The Circular Staircase

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XV

  LIDDY GIVES THE ALARM

  The next day, Friday, Gertrude broke the news of her stepfather's deathto Louise. She did it as gently as she could, telling her first thathe was very ill, and finally that he was dead. Louise received thenews in the most unexpected manner, and when Gertrude came out to tellme how she had stood it, I think she was almost shocked.

  "She just lay and stared at me, Aunt Ray," she said. "Do you know, Ibelieve she is glad, glad! And she is too honest to pretend anythingelse. What sort of man was Mr. Paul Armstrong, anyhow?"

  "He was a bully as well as a rascal, Gertrude," I said. "But I amconvinced of one thing; Louise will send for Halsey now, and they willmake it all up."

  For Louise had steadily refused to see Halsey all that day, and the boywas frantic.

  We had a quiet hour, Halsey and I, that evening, and I told him severalthings; about the request that we give up the lease to Sunnyside, aboutthe telegram to Louise, about the rumors of an approaching marriagebetween the girl and Doctor Walker, and, last of all, my own interviewwith her the day before.

  He sat back in a big chair, with his face in the shadow, and my heartfairly ached for him. He was so big and so boyish! When I hadfinished he drew a long breath.

  "Whatever Louise does," he said, "nothing will convince me, Aunt Ray,that she doesn't care for me. And up to two months ago, when she andher mother went west, I was the happiest fellow on earth. Thensomething made a difference: she wrote me that her people were opposedto the marriage; that her feeling for me was what it had always been,but that something had happened which had changed her ideas as to thefuture. I was not to write until she wrote me, and whatever occurred,I was to think the best I could of her. It sounded like a puzzle.When I saw her yesterday, it was the same thing, only, perhaps, worse."

  "Halsey," I asked, "have you any idea of the nature of the interviewbetween Louise Armstrong and Arnold the night he was murdered?"

  "It was stormy. Thomas says once or twice he almost broke into theroom, he was so alarmed for Louise."

  "Another thing, Halsey," I said, "have you ever heard Louise mention awoman named Carrington, Nina Carrington?"

  "Never," he said positively.

  For try as we would, our thoughts always came back to that fatalSaturday night, and the murder. Every conversational path led to it,and we all felt that Jamieson was tightening the threads of evidencearound John Bailey. The detective's absence was hardly reassuring; hemust have had something to work on in town, or he would have returned.

  The papers reported that the cashier of the Traders' Bank was ill inhis apartments at the Knickerbocker--a condition not surprising,considering everything. The guilt of the defunct president was nolonger in doubt; the missing bonds had been advertised and some of themdiscovered. In every instance they had been used as collateral forlarge loans, and the belief was current that not less than a millionand a half dollars had been realized. Every one connected with thebank had been placed under arrest, and released on heavy bond.

  Was he alone in his guilt, or was the cashier his accomplice? Where wasthe money? The estate of the dead man was comparatively small--a cityhouse on a fashionable street, Sunnyside, a large estate largelymortgaged, an insurance of fifty thousand dollars, and some personalproperty--this was all.

  The rest lost in speculation probably, the papers said. There was onething which looked uncomfortable for Jack Bailey: he and Paul Armstrongtogether had promoted a railroad company in New Mexico, and it wasrumored that together they had sunk large sums of money there. Thebusiness alliance between the two men added to the belief that Baileyknew something of the looting. His unexplained absence from the bankon Monday lent color to the suspicion against him. The strange thingseemed to be his surrendering himself on the point of departure. Tome, it seemed the shrewd calculation of a clever rascal. I was notactively antagonistic to Gertrude's lover, but I meant to be convinced,one way or the other. I took no one on faith.

  That night the Sunnyside ghost began to walk again. Liddy had beensleeping in Louise's dressing-room on a couch, and the approach of duskwas a signal for her to barricade the entire suite. Situated as itswas, beyond the circular staircase, nothing but an extremity ofexcitement would have made her pass it after dark. I confess myselfthat the place seemed to me to have a sinister appearance, but we keptthat wing well lighted, and until the lights went out at midnight itwas really cheerful, if one did not know its history.

  On Friday night, then, I had gone to bed, resolved to go at once tosleep. Thoughts that insisted on obtruding themselves I pushedresolutely to the back of my mind, and I systematically relaxed everymuscle. I fell asleep soon, and was dreaming that Doctor Walker wasbuilding his new house immediately in front of my windows: I could hearthe thump-thump of the hammers, and then I waked to a knowledge thatsomebody was pounding on my door.

  I was up at once, and with the sound of my footstep on the floor thelow knocking ceased, to be followed immediately by sibilant whisperingthrough the keyhole.

  "Miss Rachel! Miss Rachel!" somebody was saying, over and over.

  "Is that you, Liddy?" I asked, my hand on the knob.

  "For the love of mercy, let me in!" she said in a low tone.

  She was leaning against the door, for when I opened it, she fell in.She was greenish-white, and she had a red and black barred flannelpetticoat over her shoulders.

  "Listen," she said, standing in the middle of the floor and holding onto me. "Oh, Miss Rachel, it's the ghost of that dead man hammering toget in!"

  Sure enough, there was a dull thud--thud--thud from some place near.It was muffled: one rather felt than heard it, and it was impossible tolocate. One moment it seemed to come, three taps and a pause, from thefloor under us: the next, thud--thud--thud--it came apparently from thewall.

  "It's not a ghost," I said decidedly. "If it was a ghost it wouldn'trap: it would come through the keyhole." Liddy looked at the keyhole."But it sounds very much as though some one is trying to break into thehouse."

  Liddy was shivering violently. I told her to get me my slippers andshe brought me a pair of kid gloves, so I found my things myself, andprepared to call Halsey. As before, the night alarm had found theelectric lights gone: the hall, save for its night lamp, was indarkness, as I went across to Halsey's room. I hardly know what Ifeared, but it was a relief to find him there, very sound asleep, andwith his door unlocked.

  "Wake up, Halsey," I said, shaking him.

  He stirred a little. Liddy was half in and half out of the door,afraid as usual to be left alone, and not quite daring to enter. Herscruples seemed to fade, however, all at once. She gave a suppressedyell, bolted into the room, and stood tightly clutching the foot-boardof the bed. Halsey was gradually waking.

  "I've seen it," Liddy wailed. "A woman in white down the hall!"

  I paid no attention.

  "Halsey," I persevered, "some one is breaking into the house. Get up,won't you?"

  "It isn't our house," he said sleepily. And then he roused to theexigency of the occasion. "All right, Aunt Ray," he said, stillyawning. "If you'll let me get into something--"

  It was all I could do to get Liddy out of the room. The demands of theoccasion had no influence on her: she had seen the ghost, shepersisted, and she wasn't going into the hall. But I got her over tomy room at last, more dead than alive, and made her lie down on the bed.

  The tappings, which seemed to have ceased for a while, had commencedagain, but they were fainter. Halsey came over in a few minutes, andstood listening and trying to locate the sound.

  "Give me my revolver, Aunt Ray," he said; and I got it--the one I hadfound in the tulip bed--and gave it to him. He saw Liddy there anddivined at once that Louise was alone.

  "You let me attend to this fellow, whoever it is, Aunt Ray, and go toLouise, will you? She may be awake and alarmed."

  So in spite of her protests, I left Liddy alone and went back to theeast wing. Perhaps I
went a little faster past the yawning blacknessof the circular staircase; and I could hear Halsey creaking cautiouslydown the main staircase. The rapping, or pounding, had ceased, and thesilence was almost painful. And then suddenly, from apparently under myvery feet, there rose a woman's scream, a cry of terror that broke offas suddenly as it came. I stood frozen and still. Every drop of bloodin my body seemed to leave the surface and gather around my heart. Inthe dead silence that followed it throbbed as if it would burst. Moredead than alive, I stumbled into Louise's bedroom. She was not there!