairs in the living-room alone,and I knew he was going over the case as he had learned it. Somethings were clear to him that were dark to me. He knew, and Gertrude,too, why Jack Bailey and he had gone away that night, as they did. Heknew where they had been for the last forty-eight hours, and why JackBailey had not returned with him. It seemed to me that without fullerconfidence from both the children--they are always children to me--Ishould never be able to learn anything.
As I was finally getting ready for bed, Halsey came up-stairs andknocked at my door. When I had got into a negligee--I used to saywrapper before Gertrude came back from school--I let him in. He stoodin the doorway a moment, and then he went into agonies of silent mirth.I sat down on the side of the bed and waited in severe silence for himto stop, but he only seemed to grow worse.
When he had recovered he took me by the elbow and pulled me in front ofthe mirror.
"'How to be beautiful,'" he quoted. "'Advice to maids and matrons,' byBeatrice Fairfax!" And then I saw myself. I had neglected to removemy wrinkle eradicators, and I presume my appearance was odd. I believethat it is a woman's duty to care for her looks, but it is much liketelling a necessary falsehood--one must not be found out. By the timeI got them off Halsey was serious again, and I listened to his story.
"Aunt Ray," he began, extinguishing his cigarette on the back of myivory hair-brush, "I would give a lot to tell you the whole thing.But--I can't, for a day or so, anyhow. But one thing I might have toldyou a long time ago. If you had known it, you would not have suspectedme for a moment of--of having anything to do with the attack on ArnoldArmstrong. Goodness knows what I might do to a fellow like that, ifthere was enough provocation, and I had a gun in my hand--underordinary circumstances. But--I care a great deal about LouiseArmstrong, Aunt Ray. I hope to marry her some day. Is it likely Iwould kill her brother?"
; "Her stepbrother," I corrected. "No, of course, it isn't likely, orpossible. Why didn't you tell me, Halsey?"
"Well, there were two reasons," he said slowly.
"One was that you had a girl already picked out for me--"
"Nonsense," I broke in, and felt myself growing red. I had, indeed,one of the--but no matter.
"And the second reason," he pursued, "was that the Armstrongs wouldhave none of me."
I sat bolt upright at that and gasped.
"The Armstrongs!" I repeated. "With old Peter Armstrong driving astage across the mountains while your grandfather was war governor--"
"Well, of course, the war governor's dead, and out of the matrimonialmarket," Halsey interrupted. "And the present Innes admits himself heisn't good enough for--for Louise."
"Exactly," I said despairingly, "and, of course, you are taken at yourown valuation. The Inneses are not always so self-depreciatory."
"Not always, no," he said, looking at me with his boyish smile."Fortunately, Louise doesn't agree with her family. She's willing totake me, war governor or no, provided her mother consents. She isn'toverly-fond of her stepfather, but she adores her mother. And now,can't you see where this thing puts me? Down and out, with all ofthem."
"But the whole thing is absurd," I argued. "And besides, Gertrude'ssworn statement that you left before Arnold Armstrong came would clearyou at once."
Halsey got up and began to pace the room, and the air of cheerfulnessdropped like a mask.
"She can't swear it," he said finally. "Gertrude's story was true asfar as it went, but she didn't tell everything. Arnold Armstrong camehere at two-thirty--came into the billiard-room and left in fiveminutes. He came to bring--something."
"Halsey," I cried, "you MUST tell me the whole truth. Every time I seea way for you to escape you block it yourself with this wall ofmystery. What did he bring?"
"A telegram--for Bailey," he said. "It came by special messenger fromtown, and was--most important. Bailey had started for here, and themessenger had gone back to the city. The steward gave it to Arnold,who had been drinking all day and couldn't sleep, and was going for astroll in the direction of Sunnyside."
"And he brought it?"
"Yes."
"What was in the telegram?"
"I can tell you--as soon as certain things are made public. It is onlya matter of days now," gloomily.
"And Gertrude's story of a telephone message?"
"Poor Trude!" he half whispered. "Poor loyal little girl! Aunt Ray,there was no such message. No doubt your detective already knows thatand discredits all Gertrude told him."
"And when she went back, it was to get--the telegram?"
"Probably," Halsey said slowly. "When you get to thinking about it,Aunt Ray, it looks bad for all three of us, doesn't it? And yet--Iwill take my oath none of us even inadvertently killed that poor devil."
I looked at the closed door into Gertrude's dressing-room, and loweredmy voice.
"The same horrible thought keeps recurring to me," I whispered."Halsey, Gertrude probably had your revolver: she must have examinedit, anyhow, that night. After you--and Jack had gone, what if thatruffian came back, and she--and she--"
I couldn't finish. Halsey stood looking at me with shut lips.
"She might have heard him fumbling at the door he had no key, thepolice say--and thinking it was you, or Jack, she admitted him. Whenshe saw her mistake she ran up the stairs, a step or two, and turning,like an animal at bay, she fired."
Halsey had his hand over my lips before I finished, and in thatposition we stared each at the other, our stricken glances crossing.
"The revolver--my revolver--thrown into the tulip bed!" he muttered tohimself. "Thrown perhaps from an upper window: you say it was burieddeep. Her prostration ever since, her--Aunt Ray, you don't think itwas Gertrude who fell down the clothes chute?"
I could only nod my head in a hopeless affirmative.
The Circular Staircase Page 9