The Circular Staircase

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXXII

  ANNE WATSON'S STORY

  Liddy discovered the fresh break in the trunk-room wall while we wereat luncheon, and ran shrieking down the stairs. She maintained that,as she entered, unseen hands had been digging at the plaster; that theyhad stopped when she went in, and she had felt a gust of cold damp air.In support of her story she carried in my wet and muddy boots, that Ihad unluckily forgotten to hide, and held them out to the detective andmyself.

  "What did I tell you?" she said dramatically. "Look at 'em. They'reyours, Miss Rachel--and covered with mud and soaked to the tops. Itell you, you can scoff all you like; something has been wearing yourshoes. As sure as you sit there, there's the smell of the graveyard onthem. How do we know they weren't tramping through the Casanovachurchyard last night, and sitting on the graves!"

  Mr. Jamieson almost choked to death. "I wouldn't be at all surprisedif they were doing that very thing, Liddy," he said, when he got hisbreath. "They certainly look like it."

  I think the detective had a plan, on which he was working, and whichwas meant to be a coup. But things went so fast there was no time tocarry it into effect. The first thing that occurred was a message fromthe Charity Hospital that Mrs. Watson was dying, and had asked for me.I did not care much about going. There is a sort of melancholypleasure to be had out of a funeral, with its pomp and ceremony, but Ishrank from a death-bed. However, Liddy got out the black things andthe crape veil I keep for such occasions, and I went. I left Mr.Jamieson and the day detective going over every inch of the circularstaircase, pounding, probing and measuring. I was inwardly elated tothink of the surprise I was going to give them that night; as it turnedout, I DID surprise them almost into spasms.

  I drove from the train to the Charity Hospital, and was at once takento a ward. There, in a gray-walled room in a high iron bed, lay Mrs.Watson. She was very weak, and she only opened her eyes and looked atme when I sat down beside her. I was conscience-stricken. We had beenso engrossed that I had left this poor creature to die without even aword of sympathy.

  The nurse gave her a stimulant, and in a little while she was able totalk. So broken and half-coherent, however, was her story that I shalltell it in my own way. In an hour from the time I entered the CharityHospital, I had heard a sad and pitiful narrative, and had seen a womanslip into the unconsciousness that is only a step from death.

  Briefly, then, the housekeeper's story was this:

  She was almost forty years old, and had been the sister-mother of alarge family of children. One by one they had died, and been buriedbeside their parents in a little town in the Middle West. There wasonly one sister left, the baby, Lucy. On her the older girl hadlavished all the love of an impulsive and emotional nature. When Anne,the elder, was thirty-two and Lucy was nineteen, a young man had cometo the town. He was going east, after spending the summer at acelebrated ranch in Wyoming--one of those places where wealthy men sendworthless and dissipated sons, for a season of temperance, fresh airand hunting. The sisters, of course, knew nothing of this, and theyoung man's ardor rather carried them away. In a word, seven yearsbefore, Lucy Haswell had married a young man whose name was given asAubrey Wallace.

  Anne Haswell had married a carpenter in her native town, and was awidow. For three months everything went fairly well. Aubrey took hisbride to Chicago, where they lived at a hotel. Perhaps the veryunsophistication that had charmed him in Valley Mill jarred on him inthe city. He had been far from a model husband, even for the threemonths, and when he disappeared Anne was almost thankful. It wasdifferent with the young wife, however. She drooped and fretted, and onthe birth of her baby boy, she had died. Anne took the child, andnamed him Lucien.

  Anne had had no children of her own, and on Lucien she had lavished allher aborted maternal instinct. On one thing she was determined,however: that was that Aubrey Wallace should educate his boy. It was apart of her devotion to the child that she should be ambitious for him:he must have every opportunity. And so she came east. She driftedaround, doing plain sewing and keeping a home somewhere always for theboy. Finally, however, she realized that her only training had beendomestic, and she put the boy in an Episcopalian home, and secured theposition of housekeeper to the Armstrongs. There she found Lucien'sfather, this time under his own name. It was Arnold Armstrong.

  I gathered that there was no particular enmity at that time in Anne'smind. She told him of the boy, and threatened exposure if he did notprovide for him. Indeed, for a time, he did so. Then he realized thatLucien was the ruling passion in this lonely woman's life. He foundout where the child was hidden, and threatened to take him away. Annewas frantic. The positions became reversed. Where Arnold had givenmoney for Lucien's support, as the years went on he forced money fromAnne Watson instead until she was always penniless. The lower Arnoldsank in the scale, the heavier his demands became. With the rupturebetween him and his family, things were worse. Anne took the childfrom the home and hid him in a farmhouse near Casanova, on theClaysburg road. There she went sometimes to see the boy, and there hehad taken fever. The people were Germans, and he called the farmer'swife Grossmutter. He had grown into a beautiful boy, and he was allAnne had to live for.

  The Armstrongs left for California, and Arnold's persecutions begananew. He was furious over the child's disappearance and she was afraidhe would do her some hurt. She left the big house and went down to thelodge. When I had rented Sunnyside, however, she had thought thepersecutions would stop. She had applied for the position ofhousekeeper, and secured it.

  That had been on Saturday. That night Louise arrived unexpectedly.Thomas sent for Mrs. Watson and then went for Arnold Armstrong at theGreenwood Club. Anne had been fond of Louise--she reminded her ofLucy. She did not know what the trouble was, but Louise had been in astate of terrible excitement. Mrs. Watson tried to hide from Arnold,but he was ugly. He left the lodge and went up to the house abouttwo-thirty, was admitted at the east entrance and came out again verysoon. Something had occurred, she didn't know what; but very soon Mr.Innes and another gentleman left, using the car.

  Thomas and she had got Louise quiet, and a little before three, Mrs.Watson started up to the house. Thomas had a key to the east entry,and gave it to her.

  On the way across the lawn she was confronted by Arnold, who for somereason was determined to get into the house. He had a golf-stick inhis hand, that he had picked up somewhere, and on her refusal he hadstruck her with it. One hand had been badly cut, and it was that,poisoning having set in, which was killing her. She broke away in afrenzy of rage and fear, and got into the house while Gertrude and JackBailey were at the front door. She went up-stairs, hardly knowing whatshe was doing. Gertrude's door was open, and Halsey's revolver laythere on the bed. She picked it up and turning, ran part way down thecircular staircase. She could hear Arnold fumbling at the lockoutside. She slipped down quietly and opened the door: he was insidebefore she had got back to the stairs. It was quite dark, but shecould see his white shirt-bosom. From the fourth step she fired. Ashe fell, somebody in the billiard-room screamed and ran. When thealarm was raised, she had had no time to get up-stairs: she hid in thewest wing until every one was down on the lower floor. Then sheslipped upstairs, and threw the revolver out of an upper window, goingdown again in time to admit the men from the Greenwood Club.

  If Thomas had suspected, he had never told. When she found the handArnold had injured was growing worse, she gave the address of Lucien atRichfield to the old man, and almost a hundred dollars. The money wasfor Lucien's board until she recovered. She had sent for me to ask meif I would try to interest the Armstrongs in the child. When she foundherself growing worse, she had written to Mrs. Armstrong, telling hernothing but that Arnold's legitimate child was at Richfield, andimploring her to recognize him. She was dying: the boy was anArmstrong, and entitled to his father's share of the estate. Thepapers were in her trunk at Sunnyside, with letters from the dead manthat would prove wha
t she said. She was going; she would not be judgedby earthly laws; and somewhere else perhaps Lucy would plead for her.It was she who had crept down the circular staircase, drawn by amagnet, that night Mr. Jamieson had heard some one there. Pursued, shehad fled madly, anywhere--through the first door she came to. She hadfallen down the clothes chute, and been saved by the basket beneath. Icould have cried with relief; then it had not been Gertrude, after all!

  That was the story. Sad and tragic though it was, the very telling ofit seemed to relieve the dying woman. She did not know that Thomas wasdead, and I did not tell her. I promised to look after little Lucien,and sat with her until the intervals of consciousness grew shorter andfinally ceased altogether. She died that night.