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THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
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MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
LESTER RALPH
GROSSET & DUN LAP
Publishers :: :: New York


Copyright 1908
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
September


WWir CONTENTS
no
I I Take a Country House , . . « . . 1
II A Link Cuff-Button . 18
III Me. John Bailey Appeaes ...... 25
IV Wheee Is Halsey? 83
V Geeteude's Engagement ...... 43
VI In the East Coreidor ....... 52
VIJ A Sprained Ankle 62
Vlll The Other Half of the Link 73
IX Just Like a Girl. ....... 88
X The Traders' Bank 100
XI Halsey Makes a Capture ...... Ill
XII One Mystery fob Another ..... 118
XIII Louise 131
XTV An Ego-Nog and a Telegeam 148
XV Liddy Gives the Alarm ....«• 157
XVI In the Early Morning ...... 166
XVII A Hint of Scandal 174
XVIII A Hole in the Wall ....... 13b
XIX Concerning Thomas 1*5
XX Doctor Walker's Warning 203
XXI Fourteen Elm Street ....... 213
XXII A Laddee Out of Place 228
XXIII While the Stables Buened . . 235
XXIV Flinders . . 246
XXV A Visit feom Louise .... . 255
XXVI Halsey's Disappearance 208
XXVII Who Is Nina Carrington? 281
(CXVIII A Tramp and the Toothache 289
XXIX A Scrap of Paper 300
XXX When Churchyards Yawn 311
XXXI Between Two Fireplaces 319
XXXII Anne Watson's Story 326
XXXIII At the Foot of the Stairs 835
XXXIV The Odds and Ends 852
5


THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
CHAPTER I
I TAKE A COUNTEY HOUSE
THIS is the story of how a middle-aged spinster
lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in
the city, took a furnished house for the sum-
mer out of town, and found herself involved in one of
those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and
det active agencies happy and prosperous. For twenty
years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty
years I had had •the window-boxes filled in the spring,
the carpets lifted, the awnings put up and the fur-
niture covered with brown linen; for as many summers
I had said good-by to my friends, and, after watching
their perspiring hegira, had settled down to a delicious
quiet in town, wherr the mail comes three times a day,
and the water supply does not depend on a tank on
the roof.
And then—.he madness seized me. When I look
I


2 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
back over the months I spent at Sunnyside, I wonder
that I survived at all. As it is, I show the wear and
tear of my harrowing experiences. I have turned very
gray—Liddy reminded me of it, only yesterday, by
saying that a little bluing in the rinse-water would
make my hair silvery, instead of a yellowish white. I
hate to be reminded of unpleasant things and I
snapped her off.
"No," I said sharply, "I'm not going to use bluing
at my time of life, or starch, either."
Liddy's nerves are gone, she says, since that awful
summer, but she has enough left, goodness knows!
And when she begins to go around with a lump in her
throat, all I have to do is to threaten to return to .
Sunnyside, and she is frightened into a semblance of
cheerfulness,—from which you may judge that the
summer there was anything but a success.
The newspaper accounts have been so garbled and
incomplete—one of them mentioned me but once, and
then only as the tenant at the t.i ne the thing hap-
pened—that I feel it my due to tell what I know. Mr.
Jamieson, the detective, said himselft he could never
have done without me, although he\ ive me little
enough credit, in print.


I TAKE A COUNTRY HOUSE 3
I shall have to go back several years—thirteen, to
be exact—to start my story. At that time my brother
died, leaving me his two children. Halsey was eleven
then, and Gertrude was seven. All the responsibilities
of maternity were thrust upon me suddenly; to per-
fect the profession of motherhood requires precisely
as many years as the child has lived, like the man who
started to carry the calf and ended by walking along
with the bull on his shoulders. However, I did the
best I could. When Gertrude got past the hair-ribbon
age, and Halsey asked for a scarf-pin and put on
long trousers—and a wonderful help that was to the
darning!—I sent them away to good schools. After
that, my responsibility was chiefly postal, with three
months every summer in which to replenish their
wardrobes, look over their lists of acquaintances, and
generally to take my foster-motherhood out of its
nine months' retirement in camphor.
I missed the summers with them when, somewhat
later, at boarding-school and college, the children
spent much of their vacations with friends. Gradu-
ally I found that my name signed to a check was even
more welcome than when signed to a letter, though I
wrote them at stated intervals. But when Halsey had


4 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
finished his electrical course and Gertrude her board-
ing-school, and both came home to stay, things were
suddenly changed. The winter Gertrude came out
was nothing but a succession of sitting up late at
night to bring her home from things, taking her to
the dressmakers between naps the next day, and dis-
couraging ineligible youths with either more money
than brains, or more brains than money. Also, I ac-
quired a great many things: to say lingerie for un-
der-garments, "frocks" and "gowns" instead of
dresses, and that beardless sophomores are not college
boys, but college men. Halsey required less personal
supervision, and as they both got their mother's for-
tune that winter, my responsibility became purely
moral. Halsey bought a car, of course, and I learned
how to tie over my bonnet a gray baize veil, and, after
a time, never to stop to look at the dogs one has run
down. People are apt to be so unpleasant about their
dogs.
The additions to my education made me a properly
equipped maiden aunt, and by spring I was quite
tractable. So when Halsey suggested camping in the
Adirondacks and Gertrude wanted Bar Harbor, we
compromised on a good country house with links near,


I TAKE A COUNTRY HOUSE 5
within motor distance of town and telephone distance
of the doctor. That was how we went to Sunnysidc.
We went out to inspect the property, and it seemed
(to deserve its name. Its cheerful appearance gave no
indication whatever of anything out of the ordinary.
Only one thing seemed unusual to me: the housekeeper,
who had been left in charge, had moved from the
house to the gardener's lodge, a few days before. As
the lodge was far enough away from the house, it
seemed to me that either fire or thieves could complete
their work of destruction undisturbed. The property
was an extensive one: the house on the top of a hill,
which sloped away in great stretches of green lawn
and clipped hedges, to the road; and across the valley,
perhaps a couple of miles away, was the Greenwood
Club House. Gertrude and Halsey were infatuated.
"Why, it's everything you want," Halsey said.
"View, air, good water and good roads. As for the
house, it's big enough for a hospital, if it has a Queen
Anne front and a Mary Anne back," which was ridicu-
lous: it was pure Elizabethan.
Of course we took the place; it was not my idea of
comfort, being much too large and sufficiently isolated
to make the servant question serious. But I give my-


6 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
self credit for this: whatever has happened since, I
never blamed Halsey and Gertrude for taking me
there. And another thing: if the series of catastrophes
there did nothing else, it taught me one thing—that
somehow, somewhere, from perhaps a half-civilized an-
cestor who wore a sheepskin garment and trailed his
food or his prey, I have in me the instinct of the chase.
Were I a man I should be a trapper of criminals,
trailing them as relentlessly as no doubt my sheepskin
ancestor did his wild boar. But being an unmarried
woman, with the handicap of my sex, my first ac-
quaintance with crime will probably be my last. In-
deed, it came near enough to being my last acquaint-
ance with anything.
The property was owned by Paul Armstrong, the
president of the Traders' Bank, who at the time we
took the house was in the west with his wife and
daughter, and a Doctor Walker, the Armstrong fam-
ily physician. Halsey knew Louise Armstrong,—had
been rather attentive to her the winter before, but as
Halsey was always attentive to somebody, I had not
thought of it seriously, although she was a charming
girl. I knew of Mr. Armstrong only through his
connection with the bank, where the children's money
A


I TAKE A COUNTRY HOUSE 7
X
vas largely invested, and through an ugly story about
the son, Arnold Armstrong, who was reported to have
forged his father's name, for a considerable amount,
to some bank paper. However, the story had had no
interest for me.
I cleared Halsey and Gertrude away to a house
party, and moved out to Sunnyside the first of May.
The roads were bad, but the trees were in leaf, and
there were still tulips in the borders around the house.
The arbutus was fragrant in the woods under the
dead leaves, and on the way from the station, a short
mile, while the car stuck in the mud, I found a bank
showered with tiny forget-me-nots. The birds—don't
ask me what kind; they all look alike to me, unless
they have a hall mark of some bright color—the birds
were chirping in the hedges, and everything breathed
of peace. Liddy, who was born and bred on a brick
pavement, got a little bit down-spirited when the
crickets began to chirp, or scrape their legs together,
or whatever it is they do, at twilight.
The first night passed quietly enough. I have al-
ways been grateful for that one night's peace; it
shows what the country might be, under favorable
circumstances. Never after that night did I put my


8 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
s
head on my pillow with any assurance how long it
would be there; or on my shoulders, for that matter.
On the following morning Liddy and Mrs. Ralston,
my own housekeeper, had a difference of opinion, and
Mrs. Ralston left on the eleven train. Just after
luncheon, Burke, the butler, was taken unexpectedly
with a pain in his right side, much worse when I was
within hearing distance, and by afternoon he was
started cityward. That night the cook's sister had a
baby—the cook, seeing indecision in my face, made IL
twins on second thought—and, to be sbort, by noon
the next day the household staff was down to Liddy
and myself. And this in a house with twenty-two
rooms and five baths!
Liddy wanted to go back to the city at once, but
the milk-boy said that Thomas Johnson, the Arm-
strongs' colored butler, was working as a- waiter at
the Greenwood Club, and might come back. I have
the usual scruples about coercing people's servants
away, but few of us have any conscience regarding
institutions or corporations—witness the way we beat
railroads and street-car companies when we can—so I
called up the club, and about eight o'clock Thomas
Johnson came to see me. Poor Thomas!


I TAKE A COUNTRY HOUSE 9
Well, it ended by my engaging Thomas on the
spot, at outrageous wages, and with permission to
sleep in the gardener's lodge, empty since the house
was rented. The old man—he was white-haired and a
little stooped, but with an immense idea of his personal
dignity—gave me his reasons hesitatingly.
"I ain't sayin' nothin', Mis' Innes," he said, with
his hand on the door-knob, "but there's been goin's-on
here this las' few months as ain't natchal. 'Tain't
one thing an' 'tain't another—it's jest a door squealin'
here, an' a winder closin' there, but when doors an'
winders gets to cuttin' up capers and there's nobody
nigh 'em, it's time Thomas Johnson sleeps somewhar's
else."
Liddy, who seemed to be never more than ten feet
away from me that night, and was afraid of her
shadow in that great barn of a place, screamed a little,
and turned a yellow-green. But I am not easily
alarmed.
It was entirely in vain I represented to Thomas
that we were alone, and that he would have to stay
in the house that night. He was politely firm, but he
would come over early the next morning, and if I gave
him a key, he would come in time to get some sort of
I


io THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
breakfast. I stood on the huge veranda and watched
him shuffle along down the shadowy drive, with min-
gled feelings—irritation at his cowardice and thank-
fulness at getting him at all. I am not ashamed to
say that I double-locked the hall door when I went in.
"You can lock up the rest of the house and go to
bed, Liddy," I said severely. "You give me the creeps
standing there. A woman of your age ought to have
better sense." It usually braces Liddy to mention her
age: she owns to forty—which is absurd. Her mother
cooked for my grandfather, and Liddy must be at
least as old as I. But that night she refused to brace.
"You're not going to ask me to lock up, Miss
Rachel!" she quavered. "Why, there's a dozen French
windows in the drawing-room and the billiard-room,
wing, and every one opens on a porch. And Mary
Anne said that last night there was a man standing
by the stable when she locked the kitchen door."
"Mary Anne was a fool," I said sternly. "If there
had been a man there, she would have had him in the
kitchen and been feeding him what was left from din-
ner, inside of an hour, from force of habit. Now don't
be ridiculous. Lock up the house and go to bed. I
am going to read."
1



/ 


I


'I TAKE A COUNTRY HOUSE n
But Liddy set her lips tight and stood still.
"I'm not going to bed," she said. "I am going to
pack up, and to-morrow I am going to leave."
"You'll do nothing of the sort," I snapped. Liddy,
and I often desire to part company, but never at the
same time. "If you are afraid, I will go with you, but
for goodness' sake don't try to hide behind me."
The house was a typical summer residence on an
extensive scale. Wherever possible, on the first floor,
the architect had done away with partitions, using
arches and columns instead. The effect was cool and
spacious, but scarcely cozy. As Liddy and I went from
one window to another, our voices echoed back at us
uncomfortably. There was plenty of light—the elec-
tric plant down in the village supplied us—but there
were long vistas of polished floor, and mirrors which
reflected us from unexpected corners, until I felt some
of Liddy's foolishness communicate itself to me.
The house was very long, a rectangle in general
form, with the mate entrance in the center of the long
side. The brick-paved entry opened into a short hall,
to the right of which, separated only by a row of pil-
lars, was a huge living-room. Beyond that was the
drawing-room, and in the end, the billiard-room. Off


12 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
the billiard-room, in the extreme right wing, was a
den, or card-room, with a small hall opening on the
east veranda, and from there went up a narrow circu-
lar staircase. Halsey had pointed it out with delight.
"Just look, Aunt Rachel," he said with a flourish.
"The architect that put up this joint was wise to a
few things. Arnold Armstrong and his friends could
sit here and play cards all night and stumble up to
bed in the early morning, without having the family
send in a police call."
Liddy and I got as far as the card-room and turned
on all the lights. I tried the small entry door there,
which opened on the veranda, and examined the win-
dows. Everything was secure, and Liddy, a little less
nervous now, had just pointed out to me the disgrace-
fully dusty condition of the hard-wood floor, when
suddenly the lights went out. We waited a moment;
I think Liddy was stunned with fright, or she would
have screamed. And then I clutched her by the arm
and pointed to one of the windows opening on the
porch. The sudden change threw the window into re-
lief, an oblong of grayish light, and showed us a
figure standing close, peering in. As I looked it darted
across the veranda and out of sight in the darkness.


CHAPTER II
A LINE CUFF-BUTTON
LIDDY's knees seemed to give away under her.
Without a sound she sank down, leaving me
staring at the window in petrified amaze-
ment. Liddy began to moan under her breath, and in
my excitement I reached down and shook her.
"Stop it," I whispered. "It's only a woman—maybe
a maid of the Armstrongs'. Get up and help me find
the door." She groaned again. "Very well," I said,
"then I'll have to leave you here. I'm going."
She moved at that, and, holding to my sleeve, we
felt our way, with numerous collisions, to the billiard-
room, and from there to the drawing-room. The lights
came on then, and, with the long French windows
unshuttered, I had a creepy feeling that each one
sheltered a peering face. In fact, in the light of what
happened afterward, I am pretty certain we were un-
der surveillance during the entire ghostly evening. We
13


14 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
hurried over the rest of the locking-up and got up-
stairs as quickly as we could. I left the lights all on,
.and our footsteps echoed cavernously. Liddy had a
'stiff neck the next morning, from looking back over
her shoulder, and she refused to go to bed.
"Let me stay in your dressing-room, Miss Rachel,"
she begged. "If you don't, I'll sit in the hall outside
the door. I'm not going to be murdered with my eyes
shut."
"If you're going to be murdered," I retorted, "it
won't make any difference whether they are shut or
open. But you may stay in the dressing-room, if you
will he on the couch: when you sleep in a chair you
snore."
She was too far gone to be indignant, but after a
while she came to the door and looked in to where I
was composing myself for sleep with Drummond's
Spiritual Life.
"That wasn't a woman, Miss Rachel," she said,
(with her shoes in her hand. "It was a man in a long
coat."
"What woman was a man?" I discouraged her
without looking up, and she went back to the couch.
It was eleven o'clock when I finally prepared for


A LINK CUFF-BUTTON 15
bed. In spite of my assumption of indifference, I
locked the door into the hall, and finding the transom
did not catch, I put a chair cautiously before the door
—it was not necessary to rouse Liddy—and climbing
up put on the ledge of the transom a small dressing-
mirror, so that any movement of the frame would send
it crashing down. Then, secure in my precautions, I
went to bed.
I did not go to sleep at once. Liddy disturbed me
just as I was growing drowsy, by coming in and
peering under the bed. She was afraid to speak, how-
ever, because of her previous snubbing, and went back,
stopping in the doorway to sigh dismally.
Somewhere down-stairs a clock with a chime sang
away the hours—eleven-thirty, forty-five, twelve.
And then the lights went out to stay. The Casanova
Electric Company shuts up shop and goes home to
bed at midnight: when one has a party, I believe it is
customary to fee the company, which will drink hot
coffee and keep awake a couple of hours longer. But
the lights were gone for good that night. Liddy had
gone to sleep, as I knew she would. She was a very
unreliable person: always awake and ready to talk
when she wasn't wanted and dozing off to sleep when


i6 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
she was. I called her once or twice, the only result
being an explosive snore that threatened her very
windpipe—then I got up and lighted a bedroom
candle.
My bedroom and dressing-room were above the big
living-room on the first floor. On the second floor a
long corridor ran the length of the house, with rooms
opening from both sides. In the wings were small cor-
ridors crossing the main one—the plan was simplicity
itself. And just as I got back into bed, I heard a
sound from the east wing, apparently, that made me
stop, frozen, with one bedroom slipper half off, and
listen. It was a rattling metallic sound, and it re-
verberated along the empty halls like the crash of
doom. It was for all the world as if something heavy,
perhaps a piece of steel, had rolled clattering and
jangling down the hard-wood stairs leading to the
card-room.
In the silence that followed Liddy stirred and
snored again. I was exasperated: first she kept me
awake by silly alarms, then when she was needed she
slept like Joe Jefferson, or Rip,—they are always the
same to me. I went in and aroused her, and I give her
credit for being wide awake the minute I spoke.



,_
"My candle only emphasized the gloom." Page 17





A LINK CUFF-BUTTON 17
"Get up," I said, "if you don't want to be mur-
dered in your bed."
"Where? How?" she yelled vociferously, and
jumped up.
"There's somebody in the house," I said. "Get up.
We'll have to get to the telephone."
"Not out in the hall!" she gasped; "Oh, Miss
Rachel, not out in the hall!" trying to hold me back.
But I am a large woman and Liddy is small. We got
to the door, somehow, and Liddy held a brass and-
iron, which it was all she could do to lift, let alone
brain anybody with. I listened, and, hearing nothing,
opened the door a little and peered into the hall. It
was a black void, full of terrible suggestion, and my
candle only emphasized the gloom. Liddy squealed
and drew me back again, and as the door slammed, the
mirror I had put on the transom came down and hit
her on the head. That completed our demoralization.
It was some time before I could persuade her she had
not been attacked from behind by a burglar, and when
she found the mirror smashed on the floor she wasn't
much better.
"There's going to be a death!" she wailed. "Oh,
Miss Rachel, there's going to be a death!"


18 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
\ "There will be," I said grimly, "if you don't keep
quiet, Liddy Allen."
And so we sat there until morning, wondering if
the candle would last until dawn, and arranging what
trains we could take back to town. If we had only
stuck to that decision and gone back before it was too
late!
The sun came finally, and from my window I
watched the trees along the drive take shadowy form,
gradually lose their ghostlike appearance, become
gray and then green. The Greenwood Club showed
itself a dab of white against the hill across the valley,
and an early robin or two hopped around in the dew.
Not until the milk-boy and the sun came, about the
same time, did I dare to open the door into the hall
and look around. Everything wa? as we had left it.
Trunks were heaped here and there, ready for the
trunk-room, and through an end window of stained
glass came a streak of red and yellow daylight that
was eminently cheerful. The milk-boy was pounding
somewhere below, and the day had begun.
Thomas Johnson came ambling up the drive about
half-past six, and we could hear him clattering around
on the lower floor, opening shutters. I had to take


A LINK CUFF-BUTTON 19
Liddy to her room up-stairs, however,—she was quite
sure she would find something uncanny. In fact, when
she did not, having now the courage of daylight, she
was actually disappointed.
Well, we did not go back to town that day.
The discovery of a small picture fallen from, the
wall of the drawing-room was quite sufficient to satisfy
Liddy that the alarm had been a false one, but I was
anything but convinced. Allowing for my nerves and
the fact that small noises magnify themselves at night,
there was still no possibility that the picture had made
the series of sounds I heard. To prove it, however, I
dropped it again. It fell with a single muffled crash
of its wooden frame, and incidentally ruined itself
beyond repair. Is justified myself by reflecting that
if the Armstrongs chose to leave pictures in unsafe
positions, and to ft c a house with a family ghost, the
destruction of property was their responsibility, not
mine.
I warned Liddy not to mention what had happened
to anybody, and telephoned to town for servants.
Then after a breakfast which did more credit to
Thomas' heart than his head, I went on a short tour
of investigation. The sounds had come from the east


20 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
wing, and not without some qualms I began there. At
first I found nothing. Since then I have developed my
powers of observation, but at that time I was a novice.
The small card-room seemed undisturbed. I looked
for footprints, which is, I believe, the conventional
thing to do, although my experience has been that as
clues both footprints and thumb-marks are more use-
ful in fiction than in fact. But the stairs in that wing
offered something.
At the top of the flight had been placed a tall
wicker hamper, packed with linen that had come from
town. It stood at the edge of the top step, almost
barring passage, and on the step below it was a long
fresh scratch. For three steps the scratch was re-
peated, gradually diminishing, as if some object had
fallen, striking each one. Then for four steps noth-
ing. On the fifth step below was a round dent in the
hard wood. That was all, and it seemed little enough,
except that I was positive the marks had not been
there the day before.
It bore out my theory of the sound, which had been
for all the world like the bumping of a metallic object
down a flight of steps. The four steps had been
skipped. I reasoned that an iron bar, for instance,


A LINK CUFF-BUTTON 21'
would do something of the sort,—strike two or three
steps, end down, then turn over, jumping a few stairs,
and landing with a thud.
Iron bars, however, do not fall down-stairs in the
middle of the night alone. Coupled with the figure on
the veranda the agency by which it climbed might be
assumed. But—and here was the thing that puzzled
me most—the doors were all fastened that morning,
the windows unmolested, and the particular door from
the card-room to the veranda had a combination lock
of which I held the key, and which had not been tam-
pered with.
I fixed on an attempt at burglary, as the most nat-
ural explanation—an attempt frustrated by the fall-
ing of the object, whatever it was, that had roused me.
Two things I could not understand: how the intruder
had escaped with everything locked, and why he had
left the small silver, which, in the absence of a butler,
had remained down-stairs over night.
Under pretext of learning more about the place,
Thomas Johnson led me through the house and the
cellars, without result. Everything was in good order
and repair; money had been spent lavishly on con-
struction and plumbing. The house was full of con-


22 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
veniences, and I had no reason to repent my bargain,
save the fact that, in the nature of things, night must
come again. And other nights must follow—and we
were a long way from a police-station.
In the afternoon a hack came up from Casanova,
with a fresh relay of servants. The driver took them
with a flourish to the servants' entrance, and drove
around to the front of the house, where I was await-
ing him.
"Two dollars," he said in reply to my question. "I
don't charge full rates, because, bringin' 'em up all
summer as I do, it pays to make a special price. When
they got off the train, I sez, sez I, 'There's another
bunch for Sunnyside, cook, parlor maid and all.'
Yes'm—six summers, and a new lot never less than
once a month. They won't stand for the country and
the lonesomeness, I reckon."
But with the presence of the "bunch" of servants
my courage revived, and late in the afternoon came
a message from Gertrude that she and Halsey would
arrive that night at about eleven o'clock, coming in
the car from Richfield; Things were looking up; and
when Beulah, my cat, a most intelligent animal, found
some early catnip on a bank near the house and rolled


A LINK CUFF-BUTTON 23
in it in a feline ecstasy, I decided that getting back to
nature was the thing to do.
While I was dressing for dinner, Liddy rapped at
the door. She was hardly herself yet, but privately
I think she was worrying about the broken mirror and
its augury, more than anything else. When she came
in she was holding something in her hand, and she
laid it on the dressing-table carefully.
"I found it in the linen hamper," she said. "It
must be Mr. Halsey's, but it seems queer how it got
there."
It was the half of a link cuff-button of unique de-
sign, and I looked at it carefully.
"Where was it? In the bottom of the hamper?" I
asked.
"On the very top," she replied. "It's a mercy it
didn't fall out on the way."
When Liddy had gone I examined the fragment
attentively. I had never seen it before, and I was cer-
tain it was not Halsey's. It was of Italian workman-
ship, and consisted of a mother-of-pearl foundation,
encrusted with tiny seed-pearls, strung on horsehair
to hold them. In the center was a small ruby. The
trinket was odd enough, but not intrinsically of great


24 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
value. Its interest for me lay in this: Liddy had
found it lying in the top of the hamper which had
blocked the east-wing stairs.
That afternoon the Armstrongs' housekeeper, a
youngish good-looking woman, applied for Mrs.
Ralston's place, and I was glad enough to take her.
She looked as though she might be equal to a dozen
of Liddy, with her snapping black eyes and heavy
jaw. Her name was Anne Watson, and I dined that
evening for the first time in three days.
V


CHAPTER III
ME. JOHN BAILEY APPEAES *
I HAD dinner served in the breakfast-room. Some-
how the huge dining-room depressed me, and
Thomas, cheerful enough all day, allowed his
spirits to go down with the sun. He had a habit of
watching the corners of the room, left shadowy by the
candles on the table, and altogether it was not a festive
meal.
Dinner over I went into the living-room. I had
three hours before the children could possibly arrive,
and I got out my knitting. I had brought along two
dozen pairs of slipper soles in assorted sizes—I al-
ways send knitted slippers to the Old Ladies' Home
at Christmas—and now I sorted over the wools with
a grim determination not to think about the night be-
fore. But my mind was not on my work: at the end
of a half-hour I found I had put a row of blue scal-
lops on Eliza Klinefelter's lavender slippers, and I
put them away.
25


26 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
I got out the cuff-link and went with it to the
pantry. Thomas was wiping silver and the air was
heavy with tobacco smoke. I sniffed and looked
around, but there was no pipe to be seen.
"Thomas," I said, "you have been smoking."
"No, ma'm." He was injured innocence itself. "It's
on my coat, ma'm. Over at the club the gentlemen—"
But Thomas did not finish. The pantry was sud-
denly filled with the odor of singeing cloth. Thomas
gave a clutch at his coat, whirled to the sink, filled a
tumbler with water and poured it into his right pocket
with the celerity of practice.
"Thomas," I said, when he was sheepishly mopping
the floor, "smoking is a filthy and injurious habit. If
you must smoke, you must; but don't stick a lighted
pipe in your pocket again. Your skin's your own: you
can blister it if you like. But this house is not mine,
and I don't want a conflagration. Did you ever see
this cuff-link before?"
No, he never had, he said, but he looked at it oddly.
"I picked it up in the hall," I added indifferently.
The old man's eyes were shrewd under his bushy eye-
brows.


28 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
that the bad omen had been too much for him, and he
had dropped the tray.
, The chug of the automobile as it climbed the hill
was the most welcome sound I had heard for a long
time, and with Gertrude and Halsey actually before
me, my troubles seemed over for good. Gertrude
stood smiling in the hall, with her hat quite over
one ear, and her hair in every direction under her
pink veil. Gertrude is a very pretty girl, no matter
how her hat is, and I was not surprised when Halsey
presented a good-looking young man, who bowed at
me and looked at Trade—that is the ridiculous nick-
name Gertrude brought from school.
"I have brought a guest, Aunt Ray," Halsey said.
"I want you to adopt him into your affections and
your Saturday-to-Monday list. Let me present John
Bailey, only you must call him Jack. In twelve hours
he'll be calling you 'Aunt': I know him."
We shook hands, and I got a chance to look at Mr.
Bailey; he was a tall fellow, perhaps thirty, and he
wore a small mustache. I remember wondering why:
he seemed to have a good mouth and when he smiled
his teeth were above the average. One never knows
why certain men cling to a messy upper lip that must


MR. JOHN BAILEY APPEARS 29
get into things, any more than one understands some
women building up their hair on wire atrocities.
Otherwise, he was very good to look at, stalwart and
tanned, with the direct gaze that I like. I am particu-
lar about Mr. Bailey, because he was a prominent
figure in what happened later.
Gertrude was tired with the trip and went up to
bed very soon. I made up my mind to tell them noth-
ing until the next day, and then to make as light of
our excitement as possible. After all, what had I to
tell? An inquisitive face peering in at a window; a
crash in the night; a scratch or two on the stairs, and
half a cuff-button! As for Thomas and his forebod-
ings, it was always my belief that a negro is one part
thief, one part pigment, and the rest superstition.
It was Saturday night. The two men went to the
billiard-room, and I could hear them talking as I went
up-stairs. It seemed that Halsey had stopped at the
Greenwood Club for gasolene and found Jack Bailey,
there, with the Sunday golf crowd. Mr. Bailey had
not been hard to persuade—probably Gertrude knew
why—and they had carried him off triumphantly. I
roused Liddy to get them something to eat—Thomas
was beyond reach in the lodge—and paid no atten-


30 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
tion to her evident terror of the kitchen regions. Then
I went to bed. The men were still in the billiard-room
when I finally dozed off, and the last thing I remember
was the howl of a dog in front of the house. It wailed
a crescendo of woe that trailed off hopefully, only to
break out afresh from a new point of the compass.
At three o'clock in the morning I was roused by a
revolver shot. The sound seemed to come from just
outside my door. For a moment I could not move.
Then—I heard Gertrude stirring in her room, and
the next moment she had thrown open the connecting
door.
"0 Aunt Ray! Aunt Ray!" she cried hysterically.
"Some one has been killed, killed!"
"Thieves," I said shortly. "Thank goodness, there
are some men in the house to-night." I was getting
into my slippers and a bath-robe, and Gertrude with
shaking hands was lighting a lamp. Then we opened
the door into the hall, where, crowded on the upper
landing of the stairs, the maids, white-faced and trem-
bling, were peering down, headed by Liddy. I was
greeted by a series of low screams and questions, and
I tried to quiet them. Gertrude had dropped on a
chair and sat there limp and shivering.


MR. JOHN BAILEY APPEARS 31
I went at once across the hall to Halsey's room and
knocked; then I pushed the door open. It was empty;
the bed had not been occupied!
"He must be in Mr. Bailey's room," I said ex-
citedly, and followed by Liddy, we went there. Like
Halsey's, it had not been occupied! Gertrude was on
her feet now, but she leaned against the door for sup-
port.
"They have been killed!" she gasped. Then she
caught me by the arm and dragged me toward the
stairs. "They may only be hurt, and we must find
them," she said, her eyes dilated with excitement.
I don't remember how we got down the stairs: I do
remember expecting every moment to be killed. The
cook was at the telephone up-stairs, calling the Green-
wood Club, and Liddy was behind me, afraid to come
and not daring to stay behind. We found the living-
room and the drawing-room undisturbed. Somehow I
felt that whatever we found would be in the card-room
or on the staircase, and nothing but the fear that
Halsey was in danger drove me on; with every step
my knees seemed to give way under me. Gertrude was
ahead and in the card-room she stopped, holding her
candle high. Then she pointed silently to the doorway


32 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
into the hall beyond. Huddled there on the floor, face
down, with his arms extended, was a man.
Gertrude ran forward with a gasping sob. "Jack,"
Liddy had run, screaming, and the two of us were
there alone. It was Gertrude who turned him over,
finally, until we could see his white face, and then she
drew a deep breath and dropped limply to her knees.
It was the body of a man, a gentleman, in a dinner
coat and white waistcoat, stained now with blood—the
body of a man I had never seen before.


CHAPTER IV
WHERE IS HALSEY?
GERTRUDE gazed at the face in a kind of
fascination. Then she put out her hands
blindly, and I thought she was going to
faint.
"He has killed him!" she muttered almost inarticu-
lately; and at that, because my nerves were going, I
gave her a good shake.
"What do you mean?" I said frantically. There
was a depth of grief and conviction in her tone that
was worse than anything she could have said. The
shake braced her, anyhow, and she seemed to pull
herself together. But not another word would she
say: she stood gazing down at that gruesome figure
on the floor, while Liddy, ashamed of her flight and
afraid to come back alone, drove before her three
terrified women-servants into the drawing-room, which
was as near as any of them would venture.
33


34 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Once in the drawing-room, Gertrude collapsed and
went from one fainting spell into another. I had all
I could do to keep Liddy from drowning her with cold
water, and the maids huddled in a corner, as much use
as so many sheep. In a short time, although it seemed
hours, a car came rushing up, and Anne Watson, who
had waited to dress, opened the door. Three men
from the Greenwood Club, in all kinds of costumes,
hurried in. I recognized a Mr. Jarvis, but the others
were strangers.
"What's wrong?" the Jarvis man asked—and we
made a strange picture, no doubt. "Nobody hurt, is
there?" He was looking at Gertrude.
"Worse than that, Mr. Jarvis," I said. "I think it
is murder."
At the word there was a commotion. The cook be-
gan to cry, and Mrs. Watson knocked over a chair.
The men were visibly impressed.
"Not any member of the family?" Mr. Jarvis
asked, when he had got his breath.
"No," I said; and motioning Liddy to look after
Gertrude, I led the way with a lamp to the card-room
door. One of the men gave an exclamation, and they
all hurried across the room. Mr. Jarvis took the lamp


WHERE IS HALSEY? 35
from me—I remember that—and then, feeling myself
getting dizzy and light-headed, I closed my eyes.
When I opened them their brief examination was over,
and Mr. Jarvis was trying to put me in a chair.
"You must get up-stairs," he said firmly, "you and
Miss Gertrude, too. This has been a terrible shock.
In his own home, too."
I stared at him without comprehension. "Who is
it?" I asked with difficulty. There was a band drawn
tight around my throat.
"It is Arnold Armstrong," he said, looking at me
oddly, "and he has been murdered—in his father's
house."
After a minute I gathered myself together and Mr.
Jarvis helped me into the living-room. Liddy had got
Gertrude up-stairs, and the two strange men from the
club stayed with the body. The reaction from the
shock and strain was tremendous: I was collapsed—
and then Mr. Jarvis asked me a question that brought
back my wandering faculties.
"Where is Halsey?" he asked.
"Halsey!" Suddenly Gertrude's stricken face rose
before me—the empty rooms up-stairs. Where was
Halsey?


36 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"He was here, wasn't he?" Mr. Jarvis persisted.
"He stopped at the club on his way over."
"I—don't know where he is," I said feebly.
One of the men from the club came in, asked for
the telephone, and I could hear him excitedly talking,
saying something about coroners and detectives. Mr.
Jarvis leaned over to me.
"Why don't you trust me, Miss Lines?" he said.
"If I can do anything I will. But tell me the whole
thing."
I did, finally, from the beginning, and when I told
of Jack Bailey's being in the house that night, he
gave a long whistle.
"I wish they were both here," he said when I fin-
ished. "Whatever mad prank took them away, it
would look better if they were here. Especially—"
"Especially what?"
"Especially since Jack Bailey and Arnold Arm-
strong were notoriously bad friends. It was Bailey
who got Arnold into trouble last spring—something
about the bank. And then, too—"
"Go on," I said. "If there is anything more, I
ought to know."
"There's nothing more," he said evasively. "There's
X


WHERE IS HALSEY? 37
just one thing we may bank on, Miss Innes. Any
court in the country will acquit a man who kills an
intruder in his house, at night. If Halsey—"
"Why, you don't think Halsey did it!" I exclaimed.
There was a queer feeling of physical nausea coming
over me.
"No, no, not at all," he said with forced cheerful-
ness. "Come, Miss Innes, you're a ghost of yourself,
and I am going to help you up-stairs and call your
maid. This has been too much for you."
Liddy helped me back to bed, and under the im-
pression that I was in danger of freezing to death,
put a hot-water bottle over my heart and another at
ray feet. Then she left me. It was early dawn
now, and from voices under my window I surmised
that Mr. Jarvis and his companions were searching
the grounds. As for me, I lay in bed, with every
faculty awake. Where had Halsey gone? How had
he gone, and when? Before the murder, no doubt, but
who would believe that? If either he or Jack Bailey
had heard an intruder in the house and shot him—as
they might have been justified in doing—why had
they run away? The whole thing was unheard of, out-
rageous, and—impossible to ignore.


38 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
About six o'clock Gertrude came in. She was fully
dressed, and I sat up nervously.
"Poor Aunty!" she said. "What a shocking night
you have had!" She came over and sat down on the
bed, and I saw she looked very tired and worn.
"Is there anything new?" I asked anxiously.
"Nothing. The car is gone, but Warner"—he is
the chauffeur—"Warner is at the lodge and knows
nothing about it."
"Well," I said, "if I ever get my hands on Halsey
Lines, I shall not let go until I have told him a few
things. When we get this cleared up, I am going back
to the city to be quiet. One more night like the last
two will end me. The peace of the country—fiddle-
sticks!"
Whereupon I told Gertrude of the noises the night
before, and the figure on the veranda in the east wing.
As an afterthought I brought out the pearl cuff-link.
"I have no doubt now," I said, "that it was Arnold
Armstrong the night before last, too. He had a key,
no doubt, but why he should steal into his father's
house I can not imagine. He could have come with my
permission, easily enough. Anyhow, whoever it was
that night, left this little souvenir."


WHERE IS HALSEY?
39
Gertrude took one look at the cuff-link, and went as
white as the pearls in it; she clutched at the foot of
the bed, and stood staring. As for me, I was quite
as astonished as she was.
"Where did—you—find it?" she asked finally, with
a desperate effort at calm. And while I told her she
stood looking out of the window with a look I could
not fathom on her face. It was a relief when Mrs.
Watson tapped at the door and brought me some tea
and toast. The cook was in bed, completely demor-
alized, she reported, and Liddy, brave with the day-
light, was looking for footprints around the house.
Mrs. Watson herself was a wreck; she was blue-white
around the lips, and she had one hand tied up. She
said she had fallen down-stairs in her excitement. It
was natural, of course, that the thing would shock her,
having been the Armstrongs' housekeeper for several
years, and knowing Mr. Arnold well.
Gertrude had slipped out during my talk with Mrs.
Watson, and I dressed and went down-stairs. The
billiard and card-rooms were locked until the coroner
and the detectives got there, and the men from the
club had gone back for more conventional clothing.
I could hear Thomas in the pantry, alternately


40 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
wailing for Mr. Arnold, as he called him, and citing
the tokens that had precursed the murder. The house
seemed to choke me, and, slipping a shawl around me,
I went out on the drive. At the corner by the east wing
I met Liddy. Her skirts were draggled with dew to
her knees, and her hair was still in crimps.
"Go right in and change your clothes," I said
sharply. "You're a sight, and at your age!"
She had a golf-stick in her hand, and she said she
had found it on the lawn. There was nothing unusual
about it, but it occurred to me that a golf-stick with
a metal end might have been the object that had
scratched the stairs near the card-room. I took it from
her, and sent her up for dry garments. Her daylight
courage and self-importance, and her shuddering de-
light in the mystery, irritated me beyond words. After
I left her I made a circuit of the building. Nothing
seemed to be disturbed: the house looked as calm and
peaceful in the morning sun as it had the day I had
been coerced into taking it. There was nothing to
show that inside had been mystery and violence and
sudden death.
In one of the tulip beds back of the house an early
blackbird was pecking viciously at something that


WHERE IS HALSEY? 41
glittered in the light. I picked my way gingerly over
through the dew and stooped down: almost buried in
the soft ground was a revolver! I scraped the earth
off it with the tip of my shoe, and, picking it up,
slipped it into my pocket. Not until I had got into my
bedroom and double-locked the door did I venture to
take it out and examine it. One look was all I needed.
It was Halsey's revolver. I had unpacked it the day
before and put it on his shaving-stand, and there
could be no mistake. His name was on a small silver
plate on the handle.
I seemed to see a network closing around my boy,
innocent as I knew he was. The revolver—I am afraid
of them, but anxiety gave me courage to look through
the barrel—the revolver had still two bullets in it. I
could only breathe a prayer of thankfulness that 7
had found the revolver before any sharp-eyed detec-
tive had come around.
I decided to keep what clues I had, the cuff-link, the
golf-stick and the revolver, in a secure place until I
could see some reason for displaying them. The cuff-
link had been dropped into a little filigree box on my
toilet table. I opened the box and felt around for it.
The box was empty—the cuff-link had disappeared!
'


/
/
CHAPTER V
geetbude's engagement
A T ten o'clock the Casanova hack brought up
I ^ three men. They introduced themselves as the
.A. J^. coroner of the county and two detectives
from the city. The coroner led the way at once to the
locked wing, and with the aid of one of the detectives
examined the rooms and the body. The other detec-
tive, after a short scrutiny of the dead man, busied
himself with the outside of the house. It was only
after they had got a fair idea of things as they were
that they sent for me.
I received them in the living-room, and I had made
up my mind exactly what to tell. I had taken the
house for the summer, I said, while the Armstrongs
were in California. In spite of a rumor among the
servants about strange noises—I cited Thomas—
nothing had occurred the first two nights. On the
42


GERTRUDE'S ENGAGEMENT 43
third night I believed that some one had been in the
house: I had heard a crashing sound, but being alone
with one maid had not investigated. The house had
been locked in the morning and apparently undis-
turbed.
Then, as clearly as I could, I related how, the night
before, a shot had 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 the
club informed me, and that I knew of no reason why
Mr. Arnold Armstrong should steal into his father's
house at night. I should have been glad to allow him
entree there at any time.
"Have you reason to believe, Miss Innes," the cor-
oner asked, "that any member of your household,
imagining Mr. Armstrong was a burglar, shot him 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, and shot as he entered the
house?"
"I don't think I have a theory," I said. "The thing
that has puzzled me is why Mr. Armstrong should
enter his father's house two nights in succession,
A


44 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
stealing in like a thief, when he needed only to ask
entrance to be admitted."
The coroner was a very silent man: he took some
(notes after this, but he seemed anxious to make the
next train back to town. He set the inquest for the
following Saturday, gave Mr. Jamieson, the younger
of the two detectives, and the more intelligent looking,
a few instructions, and, after gravely shaking hands
with me and regretting the unfortunate affair, took
his departure, accompanied by the other detective.
I was just beginning to breathe freely when Mr.
Jamieson, who had been standing 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 expect him—at any time."
"He was here yesterday evening, I believe?"
"No—yes."


GERTRUDE'S ENGAGEMENT 45
"Didn't he have a guest with him? Another man?"
"He brought a friend with him to stay over Sunday,
a Mr. Bailey."
"Mr. John Bailey, the cashier of the Traders' Bank, |
I believe." And I knew that some one at the Green-
wood Club had told. "When did they leave?"
"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 and Mr. 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 of this thing, and no amount of
circumstantial evidence can make an innocent man
guilty."
"Sit down," he said, pushing forward a chair.
"There are some things I have to tell you, and, in re-
turn, please tell me all you know. Believe me, things
always come out. In the first place, Mr. Armstrong
was shot from above. The bullet was fired at close
range, entered below the shoulder and came out,
after passing through the heart, well down the back.
J


46 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
In other words, I believe the murderer stood on the
stairs and fired down. In the second place, I found on
the edge of the billiard-table a charred cigar which
had burned itself partly out, and a cigarette which
had consumed itself to the cork tip. Neither one had
been more than lighted, then put down and forgotten.
Have you any idea what it was that made your nephew
and Mr. Bailey leave their cigars and their game, take
ont the automobile without calling the chauffeur, and
all 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 be back himself to explain
everything."
"I sincerely hope so," he said. "Miss Innes, has it
occurred to you that Mr. Bailey might know some-
thing of this?"
Gertrude had come down-stairs and just as he spoke
she came in. I saw her stop suddenly, as if she had
been struck.
"He does not," she said in a tone that was not her
own. "Mr. Bailey and my brother know nothing of
this. The murder was committed at three. They left
the house at a quarter before three."


GERTRUDE'S ENGAGEMENT 47
"How do you know that?" Mr. Jamieson asked
oddly. "Do you know at what time they left?"
"I do," Gertrude answered firmly. "At a quarter
before three my brother and Mr. Bailey left the house,
by the main entrance. I—was—there."
"Gertrude," I said excitedly, "you are dreaming!
Why, at a quarter to three—"
"Listen," she said. "At half-past two the down-
stairs telephone rang. I had not gone to sleep, and I
heard it. Then I heard Halsey answer it, 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 dress-
ing-gown and slippers, and went down-stairs with
him. Mr. Bailey was in the billiard-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 go away?"
"I am only telling you what happened, not why it
happened," she said evenly. "Halsey went for the car,
and instead of bringing it to the house 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—"
d


'48 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Which way?" Mr. Jamieson asked sharply.
"By the main entrance. He left—it was a quarter
to three. I know exactly."
1 "The clock in the hall is stopped, Miss Innes," said
Jamieson. Nothing seemed to escape him.
"He looked at his watch," she replied, and I could
see Mr. Jamieson's eyes snap, as if he had made a dis-
covery. As for myself, during the whole recital I had
been plunged into the deepest amazement.
"Will you pardon me for a personal question?"
The detective was a youngish man, and I thought he
was somewhat embarrassed. "What are your—your
relations with Mr. Bailey?"
Gertrude hesitated. Then she came over and put
her hand lovingly in mine.
"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 had extinguished the light, I remembered


GERTRUDE'S ENGAGEMENT 49
something I had left in the billiard-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 the billiard-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 in the drawing-room struck
three, I got up, and then—I heard a step on the east
porch, just outside the card-room. Some one with a
key was working with the latch, and I thought, of
course, of Halsey. When we took the house he called
that his entrance, and he had carried a key for it ever
since. The door opened and I was about to ask what
he had forgotten, when there was a flash and a report.
Some heavy body dropped, and, half crazed with ter-
ror and shock, I ran through the drawing-room and
got up-stairs—I scarcely remember how."
She dropped into a chair, and I thought Mr. Jamie-
soa must have finished. 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 your brother and


50 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Mr. Armstrong had, I believe, quarreled rather seri-
ously some time ago."
"Nonsense," I broke in. "Things are bad enough,
Mr. Jamieson, without inventing bad feeling where it
doesn't exist. Gertrude, I don't think Halsey 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's conduct to you, Miss Gertrude. He
had been paying you unwelcome attentions."
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 the murdered man,
and that Mr. Armstrong had been annoying and pos-
sibly pursuing her with hateful attentions, all that,
added to Gertrude's confession of her presence in the
billiard-room at the time of the crime, looked strange,
to say the least. The prominence of the family assured
a strenuous effort to find the murderer, and if we had
nothing worse to look forward to, we were sure of a
distasteful publicity.
Mr. Jamieson shut his note-book with a snap, and
thanked us.


GERTRUDE'S ENGAGEMENT 51
"I have an idea," he said, apropos of nothing at all,
"that at any rate the ghost is laid here. Whatever the
rappings have been—and the colored man says they
began when the family went west three months ago—
they are likely to stop now."
Which shows how much he knew about it. The
ghost was not laid: with the murder of Arnold Arm-
strong he, or it, only seemed to take on fresh vigor.
Mr. Jamieson left then, and when Gertrude hail
gone up-stairs, as she did at once, I sat and thought
over what I had just heard. Her engagement, mice so
engrossing a matter, paled now beside the significance
of her story. If Halsey and Jack Bailey had left be-
fore the crime, how came Halsey's revolver in the
tulip bed? What was the mysterious cause of their
sudden flight? What had Gertrude left in the billiard-
room? What was the significance of the cuff-link, and
where was it?


CHAPTER VI
IN THE EAST CORRIDOR
WHEN the detective left he enjoined abso-
lute secrecy on everybody in the house-
hold. The Greenwood Club promised
the same thing, and as there are no Sunday afternoon
papers, the murder was not publicly known until Mon-
day. The coroner himself notified the Armstrong
family lawyer, and early in the afternoon he came out.
I had not seen Mr. Jamieson since morning, but I
knew he had been interrogating the servants. Ger-
trude was locked in her room with a headache, and I
had luncheon alone.
Mr. Harton, the lawyer, was a little, thin man, and
he looked as if he did not relish his business that day.
"This is very unfortunate, Miss Innes," he said,
after we had shaken hands. "Most unfortunate—and
mysterious. With the father and mother in the west,
I find everything devolves on me; and, as you can un-
derstand, it is an unpleasant duty."
52


/
/
IN THE EAST CORRIDOR 53
"No doubt," I said absently. "Mr. Harton, I am
going to ask you some questions, and I hope you will
answer them. I feel that I am entitled to some know-
ledge, because I and my family are just now in a most
ambiguous position."
I don't know whether he understood me or not: he
took off his glasses and wiped them.
"I shall be very happy," he said with old-fashioned
courtesy.
"Thank , you. Mr. Harton, did Mr. Arnold Arm-
strong know that Sunnyside had been rented?"
"I think—yes, he did. In fact, I myself told him
about it."
"And he knew who the tenants were?"
"Yes."
"He had not been living with the family for some
years, I believe?"
"No. Unfortunately, there had been trouble be-
tween Arnold and his father. For two years he had
lived in town."
"Then it would be unlikely that he came here last
night to get possession of anything belonging to
him?"
"I should think it hardly possible," he admitted.


54 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"To be perfectly frank, Miss Innes, I can not think
of any reason whatever for his coming here as he did.
He had been staying at the club-house across the
valley for the last week, Jarvis tells me, but that only
explains how he came here, not why. It is a most un-
fortunate family."
He shook his head despondently, and I felt that this
dried-up little man was the repository of much that he
had not told me. I gave up trying to elicit any infor-
mation from him, and we went together to view the
body before it was taken to the city. It had been
lifted on to the billiard-table and a sheet thrown over
it; otherwise nothing had been touched. A soft hat
lay beside it, and the collar of the dinner-coat was still
turned up. The handsome, dissipated face of Arnold
Armstrong, purged of its ugly lines, was now only
pathetic. As we went in Mrs. Watson appeared at the
card-room door.
"Come in, Mrs. Watson," the lawyer said. But she
shook her head and withdrew: she was the only one
in the house who seemed to regret the dead man, and
even she seemed rather shocked than sorry.
I went to the door at the foot of the circular stair-
case and opened it. If I could only have seen Halsey


IN THE EAST CORRIDOR 55
coming at his usual hare-brained clip up the drive, if
I could have heard the throb of the motor, I would
have felt that my troubles were over. But there was
nothing to be seen. The countryside lay sunny and
quiet in its peaceful Sunday afternoon calm, and far
down the drive Mr. Jamieson was walking slowly,
stooping now and then, as if to examine the road.
When I went back, Mr. Harton was furtively wiping
his eyes.
"The prodigal has come home, Miss Innes," he
said. "How often the sins of the fathers are visited
on the children!" Which left me pondering.
Before Mr. Harton left, he told me something of
the Armstrong family. Paul Armstrong, the father,
had been married twice. Arnold was a son by the first
marriage. The second Mrs. Armstrong had been a
widow, with a child, a little girl. This child, now per-
haps twenty, was Iiouise Armstrong, having taken her
stepfather's name, and was at present in California
with the family.
"They will probably return at once," he concluded,
"and part of my errand here to-day is to see if you
will relinquish your lease here in their favor."
"We would better wait and see if they wish to


$6 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
come," I said. "It seems unlikely, and my town house
is being remodeled." At that he let the matter drop,
but it came up unpleasantly enough, later.
At six o'clock the body was taken away, and at
seven-thirty, after an early dinner, Mr. Harton went.
Gertrude had not come down, and there was no news
of Halsey. Mr. Jamieson had taken a lodging in the
village, and I had not seen him since mid-afternoon.
It was about nine o'clock, I think, when the bell rang
and he was ushered into the living-room.
"Sit down," I said grimly. "Have you found a clue
that will incriminate me, Mr. Jamieson?"
He had the grace to look uncomfortable. "No," he
said. "If you had killed Mr. Armstrong, you would
have left no clues. You would have had too much in-
telligence."
After that we got along better. He was fishing in
his pocket, and after a minute he brought out two
scraps of paper. "I have been to the club-house," he
said, "and among Mr. Armstrong's effects, I found
these. One is curious; the other is puzzling."
The first was a sheet of club note-paper, on which
was written, over and over, the name "Halsey B.
Innes." It was Halsey's flowing signature to a dot,



IN THE EAST CORRIDOR 57
but it lacked Halsey's ease. The ones toward the bot-
tom of the sheet were much better than the top ones.
Mr. Jamieson smiled at my face.
"His old tricks," he said. "That one is merely curi-
ous ; this one, as I said before, is puzzling."
The second scrap, folded and refolded into a com-
pass so tiny that the writing had been partly oblit-
erated, was part of a letter—the lower half of a sheet,
not typed, but written in a cramped hand.
"by altering the plans for rooms, may be possi-
ble. The best way, in my opinion, would be to the plan
for in one of the rooms chimney."
That was all.
"Well?" I said, looking up. "There is nothing in
that, is there? A man ought to be able to change the
plan of his house without becoming an object of sus-
picion."
"There is little in the paper itself," he admitted;
"but why should Arnold Armstrong carry that
around, unless it meant something? He never built a
house, you may be sure of that. If it is this house, it
may mean anything, from a secret room—"
"To an extra bath-room," I said scornfully.
"Haven't you a thumb-print, too?"


g8 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"I have," he said with a smile, "and the print of a
foot in a tulip bed, and a number of other things. The
oddest part is, Miss Innes, that the thumb-mark is
probably yours and the footprint certainly."
His audacity was the only thing that saved me: his
amused smile put me on my mettle, and I ripped out
a perfectly good scallop before I answered.
"Why did I step into the tulip bed?" I asked with
interest.
"You picked up something," he said good-humored-
ly, "which you are going to tell me about later."
"Am I, indeed?" I was politely curious. "With
this remarkable insight of yours, I wish you would tell
me where I shall find my four-thousand-dollar motor-
car."
"I was just coming to that," he said. "You will
find it about thirty miles away, at Andrews Station,
in a blacksmith shop, where it is being repaired."
I laid down my knitting then and looked at him.
"And Halsey?" I managed to say.
"We are going to exchange information," he said.
WI am going to tell you that, when you tell me what
you picked up in the tulip bed."
We looked steadily at each other: it was not an un-


IN THE EAST CORRIDOR 59
friendly stare; we were only measuring weapons.
Then he smiled a little and got up.
"With your permission," he said, "I am going to
examine the card-room and the staircase again. You
might think over my offer in the meantime."
He went on through the drawing-room, and I lis-
tened to his footsteps growing gradually fainter. I
dropped my pretense at knitting and, leaning back, I
thought over the last forty-eight hours. Here was I,
Rachel Innes, spinster, a granddaughter of old John
Innes of Revolutionary days, a D. A. R., a Colonial
Dame, mixed up with a vulgar and revolting crime,
and even attempting to hoodwink the law! Certainly
I had left the straight and narrow way.
I was roused by hearing Mr. Jamieson coming rap-
idly back through the drawing-room. He stopped at
the door.
"Miss Innes," he said quickly, "will you come with
me and light the east corridor? I have fastened some-
body in the small room at the head of the card-room
stairs."
I jumped up at once.
"You mean—the murderer?" I gasped.
"Possibly," he said quietly, as we hurried together


60 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
up che stairs. "Some one was lurking on the staircase
when I went back. I spoke; instead of an answer,
whoever it was turned and ran up. I followed—it was
dark—but as I turned the corner at the top a figure
darted through this door and closed it. The bolt was
on my side, and I pushed it forward. It is a closet, I
think." We were in the upper hall now. "If you will
show me the electric switch, Miss Innes, you would
better wait in your own room."
Trembling as I was, I was determined to see that
door opened. I hardly knew what I feared, but so
many terrible and inexplicable things had happened
that suspense was worse than certainty.
"I am perfectly cool," I said, "and I am going to
remain here."
The lights flashed up along that end of the cor-
ridor, throwing the doors into relief. At the inter-
section of the small hallway with the larger, the
circular staircase wound its way up, as if it had been
an afterthought of the architect. And just around the
corner, in the small corridor, was the door Mr. Jamie-
son had indicated. I was still unfamiliar with the
house, and I did not remember the door. My heart
was thumping wildly in my ears, but I nodded to him


IN THE EAST CORRIDOR 61
to go ahead. I was perhaps eight or ten feet away—
and then he threw the bolt back.
"Come out," he said quietly. There was no re-
sponse. "Come—out," he repeated. Then—I think he
had a revolver, but I am not sure—he stepped aside
and threw the door open.
From where I stood I could not see beyond the door,
but I saw Mr. Jamieson's face change and heard him
mutter something, then he bolted down the stairs, three
at a time. When my knees had stopped shaking, I
moved forward, slowly, nervously, until I had a partial
view of what was beyond the door. It seemed at first
to be a closet, empty. Then I went close and examined
it, to stop with a shudder. Where the floor should
have been was black void and darkness, from which
came the indescribable, damp smell of the cellars.
Mr. Jamieson had locked somebody in the clothes
chute. As I leaned over I fancied I heard a groan—or
was it the wind?


CHAPTER VII
A SPRAINED ANKLE
I WAS panic-stricken. As I ran along the corri-
dor I was confident that the mysterious intruder
and probable murderer had been found, and
that he lay dead or dying at the foot of the chute. I
got down the staircase somehow, and through the
kitchen to the basement stairs. Mr. Jamieson had
been before me, and the door stood open. Liddy was
standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding a fry-
ing-pan by the handle as a weapon.
"Don't go down there," she yelled, when she saw
me moving toward the basement stairs. "Don't you
do it, Miss Rachel. That Jamieson's down there now.
There's only trouble comes of hunting ghosts; they
lead you into bottomless pits and things like that.
Oh, Miss Rachel, don't—" as I tried to get past her.
She was interrupted by Mr. Jamieson's reappear-
ance. He ran up the stairs two at a time, and his
face was flushed and furious.
J
62


A SPRAINED ANKLE 63
"The whole place is locked," he said angrily,
"Where's the laundry key kept?"
"It's kept in the door," Liddy snapped. "That
whole end of the cellar is kept locked, so nobody can I
get at the clothes, and then the key's left in the door,
so that unless a thief was as blind as—as some de-
tectives, he could walk right in."
"Liddy," I said sharply, "come down with us and
turn on all the lights."
She offered her resignation, as usual, on the spot,
but I took her by the arm, and she came along finally.
She switched on all the lights and pointed to a door
just ahead.
"That's the door," she said sulkily. "The key's
in it."
But the key was not in it. Mr. Jamieson shook it,
but it was a heavy door, well locked. And then he
stooped and began punching around the keyhole with
the end of a lead-pencil. When he stood up his faca
was exultant.
"It's locked on the inside," he said in a low tone.
"There is somebody in there."
"Lord have mercy!" gasped Liddy, and turned to
run.


64 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Liddy," I called, "go through the house at once
and see who is missing, or if any one is. We'll have
to clear this thing at once. Mr. Jamieson, if you will
watch here I will go to the lodge and find Warner.
Thomas would be of no use. Together you may be
able to force the door."
"A good idea," he assented. "But—there are win-
dows, of course, and there is nothing to prevent who-
ever is in there from getting out that way."
"Then lock the door at the top of the basement
stairs," I suggested, "and patrol the house from the
outside."
We agreed to this, and I had a feeling that the
mystery of Sunnyside was about to be solved. I ran
down the steps and along the drive. Just at the cor-
ner I ran full tilt into somebody who seemed to be as
much alarmed as I was. It was not until I had re-
coiled a step or two that I recognized Gertrude, and
she me.
"Good gracious, Aunt Ray," she exclaimed, "what
is the matter?"
"There's somebody locked in the laundry," I pant-
ed. "That is—unless—you didn't see any one cross-
ing the lawn or skulking around the house, did you?"


A SPRAINED ANKLE 65
"I think we have mystery on the brain," Gertrude
said wearily. "No, I haven't seen any one, except old
Thomas, who looked for all the world as if he had
been ransacking the pantry. What have you locked
in the laundry?"
"I can't wait to explain," I replied. "I must get
Warner from the lodge. If you came out for air,
you'd better put on your overshoes." And then I no-
ticed that Gertrude was limping—not much, but suf-
ficiently to make her progress very slow, and seem-
ingly painful.
"You have hurt yourself," I said sharply.
"I fell over the carriage block," she explained. "I
thought perhaps I might see Halsey coming home.
He—he ought to be here."
I hurried on down the drive. The lodge was some
distance from the house, in a grove of trees where the
drive met the county road. There were two white
stone pillars to mark the entrance, but the iron gates,
once closed and tended by the lodge-keeper, now stood
permanently open. The day of the motor-car had
come; no one had time for closed gates and lodge-
keepers. The lodge at Sunny side was merely a sort
of supplementary servants' quarters: it was as con-


66 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
venient in its appointments as the big house and in-
finitely more cozy.
As I went down the drive, my thoughts were busy.
Who could it be that Mr. Jamieson had trapped in
i the cellar? Would we find a body or some one badly
I injured? Scarcely either. Whoever had fallen had
been able to lock the laundry door on the inside. If
the fugitive had come from outside the house, how
did he get in? If it was some member of the house-
hold, who could it have been? And then—a feeling
of horror almost overwhelmed me. Gertrude! Ger-
trude and her injured ankle! Gertrude found limping
slowly up the drive when I had thought she was in
bed!
I tried to put the thought away, but it would
not go. If Gertrude had been on the circular stair-
case that night, why had she fled from Mr. Jamieson?
The idea, puzzling as it was, seemed borne out by this
circumstance. Whoever had taken refuge at the head
of the stairs could scarcely have been familiar with!
the house, or with the location of the chute. The
mystery seemed to deepen constantly. What possible
connection could there be between Halsey and Ger-
trude, and the murder of Arnold Armstrong? And
^


A SPRAINED ANKLE 67
yet, every way I turned I seemed to find something
that pointed to such a connection.
At the foot of the drive the road described a long,
sloping, horseshoe-shaped curve around the lodge.
There were lights there, streaming cheerfully out on
to the trees, and from an upper room came wavering
shadows, as if some one with a lamp was moving
around. I had come almost silently in my evening
slippers, and I had my second collision of the evening
on the road just above the house. I ran full into a
man in a long coat, who was standing in the shadow
beside the drive, with his back to me, watching the
lighted windows.
"What the hell!" he ejaculated furiously, and
turned around. When he saw me, however, he did not
wait for any retort on my part. He faded away—
this is not slang; he did—he absolutely disappeared
in the dusk without my getting more than a glimpse
of his face. I had a vague impression of unfamiliar
features and of a sort of cap with a visor. Then he
was gone.
I went to the lodge and rapped. It required two or
three poundings to bring Thomas to the door, and he
opened it only an inch or so.
i


68 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE 1—
"Where is Warner?" I asked.
"I—I think he's in bed, ma'ra."
"Get him up," I said, "and for goodness' sake open
the door, Thomas. I'll wait for Warner."
"It's kind o' close in here, ma'm," he said, obeying
gingerly, and disclosing a cool and comfortable-look-
ing interior. "Perhaps you'd keer to set on the porch
an' rest yo'self."
It was so evident that Thomas did not want me in-
side that I went in.
"Tell Warner he is needed in a hurry," I repeated,
and turned into the little sitting-room. I could hear
Thomas going up the stairs, could hear him rouse
Warner, and the steps of the chauffeur as he hurriedly
dressed. But my attention was busy with the room
below.
On'the center-table, open, was a sealskin traveling
bag. It was filled with gold-topped bottles and
brushes, and it breathed opulence, luxury, femininity
from every inch of surface. How did it get there?
I was still asking myself the question when Warner
came running down the stairs and into the room. He
was completely but somewhat incongruously dressed,
and his open, boyish face looked abashed. He was a


A SPRAINED ANKLE 69
country boy, absolutely frank and reliable, of fair
education and intelligence—one of the small army of
American youths who turn a natural aptitude for me-
chanics into the special field of the automobile, and
earn good salaries in a congenial occupation.
"What is it, Miss Innes?" he asked anxiously.
"There is some one locked in the laundry," I re-
plied. "Mr. Jamieson wants you to help him break
the lock. Warner, whose bag is this?"
He was in the doorway by this time, and he pre-
tended not to hear.
"Warner," I called, "come back here. Whose bag
is this?"
He stopped then, but he did not turn around.
"It's—it belongs to Thomas," he said, and fled up
the drive.
To Thomas! A London bag with mirrors and cos-
metic jars of which Thomas could not even have
guessed the,use! However, I put the bag in the back
of my mind, which was fast becoming stored with
anomalous and apparently irreconcilable facts, and
followed Warner to the house.
Liddy had come back to the kitchen: the door to
the basement stairs was double-barred, and had a


A SPRAINED ANKLE 71
"Gone!" he said. "Confound such careless work! I
might have known."
It was true enough. We got the lights on finally
and looked all through the three rooms that consti-
tuted this wing of the basement. Everything was
quiet and empty. An explanation of how the fugitive
had escaped injury was found in a heaped-up basket
of clothes under the chute. The basket had been over-
turned, but that was all. Mr. Jamieson examined the
windows: one was unlocked, and offered an easy
escape. The window or the door? Which way had
the fugitive escaped? The door seemed most prob-
able, and I hoped it had been so. I could not have
borne, just then, to think that it was my poor Ger-
trude we had been hounding through the darkness,
and yet—I had met Gertrude not far from that very
window.
I went up-stairs at last, tired and depressed. Mrs.
Watson and Liddy were making tea in the kitchen.
In certain walks of life the tea-pot is the refuge in
times of stress, trouble or sickness: they give tea to
the dying and they put it in the baby's nursing bottle.
Mrs. Watson was fixing a tray to be sent in to me,
/


72 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
and when I asked her about Rosie she confirmed her
absence.
"She's not here," she said; "but I would not think
much of that, Miss Innes. Rosie is a pretty young
girl, and perhaps she has a sweetheart. It will be a
good thing if she has. The maids stay much better
when they have something like that to hold them here."
Gertrude had gone back to her room, and while
I was drinking my cup of hot tea, Mr. Jamieson
came in.
"We might take up the conversation where we left
off an hour and a half ago," he said. "But before we
go on, I want to say this: The person who escaped
from the laundry was a woman with a foot of mod-
erate size and well arched. She wore nothing but a
stocking on her right foot, and, in spite of the un-
locked door, she escaped by the window."
And again I thought of Gertrude's sprained ankle.
Was it the right or the left?
A


CHAPTER VIII
THE OTHEE HALF OF THE LINK
maid were in the house alone?"
"It was a woman," I said positively.
"And yet your maid affirms with equal positiveness
that it was a man."
"Nonsense," I broke in. "Liddy had her eyes shut
—she always shuts them when she's frightened."
"And you never thought then that the intruder
who came later that night might be a woman—the
woman, in fact, whom you saw on the veranda?"
"I had reasons for thinking it was a man," I said,
remembering the pearl cuff-link.
"Now we are getting down to business. What
were your reasons for thinking that?"
I hesitated.

ISS Innes," the detective began, "what is
your opinion of the figure you saw on
the east veranda the night you and your
73


74 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"If you have any reason for believing that your
midnight guest was Mr. Armstrong, other than his
visit here the next night, you ought to tell me, Miss
Innes. We can take nothing for granted. If, for
instance, the intruder who dropped the bar and
scratched the staircase—you see, I know about that—
if this visitor was a woman, why should not the same
woman have come back the following night, met Mr.
Armstrong on the circular staircase, and in alarm shot
him?"
"It was a man," I reiterated. And then, because I
could think of no other reason for my statement, I
told him about the pearl cuff-link. He was intensely
interested.
"Will you give me the link," he said, when I fin-
ished, "or, at least, let me see it? I consider it a most
important clue."
"Won't the description do?"
"Not as well as the original."
"Well, I'm very sorry," I said, as calmly as I could,
"I—the thing is lost. It—it must have fallen out of
a box on my dressing-tabJe."
Whatever he thought of my explanation, and I
knew he doubted it, he made no sign. He asked me


THE OTHER HALF OF THE LINK 75
to describe the link accurately, and I did so, while he
glanced at a list he took from his pocket.
"One set monogram cuff-links," he read, "one set
plain pearl links, one set cuff-links, woman's head set
with diamonds and emeralds. There is no mention of
such a link as you describe, and yet, if your theory is
right, Mr. Armstrong must have taken back in his
cuffs one complete cuff-link, and a half, perhaps, of
the other."
The idea was new to me. If it had not been the
murdered man who had entered the house that night,
who had it been?
"There are a number of strange things connected
with this case," the detective went on. "Miss Ger-
trude Innes testified that she heard some one fumbling
with the lock, that the door opened, and that almost
immediately the shot was fired. Now, Miss Innesi
here is the strange part of that. Mr. Armstrong had
no key with him. There was no key in the lock, or on
the floor. In other words, the evidence points abso-
lutely to this: Mr. Armstrong was admitted to the
house from within."
"It is impossible," I broke in. "Mr. Jamieson, do
you know what your words imply? Do you know that


THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE

you are practically accusing Gertrude Innes of ad-
Hitting that man?"
"Not quite that," he said, with his friendly smile.
"In fact, Miss Innes, I am quite certain she did not.
But as long as I learn only parts of the truth, from
both you and her, what can I do? I know you picked
up something in the flower bed: you refuse to tell me
what it was. I know Miss Gertrude went back to the
billiard-room to get something, she refuses to say
what. You suspect what happened to the cuff-link,
but you won't tell me. So far, all I am sure of is this:
I do not believe Arnold Armstrong was the midnight
visitor who so alarmed you by dropping—shall we
say, a golf-stick? And I believe that when he did
come he was admitted by some one in the house. Who
knows—it may have been—Liddy!"
I stirred my tea angrily.
"I have always heard," I said dryly, "that under-
takers' assistants are jovial young men. A man's
sense of humor seems to be in inverse proportion to
the gravity of his profession."
"A man's sense of humor is a barbarous and a cruel
thing, Miss Innes," he admitted. "It is to the femi-
nine as the hug of a bear is to the scratch of—well,


THE OTHER HALF OF-THE LINK 77
anything with claws. Is that you, Thomas? Come
in."
Thomas Johnson stood in the doorway. He looked
alarmed and apprehensive, and suddenly I remem-
bered the sealskin dressing-bag in the lodge. Thomas
came just inside the door and stood with his head
drooping, his eyes, under their shaggy gray brows,
fixed on Mr. Jamieson.
"Thomas," said the detective, not unkindly, "I sent
for you to tell us what you told Sam Bohannon at the
club, the day before Mr. Arnold was found here, dead.
Let me see. You came here Friday night to see Miss
Innes, didn't you? And came to work here Saturday
morning?"
For some unexplained reason Thomas looked re-
lieved.
"Yas, sah," he said. "You see it were like this:
When Mistah Armstrong and the fam'ly went away,
Mis' Watson an' me, we was leP in charge till the
place was rented. Mis' Watson, she've bin here a
good while, an' she warn' skeery. So she slep' in the
house. I'd bin havin' tokens—I tol' Mis' Innes iome
of 'em—an' I slep' in the lodge. Then one day Mis'
Watson, she came to me an' she sez, sez she, 'Thome*,


'78 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
you'll hev to sleep up in the big house. I'm too nerT-
ous to do it any more.' But I jes' reckon to myself
that ef it's too skeery fer her, it's too skeery fer me.
We had it, then, sho' nuff, and it ended up with Mia'
Watson stayin' in the lodge nights an' me lookin' fer
work at de club." t
"Did Mrs. Watson say that anything had happened
to alarm her?"
"No, sah. She was jes' natchally skeered. Well,
that was all, far's I know, until the night I come over
to see Mis' Innes. I come across the valley, along the
path from the club-house, and I goes home that way.
Down in the creek bottom I almost run into a man.
He wuz standin' with his back to me, an' he was work-
in' with one of these yere electric light things that
fit in yer pocket. He was havin' trouble—one minute
it'd flash out, an' the nex' it'd be gone. I hed a view
of 'is white dress shirt an' tie, as I passed. I didn't
see his face. But I know it warn't Mr. Arnold. It
was a taller man than Mr. Arnold. Beside that, Mr.
Arnold was playin' cards when I got to the club-house,
same's he'd been doin' all day."
"And the next morning you came back along the
path," pursued Mr. Jamieson relentlessly.
--
A.


THE OTHER HALF OF THE LINK 79
"The nex' mornin' I come back along the path an'
down where I dun see the man night befoh, I picked up
this here." The old man held out a tiny object and
Mr. Jamieson took it. Then he held it on his extended.
palm for me to see. It was the other half of the pearl
..cuff-link!
'But Mr. Jamieson was not quite through question-
ing him.
"And so you showed it to Sam, at the club, and
asked him if he knew any one who owned such a link,
and Sam said—what?"
"Wal, Sam, he 'lowed he'd seen such a pair of cuff-
buttons in a shirt belongin' to Mr. Bailey—Mr. Jack
Bailey, sah."
"I'll keep this link, Thomas, for a while," the de-
tective said. "That's all I wanted to know. Good
night."
As Thomas shuffled out, Mr. Jamieson watched me
sharply.
"You see, Miss Innes," he said, "Mr. Bailey insists
on mixing himself with this thing. If Mr. Bailey
came here that Friday night expecting to meet Arnold
Armstrong, and missed him—if, as I say, he had don*
this, might he not, seeing him enter the following


80 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
■
night, have struck him down, as he had intended be-
fore?"
"But the motive?" I gasped.
"There could be motive proved, I think. Arnold
Armstrong and John Bailey have been enemies since
the latter, as cashier of the Traders' Bank, brought
Arnold almost into the clutches of the law. Also, you
forget that both men have been paying attention t»
Gertrude. Bailey's flight looks bad, too."
"And you think Halsey helped him to escape?"
"Undoubtedly. Why, what could it be but flight?
Miss Innes, let me reconstruct that evening, as I see
it. Bailey and Armstrong.had quarreled at the club.
I learned this to-day. Your nephew brought Bailey
over. Prompted by jealous, insane fury, Armstrong
followed, coming across by the path. He entered the
billiard-room wing—perhaps rapping, and being ad-
mitted by your nephew. Just inside he was shot, by
eome one on the circular staircase. The shot fired,
your nephew and Bailey left the house at once, going
toward the automobile house. They left by the lower
road, which prevented them being heard, and when
you and Miss Gertrude got down-stairs everything
was quiet."


THE OTHER HALF OF THE LINK 81
"But—Gertrude's story," I stammered.
"Miss Gertrude only brought forward her explana-
tion the following morning. I do not believe it, Miss
Innes. It is the story of a loving and ingenious
woman."
"And—this thing to-night?"
"May upset my whole view of the case. We must
give the benefit of every doubt, after all. We may,
for instance, come back to the figure on the porgh:
if it was a woman you saw that night through the win-
dow, we might start with other premises. Or Mr. Innes'
explanation may turn us in a new direction. It is
possible that he shot Arnold Armstrong as a burglar
and then fled, frightened at what he had done. In
any case, however, I feel confident that the body was
here when he left. Mr. Armstrong left the club osten-
sibly for a moonlight saunter, about half after eleven
o'clock. It was three when the shot was fired."
I leaned back bewildered. It seemed to me that the
evening had been full of significant happenings, had
I only held the key. Had Gertrude been the fugitive
in the clothes chute? Who was the man on the drive
near the lodge, and whose gold-mounted dressing-bag
had I seen in the lodge sitting-room?


82 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
It was late when Mr. Jamleson finally got up to go.
I went with him to the door, and together we stood
looking out over the valley. Below lay the village of
Casanova, with its Old World houses, its blossoming
trees and its peace. Above on the hill across the val-
ley were the lights of the Greenwood Club. It was
even possible to see the curving row of parallel lights
that marked the carriage road. Rumors that I had
heard about the club came back—of drinking, of high
play, and once, a year ago, of a suicide under those
very lights.
Mr. Jamieson left, taking a short cut to the village,
and I still stood there. It must have been after eleven,
and the monotonous tick of the big clock on the stairs
behind me was the only sound. Then I was conscious
that some one was running up the drive. In a minute
a woman darted into the area of light made by the
open door, and caught me by the arm. It was Rosie
.—Rosie in a state of collapse from terror, and, not the
least important, clutching one of my Coalport plates
and a silver spoon.
She stood staring into the darkness behind, still
holding the plate. I got her into the house and se-
cured the plate; then I stood and looked down at


TOE OTHER HALF OF THE LINK 83
her where she crouched tremblingly against the door-
way.
"Well," I asked, "didn't your young man enjoy
his meal?"
She couldn't speak. She looked at the spoon she
still held—I wasn't so anxious about it: thank Heaven,
it wouldn't chip—and then she stared at me.
"I appreciate your desire to have everything nice
for him," I went on, "but the next time, you might
take the Limoges china. It's more easily duplicated
and less expensive."
"I haven't a young man—not here." She had got
her breath now, as I had guessed she would. "I—I
have been chased by a thief, Miss Innes."
"Did he chase you out of the house and back
again?" I asked.
Then Rosie began to cry—not silently, but noisily,
hysterically. I stopped her by giving her a good
shake.
"What in the world is the matter with you?" I
snapped. "Has the day of good common sense gone
by! Sit up and tell me the whole thing."
Rosie sat up then, and sniffled.
"I was coming up the drive—" she began.


84 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"You must start with when you went down the
drive, with my dishes and my silver," I interrupted,
but, seeing more signs of hysteria, I gave in. "Very
well. You were coming up the drive—"
"I had a basket of—of silver and dishes on my arm,
and I was carrying the plate, because—because I was
afraid I'd break it. Part-way up the road a man
stepped out of the bushes, and held his arm like this,
spread out, so I couldn't get past. He said—he said
—'Not so fast, young lady; I want you to let me see
what's in that basket.'"
She got up in her excitement and took hold of my
arm.
"It was like this, Miss Innes," she said, "and say
you was the man. When he said that, I screamed and
ducked under his arm like this. He caught at the
basket and I dropped it. I ran as fast as I could, and
he came after as far as the trees. Then he stopped.
Oh, Miss Innes, it must have been the man that killed
that Mr. Armstrong!"
"Don't be foolish," I said. "Whoever killed Mr.
Armstrong would put as much space between himself
and this house as he could. Go up to bed now; and
mind, if I hear of this story being repeated to the


THE OTHER HALF OF THE LINK 85
other maids, I shall deduct from your wages for every
broken dish I find in the drive."
I listened to Rosie as she went up-stairs, running
past the shadowy places and slamming her door.
Then I sat down and looked at the Coalport plate and
the silver spoon. I had brought my own china and
silver, and, from all appearances, I would have little
enough to take back. But though I might jeer at
Rosie as much as I wished, the fact remained that
some one had been on the drive that night who had
no business there. Although neither had Rosie, for
that matter.
I could fancy Liddy's face when she missed the
extra pieces of china—she had opposed Rosie from
the start. If Liddy once finds a prophecy fulfilled,
especially an unpleasant one, she never allows me to
forget it. It seemed to me that it was absurd to leave
that china dotted along the road for her to spy the
next morning; so with a sudden resolution, I opened
the door again and stepped out into the darkness. As
the door closed behind me I half regretted my im-
pulse; then I shut my teeth and went on.
I have never been a nervous woman, as I said be-
fore. Moreover, a minute or two in the darkness en-


96 'THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
abled me to see things fairly well. Beulah gave me
rather a start by rubbing unexpectedly against my
feet; then we two, side by side, went down the drive.
There were no fragments of china, but where the
grove began I picked up a silver spoon. So far
ilosie's story was borne out: I began to wonder if it
were not indiscreet, to say the least, this midnight
prowling in a neighborhood with such a deservedly
bad reputation. Then I saw something gleaming,
which proved to be the handle of a cup, and a step or
two farther on I found a V-shaped bit of a plate.
But the most surprising thing of all was to find the
basket sitting comfortably beside the road, with the
rest of the broken crockery piled neatly within, and
a handful of small silver, spoons, forks, and the like,
on top! I could only stand and stare. Then Rosie's
story was true. But where had Rosie carried her
basket? And why had.the thief, if he were a thief,
picked up the broken china out of the road and left it,
with his booty?
It was with my nearest approach to a nervous col-
lapse that I heard the familiar throbbing of an auto-
mobile engine. As it came closer I recognized the


THE OTHER HALF OF THE LINK 87
outline of the Dragon Fly, and knew that Halsey had
come back.
Strange enough it must have seemed to Halsey, too,
to come across me in the middle of the night, with the
skirt of my gray silk gown over my shoulders to keep
off the dew, holding a red and green basket under one
arm and a black cat under the other. What with re-
lief and joy, I began to cry, right there, and very
nearly wiped my eyes on Beulah in the excitement.


CHAPTER IX
JUST LIKE A GIRL

• A UNT Ray!" Halsey said from the gloom be-
/^L hind the lamps. "What in the world are you
.JL JL doing here?"
"Taking a walk," I said, trying to be composed.
I don't think the answer 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 Beulah and the basket out of my arms
in a moment. I could see the car plainly now, and
Warner was at the wheel—Warner in an ulster and a
pair of slippers, over Heaven knows what. Jack
Bailey was not there. I got in, and we went slowly
and painfully up to the house.
We did not talk. What we had to say was too im-
portant to commence there, and, besides, it took all
kinds of coaxing from both men to get the Dragon
\
88


JUST LIKE A GIRL 89
Fly up the last grade. On'y when we had closed the
front door 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 I faced
the light.
"Poor Aunt Ray!" he said gently. And I nearly
wept again. "I—I must see Gertrude, too; we will
have a three-cornered talk."
And then Gertrude herself came down the stairs.
She had not been to bed, evidently: she still wore the
white negligee she had worn earlier in the evening,
and she limped somewhat. During her slow progress
down the stairs I had time to notice one thing: Mr.
Jamieson had said the woman 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 and anxiety 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-hour before I had sat with Mr. Jamieson


90 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
in that very room, listening while he overtly accused
both Gertrude and Halsey of at least a knowledge of
the death of Arnold Armstrong. Now Halsey was
here to speak for himself: 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 a thing like that oc-
curring!"
Gertrude's face was still set and white. "That
isn't all, Halsey," she said. "You and—and Jack
left almost at the time it happened. The detective
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 you went that night, or rather morn-
ing, and why you went as you did. This has been a
terrible forty-eight hours for all of us."
He stood staring at me, and I could see the horror
of the situation dawning in his face.
"I can't tell you where I went, Aunt Ray," he said,


JUST LIKE A GIRL gi
after a moment. "As to why, you will learn that soon
enough. But Gertrude knows that Jack and I left
the house before this thing—this horrible murder—
occurred."
"Mr. Jamieson does not believe me," Gertrude said
drearily. "Halsey, if the 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 can not tell you why—
just yet. As to where we went, if I have to depend
on that as an alibi, I shall not tell. The whole thing
is an absurdity, a trumped-up charge that can not
possibly be serious."
"Has Mr. Bailey gone back to the city," I demand-
ed, "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 slightest suspicion who killed Arnold Arm-
strong? The police think he was admitted from with-
in, and that he was shot down from above, by some
rae on the circular staircase."
"I know nothing of it," he maintained; but I fan-


92 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
cied I caught a sudden glance 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 the night Liddy and I had been
alone up to the strange experience of Rosie and her
pursuer. The basket still stood on the table, a mute
witness to this last mystifying occurrence.
"There is something else," I said hesitatingly, at
the last. "Halsey, I have never told this even to Ger-
trude, 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 to Gertrude.
"My revolver, Trade!" he exclaimed. "Why, Jack
took my revolver with him, didn't he?"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake don't say that," I implored.
"The detective thinks possibly Jack Bailey came back,
and—and the thing happened then."
"He didn't come back," Halsey said sternly. "Ger-
trude, when you brought down a revolver that night
for Jack to take with him, what one did you bring?
Mine?"
Gertrude was defiant now.
"No. Yours was loaded, and I was afraid of what


JUST LIKE A GIRL 93
Jack—might do. I gave him 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 asked you to, Gertrude? You send
Bailey off with an empty gun, and throw mine in a
tulip bed, of all places on earth! Mine was a thirty-
eight caliber. The inquest will show, of course, that
the bullet that killed Armstrong was a thirty-eight.
Then where shall I be?"
"You forget," I broke in, "that I have the revolver,
and that no one knows about it."
But Gertrude had risen angrily.
"I can not stand it; it is always with me," she
cried. "Halsey, I did not throw your revolver into the
tulip bed. I—think—you—did it—yourself!"
They stared at each other across the big library
table, with young eyes all at once hard, suspicious.
And then Gertrude held out both hands to him ap-
pealingly.
"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 believe it, Hal-
sey."


94 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Halsey soothed her as best he could, and the breach
seemed healed. But long 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. Some
things 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. He knew where
they had been for the last forty-eight hours, and why
Jack Bailey had not returned with him. It seemed to
me that without fuller confidence from both the chil-
dren—they are always children to me—I should never
be able to learn anything.
As I was finally getting ready for bed, Halsey came
up-stairs and knocked at my door. When I had got
into a negligee—I used to say wrapper before Ger-
trude came back from school—I let him in. He stood
in 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 him to stop, but
he only seemed to grow worse. When he had recovered
he took me by the elbow and pulled me in front of the
mirror.
"'How to be beautiful,' " he quoted. "'Advice to
maids and matrons,' by Beatrice Fairfax!" And then


JUST LIKE A GIRL 95
I saw myself. I had neglected to remove my wrinkle
eradicators, and I presume my appearance was odd.
I believe tha^ it is a woman's duty to care for her
looks, but it is much like telling a necessary falsehood
—one must not be found out. By the time I got them
off Halsey was serious again, and I listened to his
story.
"Aunt Ray," he began, extinguishing his cigarette
on the back of my ivory 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 told
you a long time ago. If you had known it, you would
not have suspected me for a moment of—of having
anything to do with the attack on Arnold Armstrong.
Goodness knows what I might do to a fellow like that,
if there was enough provocation, and I had a gun in
my hand—under ordinary circumstances. But—I
care a great deal about Louise Armstrong, Aunt Ray.
I hope to marry her some day. Is it likely I would
kill her brother?"
"Her stepbrother," I corrected. "No, of course, it
isn't likely, or possible. Why didn't you tell me, Hal-
sey?"
"Well, there were two reasons," he said slowly-


JUST LIKE A GIRL 97
"But the whole thing is absurd," I argued. "And
besides, Gertrude's sworn statement that you left be-
fore Arnold Armstrong came would clear you at
once."
Halsey got up and began to pace the room, and the
air of cheerfulness dropped like a mask.
"She can't swear it," he said finally. "Gertrude's
story was true as far as it went, but she didn't tell
everything. Arnold Armstrong came here at two-
thirty—came into the billiard-room and left in five
minutes. He came to bring—something."
"Halsey," I cried, "you must tell me the whole
truth. Every time I see a way for you to escape you
block it yourself with this wall of mystery. What
did he bring?"
"A telegram—for Bailey," he said. "It came by
special messenger from town, and was—most impor-
tant. Bailey had started for here, and the messenger
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 a stroll in the direction of
Sunnyside."
"And he brought it?"
"Yes."


98 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"What was in the telegram?"
"I can tell you—as soon as certain things are made
public. It is only a matter of days now," gloomily.
"And Gertrude's story of a telephone message?"
"Poor Trude!" he half whispered. "Poor loyal lit-
tie girl! Aunt Ray, there was no such message. No
doubt your detective already knows that and discredits
all Gertrude told him."
"And when she went back, it was to get—the tele-
gram?"
"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—I will take my oath
none of us even inadvertently killed that poor devil."
I looked at the closed door into Gertrude's dressing-
room, and lowered my voice.
"The same horrible thought keeps recurring to
me," I whispered. "Halsey, Gertrude probably had
your revolver: she must have examined it, anyhow,
that night. After you—and Jack had gone, what if
—that ruffian 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—


JUST LIKE A GIRL' 99
he had no Is^y, the police say—and thinking it was
you, or Jack, she admitted him. When she saw her
mistake she ran up the stairs, a step or two, and turn-
ing, like an animal at bay, she fired."
Halsey had hi hand over my lips before I finished,
and in that position we stared each at the other, our
stricken glances crossing.
"The revolver—my revolver—thrown into the tulip
bed 1" he muttered to himself. "Thrown perhaps from
an upper window: you say it was buried deep. Her
prostration ever since, her—Aunt Ray, you don't
think it was Gertrude who fell down the clothes
chute?"
I could only nod my head in a hopeless affirmative.


CHAPTER X
THE TKADESS' BANT
THE morning after Halsey's return was Tues-
day. Arnold Armstrong had been found dead
at the foot of the circular staircase at three
o'clock on Sunday morning. The funeral services
were to be held on Tuesday, and the interment of the
body was to be deferred until the Armstrongs arrived
from California. No one, I think, was very sorry that
Arnold Armstrong was dead, but the manner of his
death aroused some sympathy and an enormous
amount of curiosity. Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh, a cousin,
took charge of the arrangements, and everything, I
believe, was as quiet as possible. I gave Thomas
Johnson and Mrs. Watson permission to go into town
to pay their last respects to the dead man, but for!
some reason they did not care to go.
Halsey spent part of the day with Mr. Jamieson,
but he said nothing of what happened. He looked
IOO
ll


THE TRADERS' BANK 101
grave and anxious, and he had a long conversation
with Gertrude late in the afternoon.
Tuesday evening found us quiet, with the quiet that
precedes an explosion. Gertrude and Halsey were
both gloomy and distraught, and as Liddy had already
discovered that some of the china was broken—it is
impossible to have any secrets from an old servant—I
was not in a pleasant humor myself. Warner brought
up the afternoon mail and the evening papers at seven
—I was curious to know what the papers said of the
murder. We had turned away at least a dozen report-
ers. But I read over the head-line that ran half-way
across the top of the Gazette twice before I compre-
hended it. Halsey had opened the Chronicle and was
staring at it fixedly.
"The Traders' Bank closes its doors!" was what I
read, and then I put down the paper and looked across
the table.
"Did you know of this?" I asked Halsey.
"I—expected it. But not so soon," he replied.
"And you?" to Gertrude.
"Jack—told us—something," Gertrude said faint-
ly. "Oh, Halsey, what can he do now?"
"Jack!" I said scornfully. "Your Jack's flight is


■
'/
/
102 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
easy enough to explain now. And you helped him,
both of you, to get away! You get that from your
mother; it isn't an Innes trait. Do you know that
every dollar you have, both of you, is in that bank?"
Gertrude tried to speak, but Halsey stopped her.
"That isn't all, Gertrude," he said quietly; "Jack is
—under arrest."
"Under arrest!" Gertrude screamed, and tore the
paper out of his hand. She glanced at the heading,
then she crumpled the newspaper into a ball and flung
it to the floor. While Halsey, looking stricken and
white, was trying to smooth it out and read it, Ger-
trude had dropped her head on the table and was
sobbing stormily.
I have the clipping somewhere, but just now I can
remember only the essentials.
On the afternoon before, Monday, while the Trad-
ers' Bank was in the rush of closing hour, between
two and three, Mr. Jacob Trautman, President of the
Pearl Brewing Company, came into the bank to lift a
loan. As security for the loan he had deposited some
three hundred International Steamship Company 5's,
in total value three hundred thousand dollars. Mr.
Trautman went to the loan clerk and, after certain
s


104 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Bailey, the cashier of the defunct bank, had taken his
hat and departed. During the afternoon he had called
up Mr. Aronson, a member of the board, and said he
was ill, and might not be at the bank, for a day or two.
As Bailey was highly thought of, Mr. Aronson merely
expressed a regret. From that time until Monday
night, when Mr. Bailey had surrendered to the police,
little was known of his movements. Some time after
one on Saturday he had entered the Western Union
office at Cherry and White Streets and had sent two
telegrams. He was at the Greenwood Country Club
on Saturday night, and appeared unlike himself. It
was reported that he would be released under enor-
mous bond, some time that day, Tuesday.
The article closed by saying that while the officers
of the bank refused to talk until the examiner had
finished his work, it was known that securities aggre-
gating a million and a quarter were missing. Then
there was a diatribe on the possibility of such an oc-
currence; on the folly of a one-man bank, and of a
Board of Directors that met only to lunch together
and to listen to a brief report from the cashier, and on
the poor policy of a government that arranges a three-
or four-day examination twice a year. The mystery,
->


THE TRADERS' BANK 105
it insinuated, had not been cleared by the arrest of the
cashier. Before now minor officials had been used to
cloak the misdeeds of men higher up. Inseparable as
the words "speculation" and "peculation" have grown.
to be, John Bailey was not known to be in the stock
market. His only words, after his surrender, had been
"Send for Mr. Armstrong at once." The telegraph
message which had finally reached the President of the
Traders' Bank, in an interior town in California, had
been responded to by a telegram from Doctor Walker,
the young physician who was traveling with the Arm-
strong family, saying that Paul Armstrong was very
ill and unable to travel.
That was how things stood that Tuesday evening.
The Traders' Bank had suspended payment, and John
Bailey was under arrest, charged with wrecking it;
Paul Armstrong lay very ill in California, and his only
son had been murdered two days before. I sat dazed
and bewildered. The children's money was gone: that
was bad enough, though I had plenty, if they would
let me share. But Gertrude's grief was beyond any
power of mine to comfort; the man she had chosen
stood accused of a colossal embezzlement—and even
worse. For in the instant that I sat there I seemed to


io6 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
see the coils closing around John Bailey as the mur-
derer of Arnold Armstrong.
Gertrude lifted her head at last and stared across
'the table at Halsey.
"Why did he do it?" she wailed. "Couldn't you stop
him, Halsey? It was suicidal to go back!"
Halsey was looking steadily through the windows
of the breakfast-room, but it was evident he saw
nothing.
"It was the only thing he could do, Trade," he said
at last. "Aunt Ray, when I found Jack at the Green-
wood Club last Saturday night, he was frantic. I can
not talk until Jack tells me I may, but—he is abso-
lutely innocent of all this, believe me. I thought,
Trude and I thought, we were helping him, but it was
the wrong way. He came back.. Isn't that the act of
an innocent man?"
"Then why did he leave at all?" I asked, uncon-
vinced. "What innocent man would run away from
here at three o'clock in the morning? Doesn't it look
rather as though he thought it impossible to escape?"
Gertrude rose angrily. "You are not even just!"
she flamed. "You don't know anything about it, and
you condemn him P'


THE TRADERS' BANK 107
"I know that we have all lost a great deal of money,"
I said. "I shall believe Mr. Bailey innocent the mo-
ment he is shown to be. You profess to know the
truth, but you can not tell me! What am I to think?"
Halsey leaned over and patted my hand.
"You must take us on faith," he said. "Jack
Bailey hasn't a penny that doesn't belong to him; the
guilty man will be known in a day or so."
"I shall believe that when it is proved," I said
grimly. "In the meantime, I take no one on faith. The
Inneses never do."
Gertrude, who had been standing aloof at a win-
dow, turned suddenly. "But when the bonds are
offered for sale, Halsey, won't the thief be detected at
once?"
Halsey turned with a superior smile.
"It wouldn't be done that way," he said. "They
would be taken out of the vault by some one who had
access to it, and used as collateral for a loan in an-
other bank. It would be possible to realize eighty per,
cent, of their face value."
"In cash?"
"In cash."
"But the man who did it—he would be known?"


108 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Yes. I tell you both, as sure as I stand here, I be-
lieve that Paul Armstrong looted his own bank. I
believe he has a million at least, as the result, and that
j
he will never come back. I'm worse than a pauper now.
I can't ask Louise to share nothing a year with me,
and when I think of this disgrace for her, I'm crazy."
The most ordinary events of life seemed pregnant
with possibilities that day, and when Halsey was
called to the telephone, I ceased all pretense at eating.
When he came back from the telephone his face
showed that something had occurred. He waited,
however, until Thomas left the dining-room: then he
told us.
"Paul Armstrong is dead," he announced gravely.
"He died this morning in California. Whatever he
did, he is beyond the law now."
Gertrude turned pale.
"And the only man who could have cleared Jack
can never do it!" she said despairingly.
"Also," I replied coldly, "Mr. Armstrong is for
ever beyond the power of defending himself. When
your Jack comes to me, with some two hundred thou-
sand dollars in his hands, which is about what you
have lost, I shall believe him innocent."


THE TRADERS' BANK 109
Halsey threw his cigarette away and turned on me.
"There you go!" he exclaimed. "If he was the
thief, he could return the money, of course. If he is
innocent, he probably hasn't a tenth of that amount)
in the world. In his hands! That's like a woman."
Gertrude, who had been pale and despairing during
the early part of the conversation, had flushed an in-
dignant red. She got up and drew herself to her
slender height, looking down at me with the scorn of
the young and positive.
"You are the only mother I ever had," she said
tensely. "I have given you all I would have given my
mother, had she lived—my love, my trust. And now,
when I need you most, you fail me. I tell you, John
Bailey is a good man, an honest man. If you say he
is not, you—you—"
"Gertrude," Halsey broke in sharply. She dropped
beside the table and, burying her face in her arms,
broke into a storm of tears.
"I love him—love him," she sobbed, in a surrender j
that was totally unlike her. "Oh, I never thought it
would be like this."
Halsey and I stood helpless before the storm of her
emotion. I would have soothed her, but she had put


no THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
me away, and there was something aloof in her grief,
something new and strange. At last, when her sorrow
had subsided to the dry shaking sobs of a tired child,
without raising her head, she put out one groping
hand.
"Aunt Ray!" she whispered. In a moment I was on
my knees beside her, her arm around my neck, her
cheek against my hair.
"Where am I, in this?" Halsey said suddenly, and
tried to put his arms around us both. It was a wel-
come distraction, and Gertrude was soon herself again.
The little storm had cleared the air. Nevertheless, my
opinion remained unchanged. There was much to be
cleared up before I would consent to any renewal of
my acquaintance with John Bailey. And Halsey and
Gertrude knew it, knowing me.
V


CHAPTER XI
EALSET MAKES A CAPTURE
IT was about half-past eight when we left the
dining-room, and still engrossed with one sub-
ject, the failure of the bank and its attendant
evils, Halsey and I went out into the grounds for a
stroll. Gertrude followed us shortly. "The light was
thickening," to appropriate Shakespeare's descrip-
tion of twilight, and once again the tree-toads and the
crickets were making night throb with their tiny life.
It was almost oppressively lonely, in spite of its
beauty, and I felt a sickening pang of homesickness
for my city at night—for the clatter of horses' feet
on cemented paving, for the lights, the voices, the
sound of children playing. The country after dark
oppresses me. The stars, quite eclipsed in the city by
the electric lights, here become insistent, assertive.
Whether I want to or not, I find myself looking for
the few I know by name, and feeling ridiculously new
S
III


/
/*
112 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
and small by contrast—always an unpleasant sen-
sation.
After Gertrude joined us, we avoided any further
mention of the murder. To Halsey, as to me, there
was ever present, I am sure, the thought of our con-
versation of the night before. As we strolled back
and forth along the drive, Mr. Jamieson emerged
from the shadow of the trees.
"Good evening," he said, managing to include Ger-
trude in his bow. Gertrude had never been even
ordinarily courteous to him, and she nodded coldly.
Halsey, however, was more cordial, although we were
all constrained enough. He and Gertrude went on
together, leaving the detective to walk with me. As
soon as they were out of earshot, he turned to me.
"Do you know, Miss Innes," he said, "the deeper I
go into this thing, the more strange it seems to me. I
| am very sorry for Miss Gertrude. It looks as if
Bailey, whom she has tried so hard to save, is worse
than a rascal; and after her plucky fight for him, it
seems hard."
I looked through the dusk to where Gertrude's light
dinner dress gleamed among the trees. She had made
a plucky fight, poor child. Whatever she might have


HALSEY MAKES A CAPTURE 113
been driven to do, I could find nothing but a deep
sympathy for her. If she had only come to me with
the whole truth then!
"Miss Innes," Mr. Jamieson was saying, "in the
last three days, have you seen a—any suspicious,
figures around the grounds? Any—woman?"
"No," I replied. "I have a houseful of maids that
will bear watching, one and all. But there has been no
strange woman near the house or Liddy would have
seen her, you may be sure. She has a telescopic eye."
Mr. Jamieson looked thoughtful.
"It may not amount to anything," he said slowly.
"It is difficult to get any perspective on things around
here, because every one down in the village is sure he
saw the murderer, either before or since the crime.
And half of them will stretch a point or two as to
facts, to be obliging. But the man who drives the hack
down there tells a story that may possibly prove to be
important."
"I have heard it, I think. Was it the one the parlor
maid brought up yesterday, about a ghost wringing
its hands on the roof? Or perhaps it's the one the
milk-boy heard: a tramp washing a dirty shirt, pre-
sumably bloody, in the creek below the bridge?"


114 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
I could see the gleam of Mr. Jamieson's teeth, as he
smiled.
"Neither," he said. "But Matthew Geist, which is
our friend's name, claims that on Saturday night, at
nine-thirty, a veiled lady—"
"I knew it would be a veiled lady," I broke in.
"A veiled lady," he persisted, "who was apparently
young and beautiful, engaged his hack and asked to
be driven to Sunnyside. Near the gate, however, she
made him stop, in spite of his remonstrances, saying
she preferred to walk to the house. She paid him, and
he left her there. Now, Miss Innes, you had no such
visitor, I believe?"
"None," I said decidedly.
"Geist thought it might be a maid, as you had got
a supply that day. But he said her getting out near
the gate puzzled him. Anyhow, we have now one
veiled lady, who, with the ghostly intruder of Friday
night, makes two assets that I hardly know what to do
with."
"It is mystifying," I admitted, "although I can
think of one possible explanation. The path from the
Greenwood Club to the village enters the road near
the lodge gate. A woman who wished to reach the


HALSEY MAKES A CAPTURE 115
Country Club, unperceived, might choose such a
method. There are plenty of women there."
I think this gave him something to ponder, for in a
short time he said good night and left. But I myself
was far from satisfied. I was determined, however, on
one thing. If my suspicions—for I had suspicions—
were true, I would make my own investigations, and
Mr. Jamieson should learn only what was good for
him to know.
We went back to the house, and Gertrude, who was
more like herself since her talk with Halsey, sat down
at the mahogany desk in the living-room to write a
letter. Halsey prowled up and down the entire east
wing, now in the card-room, now in the billiard-room,
and now and then blowing his clouds of tobacco smoke
among the pink and gold hangings of the drawing-
room. After a little I joined him in the billiard-room,
and together we went over the details of the discovery
of the body.
The card-room was quite dark. Where we sat, in
the billiard-room, only one of the side brackets was
lighted, and we spoke in subdued tones, as the hour
and the subject seemed to demand. When I spoke of
the figure Liddy and I had seen on the porch through


116 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
the card-room window Friday night, Halsey sauntered
into the darkened room, and together we stood there,
much as Liddy and I had done that other night.
The window was the same grayish rectangle in the
blackness as before. A few feet away in the hall was
the spot where the body of Arnold Armstrong had
been found. I was a bit nervous, and I put my hand
on Halsey's sleeve. Suddenly, from the top of the
staircase above us came the sound of a cautious foot-
step. At first I was not sure, but Halsey's attitude
told me he had heard and was listening. The step,
slow, measured, infinitely cautious, was nearer now.
Halsey tried to loosen my fingers, but I was in a
paralysis of fright.
The swish of a body against the curving rail, as if
for guidance, was plain enough, and now whoever it
was had reached the foot of the staircase and had
caught a glimpse of our rigid silhouettes against the
billiard-room doorway. Halsey threw me off then and
strode forward.
"Who is it?" he called imperiously, and took a half-
dozen rapid strides toward the foot of the staircase.
Then I heard him mutter something; there was the
crash of a falling body, the slam of the outer door,


HALSEY MAKES A CAPTURE 117
and, for an instant, quiet. I screamed, I think. Then
I remember turning on the lights and finding Halsey,
white with fury, trying to untangle himself from1
something warm and fleecy. He had cut his forehead
a little on the lowest step of the stairs, and he was
rather a ghastly sight. He flung the white object at
me, and, jerking open the outer door, raced into the
darkness.
Gertrude had come on hearing the noise, and now
we stood, staring at each other over—of all things on
earth—a white silk and wool blanket, exquisitely fine!
1 It was the most unghostly thing in the world, with its
lavender border and its faint scent. Gertrude was the
first to speak.
"Somebody—had it?" she asked.
"Yes. Halsey tried to stop whoever it was and felL
Gertrude, that blanket is not mine. I have never seen
it before."
She held it up and looked at it: then she went to the
door on to the veranda and threw it open. Perhaps a
hundred feet from the house were two figures, that
moved slowly toward us as we looked. When they
came within range of the light, I recognized Halsey,
and with him Mrs. Watson, the housekeeper.


CHAPTER XH
ONE MYSTEEY FOE ANOTHEE
THE most commonplace incident takes on a new
appearance if the attendant circumstances
are unusual. There was no reason on earth
why Mrs. Watson should not have carried a blanket
down the east wing staircase, if she so desired. But
to take a blanket down at eleven o'clock at night, with
svery precaution as to noise, and, when discovered, to
fling it at Halsey and bolt—Halsey's word, and n
good one—into the grounds,—this made the incident
more than significant.
They moved slowly across the lawn and up the
steps. Halsey was talking quietly, and Mrs. Watson
was looking down and listening. She was a woman of
a certain amount of dignity, most efficient, so far as I
could see, although Liddy would have found fault if
she dared. But just now Mrs. Watson's face was an
enigma. She was defiant, I think, under her mask of
118


ONE MYSTERY FOR ANOTHER 119
submission, and she still showed the effect of nervous
shock.
"Mrs. Watson," I said severely, "will you be so
good as to explain this rather unusual occurrence?"
"I don't think it so unusual, Miss Innes." Her
voice was deep and very clear: just now it was some-
what tremulous. "I was taking a blanket down to
Thomas, who is—not well to-night, and I used this
staircase, as being nearer the path to the lodge.
When—Mr. Innes called and then rushed at me, I—I
was alarmed, and flung the blanket at him."
Halsey was examining the cut on his forehead in a
small mirror on the wall. It was not much of an in-
• jury, but it had bled freely, and his appearance was
rather terrifying.
"Thomas ill?" he said, over his shoulder. "Why, I
thought I saw Thomas out there as you made that
cyclonic break out of the door and over the porch."
I could see that under pretense of examining his
injury he was watching her through the mirror.
"Is this one of the servants' blankets, Mrs. Wat-
son?" I asked, holding up its luxurious folds to the
light.
"Everything else is locked away," she replied.


120 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Which was true enough, no doubt. I had rented the
house without bed furnishings.
"If Thomas is ill," Halsey said, "some member of
the f amfly ought to go down to see him. You needn't
bother, Mrs. Watson. I will take the blanket."
She drew herself up quickly, as if in protest, but
she found nothing to say. She stood smoothing the
folds of her dead black dress, her face as white as
"halk above it. Then she seemed to make up her mind.
"Very well, Mr. Innes," she said. "Perhaps you
would better go. I have done all I could."
And then she turned and Vent up the circular stair-
case, moving slowly and with a certain dignity. Be-
low, the three of us stared at one another across the
intervening white blanket.
"Upon my word," Halsey broke out, "this place is
a walking nightmare. I have the feeling that we three
outsiders who. have paid our money for the privilege
of staying in this spook-factory, are living on the
very top of things. We're on the lid, so to speak.
Now and then we get a sight of the things inside, but
we are not a part of them."
"Do you suppose," Gertrude asked doubtfully,
"that she really meant that blanket for Thomas?"
-,


ONE MYSTERY FOR ANOTHER 121
"Thomas was standing beside that magnolia tree,"
Halsey replied, "when I ran after Mrs. Watson. It's
down to this, Aunt Ray. Rosie's basket and Mrs.
•
Watson's blanket can only mean one thing: there is
somebody hiding or being hidden in the lodge. It
wouldn't surprise me if we hold the key to the whole
situation now. Anyhow, I'm going to the lodge to
investigate."
Gertrude wanted to go, too, but she looked so
shaken that I insisted she should not. I sent for Liddy
to help her to bed, and then Halsey and I started for
the lodge. The grass was heavy with dew, and, man-
like, Halsey chose the shortest way across the lawn.
Half-way, however, he stopped.
"We'd better go by the drive," he said. "This
isn't a lawn; it's a field. Where's the gardener these
days?"
"There isn't any," I said meekly. "We have been
thankful enough, so far, to have our meals prepared
and served and the beds aired. The gardener who be-
longs here is working at the club."
"Remind me to-morrow to send out a man from
town," he said. "I know the very fellow."
I record this scrap of conversation, just as I have


122 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
tried to put down anything and everything that had
a bearing on what followed, because the gardener Hal-
sey sent the next day played an important part in the
events of the next few weeks—events that culminated,
as you know, by stirring the country profoundly. At
that time, however, I was busy trying to keep my
skirts dry, and paid little or no attention to what
seemed then a most trivial remark.
Along the drive I showed Halsey where I had found
Rosie's basket with the bits of broken china piled in-
side. He was rather skeptical.
"Warner probably," he said when I had finished.
"Began it as a joke on Rosie, and ended by picking
up the broken china out of the road, knowing it would
play hob with the tires of the car." Which shows
how near one can come to the truth, and yet miss it
altogether.
At the lodge everything was quiet. There was a
light in the sitting-room down-stairs, and a faint
gleam, as if from a shaded lamp, in one of the upper
rooms. Halsey stopped and examined the lodge with
calculating eyes.
"I don't know, Aunt Ray," he said dubiously; "this
is hardly a woman's affair. If there's a scrap of any


ONE MYSTERY FOR ANOTHER 125
at last. I put my hand on the sick girl's forehead.
It was burning with fever, and I turned to where
Thomas lingered in the hallway.
"Will you tell me what you mean, Thomas John-
son, by not telling me this before?" I demanded in-
dignantly.
Thomas quailed.
"Mis' Louise wouldn' let me," he said earnestly. "I
wanted to. She ought to 'a' had a doctor the night she
came, but she wouldn' hear to it. Is she—is she very
bad, Mis' Innes?"
"Bad enough," I said coldly. "Send Mr. Innes up."
Halsey came up the stairs slowly, looking rather
interested and inclined to be amused. For a moment
he could not see anything distinctly in the darkened
room; he stopped, glanced at Rosie and at me, and
then his eyes fell on the restless head on the pillow.
I think he felt who it was before he really saw her;
he crossed the room in a couple of strides and bent
over the bed.
"Louise!" he said softly; but she did not reply, and
her eyes showed no recognition. Halsey was young,
and illness was new to him. He straightened himself
slowly, still watching her, and caught my arm.


126 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"She's dying, Aunt Ray!" he said huskily. "Dying!
Why, she doesn't know me!"
"Fudge!" I snapped, being apt to grow irritable
when my sympathies are aroused. "She's doing noth-
ing of the sort,—and don't pinch my arm. If you
want something to do, go and choke Thomas."
But at that moment Louise roused from her stupor
to cough, and at the end of the paroxysm, as Rosie
laid her back, exhausted, she knew us. That was all
Halsey wanted; to him consciousness was recovery.
He dropped on his knees beside the bed, and tried to
tell her she was all right, and we would bring her
around in a hurry, and how beautiful she looked—
only to break down utterly and have to stop. And at
that I came to my senses, and put him out.
"This instant!" I ordered, as he hesitated. "And
send Rosie here."
He did not go far. He sat on the top step of the
stairs, only leaving to telephone for a doctor, and
getting in everybody's way in his eagerness to fetch
and carry. I got him away finally, by sending him
to fix up the car as a sort of ambulance, in case the
doctor would allow the sick girl to be moved. He sent
Gertrude down to the lodge loaded with all manner


ONE MYSTERY FOR ANOTHER 127
of impossible things, including an armful of Turkish
towels and a box of mustard plasters, and as the two
girls had known each other somewhat before, Louise
brightened perceptibly when she saw her.
When the doctor from Englewood—the Casanova
doctor, Doctor Walker, being away—had started for
Sunnyside, and I had got Thomas to stop trying to
explain what he did not understand himself, I had a
long talk with the old man, and this is what I learned.
On Saturday evening before, about ten o'clock, he
had been reading in the sitting-room down-stairs, when
some one rapped at the door. The old man was alone,
Warner not having arrived, and at first he was uncer-
tain about opening the door. He did so finally, and
was amazed at being confronted by Louise Arm-
strong. Thomas was an old family servant, having
been with the present Mrs. Armstrong since she was
a child, and he was overwhelmed at seeing Louise. He
saw that she was excited and tired, and he drew her
into the sitting-room and made her sit down. After a
while he went to the house and brought Mrs. Watson,
and they talked until late. The old man said Louise
was in trouble, and seemed frightened. Mrs. Watson
made some tea and took it to the lodge, but Louise


128 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
made them both promise to keep her presence a secret.
She had not known that Sunnyside was rented, and
whatever her trouble was, this complicated things. She
seemed puzzled. Her stepfather and her mother were
still in California—that was all she would say about
them. Why she had run away no one could imagine.
Mr. Arnold Armstrong was at the Greenwood Club,
and at last Thomas, not knowing what else to do, went
over there along the path. It was almost midnight.
Part-way over he met Armstrong himself and brought
him to the lodge. Mrs. Watson had gone to the house
for some bed-linen, it having been arranged that un-
der the circumstances Louise would be better at the
lodge until morning. Arnold Armstrong and Louise
had a long conference, during which he was heard to
storm and become very violent. When he left it was
after two. He had gone up to the house—Thomas did
not know why—and at three o'clock he was shot at
the foot of the circular staircase.
The following morning Louise had been ill. She
had asked for Arnold, and was told he had left town.
Thomas had not the moral courage to tell her of the
crime. She refused a doctor, and shrank morbidly
from having her presence known. Mrs. Watson and
.-..


130 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
spent some time in the lodge the night before he was
murdered, I was no nearer the solution of .the crime.
Who was the midnight intruder who had so alarmed
Liddy and myself? Who had fallen down the clothes
chute? Was Gertrude's lover a villain or a victim?
Time was to answer all these things.


132 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
self, and watching her closely. Afterward he told me
that she had had a narrow escape from pneumonia,
and that the cerebral symptoms had been rather alarm-
ing. I said I was glad it wasn't an "itis" of some
kind, anyhow, and he smiled solemnly.
He left after breakfast, saying that he thought the
worst of the danger was over, and that she must be
kept very quiet.
"The shock of two deaths, I suppose, has done this,"
he remarked, picking up his case. "It has been very
deplorable."
I hastened to set him right.
"She does not know of either, Doctor," I said.
"Please do not mention them to her."
He looked as surprised as a medical man ever does.
"I do not know the family," he said, preparing to
get into his top buggy. "Young Walker, down in
Casanova, has been attending them. I understand he
is going to marry this young lady."
"You have been misinformed," I said stiffly. "Miss
Armstrong is going to marry my nephew."
The doctor smiled as he picked up the reins.
"Young ladies are changeable these days," he said.
"We thought the wedding was to occur soon. Well, I


LOUISE 133
will stop in this afternoon to see how my patient is
getting along."
He drove away then, and I stood looking after him.
He was a doctor of the old school, of the class of fam-
ily practitioner that is fast dying out; a loyal and
honorable gentleman,who was at once physician and
confidential adviser to his patients. When I was a girl
we called in the doctor alike when we had measles, or
when mother's sister died in the far West. He cut out
redundant tonsils and brought the babies with the
same air of inspiring self-confidence. Nowadays it
requires a different specialist for each of these occur-
rences. When the babies cried, old Doctor Wain-
wright gave them peppermint and dropped warm
sweet oil in their ears with sublime faith that if it
was not colic it was earache. When, at the end of a
year, father met him driving in his high side-bar
buggy with the white mare ambling along, and asked
for a bill, the doctor used to go home, estimate what
his services were worth for that period, divide it in
half—I don't think he kept any books—and send
father a statement, in a cramped hand, on a sheet of
ruled white paper. He was an honored guest at all the
weddings, christenings, and funerals—yes, funerals—


134 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
for every one knew he had done his best, and there was
no gainsaying the ways of Providence.
Ah, well, Doctor Wainwright is gone, and I am an
elderly woman with an increasing tendency to live in
the past. The contrast between my old doctor at home
and the Casanova doctor, Frank Walker, always
rouses me to wrath and digression.
Some time about noon of that day, Wednesday, Mrs.
Ogden Fitzhugh telephoned me. I have the barest
acquaintance with her—she managed to be put on the
governing board of the Old Ladies' Home and ruins
their digestions by sending them ice-cream and cake
on every holiday. Beyond that, and her reputation at
bridge, which is insufferably bad—she is the worst
player at the bridge club—I know little of her. It
was she who had taken charge of Arnold Armstrong's
funeral, however, and I went at once to the telephone.
"Yes," I said, "this is Miss Innes."
"Miss Innes," she said volubly, "I have just re-
ceived a very strange telegram from my cousin, Mrs.
Armstrong. Her husband died yesterday, in Cali-
fornia and—wait, I will read you tht message."
I knew what was coming, and I made up my mind
at once. If Louise Armstrong had a good and suffi-
..


LOUISE 135
cient reason for leaving her people and coming home,
a reason, moreover, that kept her from going at once
to Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh, and that brought her to the
lodge at Sunnyside instead, it was not my intention to
betray her. Louise herself must notify her people. I
do not justify myself now, but remember, I was in a
peculiar position toward the Armstrong family. I was
connected most unpleasantly with a cold-blooded
crime, and my niece and nephew were practically beg-
gared, either directly or indirectly, through the head
of the family.
Mrs. Fitzhugh had found the message.
"'Paul died yesterday. Heart disease,'" she read.
"Wire at once if Louise is with you.' You see, Miss
Innes, Louise must have started east, and Fanny is
alarmed about her."
"Yes," I said.
"Louise is not here," Mrs. Fitzhugh went on, "and
none of her friends—the few who are still in town—
has seen her. I called you because Sunnyside was not
rented when she went away, and Louise might have
gone there."
"I am sorry, Mrs. Fitzhugh, but I can not help
you," I said, and was immediately filled with com-


136 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
punction. Suppose Louise grew worse? Who was I
to play Providence in this case? The anxious mother
certainly had a right to know that her daughter was
in good hands. So I broke in on Mrs. Fitzhugh's volu-
ble excuses for disturbing me.
"Mrs. Fitzhugh," I said. "I was going to let you
think I knew nothing about Louise Armstrong, but I
have changed my mind. Louise is here, with me.'*
There was a clatter of ejaculations at the other end
of the wire. "She is ill, and not able to be moved.
Moreover, she is unable to see any one. I wish you
would wire her mother that she is with me, and tell her
not to worry. No, I do not know why she came east."
"But my dear Miss Innes!" Mrs. Fitzhugh began.
I cut in ruthlessly.
"I will send for you as soon as she can see you," I
said. "No, she is not in a critical state now, but the
doctor says she must have absolute quiet."
When I had hung up the receiver, I sat down to
think. So Louise had fled from her people in Cali-
fornia, and had come east alone! It was not a new
idea, but why had she done it? It occurred to me that
Doctor Walker might be concerned in it, might pos-
sibly have bothered her with unwelcome attentions; but


LOUISE
it seemed to me that Louise was hardly a girl to take
refuge in flight under such circumstances. She had
always been high-spirited, with the well-poised head
and buoyant step of the outdoors girl. It must have
been much more in keeping with Louise's character, as
I knew it, to resent vigorously any unwelcome atten-
tions from Doctor Walker. It was the suitor whom I
should have expected to see in headlong flight, not the
lady in the case.
The puzzle was no clearer at the end of the half-
hour. I picked up the morning papers, which were
still full of the looting of the Traders' Bank, the in-
terest at fever height again, on account of Paul Arm-
strong's death. The bank examiners were working on
the books, and said nothing for publication: John
Bailey had been released on bond. The body of Paul
Armstrong would arrive Sunday and would be buried
from the Armstrong town house. There were rumors
that the dead man's estate had been a comparatively
small one. The last paragraph was the important one.
Walter P. Broadhurst, of the Marine Bank, had
produced two hundred American Traction bonds,
which had been placed as security with the Marine
Bank for a loan of one hundred and sixty thousand


138 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
dollars, made to Paul Armstrong, just before his Cali-
fornia trip. The bonds were a part of the missing
traction bonds from the Traders' Bank! While this
involved the late president of the wrecked bank, to
my mind it by no means cleared its cashier.
The gardener mentioned by Halsey came out about
two o'clock in the afternoon, and walked up from the
station. I was favorably impressed by him. His refer-
ences were good—he had been employed by the Brays'
until they went to Europe, and he looked young and
vigorous. He asked for one assistant, and I was glad
enough to get off so easily. He was a pleasant-faced
young fellow, with black hair and-blue eyes, and his
name was Alexander Graham. I have been particular
about Alex, because, as I said before, he played an im-
portant part later.
That afternoon I had a new insight into the char-
acter of the dead banker. I had my first conversation
with Louise. She sent for me, and against my better
judgment I went. There were so many things she
could not be told, in her weakened condition, that I
dreaded the interview. It was much easier than I ex-
pected, however, because she asked no questions.
Gertrude had gone to bed, having been up almost


LOUISE
139
all night, and Halsey was absent on one of those mys-
terious absences of his that grew more and more fre-
quent as time went on, until it culminated in the event
of the night of June the tenth. Liddy was in attend-
ance in the sick-room. There being little or nothing
to do, she seemed to spend her time smoothing the
wrinkles from the counterpane. Louise lay under a
field of virgin white, folded back at an angle of geo-
metrical exactness, and necessitating a readjustment
every time the sick girl turned.
Liddy heard my approach and came out to meet me.
She seemed to be in a perpetual state of goose-flesh,
and she had got in the habit of looking past me when
she talked, as if she saw things. It had the effect of
making me look over my shoulder to see what she was
staring at, and was intensely irritating.
"She's awake," Liddy said, looking uneasily down
the circular staircase, which was beside me. "She was
talkin' in her sleep something awful—about dead men
and coffins."
"Liddy," I said sternly, "did you breathe a word
about everything not being right here?"
Liddy's gaze had wandered to the door of the chute,
now bolted securely.


LOUISE 141
I thought she was going to break down, but she did
cot.
"You are not to think of anything but of getting
well," I said, patting her hand. "When you are bet-
ter, I am going to scold you for not coming here at
once. This is your home, my dear, and of all people in
the world, Halsey's old aunt ought to make you wel-
come."
She smiled a little, sadly, I thought.
"I ought not to see Halsey," she said. "Miss Innes,
there are a great many things you will never under-
stand, I am afraid. I am an impostor on your sym-
pathy, because I—I stay here and let you lavish care
on me, and all the time I know you are going to de-
spise me."
"Nonsense!" I said briskly. "Why, what would
Halsey do to me if I even ventured such a thing? He
is so big and masterful that if I dared to be anything
but rapturous over you, he would throw me out of a
window. Indeed, he would be quite capable of it."
She seemed scarcely to hear my facetious tone. She
had eloquent brown eyes—the Inneses are fair,' and
are prone to a grayish-^rreen optic that is better for


142 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
use than appearance—and they seemed now to be
clouded with trouble.
"Poor Halsey!" she said softly. "Miss Innes, I can
not marry him, and I am afraid to tell him. I am a
coward—a coward!"
I sat beside the bed and stared at her. She was too
ill to argue with, and, besides, sick people take queer
fancies.
"We will talk about that when you are stronger," I
said gently.
"But there are some things I must tell you," she in-
sisted. "You must wonder how I came here, and why
I stayed hidden at the lodge. Dear old Thomas has
been almost crazy, Miss Innes. I did not know that
Sunnyside was rented. I knew my mother wished to
rent it, without telling my—stepfather, but the news
must have reached her after I left. When I started
east, I had only one idea—to be alone with my
thoughts for a time, to bury myself here. Then, I—
must have taken a cold on the train."
"You came east in clothing suitable for California,"
I said, "and, like all young girls nowadays, I don't
suppose you wear flannels." But she was not listening.


LOUISE 143
"Miss Innes," she said, "has my stepbrother Arnold
gone away?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, startled. But Louise
was literal.
"He didn't come back that night," she said, "and it
was so important that I should see him."
"I believe he has gone away," I replied uncertainly.
"Isn't it something that we could attend to instead?"
But she shook her head. "I must do it myself," she
said dully. "My mother must have rented Sunnyside
without telling my stepfather, and—Miss Innes, did
you ever hear of any one being wretchedly poor in the
middt of luxury?
"Did you ever long, and long, for money—money
to use without question, money that no one would take
you to task about? My mother and I have been sur-
rounded for years with every indulgence—everything
that would make a display. But we have never had
any money, Miss Innes; that must have been why
mother rented this house. My stepfather pays our
bills. It's the most maddening, humiliating existence
in the world. I would love honest poverty better."
"Never mind," I said; "when you and Halsey are
r


LOUISE 145
pose he kissed her. There was silence for a moment,
as if words were superfluous things.
"I have been almost wild, sweetheart,"—Halsey's
voice. "Why didn't you trust me, and send for me be-
fore?"
"It was because I couldn't trust myself," she said
in a low tone. "I am too weak to struggle to-day; oh,
Halsey, how I have wanted to see you!"
There was something I did not hear, then Halsey
again.
"We could go away," he was saying. "What does
it matter about any one in the world but just the two
of us? To be always together, like this, hand in hand;
Louise—don't tell me it isn't going to be. I won't be-
lieve you."
"You don't know; you don't know," Louise repeated
dully. "Halsey, I care—you know that—but—not
enough to marry you."
"That is not true, Louise," he said sternly. "You
can not look at me with your honest eyes and say
that."
"I can not marry you," she repeated miserably.
"It's bad enough, isn't it? Don't make it worse.
Some day, before long, you will be glad."
/ 1


146 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Then it is because you have never loved me."
There were depths of hurt pride in his voice. "You
saw how much I loved you, and you let me think you
cared—for a while. No—that isn't like you, Louise.
There is something you haven't told me. Is it—
because there is some one else?"
"Yes," almost inaudibly. v
"Louise! Oh, I don't believe it."
"It is true," she said sadly. "Halsey, you must not
try to see me again. As soon as I can, I am going
away from here—where you are all so much kinder
than I deserve. And whatever you hear about me, try
to think as well of me as you can. I am going to
marry—another man. How you must hate me—hate
me!"
I could hear Halsey cross the room to the window.
Then, after a pause, he went back to her again. I
could hardly sit still; I wanted to go in and give her a
good shaking.
"Then it's all over," he was saying with a longj
breath. "The plans we made together, the hopes, the
—all of it—over! Well, I'll not be a baby, and I'll
give you up the minute you say 'I don't love you and
I do "love—some one else'!"


LOUISE 147
"I can not say that," she breathed, "but, very soon,
I shall marry—the other man."
I could hear Halsey's low triumphant laugh.
"I defy him," he said. "Sweetheart, as long as you
care for me, I am not afraid."
The wind slammed the door between the two rooms
just then, and I could hear nothing more, although I
moved my chair quite close. After a discreet interval,
I went into the other room, and found Louise alone.
She was staring with sad eyes at the cherub painted on
the ceiling over the bed, and because she looked tired
I did not disturb her.


CHAPTER XIV
AN EGG-NOG AND A TELEGRAM
WE had discovered Louise at the lodge
Tuesday night. It was Wednesday I
had my interview with her. Thursday
and Friday were uneventful, save as they marked im-
provement in our patient. Gertrude spent almost all
the time with her, and the two had grown to be great
friends. But certain things hung over me constantly;
the coroner's inquest on the death of Arnold Arm-
strong, to be held Saturday, and the arrival of Mrs.
Armstrong and young Doctor Walker, bringing the
body of the dead president of the Traders' Bank. We
had not told Louise of either death.
Then, too, I was anxious about the children. With
their mother's inheritance swept away in the wreck of
the bank, and with their love affairs in a disastrous
condition, things could scarcely be worse. Added to
that, the cook and Liddy had a flare-up over the
148


AN EGG-NOG AND A TELEGRAM 149
proper way to make beef-tea for Louise, and, of
course, the cook left.
Mrs. Watson had been glad enough, I think, to
turn Louise over to our care, and Thomas went up-
stairs night and morning to greet his young mistress
from the doorway. Poor Thomas! He had the fac-
ulty—found still in some old negroes, who cling to
the traditions of slavery days—of making his employ-
er's interest his. It was always "we" with Thomas.
I miss him sorely; pipe-smoking, obsequious, not over
reliable, kindly old man!
On Thursday Mr. Harton, the Armstrongs' legal
adviser, called up from town. He had been advised,
he said, that Mrs. Armstrong was coming east with
her husband's body and would arrive Monday. He
came with some hesitation, he went on, to the fact that
he had been further instructed to ask me to relinquish
my lease on Sunnyside, as it was Mrs. Armstrong's
desire to come directly there.
I was aghast.
"Here!" I said. "Surely you are mistaken, Mr.
Harton. I should think, after—what happened here
only a few days ago, she would never wish to come
back."


150 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Nevertheless," he replied, "she is most anxious to
come. This is what she says. 'Use every possible
means to have Sunnyside vacated. Must go there at
once.'"
"Mr. Harton," I said testily, "I am not going to
do anything of the kind. I and mine have suffered
enough at the hands of this family. I rented the
house at an exorbitant figure and I have moved out
here for the summer. My city home is dismantled and
in the hands of decorators. I have been here one week,
during which I have had not a single night of unin-
terrupted sleep, and I intend to stay until I have
recuperated. Moreover, if Mr. Armstrong died
insolvent, as I believe was the case, his widow ought to
be glad to be rid of so expensive a piece of property."
The lawyer cleared his throat.
"I am very sorry you have made this decision," he
said. "Miss Innes, Mrs. Fitzhugh tells me Louise
Armstrong is with you."
"She is."
"Has she been informed of this—double bereave-
ment?"
"Not yet," I said. "She has been very ill; perhaps
to-night she can be told."


AN EGG-NOG AND A TELEGRAM 151
"It is very sad; very sad," he said. "I have a tele-
gram for her, Mrs. Innes. Shall I send it out?"
"Better open it and read it to me," I suggested. "If
it is important, that will save time."
There was a pause while Mr. Harton opened the
telegram. Then he read it slowly, judicially.
"'Watch for Nina Carrington. Home Monday.
Signed F. L. W.'"
"Hum!" I said. "'Watch for Nina Carrington.
Home Monday.' Very well, Mr. Harton, I will tell
her, but she is not in condition to watch for any one."
"Well, Miss Innes, if you decide to—er—relin-
quish the lease, let me know," the lawyer said.
"I shall not relinquish it," I replied, and I imagined
his irritation from the way he hung up the receiver.
I wrote the telegram down word for word, afraid
to trust my memory, and decided to ask Doctor Stew-
art how soon Louise might be told the truth. The
closing of the Traders' Bank I considered unneces-
sary for her to know, but the death of her stepfather
and stepbrother must be broken to her soon, or she
might hear it in some unexpected and shocking man-
ner.
Doctor Stewart came about four o'clock, bringing


152 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
his leather satchel into the house with a great deal of
care, and opening it at the foot of the stairs to show
me a dozen big yellow eggs nesting among the bottles.
"Real eggs," he said proudly. "None of your
anemic store eggs, but the real thing—some of them
still warm. Feel them! Egg-nog for Miss Louise."
He was beaming with satisfaction, and before he
left, he insisted on going back to the pantry and mak-
ing an egg-nog with his own hands. Somehow, all the
time he was doing it, I had a vision of Doctor Wil-
loughby, my nerve specialist in the city, trying to
make an egg-nog. I wondered if he ever prescribed
anything so plebeian—and so delicious. And while
Doctor Stewart whisked the eggs he talked.
"I said to Mrs. Stewart," he confided, a little red in
the face from the exertion, "after I went home the
other day, that you would think me an old gossip, for
saying what I did about Walker and Miss Louise."
"Nothing of the sort," I protested.
"The fact is," he went on, evidently justifying him-
self, "I got that piece of information just as we get
a lot of things, through the kitchen end of the house.
Young Walker's chauffeur—Walker's more fashiona-
ble than I am, and he goes around the country in a


AN EGG-NOG AND A TELEGRAM 153
Stanhope car—well, his chauffeur comes to see our
servant girl, and he told her the whole thing. I
thought it was probable, because Walker spent a lot
of time up here last summer, when the family was
here, and besides, Riggs, that's Walker's man, had a
very pat little story about the doctor's building a
house on this property, just at the foot of the hill.
The sugar, please."
The egg-nog was finished. Drop by drop the
liquor had cooked the egg, and now, with a final
whisk, a last toss in the shaker, it was ready, a sym-
phony in gold and white. The doctor sniffed it.
"Real eggs, real milk, and a touch of real Ken-
tucky whisky," he said.
He insisted on carrying it up himself, but at the
foot of the stairs he paused.
"Riggs said the plans were drawn for the house,"
he said, harking back to the old subject. "Drawn by
Huston in town. So I naturally believed him."
When the doctor came down, I was ready with a
question.
"Doctor," I asked, "is there any one in the neigh-
borhood named Carrington? Nina Carrington?"
"Carrington?" He wrinkled his forehead. "Car-
-


154 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
rington? No, I don't remember any such family.
There used to be Covingtons down the creek."
"The name was Carrington," I said, and the subject
lapsed.
Gertrude and Halsey went for a long walk that
afternoon, and Louise slept. Time hung heavy on my
hands, and I did as I had fallen into a habit of doing
lately—I sat down and thought things over. One re-
sult of my meditations was that I got up suddenly
and went to the telephone. I had taken the most in-
tense dislike to this Doctor Walker, whom I had never
seen, and who was being talked of in the countryside
as the fiance of Louise Armstrong.
I knew Sam Huston well. There had been a time,
when Sam was a good deal younger than he is now,
before he had married Anne Endicott, when I knew
him even better. So now I felt no hesitation in calling
him over the telephone. But when his office boy had
given way to his confidential clerk, and that function-
ary had condescended to connect his employer's desk
telephone, I was somewhat at a loss as to how to begin.
"Why, how are you, Rachel?" Sam said sonorously.
"Going to build that house at Rock View?" It was a
twenty-year-old joke of his.


AN EGG-NOG AND A TELEGRAM 155
"Sometime, perhaps," I said. "Just now I want to
ask you a question about something which is none of
my business."
"I see you haven't changed an iota in a quarter of a
century, Rachel." This was intended to be another
jest. "Ask ahead: everything but my domestic af-
fairs is at your service."
"Try to be serious," I said. "And tell me this:
has your firm made any plans for a house recently, for
a Doctor Walker, at Casanova?"
"Yes, we have."
"Where was it to be built? I have a reason for ask-
ing."
"It was to be, I believe, on the Armstrong place.
Mr. Armstrong himself consulted me, and the infer-
ence was—in fact, I am quite certain—the house was
to be occupied by Mr. Armstrong's daughter, who was
engaged to marry Doctor Walker."
When the architect had inquired for the different
members of my family, and had finally rung off, I was
certain of one thing. Louise Armstrong was in love
with Halsey, and the man she was going to marry
was Doctor Walker. Moreover, this decision was not
new; marriage had been contemplated for some time.


156 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
There must certainly be some explanation—but what
was it?
That day I repeated to Louise the telegram Mr.
Harton had opened. She seemed to understand, but
an unhappier face I have never seen. She looked like
a criminal whose reprieve is over, and the day of exe-
cution approaching.


158 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
We had a quiet hour, Halsey and I, that evening,
and I told him several things; about the request that
we give up the lease to Sunnyside, about the telegram
to Louise, about the rumors of an approaching mar-
riage between the girl and Doctor Walker, and, last of
all, my own interview with her the day before.
He sat back in a big chair, with his face in the
shadow, and my heart fairly ached for him. He was
so big and so boyish! When I had finished 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 and her mother
went west, I was the happiest fellow on earth. Then
something made a difference: she wrote me .that her
people were opposed to the marriage; that her feeling
for me was what it had always been, but that some-
thing had happened which had changed her ideas as
to the future. 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 na-


LIDDY GIVES THE ALARM 159
ture of the interview between Louise Armstrong and
Arnold the night he was murdered?"
"It was stormy. Thomas says once or twice he al-
most broke into the room, he was so alarmed for
Louise."
"Another thing, Halsey," I said, "have you ever
heard Louise mention a woman named Carrington,
Nina Carrington?"
"Never," he said positively.
For try as we would, our thoughts always came
back to that fatal Saturday night, and the murder.
Every conversational path led to it, and we all felt
that Jamieson was tightening the threads of evidence
around John Bailey. The detective's absence was
hardly reassuring; he must 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 in his apartments at the Knick-
erbocker—a condition not surprising, considering ev-
erything. The guilt of the defunct president was no
longer in doubt; the missing bonds had been adver-
tised and some of them discovered. In every instance
they had been used as collateral for large loans, and
the belief was current that not less than a million and


160 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
a half dollars had been realized. Every one connected
with the bank had been placed under arrest, and re-
leased on heavy bond.
Was he alone in his guilt, or was the cashier his ac-
complice? Where was the money? The estate of the
dead man was comparatively small—a city house on a
fashionable street, Sunnyside, a large estate largely
mortgaged, an insurance of fifty thousand dollars, and
some personal property—this was all. The rest lost
in speculation probably, the papers said. There was
one thing which looked uncomfortable for Jack Bai-
ley: he and Paul Armstrong together had promoted a
railroad company in New Mexico, and it was rumored
that together they had sunk large sums of money
there. The business alliance between the two men
added to the belief that Bailey knew something of the
looting. His unexplained absence from the bank on
Monday lent color to the suspicion against him. The
strange thing seemed to be his surrendering himself
on the point of departure. To me, it seemed the
shrewd calculation of a clever rascal. I was not active-
ly antagonistic to Gertrude's lover, but I meant to be
convinced, one way or the other. I took no one on
faith.


LIDDY GIVES THE ALARM 161
That night the Sunnyside. ghost began to walk
again. ILiddy had been sleeping in Louise's dressing-
room on a couch, and the approach of dusk was a sig-
nal for her to barricade the entire suite. Situated as it
was, beyond the circular staircase, nothing but an ex-
tremity of excitement would have made her pass it
after dark. I confess myself that the place seamed to
me to have a sinister appearance, but we kept that
wing well lighted, and until the lights went out at
midnight it was really cheerful, if one did not know
its history.
On Friday night, then, I had gone to bed, resolved
to go at once to sleep. Thoughts that insisted on ob-
truding themselves I pushed resolutely to the back of
my mind, and I systematically relaxed every muscle.
I fell asleep soon, and was dreaming that Doctor
Walker was building his new house immediately in
front of my windows: I could hear the thump-thump
of the hammers, and then I waked to a knowledge that
somebody was pounding on my door.
I was up at once, and with the sound of my foot-
step on the floor the low knocking ceased, to be
followed immediately by sibilant whispering through
the keyhole.
'


162 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Miss Rachel! Miss Rachel!" somebody was say-
ing, 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 flannel petticoat over her shoul-
ders.
"Listen," she said, standing in the middle of the
floor and holding on to me. "Oh, Miss Rachel, it's the
ghost of that dead man hammering to get 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 to locate. One
moment it seemed to come, three taps and a pause,
from the floor under us: the next, thud—thud—thud
—it came apparently from the wall.
"It's not a ghost," I said decidedly. "If it was a
ghost it wouldn't rap: it would come through the key-
hole." Liddy looked at the keyhole. "But it sounds
very much as though some one is trying to break into
the house."


LIDDY GIVES THE ALARM 163
Liddy was shivering violently. I told her to get me
my slippers and she brought me a pair of kid gloves,
so I found my things myself, and prepared to call
Halsey. As before, the night alarm had found the
electric lights gone: the hall, save for its night lamp,
was in darkness, as I went across to Halsey's room. I
hardly know what I feared, but it was a relief to find
him there, very sound asleep, and with his door un-
locked.
"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. Her scruples seemed to fade,
however, all at once. She gave a suppressed yell,
bolted into the room, and stood tightly clutching
the foot-board of 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 the exigency of the occasion. "All right,


164 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Aunt Ray," he said, still yawning. "If you'll let me
get into something—"
It was all I could do to get Liddy out of the room.
The demands of the occasion had no influence on her:
she had seen the ghost, she persisted, and she wasn't
going into the hall. But I got her over to my 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 commenced again, but they were fainter.
Halsey came over in a few minutes, and stood listening
and trying to locate the sound.
"Give me my revolver, Aunt Ray," he said; and
I got it—the one I had found in the tulip bed—and
gave it to him. He saw Liddy there and divined at
once that Louise was alone.
"You let me attend to this fellow, whoever it is,
Aunt Ray, and go to Louise, will you? She may be
awake and alarmed."
■ So in spite of her protests, I left Liddy alone and
went back to the east wing. Perhaps I went a little
faster past the yawning blackness of the circular stair-
case; and I could hear Halsey creaking .cautiously
down the main staircase. The rapping, or pounding,


LIDDY GIVES THE ALARM 165
had ceased, and the silence was almost painful. And
then suddenly, from apparently under my very feet,
there rose a woman's scream, a cry of terror that
broke off as suddenly as it came. I stood frozen and
1 still. Every drop of blood in my body seemed to leave
the surface and gather around my heart. In the dead
silence that followed it throbbed as if it would burst.
More dead than alive, I stumbled into Louise's bed-
room. She was not there!


*
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE EABiLY MOKNING
I STOOD looking at the empty bed. The cover-
ings had been thrown back, and Louise's pink
silk dressing-gown was gone from the foot,
where it had lain. The night lamp burned dimly,
revealing the emptiness of the place. I picked it up,
but my hand shook so that I put it down again, and
got somehow to the door.
There were voices in the hall and Gertrude came
running toward me.
"What is it?" she cried. "What was that sound?
Where is Louise?"
"She is not in her room," I said stupidly. "I think
—-it was she—who screamed."
Liddy had joined us now, carrying a light. We
stood huddled together at the head of the circular
staircase, looking down into its shadows. There was
nothing to be seen, and it was absolutely quiet down
166



^^
Huddled in a heap, was Louise Armstrong." Page 16





IN THE EARLY MORNING 167
there. Then we heard Halsey running up the main
staircase. He came quickly down the hall to where we
were standing.
"There's no one trying to get in. I thought I
heard some one shriek. Who was it?"
Our stricken faces told him the truth.
"Some one screamed down there," I said. "And—
and Louise is not in her room."
With a jerk Halsey took the light from Liddy and
ran down the circular staircase. I followed him, more
slowly. My nerves seemed to be in a state of paraly-
sis: I could scarcely step. At the foot of the stairs
Halsey gave an exclamation and put down the light.
"Aunt Ray," he called sharply.
At the foot of the staircase, huddled in a heap, her
head on the lower stair, was Louise Armstrong. She
lay limp and white, her dressing-gown dragging loose
from one sleeve of her night-dress, and the heavy
braid of her dark hair stretching its length a couple
of steps above her head, as if she had slipped down.
She was not dead: Halsey put her down on the floor,
and began to rub her cold hands, while Gertrude and
Liddy ran for stimulants. As for me, I sat there at
the foot of that ghostly staircase—sat, because my


168 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
knees wouldn't hold me—and wondered where it would
all end. Louise was still unconscious, but she was
breathing better, and I suggested that we get her back
to bed before she came to. There was something
grisly and horrible to me, seeing her there in almost
the same attitude and in the same place where we had
found her brother's body. And to add to the simi-
larity, just then the hall clock, far off, struck faintly
three o'clock.
It was four before Louise was able to talk, and the
first rays of dawn were coming through her windows,
which faced the east, before she could tell us cohe-
rently what had occurred. I give it as she told it.
She lay propped in bed, and Halsey sat beside her,
unrebuffed, and held her hand while she talked.
"I was not sleeping well," she began, "partly, I
think, because I had slept during the afternoon.
Liddy brought me some hot milk at ten o'clock and I
slept until twelve. Then I wakened and—I got to
thinking about things, and worrying, so I could not
go to sleep. •
"I was wondering why I had not heard from Arnold
since the—since I saw him that night at the lodge. I
was afraid he was ill, because—he was to have done


IN THE EARLY MORNING 169
something for me, and he had not come back. It mu/.'c
have been three when I heard some one rapping. I
sat up and listened, to be quite sure, and the capping
kept up. It was cautious, and I was about to call
Liddy. Then suddenly I thought I kiK.v what it was.
The east entrance and the circular staircase were al-
ways used by Arnold when he was out late, and some-
times, when he forgot his key, he would rap and I
would go down and let him in. I thought he had come
back to see me—I didn't think about the time, for his
hours were always erratic. But I was afraid I was
too weak to get down the stairs. The knocking kept
up, and just as I was about to call Liddy, she ran
through the room and out into the hall. I got up then,
feeling weak and dizzy, and put on my dressing-gown.
If it was Arnold, I knew I must see him.
"It was very dark everywhere, but, of course, I
knew my way. I felt along for the stair-rail, and went
down as quickly as I could. The knocking had
stopped, and I was afraid I was too late. I got to the
foot of the staircase and over to the door on to the east
veranda. I had never thought of anything but that it
was Arnold, until I reached the door. It was unlocked
and opened about an inch. Everything was black: it
.'
V


170 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
W^s perfectly dark outside. I felt very queer and
shaky. Then I thought perhaps Arnold had used his
key; he ^id—strange things sometimes, and I turned
around. Just, as I reached the foot of the staircase I
thought I heard some one coming. My nerves were go-
ing anyhow, there in the dark, and I could scarcely
stand. I got up as far as the third or fourth step;
then I felt that some one was coming toward me on the
staircase. The next instant a hand met mine on t.
stair-rail. Some one brushed past me, and I screamed.
Then I must have fainted."
That was Louise's story. There could be no doubt
of its truth, and the thing that made it inexpressibly
awful to me was that the poor girl had crept down to
answer the summons of a brother who would never
need her kindly offices again. Twice now, without ap-
parent cause, some one had entered the house by means
of the east entrance: had apparently gone his way un-
hindered through the house, and gone out again as he
'had entered. Had this unknown visitor been there a
third time, the night Arnold Armstrong was mur-
dered? Or a fourth, the time Mr. Jamieson had locked
.some one in the clothes chute?
Sleep was impossible, I think, for any of us. We


IN THE EARLY MORNING 171
dispersed finally to bathe and dress, leaving Louise
little the worse for her experience. But I determined
that before the day was over she must know the true
state of affairs. Another decision I made, and I put
it into execution immediately after breakfast. I had
one of the unused bedrooms in the east wing, back
along the small corridor, prepared for occupancy, and
from that time on, Alex, the gardener, slept there.
One man in that barn of a house was an absurdity,
with things happening all the time, and I must say
that Alex was as unobjectionable as any one could
possibly have been.
The next morning, also, Halsey and I made an ex-
haustive examination of the circular staircase, the
small entry at its foot, and the card-room opening
from it. There was no evidence of anything unusual
the night before, and had we not ourselves heard the
rapping noises, I should have felt that Louise's imag-
ination had run away with her. The outer door was
closed and locked, and the staircase curved above us,
for all the world like any other staircase.
Halsey, who had never taken seriously my account
of the night Liddy and I were there alone, was grave
enough now. He examined the paneling of the wain-


172 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
scoting above and below the stairs, evidently looking
for a secret door, and suddenly there flashed into my
mind the recollection of a scrap of paper that Mr.
Jamieson had found among Arnold Armstrong's ef-
fects. As nearly as possible I repeated its contents to
him, while Halsey took them down in a note-book.
"I wish you had told me that before," he said, as
he put the memorandum carefully away. We found
nothing at all in the house, and I expected little from
any examination of the porch and grounds. But as
we opened the outer door something fell into the entry
with a clatter. It was a cue from the billiard-room.
Halsey picked it up with an exclamation.
"That's careless enough," he said. "Some of tb*
servants have been amusing themselves."
I was far from convinced. Not one of the servants
would go into that wing at night unless driven by dire
necessity. And a billiard cue! As a weapon of either
offense or defense it was an absurdity, unless one ac-
cepted Liddy's hypothesis of a ghost, and even then,
as Halsey pointed out, a billiard-playing ghost would
be a very modern evolution of an ancient institution.
That afternoon we, Gertrude, Halsey and I, attend-
ed the coroner's inquest in town. Doctor Stewart had


IN THE EARLY MORNING 173
been summoned also, it transpiring that in that early
Sunday morning, when Gertrude and I had gone to
our rooms, he had been called to view the body. We
went, the four of us, in the machine, preferring'the:
execrable roads to the matinee train, with half of Cas-
anova staring at us. And on the way we decided to
say nothing of Louise and her interview with her step-
brother the night he died. The girl was in trouble
enough as it was.


A HINT OF SCANDAL 175
Mr. Harton was there, too, looking impatient as the
inquest dragged, but alive to every particle of evi-
dence. From a corner Mr. Jamieson was watching the
proceedings intently. %
Doctor Stewart was called first. His evidence was
told briefly, and amounted to this: on the Sunday
morning previous, at a quarter before five, he had been
called to the telephone. The message was from a Mr.
Jarvis, who asked him to come at once to Sunnyside,
as there had been an accident there, and Mr. Arnold
Armstrong had been shot. He had dressed hastily,
gathered up some instruments, and driven to Sunny-
side.
He was met by Mr. Jarvis, who took him at once to
the east wing. There, just as he had fallen, was the
body of Arnold Armstrong. There was no need of
the instruments: the man was dead. In answer to
the coroner's question—no, the body had not been
moved, save to turn it over. It lay at the foot of the
circular staircase. Yes, he believed death had been
instantaneous. The body was still somewhat warm
and rigor mortis had not set in. It occurred late in
cases of sudden death. No, he believed the probability
of suicide might be eliminated; the wounds could have


176 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
been self-inflicted, but with difficulty, and there had
been no weapon found.
The doctor's examination was over, but he hesitated
and cleared his throat.
"Mr. Coroner," he said, "at the risk of taking up
valuable time, I would like to speak of an incident that
may or may not throw some light on this matter."
The audience was alert at once.
"Kindly proceed, Doctor," the coroner said.
"My home is in Englewood, two miles from Casa-
nova," the doctor began. "In the absence of Doctor
Walker, a number of Casanova people have been con-
sulting me. A month ago—five weeks, to be exact—a
woman whom I had never seen came to my office. She
was in deep mourning and kept her veil down, and she
brought for examination a child, a boy of six. The
little fellow was ill; it looked like typhoid, and the
mother was frantic. She wanted a permit to admit the
youngster to the Children's Hospital in town here,
where I am a member of the staff, and I gave her one.
The incident would have escaped me, but for a curious
thing. Two days before Mr. Armstrong was shot, I
was sent for to go to the Country Club: some one had
been struck with a golf-ball that had gone wild. It


178 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
backward, piercing both the heart and lungs. The
left lung was collapsed, and the exit point of the ball
had been found in the muscles of the back to the left
of the spinal column. It was improbable that such a
wound had been self-inflicted, and its oblique down-
ward course pointed to the fact that the shot had been
fired from above. In other words, as the murdered
man had been found dead at the foot of a staircase, it
was probable that the shot had been fired by some one
higher up on the stairs. There were no marks of
powder. The bullet, a thirty-eight caliber, had been
found in the dead man's clothing, and was shown to
the jury.
Mr. Jarvis was called next, but his testimony
amounted to little. He had been summoned by tele-
phone to Sunnyside, had come over at once with the
steward and Mr. Winthrop, at present out of town.
They had been admitted by the housekeeper, and had
found the body lying at the foot of the staircase. He
had made a search for a weapon, but there was none
around. The outer entry door in the east wing had
been unfastened and was open about an inch.
I had been growing more and more nervous. When
the coroner called Mr. John Bailey, the room was


180 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"No."
"What occurred next?"
"Mr. Bailey and I talked in the billiard-room until
two-thirty."
"And Mr. Arnold Armstrong came there, while you
were talking?"
"Yes. He came about half-past two. He rapped
at the east door, and I admitted him."
The silence in the room was intense. Mr. Jamie-
son's eyes never left Halsey's face.
"Will you tell us the nature of his errand?"
"He brought a telegram that had come to the club
for Mr. Bailey."
"He was sober?"
"Perfectly, at that time. Not earlier."
"Was not his apparent friendliness a change from
his former attitude?"
"Yes. I did not understand it."
"How long did he stay?"
"About five minutes. Then he left, by the east en-
trance."
"What occurred then?"
"We talked for a few minutes, discussing a plan


A HINT OF SCANDAL 181
Mr. Bailey had in mind. Then I went to the stables,
where I kept my car, and got it out."
"Leaving Mr. Bailey alone in the billiard-room?"
Halsey hesitated.
"My sister was there."
Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh had the courage to turn and
eye Gertrude through her lorgnon.
"And then?"
"I took the car along the lower road, not to disturb
the household. Mr. Bailey came down across the lawn,
through the hedge, and got into the car on the road."
"Then you know nothing of Mr. Armstrong's
movements after he left the house?"
"Nothing. I read of his death Monday evening for
the first time."
"Mr. Bailey did not see him on his way across the
lawn?"
"I think not. If he had seen him he would hare
spoken of it."
"Thank you. That is all. Miss Gertrude Innes."
Gertrude's replies were fully as concise as Halsey's.
Mrs. Fitzhugh subjected her to a close inspection,
commencing with her hat and ending with her shoes.


iffts THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
I flatter myself she found nothing wrong with either
her gown or her manner, but poor Gertrude's testi-
mony was the reverse of comforting. She had been
summoned, she said, by her brother, after Mr. Arm-
strong had gone. She had waited in the billiard-room
with Mr. Bailey, until the automobile had been ready.
Then she had locked the door at the foot of the stair-
case, and, taking a lamp, had accompanied Mr. Bailey
to the main entrance of the house, and had watched
him cross the lawn. Instead of going at once to her
room, she had gone back to the billiard-room for some-
thing which had been left there. The card-room and
billiard-room were in darkness. She had groped
around, found the article she was looking for, and was
on the point of returning to her room, when she had
heard some one fumbling at the lock at the east outer
door. She had thought it was probably her brother,
and had been about to go to the door, when she heard
it open. Almost immediately there was a shot, and she
had run panic-stricken through the drawing-room and
had roused the house.
"You heard no other sound?" the coroner asked.
"There was no one with Mr. Armstrong when he en-
tered?"


A HINT OF SCANDAL 183
"It was perfectly dark. There were no voices and
I heard nothing. There was just the opening of the
door, the shot, and the sound of somebody falling."
"Then, while you went through the drawing-room
and up-stairs to alarm the household, the criminal,
whoever it was, could have escaped by the east door?"
"Yes."
"Thank you. That will do."
I natter myself that the coroner got little enough
out of me. I saw Mr. Jamieson smiling to himself,
and the coroner gave me up, after a time. I admitted
I had found the body, said I had not known who it
was until Mr. Jarvis told me, and ended by looking up
at Barbara Fitzhugh and saying that in renting the
house I had not expected to be involved in any family
scandal. At which she turned purple.
The verdict was that Arnold Armstrong had met
his death at the hands of a person or persons un-
known, and we all prepared to leave. Barbara Fitz-
hugh flounced out without waiting to speak to me, but
Mr. Harton came up, as I knew he would.
"You have decided to give up the house, I hope,
Miss Innes," he said. "Mrs. Armstrong has wired me
again."


184 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"I am not going to give it up," I maintained, "un-
til I understand some things that are puzzling me.
The day that the murderer is discovered, I will leave."
"Then, judging by what I have heard, you will be
back in the city very soon," he said. And I knew that
he suspected the discredited cashier of the Traders'
Bank.
Mr. Jamieson came up to me as I was about to leave
the coroner's office.
"How is your patient?" he asked with his odd little
Bmile.
"I have no patient," I replied, startled.
"I will put it in a different way, then. How is Miss
Armstrong?"
"She—she is doing very well," I stammered.
"Good," cheerfully. "And our ghost? Is it laid?"
"Mr. Jamieson," I said suddenly, "I wish you would
do one thing: I wish you would come to Sunnyside and
spend a few days there. The ghost is not laid. I
want you to spend one night at least watching the cir-
cular staircase. The murder of Arnold Armstrong
was a beginning, not an end."
He looked serious.


A HINT OF SCANDAL 185
"Perhaps I can do it," he said. "I have been doing
something else, but—well, I will come out to-night."
We were very silent during the trip back to Sunny-
side. I watched Gertrude closely and somewhat sadly.
To me there was one glaring flaw in her story, and it
seemed to stand out for every one to see. Arnold Arm-
strong had had no key, and yet she said she had locked
the east door. He must have been admitted from with-
in the house; over and over I repeated it to myself.
That night, as gently as I could, I told Louise the
story of her stepbrother's death. She sat in her big,
pillow-filled chair, and heard me through without in-
terruption. It was clear that she was shocked beyond
words: if I had hoped to learn anything from her ex-
pression, I had failed. She was as much in the dark
as we were.


A HOLE IN THE WALL 187
her mother would mean, of course, that she would have
to leave us, and I had become greatly attached to her.
From the day Mr. Jamieson came to Sunnyside,
there was a subtle change in Gertrude's manner to me.
It was elusive, difficult to analyze, but it was there.
She was no longer frank with me, although I think
her affection never wavered. At the time I laid the
change to the fact that I had forbidden all communi-
cation with John Bailey, and had refused to acknow-
ledge any engagement between the two* Gertrude
spent much of her time wandering through the
grounds, or taking long cross-country walks. Halsey
played golf at the Country Club day after day, and
after Louise left, as she did the following week, Mr.
Jamieson and I were much together. He played a fair
game of cribbage, but he cheated at solitaire.
The night the detective arrived, Saturday, I had a
talk with him. I told him of the experience Louise
Armstrong had had the night before, on the circular
staircase, and about the man who had so frightened
Rosie on the drive. I saw that he thought the infor-
mation was important, and to my suggestion that we
put an additional lock on the east wing door he op-
posed a strong negative.


r88 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"tthink it probable," he said, "that our visitor will
be back again, and the thing to do is to leave things
exactly as they are, to avoid rousing suspicion. Then
I can watch for at least a part of each night and
probably Mr. Innes will help us out. I would say as
little to Thomas as possible. The old man knows more
than he is willing to admit."
I suggested that Alex, the gardener, would prob-
ably be willing to help, and Mr. Jamieson undertook
to make the arrangement. For one night, however,
Mr. Jaraieson preferred to watch alone. Apparently
nothing occurred. The detective sat in absolute dark-
ness on the lower step of the stairs, dozing, he said
afterwards, now and then. Nothing could pass him
in either direction, and the door in the morning re-
mained as securely fastened as it had been the night
before. And yet one of the most inexplicable oc-
currences of the whole affair took place that very
night.
Liddy came to ray room on Sunday morning with
a face as long as the moral law. She laid out my
things as usual, but I missed her customary garrulous"
ness. I was not regaled with the new cook's extrava-
gance as to eggs, and she even forbore to mention


A HOLE IN THE WALL 189
"that Jamieson," on whose arrival she had looked with
silent disfavor.
"What's the matter, Liddy?" I asked at last.
"Didn't you sleep last night?"
"No, ma'm," she said stiffly.
"Did you have two cups of coffee at your dinner?"
I inquired.
"No, ma'm," indignantly.
I sat up and almost upset my hot water—I always
take a cup of hot water with a pinch of salt, before I
get up. It tones the stomach.
"Liddy Allen," I said, "stop combing that switch
and tell me what is wrong with you."
Liddy heaved a sigh.
"Girl and woman," she said, "I've been with you
twenty-five years, Miss Rachel, through good temper
and bad—" the idea! and what I have taken from her
in the way of sulks!—"but I guess I can't stand it
any longer. My trunk's packed."
"Who packed it?" I asked, expecting from her tone
to be told she had wakened to find it done by some
ghostly hand.
"I did; Miss Rachel, you won't believe me when I
tell you this house is haunted. Who was it fell down


A HOLE IN THE WALL 191
and various store-rooms, including a large airy linen-
room, opened from a long corridor, like that on the
second floor. And in the trunk-room, as Liddy had
said, was a fresh break in the plaster.
Not only in the plaster, but through the lathing,
the aperture extended. I reached into the opening, and
three feet away, perhaps, I could touch the bricks of
the partition wall. For some reason, the architect, in
building the house, had left a space there that struck
me, even in the surprise of the discovery, as an excel-
lent place for a conflagration to gain headway.
"You are sure the hole was not here yesterday?" I
asked Liddy, whose expression was a mixture of satis-
faction and alarm. In answer she pointed to the new
cook's trunk—that necessary adjunct of the migra-
tory domestic. The top was covered with fine white
plaster, as was the floor. But there were no large
pieces of mortar lying around—no bits of lathing.
When I mentioned this to Liddy she merely raised her
eyebrows. Being quite confident that the gap was of
unholy origin, she did not concern herself with such
trifles as a bit of mortar and lath. No doubt they
were even then heaped neatly on a gravestone in the
Casanova churchyard!


A HOLE IN THE WALE 193
dening thing, however, was that the nightly visitor
had evidently more than one way of gaining access to
the house, and we made arrangements to redouble our
vigilance as to windows and doors that night.
Halsey was inclined to pooh-pooh the whole affair.
He said a break in the plaster might have occurred
months ago and gone unnoticed, and that the dust
had probably been stirred up the day before. After
all, we had to let it go at that, but we put in an un-
comfortable Sunday. Gertrude went to church, and
Halsey took a long walk in the morning. Louise
was able to sit up, and she allowed Halsey and Liddy
to assist her down-stairs late in the afternoon. The
east veranda was shady, green with vines and palms,
cheerful with cushions and lounging chairs. We put
Louise in a steamer chair, and she sat there passively
enough, her hands clasped in her lap.
We were very silent. Halsey sat on the rail with a
pipe, openly watching Louise, as she looked brood-
ingly across the valley to the hills. There was some-
thing baffling in the girl's eyes; and gradually
Halsey's boyish features lost their glow at seeing her
about again, and settled into grim lines. He was like
his father just then.


194 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
We sat until late afternoon, Halsey growing more
and more moody. Shortly before six, he got up and
went into the house, and in a few minutes he came
out and called me to the telephone. It was Anna
Whitcomb, in town, and she kept me for twenty min-
| utes, telling me the children had had the measles, and
how Madame Sweeny had botched her new gown.
When I finished, Liddy was behind me, her mouth
a thin line.
"I wish you would try to look cheerful, Liddy," I
groaned, "your face would sour milk." But Liddy
seldom replied to my gibes. She folded her lips a
little tighter.
"He called her up," she said oracularly, "he called
her up, and asked her to keep you at the telephone,
so he could talk to Miss Louise. A thankless child is
sharper than a serpent's tooth."
"Nonsense!" I said bruskly. "I might have known
enough to leave them. It's a long time since you and
I were in love, Liddy, and—we forget."
Liddy sniffed.
"No man ever made a fool of me," she replied vir-
tuously.
"Well, something did," I retorted.


CHAPTER XIX
CONCERNING THOMAS
""m WR. JAMIESON," I said, when we found
I %/ I ourselves alone after dinner that night,
JL » JL. "the inquest yesterday seemed to me the
merest recapitulation of things that were already
known. It developed nothing new beyond the story
of Doctor Stewart's, and that was volunteered."
"An inquest is only a necessary formality, Miss
Innes," he replied. "Unless a crime is committed in
the open, the inquest does nothing beyond getting
evidence from witnesses while events are still in their
minds. The police step in later. You and I both know
how many important things never transpired. For
instance: the dead man had no key, and yet Miss
Gertrude testified to a fumbling at the lock, and then
the opening of the door. The piece of evidence you
mention, Doctor Stewart's story, is one of those things
we have to take cautiously: the doctor has a patient
195


196 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
who wears black and does not raise her veil. Why,
it is the typical mysterious lady! Then the good doc-
tor comes across Arnold Armstrong, who was a grace-
less scamp—de mortuis—what's the rest of it?—and
he is quarreling with a lady in black. Behold, says
the doctor, they are one and the same."
"Why was Mr. Bailey not present at the inquest?"
The detective's expression was peculiar.
"Because his physician testified that he is ill, and
unable to leave his bed."
"Ill!" I exclaimed. "Why, neither Halsey nor Ger-
trude has told me that."
"There are more things than that, Miss Innes,
that are puzzling. Bailey gives the impression
that he knew nothing of the crash at the bank until
he read it in the paper Monday night, and that he
went back and surrendered himself immediately. I do
not believe it. Jonas, the watchman at the Traders'
Bank, tells a different story. He says that on the
Thursday night before, about eight-thirty, Bailey
went back to the bank. Jonas admitted him, and he
says the cashier was in a state almost of collapse.
Bailey worked until midnight, then he closed the vault
and went away. The occurrence was so unusual that


CONCERNING THOMAS 197
the watchman pondered over it all the rest of the
night. What did Bailey do when he went back to the
Knickerbocker apartments that night? He packtd a
suit-case ready for instant departure. But he held off
too long; he waited for something. My personal
opinion is that he waited to see Miss Gertrude before
flying from the country. Then, when he had shot
down Arnold Armstrong that night, he had to choose
between two evils. He did the thing that would im-
mediately turn public opinion in his favor, and sur-
rendered himself, as an innocent man. The strongest
thing against him is his preparation for flight, and
his deciding to come back after the murder of Arnold
Armstrong. Pie was shrewd enough to disarm eus-
picion as to the graver charge."
The evening dragged along slowly. Mrs. Watson
came to my bedroom before I went to bed and asked
if I had any arnica. She showed me a badly swollen
hand, with reddish streaks running toward the elbow;
she said it was the hand she had hurt the night of the
murder a week before, and that she had not slept well
since. It looked to me as if it might be serious, and I
told her to let Doctor Stewart see it.
The next morning Mrs. Watson went up to town


CONCERNING THOMAS 199
the house, do it, if you possibly can. I am afraid—
to have you stay."
That was all. Gertrude went into town with her
and saw her safely home. She reported a decided cool-
ness in the greeting between Louise and her mother,
and that Doctor Walker was there, apparently in
charge of the arrangements for the funeral. Halsey
disappeared shortly after Louise left and came home
about nine that night, muddy and tired. As for
Thomas, he went around dejected and sad, and I saw
the detective watching him closely at dinner. Even
now I wonder—what did Thomas know? What did he
suspect?
At ten o'clock the household had settled down for
the night. Liddy, who was taking Mrs. Watson's
place, had finished examining the tea-towels and the
corners of the shelves in the cooling-room, and had
gone to bed. Alex, the gardener, had gone heavily up
the circular staircase to his room, and Mr. Jamieson
was examining the locks of the windows. Halsey
dropped into a chair in the living-room, and stared
moodily ahead. Once he roused.
"What sort of a looking chap is that Walker, Ger-
trude?" he asked.
r


200 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Rather tall, very dark, smooth-shaven. Not bad
looking," Gertrude said, putting down the book she
had been pretending to read. Halsey kicked a taboret
viciously.
"Lovely place this village must be in the winter,"
he said irrelevantly. "A girl would be buried alive
here."
It was then some one rapped at the knocker on the
heavy front door. Halsey got up leisurely and opened
it, admitting Warner. He was out of breath from
running, and he looked half abashed.
"I am sorry to disturb you," he said. "But I didn't
know what else to do. It's about Thomas."
"What about Thomas?" I asked. Mr. Jamieson
had come into the hall and we all stared at Warner.
"He's acting queer," Warner explained. "He's sit-
ting down there on the edge of the porch, and he says
he has seen a ghost. The old man looks bad, too; he
can scarcely speak."
"He's as full of superstition as an egg is of
jmeat," I said. "Halsey, bring some whisky and we
will all go down."
No one moved to get the whisky, from which I
judged there were three pocket flasks ready for emer-


CONCERNING THOMAS 201
gency. Gertrude threw a shawl around my shoulders,,
and we all started down over the hill: I had made so
many nocturnal excursions around the place that I
knew my way perfectly. But Thomas was not on the
veranda, nor was he inside the house. The men ex-
changed significant glances, and Warner got a lantern.
"He can't have gone far," he said. "He was trem-
bling so that he couldn't stand, when I left."
Jamieson and Halsey together made the round of
the lodge, occasionally calling the old man by name.
But there was no response. No Thomas came, bowing
and showing his white teeth through the darkness. I
began to be vaguely uneasy, for the first time. Ger-
trude, who was never nervous in the dark, went alone
down the drive to the gate, and stood there, looking
along the yellowish line of the road, while I waited on
the tiny veranda.
Warner was puzzled. He came around to the edge
of the veranda and stood looking at it as if it ought to
know and explain.
"He might have stumbled into the house," he said,
"but he could not have climbed the stairs. Anyhow,
he's not inside or outside, that I can see." The other
members of the party had come back now, and no oner


202 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
V
had found any trace of the old man. His pipe, still
warm, rested on the edge of the rail, and inside on the
table his old gray hat showed that its owner had not
gone far.
He was not far, after all. From the table my eyes
traveled around the room, and stopped at the door of
a closet. I hardly know what impulse moved me,
but I went in and turned the knob. It burst open with
the impetus of a weight behind it, and something fell
partly forward in a heap on the floor. It was Thomas
—Thomas without a mark of injury on him, and
dead.


CHAPTER XX
DOCTOR WALKER'S TAENINC
WARNER was on his knees in a moment,
fumbling at the old man's collar to
loosen it, but Halsey caught his hand.
"Let him alone," he said. "You can't help him; he
is dead."
We stood there, each avoiding the other's eyes; we
spoke low and reverently in the presence of death,
and we tacitly avoided any mention of the suspicion
that was in every mind. When Mr. Jamieson had
finished his cursory examination, he got up and dusted
the knees of his trousers.
"There is no sign of injury," he said, and I know
I, for one, drew a long breath of relief. "From what
Warner says and from his hiding in the closet, I
should say he was scared to death. Fright and a
weak heart, together."
"But what could have done it?" Gertrude asked.
203


204 THE CIRCULAR-STAIRCASE
"He was all right this evening at dinner. Warner,
what did he say when you found him on the porch?"
Warner looked shaken: his honest, boyish face was
colorless.
"Just what I told you, Miss Innes. He'd been
reading the paper down-stairs; I had put up the car,
and, feeling sleepy, I came down to the lodge to go
to bed. As I went up-stairs, Thomas put down the
paper and, taking his pipe, went out on the porch.
Then I heard an exclamation from him."
"What did he say?" demanded Jamieson.
"I couldn't hear, but his voice was strange; it
sounded startled. I waited for him to call out agah\
but he did not, so I went down-stairs. He was sitting
on the porch step, looking straight ahead, as if he
saw something among the trees across the road. And
he kept mumbling about having seen a ghost. He
looked queer, and I tried to get him inside, but he
wouldn't move. Then I thought I'd better go up to
che house."
"Didn't he say anything else you could under-
stand?" I asked.
"He said something about the grave giving up its
dead."



DOCTOR WALKER'S WARNING 205
Mr. Jamieson was going through the old man's
pockets, and Gertrude was composing his arms, fold-
ing them across his white shirt-bosom, always so spot-
less.
Mr. Jamieson looked up at me.
"What was that you said to me, Miss Innes, about
the murder at the house being a beginning and not an
end? By jove, I believe you were right!"
In the course of his investigations the detective had
come to the inner pocket of the dead butler's black
coat. Here he found some things that interested him.
One was a small flat key, with a red cord tied to it,
and the other was a bit of white paper, on which was
written something in Thomas' cramped hand. Mr.
Jamieson read it: then he gave it to me. It was an
address in fresh ink—
Lucien Wallace, 14 Elm Street, Richfield.
As the card went around, I think both the detective
and I watched for any possible effect it might have,
but, beyond perplexity, there seemed to be none.
"Richfield!" Gertrude exclaimed. "Why, Elm
Street is the main street; don't you remember, Hal-
sey?"


206 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Lucien Wallace!" Halsey said. "That is the
child Stewart spoke of at the inquest."
Warner, with his mechanic's instinct, had reached
for the key. What he said was not a surprise.
"Yale lock," he said. "Probably a key to the east
entry."
There was no reason why Thomas, an old and trust-
ed servant, should not have had a key to that particu-
lar door, although the servants' entry was in the west
ging. But I had not known of this key, and it opened
up a new field of conjecture. Just now, however, there
were many things to be attended to, and, leaving
Warner with the body, we all went back to the house.
Mr. Jamieson walked with me, while Halsey and Ger-
trude followed.
"I suppose I shall have to notify the Armstrongs,"
I said. "They will know if Thomas had any people
and how to reach them. Of course, I expect to defray
the expenses of the funeral, but his relatives must be
found. What do you think frightened him, Mr. /-.
Jamieson?"
"It is hard to say," he replied slowly, "but I think
we may be certain it was fright, and that he was hid-
ing from something. I am sorry in more than one


DOCTOR WALKER'S WARNING 207
way: I have always believed that Thomas knew some-
thing, or suspected something, that he would not tell.
Do you know how much money there was in that worn-
out wallet of his? Nearly a hundred dollars! Almost
two months' wages—and yet those darkies seldom have
a penny. Well—what Thomas knew will be buried
with him."
Halsey suggested that the grounds be searched,
but Mr. Jamieson vetoed the suggestion.
"You would find nothing," he said. "A person
clever enough to get into Sunnyside and tear a hole
in the wall, while I watched down-stairs, is not to be
found by going around the shrubbery with a lantern."
With the death of Thomas, I felt that a climax had
come in affairs at Sunnyside. The night that followed
was quiet enough. Halsey watched at the foot of the
staircase, and a complicated system of bolts on the
other doors seemed to be effectual.
Once in the night I wakened and thought I heard
the tapping again. But all was quiet, and I had
reached the stage where I refused to be disturbed for
minor occurrences.
The Armstrongs were notified of Thomas' death,
and I had my first interview with Doctor Walker as


DOCTOR WALKER'S WARNING 209
relatives, I have already notified his brother, in the
village. It was heart disease, I think. Thomas al-
ways had a bad heart."
"Heart disease and fright," I said, still on the edge
of my chair. But the doctor had no intention of leav-
ing.
"I understand you have a ghost up here, and that
you have the house filled with detectives to exorcise it,"
he said.
For some reason I felt I was being "pumped," as
Halsey says. "You have been misinformed," I re-
plied.
"What, no ghost, no detectives!" he said, still with
his smile. "What a disappointment to the village!"
I resented his attempt at playfulness. It had been
anything but a joke to us.
"Doctor Walker," I said tartly, "I fail to see any
humor in the situation. Since-T came here, one man
has been shot, and another one has died from shock.
There have been intruders in the house, and strange
noises. If that, is funny, there is something wrong
with my sense of humor."
"You miss the point," he said, still good-naturedly.
"The thing that is funny, to me, is that you insist on


210 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
remaining here, under the circumstances. I should
think nothing would keep you."
"You are mistaken. Everything that occurs only
confirms my resolution to stay until the mystery is
cleared."
"I have a message for you, Miss Lines," he said,
rising at last. "Mrs. Armstrong asked me to thank
you for your kindness to Louise, whose whim, occur-
ring at the time it did, put her to great inconvenience.
Also—and this is a delicate matter—she asked me to
appeal to your natural sympathy for her, at this time,
and to ask you if you will not reconsider your decision
about the house. Sunnyside is her home; she loves it
dearly, and just now she wishes to retire here for
quiet and peace."
"She must have had a change of heart," I said, un-
graciously enough. "Louise told me her mother de-
spised the place. Besides, this is no place for quiet
and peace just now. Anyhow, doctor, while I don't
care to force an issue, I shall certainly remain here,
for a time at least."
"For how long?" he asked.
"My lease is for six months. I shall stay until
some explanation is found for certain things. My


DOCTOR WALKER'S WARNING 211
own family is implicated now, and I shall do every-
thing to clear the mystery of Arnold Armstrong's
murder."
The doctor stood looking down, slapping his gloves
thoughtfully against the palm of a well-looked-after
hand.
"You say there have been intruders in the house?"
he asked. "You are sure of that, Miss Innes?"
"Certain."
"In what part?"
"In the east wing."
"Can you tell me when these intrusions occurred,
and what the purpose seemed to be? Was it robbery?"
"No," I said decidedly. "As to time, once on Friday
night a week ago, again the following night, when
Arnold Armstrong was murdered, and again last Fri-
day night."
The doctor looked serious. He seemed to be debat-
ing some question in his mind, and to reach a de-
cision.
"Miss Innes," he said, "I am in a peculiar position;
I understand your attitude, of course; but—do you
think you are wise? Ever since you have come here
there have been hostile demonstrations against you and


212 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
your family. I'm not a croaker, but—take a warning.
Leave before anything occurs that will cause you a
lifelong regret."
"I am willing to take the responsibility," I said
coldly.
I think he gave me up then as a poor proposition.
He asked to be shown where Arnold Armstrong's body
had been found, and I took him there. He scrutinized
the whole place carefully, examining the stairs and
the lock. When he had taken a formal farewell I was
confident of one thing. Doctor Walker would do any-
thNg he could to get me away from Sunnyside.


CHAPTER XXI
FOnilEEN ELM STEEET
IT was Monday evening when we found the body
of poor old Thomas. Monday night had been
uneventful; things were quiet at the house and
the peculiar circumstances of the old man's death had
been carefully kept from the servants. Rosie took
charge of the dining-room and pantry, in the absence
of a butler, and, except for the warning of the Casa-
nova doctor, everything breathed of peace.
Affairs at the Traders' Bank were progressing
slowly. The failure had hit small stock-holders very
hard, the minister of the little Methodist chapel in
Casanova among them. He had received as a legacy
from an uncle a few shares of stock in the Traders'
Bank, and now his joy was turned to bitterness: he
had to sacrifice everything he had in the world, and
his feeling against Paul Armstrong, dead, as he was,
must have been bitter in the extreme. He was asked
213


2H THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
to officiate at the simple services when the dead bank-
er's body was interred in Casanova churchyard, but
the good man providentially took cold, and a substi-
tute was called in.
A few days after the services he called to see me, a
kind-faced little man, in a very bad frock-coat and
laundered tie. I think he was uncertain as to my con-
nection with the Armstrong family, and dubious
whether I considered Mr. Armstrong's taking away a
matter for condolence or congratulation. He was not
long in doubt.
I liked the little man. He had known Thomas well,
and had promised to officiate at the services in the
rickety African Zion Church. He told me more of
himself than he knew, and before he left, I astonished
him—and myself, I admit—by promising a new
carpet for his church. He was much affected, and I
gathered that he had yearned over his ragged chapel
as a mother over a half-clothed child.
"You are laying up treasure, Miss Innes," he said
brokenly, "where neither moth nor rust corrupt, nor
thieves break through and steal."
"It is certainly a safer place than Sunnyside," I
admitted. And the thought of the carpet permitted


FOURTEEN ELM STREET 215
him to smile. He stood just inside the doorway, look-
ing from the luxury of the house to the beauty of the
view.
"The rich ought to be good," he said wistfully.
"They have so much that is beautiful, and beauty is
ennobling. And yet—while I ought to say nothing
but good of the dead—Mr. Armstrong saw nothing
of this fair prospect. To him these trees and lawns
were not the work of God. They were property, at
so much an acre. He loved money, Miss Innes. He
offered up everything to his golden calf. Not power,
not ambition, was his fetish: it was money." Then
he dropped his pulpit manner, and, turning to me with
his engaging smile: "In spite of all this luxury," he
said, "the country people here have a saying that Mr.
Paul Armstrong could sit on a dollar and see all
around it. Unlike the summer people, he gave neither
to the poor nor to the church. He loved money for its
own sake."
"And there are no pockets in shrouds!" I said
cynically.
I sent him home in the car, with a bunch of hot-
house roses for his wife, and he was quite overwhelmed.
As for me, I had a generous glow that was cheap at


216 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
the price of a church carpet. I received less gratifica-
tion—and less gratitude—when I presented the new
silver communion set to St. Barnabas.
I had a great many things to think about in those
days. I made out a list of questions and possible an-
swers, but I seemed only to be working around in a
circle. I always ended where I began. The list was
something like this:
Who had entered the house the night before the murder?
Thomas claimed it was Mr. Bailey, whom he had seen on the
foot-path, and who owned the pearl cuff-link.
Why did Arnold Armstrong come back after he had left the
house the night he was killed?
No answer. Was it on the mission Louise had mentioned?
Who admitted him?
Gertrude said she had locked the east entry. There was no
key on the daad man or in the door. He must have been ad-
mitted from within.
Who had been locked in the clothes chute?
Some one unfamiliar with the house, evidently. Only two
people missing from the household, Rosie and Gertrude. Rosie
had been at the lodge. Therefore—but was it Gertrude? Might
it not have been the mysterious intruder again?
Who had accosted Rosie on the drive?
Again—perhaps the nightly visitor. It seemed more likely
some one who suspected a secret at the lodge. Was Louise under
surveillance?
Who had passed Louise on the circular staircase?
Could it have been Thomas? The key to the east entry made
this a possibility. But why was he there, if it were indeed he?
Who had made the hole in the trunk-room wall?



FOURTEEN ELM STREET
It was not vandalism. It had been done quietly, and wit^ de-
liberate purpose. If I had only known how to read the purpose
of that gaping aperture what I might have saved in anxiety and
mental strain!
Why had Louise left her people and come home to hide/
lodge?
There was no answer, as yet, to this, or to the next questions.
Why did both she and Doctor Walker warn us away from the
house?
Who was Lucien Wallace?
What did Thomas see in the shadows the night he died?
What was the meaning of the subtle change in Gertrude?
Was Jack Bailey an accomplice or a victim in the looting of
the Traders' Bank?
What all-powerful reason made Louise determine to marry
Doctor Walker?
The examiners were still working on the books of
the Traders' Bank, and it was probable that several
weeks would elapse before everything was cleared up.
The firm of expert accountants who had examined the
books some two months before testified that every
bond, every piece of valuable paper, was there at that
time. It had been shortly after their examination that
the president, who had been in bad health, had gone to
California. Mr. Bailey was still ill at the Knicker-
bocker, and in this, as in other ways, Gertrude's
conduct puzzled me. She seemed indifferent, refused to
discuss matters pertaining to the bank, and never, to
&y knowledge, either wrote to him or went to see him.


2.i8 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Gradually I came to the conclusion that Gertrude, with
the [rest of the world, believed her lover guilty, and—
although I believed it myself, for that matter—I was
irritated by her indifference. Girls in my day did not
meekly accept the public's verdict as to the man they
loved.
But presently something occurred that made me
think that under Gertrude's surface calm there was a
seething flood of emotions.
Tuesday morning the detective made a careful
search of the grounds, but he found nothing. In the
arternoon he disappeared, and it was late that night
when he came home. He said he would have to go
back to the city the following day, and arranged with
Halsey and Alex to guard the house.
Liddy came to me on Wednesday morning with her
black silk apron held up like a bag, and her eyes big
with virtuous wrath. It was the day of Thomas' fu-
neral in the village, and Alex and I were in the con-
servatory cutting flowers for the old man's casket.
Liddy is never so happy as when she is making her-
self wretched, and now her mouth drooped while her
Eyes were triumphant.
"I always said there were plenty of things going on


FOURTEEN ELM STREET 221
of the scraps, and, sure enough, it was a blank deposit
slip from the Traders' Bank. So Gertrude was going
to meet Jack Bailey that night by the bridge! And I
had thought he was ill! It hardly seemed like the
action of an innocent man—this avoidance of day-'
light, and of his fiancee's people. I decided to make
certain, however, by going to the bridge that night.
After luncheon Mr. Jamieson suggested that I go
with him to Richfield, and I consented.
"I am inclined to place more faith in Doctor Stew-
art's story," he said, "since I found that scrap in old
Thomas' pocket. It bears out the statement that the
woman with the child, and the woman who quarreled
with Armstrong, are the same. It looks as if Thomas
had stumbled on to some affair which was more or less
discreditable to the dead man, and, with a certain loy-
alty to the family, had kept it to himself. Then, you
see, your story about the woman at the card-room
window begins to mean something. It is the nearest
approach to anything tangible that we have had yet."*
Warner took us to Richfield in the car. It was
about twenty-five miles by railroad, but by taking a
series of atrociously rough short cuts we got there
very quickly. It was a pretty little town, on the river,
V


FOURTEEN ELM STREET 223
"Mrs. Tate, we want to make some inquiries. Per-
haps in the house—"
"Come right in," she said hospitably. And soon
we were in the little shabby parlor, exactly like a,
thousand of its prototypes. Mrs. Tate sat uneasily,
her hands folded in her lap.
"How long has Lucien been here?" Mr. Jamieson
asked.
"Since a week ago last Friday. His mother paid
one week's board in advance; the other has not been
paid."
"Was he ill when he came?"
"No, sir, not what you'd call sick. He was getting
better of typhoid, she said, and he's picking up fine."
"Will you tell me his mother's name and address?"
"That's the trouble," the youngv woman said, knit-
ting her brows. "She gave her name as Mrs. Wallace,
and said she had no address. She was looking for a
boarding-house in town. She said she worked in a
department store, and couldn't take care of the child
properly, and he needed fresh air and milk. I had
three children of my own, and one more didn't make
much difference in the work, but—I wish she would
pay this week's board."


224 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Did she say what store it was?"
"No, sir, but all the boy's clothes came from King's.
He has far too fine clothes for the country."
There was a chorus of shouts and shrill yells from
the front door, followed by the loud stamping of chil-
dren's feet and a throaty "whoa, whoa!" Into the
room came a tandem team of two chubby youngsters,
a boy and a girl, harnessed with a clothes-line, and
driven by a laughing boy of about seven, in tan over-
alls and brass buttons. The small driver caught my
attention at once: he was a beautiful child, and,
although he showed traces of recent severe illness, his
skin had now the clear transparency„of health.
"Whoa, Flinders," he shouted. "You're goin' to
smash the trap."
Mr. Jamieson coaxed him over by holding out a
lead-pencil, striped blue and yellow.
"Now, then," he said, when the boy had taken the
lead-pencil and was testing its usefulness on the detect-
ive's cuff, "now then, I'll bet you don't know what
your name is!"
"I do," said the boy. "Lucien Wallace."
"Great! And what's your mother's name?"
"Mother, of course. What's your mother's name?"


226 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Very well," I said. "Now, Mrs. Tate, I am going
to pay last week's board and a week in advance. If
the mother comes, she is to know nothing of this visit
—absolutely not a word, and, in return for your si-
lence, you may use this money for—something for
your own children."
Her tired, faded face lighted up, and I saw her
glance at the little Tates' small feet. Shoes, I di-
vined—the feet of the genteel poor being almost as ex-
pensive as their stomachs.
As we went back Mr. Jamieson made only one re-
mark: I think he was laboring under the weight of a
great disappointment.
"Is King's a children's outfitting place?" he asked.
"Not especially. It is a general department store."
He was silent after that, but he went to the tele-
phone as soon as we got home, and called up King
and Company, in the city.
After a time he got the general manager, and they
talked for some time. When Mr. Jamieson hung up
the receiver he turned to me.
"The plot thickens," he said with his ready smile.
"There are four women named Wallace at King's,
none of them married, and none over twenty. I think


FOURTEEN ELM STREET 227
I shall go up to the city to-night. I want to go to the
Children's Hospital. But before I go, Miss Innes, I
wish you would be more frank with me than you have
been yet. I want you to show me the revolver you
picked up in the tulip bed."
So he had known all along!
"It was a revolver, Mr. Jamieson," I admitted, cor-
nered at last, "but I can not show it to you. It is not
in my possession."


CHAPTER XXII
A LADDEK OUT OF PLACE
AT dinner Mr. Jamieson suggested sending a
man out in his place for a couple of days, but
L. Halsey was certain there would be nothing
more, and felt that he and Alex could manage the
situation. The detective went back to town early in
the evening, and by nine o'clock Halsey, who had been
playing golf—as a man does anything to take his
mind away from trouble—was sleeping soundly on the
big leather davenport in the living-room.
I sat and knitted, pretending not to notice when
Gertrude got up and wandered out into the starlight.
As soon as I was satisfied that she had gone, however,
I went out cautiously. I had no intention of eaves-
dropping, but I wanted to be certain that it was Jack
Bailey she was meeting. Too many things had oc-
curred in which Gertrude was, or appeared to be, in-
volved, to allow anything to be left in question.
228


230 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
door at the east entry to remain as before, locked by
the Yale lock only. To provide only one possible en-
trance for the invader, and to keep a constant guard
in the dark at the foot of the circular staircase, seemed
to be the only method.
In the absence of the detective, Alex and Halsey
arranged to change off, Halsey to be on duty from ten
to two, and Alex from two until six. Each man was
armed, and, as an additional precaution, the one off
duty slept in a room near the head of the circular stair-
case and kept his door open, to be ready for emer-
gency.
These arrangements were carefully kept from the
servants, who were only commencing to sleep at night,
and who retired, one and all, with barred doors and
lamps that burned full until morning.
The house was quiet again Wednesday night. It
was almost a week since Louise had encountered some
one on the stairs, and it was four days since the dis-
covery of the hole in the trunk-room wall. Arnold1
Armstrong and his father rested side by side in tho
Casanova churchyard, and at the Zion African Church,
on the hill, a new mound marked the last resting-place
of poor Thomas.


A LADDER OUT OF PLACE 231
Louise was with her mother in town, and, beyond a
polite note of thanks to me, we had heard nothing
from her. Doctor Walker had taken up his practice
again, and we saw him now and then flying past
along the road, always at top speed. The murder of
Arnold Armstrong was still unavenged, and I re-
mained firm in the position I had taken—to stay at
Sunnyside until the thing was at least partly cleared.
And yet, for all its quiet, it was on Wednesday
night that perhaps the boldest attempt was made to
enter the house. On Thursday afternoon the laundress
sent word she would like to speak to me, and I saw her
in my private sitting-room, a small room beyond the
dressing-room.
Mary Anne was embarrassed. She had rolled down
her sleeves and tied a white apron around her waist,
and she stood making folds in it with fingers that
were red and shiny from her soap-suds.
"Well, Mary," I said encouragingly, "what's the
matter? Don't dare to tell me the soap is out."
"No, ma'm, Miss Innes." She had a nervous habit
of looking first at my one eye and then at the other,
her own optics shifting ceaselessly, right eye, left eye,
right eye, until I found myself doing the same thing.


232 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"No, ma'm. I was askin' did you want the ladder left
up the clothes chute?"
"The what?" I screeched, and was sorry the next
minute. Seeing her suspicions were verified, Mary
Anne had gone white, and stood with her eyes shifting
more wildly than ever.
"There's a ladder up the clothes chute, Miss Innes,"
she said. "It's up that tight I can't move it, and I
didn't like to ask for help until I spoke to you."
It was useless to dissemble; Mary Anne knew now
as well as I did that the ladder had no business to be
there. I did the best I could, however. I put her on
the defensive at once.
"Then you didn't lock the laundry last night?"
"I locked it tight, and put the key in the kitchen on
its nail."
"Very well, then you forgot a window."
Mary Anne hesitated.
"Yes'm," she said at last. "I thought I locked
them all, but there was one open this morning."
I went out of the room and down the hall, followed
by Mary Anne. The door into the clothes chute was
securely bolted, and when I opened it I saw the evi-
dence of the woman's story. A pruning-ladder had


A LADDER OUT OF PLACE 233
been brought from where it had lain against the stable
and now stood upright in the clothes shaft, its end
resting against the wall between the first and second
floors.
I turned to Mary.
"This is due to your carelessness," I said. "If we
had all been murdered in our beds it would have been
your fault." She shivered. "Now, not a word of
this through the house, and send Alex to me."
The effect on Alex was to make him apoplectic with
rage, and with it all I fancied there was an element of
satisfaction. As I look back, so many things are
plain to me that I winder I could not see at the time.
It is all known now, and yet the whole thing was so re-
markable that perhaps my stupidity was excusable.
Alex leaned down the chute and examined the ladder
carefully.
"It is caught," he said with a grim smile. "The'
fools, to have left a warning like that! The only
trouble is, Miss Innes, they won't be apt to come back
for a while."
"I shouldn't regard that in the light of a calamity,"
I replied.
Until late that evening Halsey and Alex worked at


234 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
the chute. They forced down the ladder at last, and
put a new bolt on the door. As for myself, I sat and
wondered if I had a deadly enemy, intent on my de-
struction.
I was growing more and more nervous. Liddy had
given up all pretense at bravery, and slept regularly
in my dressing-room on the couch, with a prayer-book
and a game knife from the kitchen under her pillow,
thus preparing for both the natural and the super-
natural. That was the way things stood that Thurs-
day night, when I myself took a hand in the struggle.


i
CHAPTER XXin
WHILE THE STABLES BUSNES
A BOUT nine o'clock that night Liddy came into
/_m the living-room and reported that one of the
A- JL housemaids declared she had seen two men
slip around the corner of the stable. Gertrude had
been sitting staring in front of her, jumping at every
sound. Now she turned on Liddy pettishly.
"I declare, Liddy," she said, "you are a bundle of
nerves. What if Eliza did see some men around the
stable? It may have been Warner and Alex."
"Warner is in the kitchen, miss," Liddy said with
dignity. "And if you had come through what I have,
you would be a bundle of nerves, too. Miss Rachel,
I'd be thankful if you'd give me my month's wages
to-morrow. I'll be going to my sister's."
"Very well," I said, to her evident amazement. "T
will make out the check. Warner can take you down
to the noon train."
* 235


236 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
.
Liddy's face was really funny.
"You'll have a nice time at your sister's," I went
on. "Five children, hasn't she?"
"That's it," Liddy said, suddenly bursting into
tears. "Send me away, after all these years, and your
new shawl only half done, and nobody knowin' how to
fix the water for your bath."
"It's time I learned to prepare my own bath." I was
knitting complacently. But Gertrude got up and put
her arms around Liddy's shaking shoulders.
"You are two big babies," she said soothingly.
"Neither one of you could get along for an hour with-
out the other. So stop quarreling and be good. Liddy,
go right up and lay out Aunty's night things. She is
going to bed early."
After Liddy had gone I began to think about the
men at the stable, and I grew more and more anxious.
Halsey was aimlessly knocking the billiard-balls
around in the billiard-room, and I called to him.
"Halsey," I said when he sauntered in, "is there a
policeman in Casanova?"
"Constable," he said laconically. "Veteran of the
war, one arm; in office to conciliate the G. A. R. ele-
ment. Why?"
C


WHILE THE STABLES BURNED 237
"Because I am uneasy to-night." And I told him
what Liddy had said. "Is there any one you can
think of who could be relied on to watch the outside
of the house to-night?"
"We might get Sam Bohannon from the club," he
said thoughtfully. "It wouldn't be a bad scheme.
He's a smart darky, and with his mouth shut and his
shirt-front covered, you couldn't see him a yard off
in the dark."
Halsey conferred with Alex, and the result, in an
hour, was Sam. His instructions were simple. There
had been numerous attempts to break into the house;
it was the intention, not to drive intruders away, but
to capture them. If Sam saw anything suspicious
outside, he was to tap at the east entry, where Alex
and Halsey were to alternate in keeping watch through
the night.
It was with a comfortable feeling of security that I
went to bed that night. The door between Gertrude's
rooms and mine had been opened, and, with the doors
into the hall bolted, we were safe enough. Although
Liddy persisted in her belief that doors would prove
no obstacles to our disturbers.
As before, Halsey watched the east entry from ten
D


238 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
until two. He had an eye to comfort, and he kept
vigil in a heavy oak chair, very large and deep. We
went up-stairs rather early, and through the open
door Gertrude and I kept up a running fire of con-
versation. Liddy was brushing my hair, and Gertrude
was doing her own, with a long free sweep of her
strong round arms.
"Did you know Mrs. Armstrong and Louise are
in the village?" she called.
"No," I replied, startled. "How did you hear it?"
"I met the oldest Stewart girl to-day, the doctor's
daughter, and she told me they had not gone back to
town after the funeral. They went directly to that
little yellow house next to Doctor Walker's, and are
apparently settled there. They took the house fur-
nished for the summer."
"Why, it's a bandbox," I said. "I can't imagine
Fanny Armstrong in such a place."
"It's true, nevertheless. Ella Stewart says Mrs.
Armstrong has aged terribly, and looks as if she is
hardly able to walk."
I lay and thought over some of these things until
midnight. The electric lights went out then, fading
slowly until there was only a red-hot loop to be seen


WHILE THE STABLES BURNED 239
in the bulb, and then even that died away and we were
embarked on the darkness of another night.
Apparently only a few minutes elapsed, during
which my eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark-
ness. Then I noticed that the windows were reflecting
a faint pinkish light; Liddy noticed it at the same
time, and I heard her jump up. At that moment
Sam's deep voice boomed from somewhere just below.
"Fire!" he yelled. "The stable's on fire!"
I could see him in the glare dancing up and down
on the drive, and a moment later Halsey joined him.
Alex was awake and running down the stairs, and in
five minutes from the time the fire was discovered,
three of the maids were sitting on their trunks in the
drive, although, excepting a few sparks, there was no
fire nearer than a hundred yards.
Gertrude seldom loses her presence of mind, and she
ran to the telephone. But by the time the Casanova
volunteer fire department came toiling up the hill the
stable was a furnace, with the Dragon Fly safe but
blistered, in the road. Some gasolene exploded just as
the volunteer department got to work, which shook
their nerves as well as the burning building. The
stable, being on a hill, was a torch to attract the


240 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
population from every direction. Rumor had it that
Sunnyside was burning, and it was amazing how
many people threw something over their night-clothes
and flew to the conflagration. I take it Casanova has
few fires, and Sunnyside was furnishing the people, in
one way and another, the greatest excitement they
had had for years.
The stable was off the west wing. I hardly know
how I came to think of the circular staircase and the
unguarded door at its foot. Liddy was putting my
clothes into sheets, preparatory to tossing them out
the window, when I found her, and I could hardly
persuade her to stop.
"I want you to come with me, Liddy," I said.
"Bring a candle and a couple of blankets."
She lagged behind considerably when she saw me
making for the east wing, and at the top of the stair-
case she balked.
"I am not going down there," she said firmly.
"There is no one guarding the door down there," I
explained. "Who knows?—this may be a scheme to
draw everybody away from this end of the house, and
let some one in here."
The instant I had said it I was convinced I had hit


WHILE THE STABLES BURNED 241
on the explanation, and that perhaps it was already
too late. It seemed to me as I listened that I heard
stealthy footsteps on the east porch, but there was so
much shouting outside that it was impossible to tell.
Liddy was on the point of retreat.
"Very well," I said, "then I shall go down alone.
Run back to Mr. Halsey's room and get his revolver.
Don't shoot down the stairs if you hear a noise: re-
member—I shall be down there. And hurry."
I put the candle on the floor at the top of the stair-
case and took off my bedroom slippers. Then I crept
down the stairs, going very slowly, and listening with
all my ears. I was keyed to such a pitch that I felt no
fear: like the condemned who sleep and eat the night
before execution, I was no longer able to suffer appre-
hension. I was past that. Just at the foot of the
stairs I stubbed my toe against Halsey's big chair,
and had to stand on one foot in a soundless agony
until the pain subsided to a dull ache. And then—I
knew I was right. Some one had put a key into the
lock, and was turning it. For some reason it refused
to work, and the key was withdrawn. There was a
muttering of voices outside: I had only a second.
Another trial, and the door Would open. The candle


WHILE THE STABLES BURNED 243
ominous cracking of one of the legs. And then, with-
out the slightest warning, the card-room window
broke with a crash. I had my finger on the trigger of
the revolver, and as I jumped it went off, right
through the door. Some one outside swore roundly>
and for the first time I could hear what was said.
"Only a scratch. . . . Men are at the other end
of the house. . . . Have the whole rat's nest on
us." And a lot of profanity which I won't write down.
The voices were at the broken window now, and al-
though I was trembling violently, I was determined
that I would hold them until help came. I moved up
the stairs until I could see into the card-room, or rather
through it, to the window. As I looked a small man
put his leg over the sill and stepped into the room.
The curtain confused him for a moment; then he
turned, not toward me, but toward the billiarfl-room
door. I fired again, and something that was glass or
china crashed to the ground. Then I ran up the stairs
and along the corridor to the main staircase. Gertrude
was standing there, trying to locate the shots, and I
must have been a peculiar figure, with my hair in
crimps, my dressing-gown flying, no slippers, and a
revolver clutched in my hand. I had no time to talk.


CHAPTER XXIV
FLINDERS
i
IF Halsey had only taken me fully into his confi-
dence, through the whole affair, it would have
been much simpler. If he had been altogether
frank about Jack Bailey, and if the day after the fire
he had told me what he suspected, there would have
been no harrowing period for all of us, with the boy
in danger. But young people refuse to profit by the
experience of their elders, and sometimes the elders
are the ones to suffer.
I was much used up the day after the fire, and
Gertrude insisted on my going out. The machine was
temporarily out of commission, and the carriage
horses had been sent to a farm for the summer. Ger-
trude finally got a trap from the Casanova livery-
man, and we went out. Just as we turned from the
drive into the road we passed a woman. She had put
down a small valise, and stood inspecting the house
246


FLINDERS 247
and grounds minutely. I should hardly have noticed
her, had it not been for the fact that she had been
horribly disfigured by smallpox.
"Ugh!" Gertrude said, when we had passed, "what
a face! I shall dream of it to-night. Get up, Flin-
ders."
"Flinders?" I asked. "Is that the horse's name?"
"It is." She flicked the horse's stubby mane with
the whip. "He didn't look like a livery horse, and the
liveryman said he had bought him from the Arm-
strongs when they purchased a couple of motors and
cut down the stable. Nice Flinders—good old boy I"
Flinders was certainly not a common name for a
horse, and yet the youngster at Richfield had named
his prancing, curly-haired little horse Flinders! It
set me to thinking.
At my request Halsey had already sent word of the
fire to the agent from whom we had secured the house.
Also, he had called Mr. Jamieson by telephone, and
somewhat guardedly had told him of the previous
night's events. Mr. Jamieson promised to come out
that night, and to bring another man with him. I
did not consider it necessary to notify Mrs. Arm-
strong, in the village. No doubt she knew of the fire,


248 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
and in view of my refusal to give up the house, an
interview would probably have been unpleasant
enough. But as we passed Doctor Walker's white
and green house I thought of something.
"Stop here, Gertrude," I said. "I am going to
get out."
"To see Louise?" she asked.
"No, I want to ask this young Walker something."
She was curious, I knew, but I did not wait to ex-
plain. I went up the walk to the house, where a brass
sign at the side announced the office, and went in.
The reception-room was empty, but from the consult-
ing-room beyond came the sound of two voices, not
very amicable.
"It is an outrageous figure," some one was storm-
ing. Then the doctor's quiet tone, evidently not
arguing, merely stating something. But I had not
time to listen to some person probably disputing his
bill, so I coughed. The voices ceased at once: a door
closed somewhere, and the doctor entered from the
hall of the house. He looked sufficiently surprised at
seeing me.
"Good afternoon, Doctor," I said formally. "I


FLINDERS 249
shall not keep you from your patient. I wish merely
to ask you a question."
"Won't you sit down?"
"It will not be necessary. Doctor, has any one come
to you, either early this mornkig or to-day, to have
you treat a bullet wound?"
"Nothing so startling has happened to me," he
said. "A bullet wound! Things must be lively at
Sunnyside."
"I didn't say it was at Sunnyside. But as it hap-
pens, it was. If any such case comes to you, will it be
too much trouble for you to let me know?"
"I shall be only too happy," he said. "I under-
stand you have had a fire up there, too. A fire and
shooting in one night is rather lively for a quiet place
like that."
"It is as quiet as a boiler-shop," I replied, as I
turned to go.
"And you are still going to stay?"
"Until I am burned out," I responded. And then,
on my way down the steps, I turned around suddenly.
"Doctor," I asked at a venture, "have you ever
heard of a child named Lucien Wallace?"


250 "THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
/
Clever as he was, his face changed and stiffened.
He was on his guard again in a moment.
"Lucien Wallace?" he repeated. "No, I think not.
There are plenty of Wallaces around, but I don't
know any Lucien."
I was as certain as possible that he did. People do
not he readily to me, and this man lied beyond a
doubt. But there was nothing to be gained now; his
defenses were up, and I left, half irritated and wholly
baffled.
Our reception was entirely different at Doctor
Stewart's. Taken into the bosom of the family at
once, Flinders tied outside and nibbling the grass at
the roadside, Gertrude and I drank some home-made
elderberry wine and told briefly of the fire. Of the
more serious part of the night's experience, of course,
we said nothing. But when at last we had left the
family on the porch and the good doctor was untying
our steed, I asked him the same question I had put to
Doctor Walker.
"Shot!" he said. "Bless my soul, no. Why, what
have you been doing up at the big house, Miss
Innes?"
"Some one tried to enter the house during the fire,


FLINDERS t 251
and was shot and slightly injured," I said hastily.
"Please don't mention it; we wish to make as little of
it as possible."
There was one other possibility, and we tried that.
At Casanova station I saw the station master, and
asked him if any trains left Casanova between one
o'clock and daylight. There was none until six a. m.
The next question required more diplomacy.
"Did you notice on the six-o'clock train any person
—any man—who limped a little?" I asked. "Please
try to remember: we are trying to trace a man who
was seen loitering around Sunnyside last night before
the fire."
He was all attention in a moment.
"I was up there myself at the fire," he said volubly.
"I'm a member of the volunteer company. First big
fire we've had since the summer house burned over to
the club golf links. My wife was sayin' the other
day, 'Dave, you might as well 'a' saved the money in
that there helmet and shirt.' And here last night they
came in handy. Rang that bell so hard I hadn't time
scarcely to get 'em on."
"And—did you see a man who limped?" Gertrude
put in, as he stopped for breath.


252 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Not at the train, ma'm," he said. "No such per-
son got on here to-day. But I'll tell you where I did
see a man that limped. I didn't wait till the fire com-
pany left; there's a fast freight goes through at four
forty-five, and I had to get down to the station. I
seen there wasn't much more to do anyhow at the fire
—we'd got the flames under control"—Gertrude
looked at me and smiled—"so I started down the hill.
There was folks here and there goin' home, and along
by the path to the Country Club I seen two men. One
was a short fellow. He was sitting on a big rock, his
back to me, and he had something white in his hand,
as if he was tying up his foot. After I'd gone on a
piece I looked back, and he was hobbling on and—
excuse me, miss—he was swearing.something sick-
ening."
"Did they go toward the club?" Gertrude asked
suddenly, leaning forward.
"No, miss. I think they came into the village. I
didn't get a look at their faces, but I know every chick
and child in the place, and everybody knows me.
When they didn't shout at me—in my uniform, you
know—I took it they were strangers."


FLINDERS
253
So all we had for our afternoon's work was this: ,
some one had been shot by the bullet that went
through the door; he had not left the village, and he
had not called in a physician. Also, Doctor Walker
knew who Lucien Wallace was, and his very denial
made me confident that, in that one direction at least,
we were on the right track.
The thought that the detective would be there that
night was the most cheering thing of all, and I think
even Gertrude was glad of it. Driving home that
afternoon, I saw her in the clear sunlight for the first
time in several da^ 3, and I was startled to see how ill
she looked. She was thin and colorless, and all her
bright animation was gone.
"Gertrude," I said, "I have been a very selfish old
woman. You are going to leave this miserable house
to-night. Annie Morton is going to Scotland next
week, and you shall go right with her."
To my surprise, she flushed painfully.
"I don't want to go, Aunt Ray," she said. "Don't
make me leave now."
"You are losing your health and your good looks,"
I said decidedly. "You should have a change."


254 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"I shan't stir a foot." She was equally decided.
Then, more lightly: "Why, you and Liddy need me
to arbitrate between you every day in the week."
Perhaps I was growing suspicious of every one,
but it seemed to me that Gertrude's gaiety was forced
and artificial. I watched her covertly during the rest
of the drive, and I did not like the two spots of crim-
son in her pale cheeks. But I said nothing more about
sending her to Scotland: I knew she would not go.


CHAPTER XXV
A VISIT FBOM LOtlll
THAT day was destined to be an eventful one,
for when I entered the house and found
Eliza ensconced in the upper hall on a chair,
with Mary Anne doing her best to stifle her with
household ammonia, and Liddy rubbing her wrists—
whatever good that is supposed to do—I knew that
the ghost had been walking again, and this time in
daylight.
Eliza was in a frenzy of fear. She clutched at my
sleeve when I went close to her, and refused to let go
until she had told her story. Coming just after the
fire, the household was demoralized, and it was no
surprise to me to find Alex and the under-gardener
struggling down-stairs with a heavy trunk between
them.
"I didn't want to do it, Miss Innes," Alex said.
"But she was so excited, I was afraid she would do as
255


A VISIT FROM LOUISE 257
ings left, and to see you standing at the foot of that
staircase shootin' through the door—I'll never be the
same woman again."
"Well, I'm glad of that—anything for a change,"
I said. And in came Eliza, flanked by Rosie and Mary
Anne.
Her story, broken with sobs and corrections from
the other two, was this: At two o'clock (two-fifteen,
Rosie insisted) she had gone up-stairs to get a picture
from her room to show Mary Anne. (A picture of a
lady, Mary Anne interposed.) She went up the
servants' staircase and along the corridor to her room,
which lay between the trunk-room and the unfinished
ball-room. She heard a sound as she went down the
corridor, like some one moving furniture, but she was
not nervous. She thought it might be men examining
the house after the fire the night before, but she
looked in the trunk-room and saw nobody.
She went into her room quietly. The noise had
I ceased, and everything was quiet. Then she sat down
on the side of her bed, and, feeling faint—she was
subject to spells—("I told you that when I came,
didn't I, Rosie?" "Yes'm, indeed she did!")—she put
her head down on her pillow and—
'


258 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Took a nap. All right f I said. "Go on."
"When I came to, Miss Innes, sure as I'm sittin'
here, I thought I'd die. Somethin' hit me on the face,
and I set up, sudden. And then I seen the plaster
drop, droppin' from a little hole in the wall. And the
first thing I knew, an iron bar that long" (fully two
yards by her measure) "shot through that hole and
tumbled on the bed. If I'd been still sleeping"
("Fainting," corrected Rosie) "I'd 'a' been hit on the
head and killed!"
"I wisht you'd heard her scream," put in Mary
Anne. "And her face as white as a pillow-slip when
she tumbled down the stairs."
"No doubt there is some natural explanation for it,
Eliza," I said. "You may have dreamed it, in your
'fainting' attack. But if it is true, the metal rod and
the hole in the wall will show it."
Eliza looked a little bit sheepish.
"The hole's there all right, Miss Innes," she said.
"But the bar was gone when Mary Anne and Rosie
went up to pack my trunk."
"That wasn't all," Liddy's voice came funereally
from a corner. "Eliza said that from the hole in the
wall a burning eye looked down at her!"



A VISIT FROM LOUISE 259
"The wall must be at least six inches thick," I said
with asperity. "Unless the person who drilled the hole
carried his eyes on the ends of a stick, Eliza couldn't
possibly have seen them."
But the fact remained, and a visit to Eliza's room
proved it. I might jeer all I wished: some one had
drilled a hole in the unfinished wall of the ball-room,
passing between the bricks of the partition, and
shooting through the unresisting plaster of Eliza's
room with such force as to send the rod flying on to
her bed. I had gone up-stairs alone, and I confess the
thing puzzled me: in two or three places in the wall
small apertures had been made, none of them of any
depth. Not the least mysterious thing was the dis-
appearance of the iron implement that had been used.
I remembered a story I read once about an impish
dwarf that lived in the spaces between the double
walls of an ancient castle. I wondered vaguely if my
original idea of a secret entrance to a hidden chamber
could be right, after all, and if we were housing some
erratic guest, who played pranks on us in the dark,
and destroyed the walls that he might listen, hidden
safely away, to our amazed investigations.
Mary Anne and Eliza left that afternoon, but


260 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Rosie decided to stay. It was about five o'clock when
the hack came from the station to get them, and, to
my amazement, it had an occupant. Matthew Geist,
the driver, asked for me, and explained his errand
with pride.
"I've brought you a cook, Miss Innes," he said.
"When the message came to come up for two girls
and their trunks, I supposed there was something
doing, and as this here woman had been looking for
work in the village, I thought I'd bring her along."
Already I had acquired the true suburbanite ability
to take servants on faith; I no longer demanded writ-
ten and unimpeachable references. I, Rachel Innes,
have learned not to mind if the cook sits down com-
fortably in my sitting-room when she is taking the
orders for the day, and I am grateful if the silver is
not cleaned with scouring soap. And so that day I
merely told Liddy to send the new applicant in. When
she came, however, I could hardly restrain a gasp of
surprise. It was the woman with the pitted face.
She stood somewhat awkwardly just inside the door,
and she had an air of self-confidence that was inspir-
ing. Yes, she could cook; was not a fancy cook, but
could make good soups and desserts if there was any


A VISIT FROM LOUISE 261
one to take charge of the salads. And so, in the end,
I took her. As Halsey said, when we told him, it
didn't matter much about the cook's face, if it was
clean.
I have spoken of Halsey's restlessness. On that
day it seemed to be more than ever a resistless impulse
that kept him out until after luncheon. I think he
hoped constantly that he might meet Louise driving
over the hills in her runabout: possibly he did meet
her occasionally, but from his continued gloom I felt
sure the situation between thern was unchanged.
Part of the afternoon I believe he read—Golrude
and I were out, as I have said, and at dinner we both
noticed that something had occurred to distract him.
He was disagreeable, which is unlike him, nervous,
looking at his watch every few minutes, and he ate
almost nothing. He asked twice during the meal on
what train Mr. Jamieson and the other detective were
coming, and had long periods of abstraction during
which he dug his fork into my damask cloth and did
not hear when he was spoken to. He refused dessert,
and left the table early, excusing himself on the
ground that he wanted to see Alex.
Alex, however, was not to be found. It was after


262 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
eight when Halsey ordered the car, and started down
the hill at a pace that, even for him, was unusually
reckless. Shortly after, Alex reported that he was
ready to go over the house, preparatory to closing it
for the night. Sam Bohannon came at a quarter be-
fore nine, and began his patrol of the grounds, and
with the arrival of the two detectives to look forward
to, I was not especially apprehensive.
At half-past nine I heard the sound of a horse
driven furiously up the drive. It came to a stop in
front of the house, and immediately after there were
hurried steps on the veranda. Our nerves were not
what they should have been, and Gertrude, always
apprehensive lately, was at the door almost instantly.
A moment later Louise had burst into the room and
stood there bareheaded and breathing hard.
"Where is Halsey?" she demanded. Above her
plain black gown her eyes looked big and somber, and
the rapid drive had brought no color to her face. I
got up and drew forward a chair.
"He has not come back," I said quietly. "Sit down,
child: you are not strong enough for this kind of
thing."
I don't think she even heard me.


A VISIT FROM LOUISE 263
"He has not come back?" she asked, looking from
me to Gertrude. "Do you know where he went?
Where cai* I find him?'
"For Heaven's sake, Louise," Gertrude burst out,
"tell us what is wrong. Halsey is not here. He has
gone to the station for Mr. Jamieson. What has hap-
pened?"
"To the station, Gertrude? You are sure?"
"Yes," I said. "Listen. There is the whistle of the
train now."
She relaxed a little at our matter-of-fact tone, and
allowed herself to sink into a chair.
"Perhaps I was wrong," she said heavily. "He—
will be here in a few moments if—everything is
right."
We sat there, the three of us, without attempt at
conversation. Both Gertrude and I recognized the
futility of asking Louise any questions: her reticence
was a part of a role she had assumed. Our ears were
strained for the first throb of the motor as it turned
into the drive and commenced the climb to the house.
Ten minutes passed, fifteen, twenty. I saw Louise's
hands grow rigid as they clutched the arms of her
chair. I watched Gertrude's bright color slowly ebb-
'


264 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
ing away, and around my own heart I seemed to feel
the grasp of a giant hand.
Twenty-five minutes, and then a sound. But it was
not the chug of the motor: it was the unmistakable
rumble of the Casanova hack. Gertrude drew aside
,the curtain and peered into the darkness.
"It's the hack, I am sure," she said, evidently re-
lieved. "Something has gone wrong with the car, and
no wonder—the way Halsey went down the hill."
It seemed a long time before the creaking vehicle
came to a stop at the door. Louise rose and stood
watching, her hand to her throat. And then Gertrude
opened the door, admitting Mr. Jamieson and a
stocky, middle-aged man. Halsey was not with them.
When the door had closed and Louise realized that
Halsey had not come, her expression changed. From
tense watchfulness to relief, and now again to abso-
lute despair, her face was an open page.
"Halsey?" I asked unceremoniously, ignoring the
stranger. "Did he—not meet you?"
"No." Mr. Jamieson looked slightly surprised. "I
rather expected the car, but we got up all right."
"You didn't see him at all?" Louise, demanded
breathlessly.


A VISIT FROM LOUISE 265
Mr. Jamieson knew her at once, although he had
not seen her before. She had kept to her rooms until
the morning she left.
"No, Miss Armstrong," he said. "I saw nothing of
him. What is wrong?"
"Then we shall have to find him," she asserted.
"Every instant is precious. Mr. Jamieson, I have
reason for believing that he is in danger, but I don't
know what it is. Only—he must be found."
The stocky man had said nothing. Now, however,
he went quickly toward the door.
"I'll catch the hack down the road and hold it," he
said. "Is the gentleman down in the town?"
"Mr. Jamieson," Louise said impulsively, "I can
use the hack. Take my horse and trap outside and
drive like mad. Try to find the Dragon Fly—it ought
to be easy to trace. I can think of no other way.
Only, don't lose a moment."
The new detective had gone, and a moment later
Jamieson went rapidly down the drive, the cob's feet
striking fire at every step. Louise stood looking after
them. When she turned around she faced Gertrude,
who stood indignant, almost tragic, in the hall.
"You know what threatens Halsey, Louise," she.
.-,


A VISIT FROM LOUISE 267
morning we were still waiting for news, while Alex
watched the house and Sam the grounds. At daylight
I dropped into exhausted sleep. Halsey had not come
back, and there was no word from the detective.


y
CHAPTER XXVI
NOTHING that had gone before had been as
bad as this. The murder and Thomas' sud-
den death we had been able to view in a
detached sort of way. But with Halsey's disappear-
ance everything was altered. Our little circle, intact
until now, was broken. We were no longer onlookers
who saw a battle passing around them. We were the
center of action. Of course, there was no time then to
voice such an idea. My mind seemed able to hold only
one thought: that Halsey had been foully dealt with,
and that every minute lost might be fatal.
Mr. Jamieson came back about eight o'clock the
next morning: he was covered with mud, and his hat
was gone. Altogether, we were a sad-looking trio that
gathered around a breakfast that no one could eat.
Over a cup of black coffee the detective told us what
he had learned of Halsey's movements the night be-
268


HALSEY'S DISAPPEARANCE 269
fore. Up to a certain point the car had made it easy
enough to follow him. And I gathered that Mr.
Burns, the other detective, had followed a similar car
for miles at dawn, only to find it was a touring car on
an endurance run.
"He left here about ten minutes after eight," Mr.
Jamieson said. "He went alone, and at eight twenty
he stopped at Doctor Walker's. I went to the doctor's
about midnight, but he had been called out on a case,
and had not come back at four o'clock. From the
doctor's it seems Mr. Innes walked across the lawn to
the cottage Mrs. Armstrong and her daughter have
taken. Mrs. Armstrong had retired, and he said per-
haps a dozen words to Miss Louise. She will not say
what they were, but the girl evidently suspects what
has occurred. That is, she suspects foul play, but
she doesn't know of what nature. Then, apparently,
he started directly for the station. He was going very
fast—the flagman at the Carol Street crossing says
he saw the car pass. He knew the siren. Along some-
where in the dark stretch between Carol Street and the
depot he evidently swerved suddenly—perhaps some
one in the road—and went full into the side of a
freight. We found it there last night."


HALSEY'S DISAPPEARANCE 271
"He went away once before," he persisted. "And
you were as sure then."
"He did not leave the Dragon Fly jammed into the
side of a freight car before."
"No, but he left it for repairs in a blacksmith shop,
a long distance from here. Do you know if he had any
enemies? Any one who might wish him out of the
way?"
"Not that I know of, unless—no, I can not think
of any."
"Was he in the habit of carrying money?"
"He never carried it far. No, he never had more
than enough for current expenses."
Mr. Jamieson got up then and began to pace the
room. It was an unwonted concession to the occasion.
"Then I think we get at it by elimination. The
chances are against flight. If he was hurt, we find no
trace of him. It looks almost like an abduction. This
young Doctor Walker—have you any idea why Mr.
Innes should have gone there last night?"
"I can not understand it," Gertrude said thought-
fully. "I don't think he knew Doctor Walker at all,
and—their relations could hardly have been cordial,
under the circumstances."


272 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Jamieson pricked up his ears, and little by little he
drew from us the unfortunate story of Halsey's love
affair, and the fact that Louise was going to marry
Doctor Walker.
Mr. Jamieson listened attentively.
"There are some interesting developments here,"
he said thoughtfully. "The woman who claims to be
the mother of Lucien Wallace has not come back.
Your nephew has apparently been spirited away.
There is an organized attempt being made to enter
this house; in fact, it has been entered. Witness the
incident with the cook yesterday. And I have a new
piece of information." He looked carefully away from
Gertrude. "Mr. John Bailey is not at his Knicker-
bocker apartments, and I don't know where he is. It's
a hash, that's what it is. It's a Chinese puzzle. They
won't fit together, unless—unless Mr. Bailey and
your nephew have again—"
And once again Gertrude surprised me. "They are
not together," she said hotly. "I—know where Mr.
Bailey is, and my brother is not with him."
The detective turned and looked at her keenly.
"Miss Gertrude," he said, "if you and Miss Louise
would only tell me everything you know and surmise


274 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
gether. The women were curious, and, leaving the
fence, they went back and by a roundabout path down
to the road. When they got there the car was still
standing, the headlight broken and the bonnet
crushed, but there was no one to be seen."
The detective went away immediately, and to Ger-
trude and me was left the woman's part, to watch and
wait. By luncheon nothing had been found, and I was
frantic. I went up-stairs to Halsey's room finally,
from sheer inability to sit across from Gertrude any
longer, and meet her terror-filled eyes.
Liddy was in my dressing-room, suspiciously red-
eyed, and trying to put a right sleeve in a left arm-
hole of a new waist for me. I was too much shaken to
scold.
"What name did that woman in the kitchen give?"
she demanded, viciously ripping out the offending
sleeve.
"Bliss. Mattie Bliss," I replied.
"Bliss. M. B. Well, that's not what she has on her
suitcase. It is marked N. F. C."
The new cook andTier initials troubled me not at
all. I put on my bonnet and sent for what the Casa-
nova liveryman called a "stylish turnout." Having


HALSEY'S DISAPPEARANCE 275
once made up my mind to a course of action, I am not
one to turn back. Warner drove me; he was plainly
disgusted, and he steered the livery horse as he would
the Dragon Fly, feeling uneasily with his left foot
for the clutch, and working his right elbow at an
imaginary horn every time a dog got in the way.
Warner had something on his mind, and after we
had turned into the road, he voiced it.
"Miss Innes," he said. "I overheard a part of a
conversation yesterday that I didn't understand. It
wasn't my business to understand it, for that matter.
But I've been thinking all day that I'd better tell you.
Yesterday afternoon, while you and Miss Gertrude
were out driving, I had got the car in some sort of
shape again after the fire, and I went to the library
to call Mr. Innes to see it. I went into the living-
room, where Miss Liddy said he was, and half-way
across to the library I heard him talking to some one.
He seemed to be walking up and down, and he was in
a rage, I can tell you." % ,
"What did he say?"
"The first thing I heard was—excuse me, Miss
Innes, but it's what he said, 'The damned rascal,' he
said, 'I'll see him in'—well, in hell was what he said,


276 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
'in hell first.' Then somebody else spoke up; it was a
woman. She said, 'I warned them, but they thought
I would be afraid.'"
"A woman! Did you wait to see who it was?"
"I wasn't spying, Miss Innes," Warner said with
dignity. "But the next thing caught my attention.
She said, 'I knew there was something wrong from the
start. A man isn't well one day, and dead the next,
without some reason.' I thought she was speaking of
Thomas."
"And you don't know who it was!" I exclaimed.
"Warner, you had the key to this whole occurrence in
your hands, and did not use it!"
However, there was nothing to be done. I resolved
to make inquiry when I got home, and in the mean-
time, my present errand absorbed me. This was
nothing less than to see Louise Armstrong, and to
attempt to drfg from her what she knew, or suspected,
of Halsey's disappearance. But here, as in every
direction I turned, I was baffled.
A neat maid answered the bell, but she stood
squarely in the doorway, and it was impossible to
preserve one's dignity and pass her.


278 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"Now tell me about it," he said. He heard me
through without speaking.
"And you think Louise knows something?" he said
when I had finished. "I don't—in fact, I am sure of
it. The best evidence of it is this: she asked me if he
had been heard from, or if anything had been learned.
She won't allow Walker in the room, and she made me
promise to see you and tell you this: don't give up the
search for him. Find him, and find him soon. He is
living."
"Well," I said, "if she knows that, she knows more.
She is a very cruel and ungrateful girl."
"She is a very sick girl," he said gravely. "Neither
you nor I can judge her until we know everything.
Both she and her mother are ghosts of their former
selves. Under all this, these two sudden deaths, this
bank robbery, the invasions at Sunnyside and Hal-
sey's disappearance, there is some mystery that, mark
my words, will come out some day. And when it does,
we shall find Louise Armstrong a victim."
I had not noticed where we were going, but now I
saw we were beside the railroad, and from a knot of
men standing beside the track I divined that it was
here the car had been found. The siding, however,


280 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
said, had arranged for more to assist in the search for
the missing man, and at that time the country was
being scoured in all directions.
The household staff was again depleted that after-
noon. Liddy was waiting to tell me that the new cook
had gone, bag and baggage, without waiting to be
paid. No one had admitted the visitor whom Warner
had heard in the library, unless, possibly, the missing
cook. Again I was working in a circle.
-


CHAPTER XXVII
WHO IS NINA CABBINGTOX?
THE four days, from Saturday to the follow-
ing Tuesday, we lived, or existed, in a state
of the most dreadful suspense. We ate only
when Liddy brought in a tray, and then very little.
The papers, of course, had got hold of the story, and
we were besieged by newspaper men. From all over
the country false clues came pouring in and raised
hopes that crumbled again to nothing. Every morgue
within a hundred miles, every hospital, had been vis-
ited, without result.
Mr. Jamieson, personally, took charge of the or-
ganized search, and every evening, no matter where
he happened to be, he called us by long distance tele-
phone. It was the same formula. "Nothing to-day.
A new clue to work on. Better luck to-morrow." And
heartsick we would put up the receiver and sit down
again to our vigil.
281


282 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
The inaction was deadly. Liddy cried all day, and,
because she knew I objected to tears, sniffled audibly
around the corner.
"For Heaven's sake, smile!" I snapped at her. And
her ghastly attempt at a grin, with her swollen nose
and red eyes, made me hysterical. I laughed and
cried together, and pretty soon, like the two old fools
we were, we were sitting together weeping into the
same handkerchief.
Things were happening, of course, all the time, but
they made little or no impression. The Charity Hos-
pital called up Doctor Stewart and reported that Mrs.
Watson was in a critical condition. I understood also
that legal steps were being taken to terminate my
lease at Sunnyside. Louise was out of danger, but
very ill, and a trained nurse guarded her like a gorgon.
There was a rumor in the village, brought up by
Liddy from the butcher's, that a wedding had al-
ready taken place between Louise and Doctor Walker,
and this roused me for the first time to action.
On Tuesday, then, I sent for the car, and prepared
to go out. As I waited at the porte-cochere I saw
the under-gardener, an inoffensive, grayish-haired
man, trimming borders near the house. The day de-


WHO IS NINA CARRINGTON? 283
tective was watching him, sitting on the carriage
block. When he saw me, he got up.
"Miss Innes," he said, taking off his hat, "do you
know where Alex, the gardener, is?"
"Why, no. Isn't he here?" I asked.
"He has been gone since yesterday afternoon.
Have you—employed him long?"
"Only a couple of weeks."
"Is he efficient? A capable man?"
"I hardly know," I said vaguely. "The place looks
all right, and I know very little about such things. I
know much more about boxes of roses than bushes of
them."
"This man," pointing to the assistant, "says Alex
isn't a gardener. That he doesn't know anything
about plants."
"That's very strange," I said, thinking hard.
"Why, he came to me from the Brays, who are in
Europe."
"Exactly." The detective smiled. "Every man
who cuts grass isn't a gardener, Miss Innes, and just
now it is our policy to believe every person around
here a rascal until he proves to be the other thing."
Warner came up with the car then, and the con-


284 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
versation stopped. As he helped me in, however, tha
detective said something further.
"Not a word or sign to Alex, if he comes back," he
said cautiously.
I went first to Doctor Walker's. I was tired of beat-
ing about the bush, and I felt that the key to Halsey's
disappearance was here at Casanova, in spite of Mr.
Jamieson's theories.
The doctor was in. He came at once to the door of
his consulting-room, and there was no mask of cor-
diality in his manner.
"Please come in," he said curtly.
"I shall stay here, I think, doctor." I did not like
his face or his manner; there was a subtle change in
both. He had thrown off the air of friendliness, and
I thought, too, that he looked anxious and haggard.
"Doctor Walker," I said, "I have come to you to
ask some questions. I hope you will answer them. As
you know, my nephew has not yet been found."
"So I understand," stiffly.
"I believe, if you would, you could help us, and that
leads to one of my questions. Will you tell me what
was the nature of the conversation you held with him
the night he was attacked and carried off?"


288 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
"She was not—pock-marked?" I asked at a venture.
"No, indeed. A skin like a baby's. But perhaps |
you will know the initials. She gave Lucien a hand-
kerchief and forgot it. It was very fine, black-
bordered, and it had three hand-worked letters in the
corner—F. B. A."
"No," I said with truth enough, "she is not a
friend of mine." F. B. A. was Fanny Armstrong,
without a chance of doubt!
With another warning to Mrs. Tate as to silence,
we started back to Sunnyside. So Fanny Armstrong
knew of Lucien Wallace, and was sufficiently interested
to visit him and pay for his support. Who was the
child's mother and where was she? Who was Nina
Carrington? Did either of them know where Halsey
was, or what had happened to him?
On the way home we passed the little cemetery
where Thomas had been laid to rest. I wondered if
Thomas could have helped us to find Halsey, had he
lived. Farther along was the more imposing burial-
ground, where Arnold Armstrong and his father lay
in the shadow of a tall granite shaft. Of the three, I
think Thomas was the only one sincerely mourned.


CHAPTER XXVin
A TEAMP AND THE TOOTHACHE
THE bitterness toward the dead president of
the Traders' Bank seemed to grow with time.
Never popular, his memory was execrated by
people who had lost nothing, but who were filled with
disgust by constantly hearing new stories of the man's
grasping avarice. The Traders' had been a favorite
bank for small tradespeople, and in its savings depart-
ment it had solicited the smallest deposits. People
who had thought to be self-supporting to the last
found themselves confronting the poorhouse, their two
or three hundred dollar savings wiped away. All bank
failures have this element, however, and the directors
were trying to promise twenty per cent, on deposits.
But, like everything else those days, the bank fail-
ure was almost forgotten by Gertrude and myself.
We did not mention Jack Bailey: I had found nothing
to change my impression of his guilt, and Gertrude
289


290 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
knew how I felt. As for the murder of the bank presi-
dent's son, I was of two minds. One day I thought
Gertrude knew or at least suspected that Jack had
done it; the next I feared that it had been Gertrude
herself, that night alone on the circular staircase.
And then the mother of Lucien Wallace would obtrude
herself, and an almost equally good case might be
made against her. There were times, of course, when
I was disposed to throw all those suspicions aside, and
fix definitely on the unknown, whoever that might be.
I had my greatest disappointment when it came to
tracing Nina Carrington. The woman had gone with-
out leaving a trace. Marked as she was, it should have
been easy to follow her, but she was not to be found.
A description to one of the detectives, on my arrival
at home, had started the ball rolling. But by night
she had not been found. I told Gertrude, then, about
the telegram to Louise when she had been ill before;
about my visit to Doctor Walker, and my suspicions
that Mattie Bliss and Nina Carrington were the same.
She thought, as I did, that there was little doubt of it.
I said nothing to her, however, of the detective's
suspicions about Alex. Little things that I had not
noticed at the time now came back to me. I had an


A TRAMP AND THE TOOTHACHE 291
uncomfortable feeling that perhaps Alex was a spy,
and that by taking him into the house I had played
into the enemy's hand. But at eight o'clock that
night Alex himself appeared, and with him a strange
and repulsive individual. They made a queer pair,
for Alex was almost as disreputable as the tramp, and
he had a badly swollen eye.
Gertrude had been sitting listlessly waiting for the
evening message from Mr. Jamieson, but when the
singular pair came in, as they did, without ceremony,
she jumped up and stood staring. Winters, the de-
tective who watched the house at night, followed them,
and kept his eyes sharply on Alex's prisoner. For
that was the situation as it developed.
He was a tall lanky individual, ragged and dirty,
and just now he looked both terrified and embarrassed.
Alex was too much engrossed to be either, and to this
day I don't think I ever asked him why he went off
without permission the day before.
"Miss Innes," Alex began abruptly, "this man can
tell us something very important about the disappear-
ance of Mr. Innes. I found him trying to sell this
watch."
He took a watch from his pocket and put it on the
'


292 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
table. It was Halsey's watch. I had given it to him
on his twenty-first birthday: I was dumb with appre-
hension.
"He says he had a pair of cuff-links also, but he
sold them—"
"Fer a dollar'n half," put in the disreputable indi-
vidual hoarsely, with an eye on the detective.
"He is not—dead?" I implored. The tramp cleared
his throat.
"No'm," he said huskily. "He was used up pretty
bad, but he weren't dead. He was comin' to hisself
when I"—he stopped and looked at the detective. "I
didn't steal it, Mr. Winters," he whined. "I found it
in the road, honest to God, I did."
Mr. Winters paid no attention to him. He was
watching Alex.
"I'd better tell what he told me," Alex broke in.
"It will be quicker. When Jamieson—when Mr.
Jamieson calls up we can start him right. Mr. Win-
ters, I found this man trying to sell that watch on
Fifth Street. He offered it to me for three dollars."
"How did you know the watch?" Winters snapped
at him.


A TRAMP AND THE TOOTHACHE 293
"I had seen it before, many times. I used it at
night when I was watching at the foot of the stair-
case." The detective was satisfied. "When he offered
the watch to me, I knew it, and I pretended I was
going to buy it. We went into an alley and I got
the watch." The tramp shivered. It was plain how
Alex had secured the watch. "Then—I got the story
from this fellow. He claims to have seen the whole
affair. He says he was in an empty car—in the car
the automobile struck."
The tramp broke in here, and told his story, with
frequent interpretations by Alex and Mr. Winters.
He used a strange medley, in which familiar words
took unfamiliar meanings, but it was gradually made
clear to us.
On the night in question the tramp had been
"pounding his ear"—this stuck to me as being
graphic—in an empty box-car along the siding at
Casanova. The train was going west, and due to leave
at dawn. The tramp and the "brakey" were friendly,
and things going well. About ten o'clock, perhaps
earlier, a terrific crash against the side of the car
roused him. He tried to open the door, but could not


A TRAMP AND THE TOOTHACHE 295
and took them. Then he loosened the gag—it had
been cruelly tight—and went his way, again closing
the door of the box-car. Outside on the road he found
the watch. He got on the fast freight east, some
time after, and rode into the city. He had sold the
cuff-links, but on offering the watch to Alex he had
been "copped."
The story, with its cold recital of villainy, was done.
I hardly knew if I were more anxious, or less. That
it was Halsey, there could be no doubt. How badly
he was hurt, how far he had been carried, were the
questions that demanded immediate answer. But it
was the first real information we had had; my boy
had not been murdered outright. But instead of vague
terrors there was now the real fear that he might be
lying in some strange hospital receiving the casual at-
tention commonly given to the charity cases. Even
this, had we known it, would have been paradise to the
terrible truth. I wake yet and feel myself cold and
trembling with the horror of Halsey's situation for
three days after his disappearance.
Mr. Winters and Alex disposed of the tramp with
a warning. It was evident he had told us all he knew.
We had occasion, within a day or two, to be doubly


A TRAMP AND THE TOOTHACHE 297
There was no laudanum, and Liddy made a terrible
fuss when I proposed carbolic acid, just because I
had put too much on the cotton once and burned her
mouth. I'm sure it never did her any permanent
harm; indeed, the doctor said afterward that living on
liquid diet had been a splendid rest for her stomach.
But she would have none of the acid, and she kept me
awake groaning, so at last I got up and went to Ger-
trude's door. To my surprise, it was locked.
I went around by the hall and into her bedroom that
way. The bed was turned down, and her dressing-
gown and night-dress lay ready in the little room next,
but Gertrude was not there. She had not undressed.
I don't know what terrible thoughts came to me in
the minute I stood there. Through the door I could
hear Liddy grumbling, with a squeal now and then
when the pain stabbed harder. Then, automatically, I
got the laudanum and went back to her.
It was fully a half-hour before Liddy's groans sub-
sided. At intervals I went to the door into the hall
and looked out, but I saw and heard nothing suspi-
cious. Finally, when Liddy had dropped into a doze,
I even ventured as far as the head of the circular
staircase, but there floated up to me only the even


298 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
breathing of Winters, the night detective, sleeping
just inside the entry. And then, far off, I heard the
rapping noise that had lured Louise down the stair-
case that other night, two weeks before. It was over
my head, and very faint—three or four short muffled
taps, a pause, and then again, stealthily repeated.
The sound of Mr. Winters' breathing was com-
forting; with the thought that there was help within
call, something kept me from waking him. I did not
move for a moment; ridiculous things Liddy had said
about a ghost—I am not at all superstitious, except,
perhaps, in the middle of the night, with everything
dark—things like that came back to me. Almost be-
side me was the clothes chute. I could feel it, but I
could see nothing. As I stood, listening intently, I
heard a sound near me. It was vague, indefinite. Then
it ceased; there was an uneasy movement and a grunt
from the foot of the circular staircase, and silence
again. I stood perfectly still, hardly daring to
breathe.
Then I knew I had been right. Some one was
stealthily passing the head of the staircase and com-
ing toward me in the dark. I leaned against the wall
for support—my knees were giving way. The steps


A TRAMP AND THE TOOTHACHE 299
were close now, and suddenly I thought of Gertrude.
Of course it was Gertrude. I put out one hand in
front of me, but I touched nothing. My voice almost
refused me, but I managed to gasp out, "Gertrude!"
"Good Lord!" a man's voice exclaimed, just beside
me. And then I collapsed. I felt myself going, felt
seme one catch me, a horrible nausea—that was all I
remembered.
When I came to it was dawn. I was lying on the
bed in Louise's room, with the cherub on the ceiling
staring down at me, and there was a blanket from my
own bed thrown over me. I felt weak and dizzy, but I
managed to get up and totter to the door. At the foot
of the circular staircase Mr. Winters was still asleep.
Hardly able to stand, I crept back to my room. The
door into Gertrude's room was no longer locked: she
was sleeping like a tired child. And in my dressing-
room Liddy hugged a cold hot-water bottle, and mum-
bled in her sleep.
"There's some things you can't hold with hand-
cuffs," she was muttering thickly.


CHAPTER XXIX
A SCRAP OF PAPER
FOR the first time in twenty years, I kept my
bed that day. Liddy was alarmed to the
point of hysteria, and sent for Doctor Stew-
art just after breakfast. Gertrude spent the morning
with me, reading something—I forget what. I was
too busy with my thoughts to listen. I had said noth-
ing to the two detectives. If Mr. Jamieson had been
there, I should have told him everything, but I could
not go to these strange men and tell them my niece
had been missing in the middle of the night; that she
had not gone to bed at all; that while I was searching
for her through the house, I had met a stranger who,
when I fainted, had carried me into a room and left
me there, to get better or not, as it might happen.
The whole situation was terrible: had the issues been
less vital, it would have been absurd. Here we were,
guarded day and night by private detectives, with an
300


A SCRAP OF PAPER 301
extra man to watch the grounds, and yet we might as
well have lived in a Japanese paper house, for all the
protection we had.
And there was something else: the man I had met
in the darkness had been even more startled than I, and
about his voice, when he muttered his muffled exclama-
tion, there was something vaguely familiar. All that
morning, while Gertrude read aloud, and Liddy
watched for the doctor, I was puzzling over that voice,
without result.
And there were other things, too. I wondered what
Gertrude's absence from her room had to do with it
all, or if it had any connection. I tried to think that
she had heard the rapping noises before I did and
gone to investigate, but I'm afraid I was a moral cow-
ard that day. I could not ask her.
Perhaps the diversion was good for me. It took my
mind from Halsey, and the story we had heard the
night before. The day, however, was a long vigil,
with every ring of the telephone full of possibilities.
Doctor Walker came up, some time just after lunch-
eon, and asked for me.
"Go down and see him," I instructed Gertrude.
"Tell him I am out—for mercy's sake don't say I'm
/


302 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
sick. Find out what he wants, and from this time on.
instruct the servants that he is not to be admitted. I
loathe that .man."
Gertrude came back very soon, her face rather
flushed.
"He came to ask us to get out," she said, picking
up her book with a jerk. "He says Louise Armstrong
wants to come here, now that she is recovering."
"And what did you say?"
"I said we were very sorry we could not leave, but
we would be delighted to have Louise come up here
with us. He looked daggers at me. And he wanted
to know if we would recommend Eliza as a cook. He
has brought a patient, a man, out from town, and is
increasing his establishment—that's the way he put
it."
"I wish him joy of Eliza," I said tartly. "Did he
ask for Halsey?"
"Yes. I told him that we were on the track last
night, and that it was only a question of time. He said
he was glad, although he didn't appear to be, but he
said not to be too sanguine."
"Do you know what I believe?" I asked. "I be-
lieve, as firmly as I believe anything, that Doctor


A SCRAP OF PAPER 303
Walker knows something about Halsey, and that he
could put his finger on him, if he wanted to."
There were several things that day that bewildered
me. About three o'clock Mr. Jamieson telephoned
from the Casanova station and Warner went down to
meet him. I got up and dressed hastily, and the de-
tective was shown up to my sitting-room.
"No news?" I asked, as he entered. He tried to
look encouraging, without success. I noticed that he
looked tired and dusty, and, although he was ordina-
rily impeccable in his appearance, it was clear that he
was at least two days from a razor.
"It won't be long now, Miss Innes," he said. "I
have come out here on a peculiar errand, which I will
tell you about later. First, I want to ask some ques-
tions. Did any one come out here yesterday to repair
the telephone, and examine the wires on the roof?"
"Yes," I said promptly; "but it was not the tele-
phone. He said the wiring might have caused the fire
at the stable. I went up with him myself, but he only
looked around."
Mr. Jamieson smiled.
"Good for you!" he applauded. "Don't allow any
one in Ihe house that you don't trust, and don't trust


A SCRAP OF PAPER 305
Bank. X believe, just as surely, that young Walker
brought home from California the knowledge of some-
thing of the sort and, failing in his effort to reinstall
Mrs. Armstrong and her daughter here, he, or a con-
federate, has tried to break into the house. On two oc-
casions I think he succeeded."
"On three, at least," I corrected. And then I told
him about the night before. "I have been thinking
hard," I concluded, "and I do not believe the man at
the head of the circular staircase was Doctor Walker.
I don't think he could have got in, and the voice was
not his."
Mr. Jamieson got up and paced the floor, his hands
behind him.
"There is something else that puzzles me," he said,
stepping before me. "Who and what is the woman
*Nina Carrington? If it was she who came here as
Mattie Bliss, what did she tell Halsey that sent him
racing to Doctor Walker's, and then to Miss Arm-
strong? If we could find that woman we would have
the whole thing."
"Mr. Jamieson, did you ever think that Paul Arm-
strong might not have died a natural death?"
"That is the thing we are going to try to find out,"


A SCRAP OF PAPER 307
sick because of it, I thought things had gone far
enough. I'd done some things for the doctor before
that wouldn't just bear looking into, but I turned a
bit squeamish."
"Did you help with that?" I asked, leaning forward.
"No, ma'm. I didn't even know of it until the next
day, when it came out in the Casanova Weekly Ledger.
But I know who did it, all right. I'd better start at
the beginning.
"When Doctor Walker went away to California
with the Armstrong family, there was talk in the town
that when he came back he would be married to Miss
Armstrong, and we all expected it. First thing I
knew, I got a letter from him, in the west. He seemed
to be excited, and he said Miss Armstrong had taken
a sudden notion to go home and he sent me some
money. I was to watch for her, to see if she went to
Sunnyside, and wherever she was, not to lose sight of
her until he got home. I traced her to the lodge, and
I guess I scared you on the drive one night, Miss
Innes."
"And Rosie!" I ejaculated.
Riggs grinned sheepishly.
"I only wanted to make sure Miss Louise was there.


308 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Rosie started to run, and I tried to stop her and tell
her some sort of a story to account for my being there.
But she wouldn't wait."
"And the broken china—in the basket?"
"Well, broken china's death to rubber tires," he
said. "I hadn't any complaint against you people
here, and the Dragon Fly was a good car."
So Rosie's highwayman was explained.
"Well, I telegraphed the doctor where Miss Louise
was and I kept an eye on her. Just a day or so before
they came home with the body, I got another letter,
telling me to watch for a woman who had been pitted
with smallpox. Her name was Carrington, and the
doctor made things pretty strong. If I found any
such woman loafing around, I was not to lose sight of
her for a minute until the doctor got back.
"Well, I would have had my hands full, but the
other woman didn't show up for a good while, and
when she did the doctor was home."
"Riggs," I asked suddenly, "did you get into this
house a day or two after I took it, at night?"
"I did not, Miss Innes. I have never been in the
house before. Well, the Carrington woman didn't
show up until the night Mr. Halsey disappeared.


A SCRAP OF PAPER 309
She came to the office late, and the doctor was out.
She waited around, walking the floor and working her-
self into a passion. When the doctor didn't come back,
she was in an awful way. She wanted me to hunt him,
and when he didn't appear, she called him names; said
he couldn't fool her. There was murder being done,
and she would see him swing for it.
"She struck me as being an ugly customer, and
when she left, about eleven o'clock, and went across
to the Armstrong place, I was not far behind her. She
walked all around the house first, looking up at the
windows. Then she rang the bell, and the minute the
door was opened she was through it, and into the hall."
"How long did sne stay?"
"That's the queer part of it," Riggs said eagerly.
"She didn't come out that night at all. I went to bed
at daylight, and that was the last I heard of her until
the next day, when I saw her on a truck at the station,
covered with a sheet. She'd been struck by the ex-
press and,you would hardly have known her—dead,
of course. I think she stayed all night in the Arm-
strong house, and the agent said she was crossing the
track to take the up-train to town when the express
struck her."


1
CHAPTER XXX
WHEN CHTTBCHYAEDS YAWN
IT was on Wednesday Riggs told us the story of
his connection with some incidents that had been
previously unexplained. Halsey had been gone
since the Friday night before, and with the passage
of each day I felt that his chances were lessening. I
knew well enough that he might be carried thousands
of miles in the box-car, locked in, perhaps, without
water or food. I had read of cases where bodies had
been found locked in cars on isolated sidings in the
west, and my spirits went down with every hour.
His recovery was destined to be almost as sudden as
his disappearance, and was due directly to the tramp
Alex had brought to Sunnyside. It seems the man was
grateful for his release, and when he learned some-
thing of Halsey's hereabouts from another member
of his fraternity —for it is a fraternity—he was
prompt in Mting us know.
3"


312 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
On Wednesday evening Mr. Jamieson, who had been
down at the Armstrong house trying to see Louise—
and failing—was met near the gate at Sunnyside by
an individual precisely as repulsive and unkempt as
the one Alex had captured. The man knew the de-
tective, and he gave him a piece of dirty paper, on
which was scrawled the words—"He's at City Hos-
pital, Johnsville." The tramp who brought the paper
pretended to know nothing, except this: the paper had
been passed along from a "hobo" in Johnsville, who
seemed to know the information would be valuable
to us.
Again the long distance telephone came into requi-
sition. Mr. Jamieson called the hospital, while we
crowded around him. And when there was no longer
any doubt that it was Halsey, and that he would prob-
ably recover, we all laughed and cried together. I am
sure I kissed Liddy, and I have had terrible moments
since when I seem to remember kissing Mr. Jamieson,
too, in the excitement.
Anyhow, by eleven o'clock that night Gertrude was
on her way to Johnsville, three hundred and eighty
miles away, accompanied by Rosie. The domestic
force was now down to Mary Anne and Liddy, with the


WHEN CHURCHYARDS YAWN 315
fences. Once only somebody spoke, and then it was
an emphatic bit of profanity from Doctor Stewart
when he ran into a wire fence.
We were joined at the end of five minutes by another
man, who fell into step with the doctor silently. He
carried something over his shoulder which I could not
make out. In this way we walked for perhaps twenty
minutes. I had lost all sense of direction: I merely
stumbled along in silence, allowing Mr. Jamieson to
guide me this way or that as the path demanded. I
hardly know what I expected. Once, when through a
miscalculation I jumped a little short over a ditch and
landed above my shoe-tops in the water and ooze, I
remember wondering if this were really I, and if I had
ever tasted life until that summer. I walked along
with the water sloshing in my boots, and I was actu-
ally cheerful. I remember whispering to Mr. Jamieson
that I had never seen the stars so lovely, and that it
was a mistake, when the Lord had made the night so
beautiful, to sleep through it!
The doctor was puffing somewhat when we finally
came to a halt. I confess that just at that minute even
Sunnyside seemed a cheerful spot. We had paused at
the edge of a level cleared place, bordered all around


316 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
with primly trimmed evergreen trees. Between Uiem
I caught a glimpse of starlight shining down on rows
of white headstones and an occasional more imposing
monument, or towering shaft. In spite of myself, I
drew my breath in sharply. We were on the edge of
the Casanova churchyard.
I saw now both the man who had joined the party
and the implements he carried. It was Alex, armed
with two long-handled spades. After the first shock
of surprise, I flatter myself I was both cool and quiet.
We went in single file between the rows of headstones,
and although, when I found myself last, I had an in-
stinctive desire to keep looking back over my shoulder,
I found that, the first uneasiness past, a cemetery at
night is much the same as any other country place,
filled with vague shadows and unexpected noises. Once,
indeed—but Mr. Jamieson said it was an owl, and I
tried to believe him.
In the shadow of the Armstrong granite shaft we
stopped. I think the doctor wanted to send me back.
"It's no place for a woman," I heard him protesting
angrily. But the detective said something about wit-
nesses, and the doctor only came over and felt my
pulse.


WHEN CHURCHYARDS YAWN 317
"Anyhow, I don't believe you're any worse off here
than you would be in that nightmare of a house," he
said finally, and put his coat on the,steps of the shaft
for me to sit on.
There is an air of finality about a grave: one
watches the earth thrown in, with the feeling that this
is the end. Whatever has gone before, vwhatever is to
come in eternity, that particular temple oT the soul has
been given back to the elements from which iLcame.
Thus, there is a sense of desecration, of a reversal^:
the everlasting fitness of things, in resurrecting a body
from its mother clay. And yet that night, in the Casa-
nova churchyard, I sat quietly by, and watched Alex
and Mr. Jamieson steaming over their work, without
a single qualm, except the fear of detection.
The doctor kept a keen lookout, but no one ap-
peared. Once in a while he came over to me, and gave
me a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"I never expected to come to this," he said once.
"There's one thing sure—I'll not be suspected of
complicity. A doctor is generally supposed to be
handier at burying folks than at digging them up."
The uncanny moment came when Alex and Jamie-
son tossed the spades on the grass, and I confess I


CHAPTER XXXI
BETWEEN TWO FIREPLACES
WHAT with the excitement of the discov-
ery, the walk home under the stars in
wet shoes and draggled skirts, and get-
ting up-stairs and undressed without rousing Liddy, I
was completely used up. What to do with my boots
was the greatest puzzle of all, there being no place in
the house safe from Liddy, until I decided to slip up-
stairs the next morning and drop them into the hole
the "ghost" had made in the trunk-room wall.
I went asleep as soon as I reached this decision, and
in my dreams I lived over again the events of the
night. Again I saw the group around the silent fig-
ure on the grass, and again, as had happened at the
grave, I heard Alex's voice, tense and triumphant:
"Then we've got them," he said. Only, in my
dreams, he said it over and over until he seemed to
shriek it in my ears.
319


320 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
I wakened early, in spite of my fatigue, andjay
there thinking. Who was Alex? I no longer believed
that he was a gardener. Who was the man whose body
we had resurrected? And where was Paul Armstrong?
Probably living safely in some extraditionless country
on the fortune he had stolen. Did Louise and her
mother know of the shameful and wicked deception?
What had Thomas known, and Mrs. Watson? Who
was Nina Carrington?
This last question, it seemed to me, was answered.
In some way the woman had learned of the substitu-
tion, and had tried to use her knowledge for black-
mail. Nina Carrington's own story died with her, but,
however it happened, it was clear that she had carried
her knowledge to Hakey the afternoon Gertrude and
I were looking for clues to the man I had shot on the
east veranda. Halsey had been half crazed by what
he heard; it was evident that Louise was marrying
Doctor Walker to keep the shameful secret, for her
, mother's sake. Halsey, always reckless, had gone at
once to Doctor Walker and denounced him. There
i had been a scene, and he left on his way to the station
to meet and notify Mr. Jamieson of what he had
learned. The doctor was active mentally and physic-



But the face that showed in the light "Page 318





BETWEEN TWO FIREPLACES 321
ally. Accompanied perhaps by Riggs, who had shown
himself not overscrupulous until he quarreled with his
employer, he had gone across to the railroad embank-
ment, and, by jumping in front of the car, had caused
Halsey to swerve. The rest of the story we knew.
That was my reconstructed theory of that afternoon
and evening: it was almost correct—not quite.
There was a telegram that morning from Gertrude.
"Halsey conscious and improving. Probably home in day
or so. Gertrude."
With Halsey found and improving in health, and
with at last something to work on, I began that day,
Thursday, with fresh courage. As Mr. Jamieson had
said, the lines were closing up. That I was to be
caught and almost finished in the closing was happily
unknown to us all.
It was late when I got up. I lay in my bed, looking
around the four walls of the room, and trying to im-
agine behind what one of them a secret chamber might
lie. Certainly, in daylight, Sunnyside deserved its
name: never was a house more cheery and open, less
sinister in general appearance. There was not a cor-
ner apparently that was not open and above-board,


BETWEEN TWO FIREPLACES 325
I hurried into the next room. Yes, sure enough,
there was a similar mantel and fireplace there, simi-
larly closed. In both rooms the chimney flue extended
well out from the wall. I measured with the tape-line,
my hands trembling so that I could scarcely hold it.
They extended two feet and a half into each room,
which, with the three feet of space between the two
partitions, made eight feet to be accounted for. Eight
feet in one direction and almost seven in the other—
what a chimney it was!
But I had only located the hidden room. I was not
in it, and no amount of pressing on the carving of
the wooden mantels, no search of the floors for loose
boards, none of the customary methods availed at all.
That there was a means of entrance, and probably a
simple one, I could be certain. But what? What
would I find if I did get in? Was the detective right,
and were the bonds and money from the Traders'
Bank there? Or was our whole theory wrong? Would
not Paul Armstrong have taken his booty with him?
If he had not, and if Doctor Walker was in the secret,
he would have known how to enter the chimney room.
Then—who had dug the other hole in the false par-
tition?


CHAPTER XXXn
anne watson's story
LIDDY discovered the fresh break in the
trunk-room wall while we were at luncheon,
and ran shrieking down the stairs. She
maintained that, as she entered, unseen hands had
been digging at the plaster; that they had 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 I had unluckily forgotten to
hide, and held them out to the detective and myself.
"What did I tell you?" she said dramatically.
"Look at 'em. They're yours, Miss Rachel—and cov-
ered with mud and soaked to the tops. I tell you, you
can scoff all you like; something has been wearing
your shoes. As sure as you sit there, there's the smell
of the graveyard on them. How do we know they
weren't tramping through the Casanova churchyard
last night, and sitting on the graves!"
Air. Jamieson almost cooked to death. "I wouldn't
326


ANNE WATSON'S STORY 327
be at all surprised if they were doing that very thing,
Liddy," he said, when he got his breath. "They cer-
tainly look like it."
I think the detective had a plan, on which he was
working, and which was meant to be a coup. But
things went so fast there was no time to carry it into
effect. The first thing that occurred was a message
from the Charity Hospital that Mrs. Watson was
dying, and had asked for me. I did not care much
about going. There is a sort of melancholy pleasure to
be had out of a funeral, with its pomp and ceremony,
but I shrank from a death-bed. However, Liddy got
out the black things and the crape veil I keep for
such occasions, and I went. I left Mr. Jamieson and
the day detective going over every inch of the circular
staircase, pounding, probing and measuring. I was
inwardly elated to think of the surprise I was going
to give them that night; as it turned out, I did sur-
prise them—almost into spasms.
I drove from the train to the Charity Hospital,
and was at once taken to 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 at me when I sat down beside her. I was con-


ANNE WATSON'S STORY 329
of this, and the young man's ardor rather carried
them away. In a word, seven years before, Lucy Has-
well had married a yo^ng man whose name was given
as Aubrey Wallace.
Anne Haswell had married a carpenter in her native
town, and was a widow. For three months everything
went fairly well. Aubrey took his bride to Chicago,
where they lived at a hotel. Perhaps the very unso-
pliistication that had charmed him in Valley Mill
jarred on him in the city. He had been far from a
model husband, even for the three months, and when
he disappeared Anne was almost thankful. It was
different with the young wife, however. She drooped
and fretted, and on the birth of her baby boy, she had
died. Anne took the child, and named him Lucien.
Anne had had no children of her own, and on
Lucien she had lavished all her aborted maternal in-
stinct. On one thing she was determined, however:
that was that Aubrey Wallace should educate his boy.
It was a part of her devotion to the child that she
should be ambitious for him: he must have every op-
portunity. And so she came east. She drifted around,
doing plain sewing and keeping a home somewhere
always for the boy. Finally, however, she realized


332 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
into the house. He had a golf-stick in his hand, that
he had picked up somewhere, and on her refusal he
had struck 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 a frenzy of rage and
fear, and got into the house while Gertrude and Jack
Bailey were at the front door. She went up-stairs,
hardly knowing what she was doing. Gertrude's door
was open, and Halsey's revolver lay there on the bed.
She picked it up and turning, ran part way down the
circular staircase. She could hear Arnold fumbling at
the lock outside. She slipped down quietly and opened
the door: he was inside before she had got back to the
stairs. It was quite dark, but she could see his white
shirt-bosom. From the fourth step she fired. As he
fell, somebody in. the billiard-room screamed and ran.
When the alarm was raised, she had had no time to
get up-stairs: she hid in the west wing until every one
was down on the lower floor. Then she slipped up-
stairs, and threw the revolver out of an upper window,
going down again in time to admit the men from the
Greenwood Club.
If Thomas had suspected, he had never told. When
she found the hand Arnold had injured was growing


ANNE WATSON'S STORY 333
worse, she gave the address of Lucien at Richfield to
the old man, and almost a hundred dollars. The money
was for Lucien's board until she recovered. She had
sent for me to ask me if I would try to interest the
Armstrongs in the child. When she found herself
growing worse, she had written to Mrs. Armstrong,
telling her nothing but that Arnold's legitimate child
was at Richfield, and imploring her to recognize him.
She was dying: the boy was an Armstrong, and en-
titled to his father's share of the estate. The papers
were in her trunk at Sunnyside, with letters from the
dead man that would prove what she said. She was
going; she would not be judged by earthly laws; and
somewhere else perhaps Lucy would plead for her. It
was she who had crept down the circular staircase,
drawn by a magnet, that night Mr. Jamieson had
heard some one there. Pursued, she had fled madly,
anywhere—through the first door she came to. She
had fallen down the clothes chute, and been saved by
the basket beneath. I could 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 of it seemed to relieve the dying
woman. She did not know that Thomas was dead, and


CHAPTER XXXIII
AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIBB
AS I drove rapidly up to the house from Casa-
nova Station in the hack, I saw the detective
k» Burns loitering across the street from the
Walker place. So Jamieson was putting the screws
on—lightly now, but ready to give them a twist or
two, I felt certain, very soon.
The house was quiet. Two steps of the circular
staircase had been pried off, without result, and be-
yond a second message from Gertrude, that Halsey
insisted on coming home and they would arrive that
night, there was nothing new. Mr. Jamieson, having
failed to locate the secret room, had gone to the vil-
lage. I learned afterwards that he called at Doctor
Walker's, under pretense of an attack of acute indi-
gestion, and before he left, had inquired about the
evening trains to the city. He said he had wasted a
lot of time on the case, and a good bit of the mystery
335


AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS 339
fear of a height, and advanced boldly almost to the
edge of the roof.
It was half-past six by that time, and growing
dusk.
"You boy, down there!" I called.
The paper boy turned and looked around. Then,
seeing nobody, he raised his eyes. It was a moment
before he located me: when he did, he stood for one
moment as if paralyzed, then he gave a horrible yell,
and dropping his papers, bolted across the lawn to
the road without stopping to look around. Once he
fell, and his impetus was so great that he turned an
involuntary somersault. He was up and off again
without any perceptible pause, and he leaped the
hedge—which I am sure under ordinary stress would
have been a feat for a man.
I am glad in this way to settle the Gray Lady story,
which is still a choice morsel in Casanova. I believe
the moral deduced by the village was that it is always
unlucky to throw a stone at a black cat.
With Johnny Sweeny a cloud of dust down the
road, and the dinner-hour approaching, I hurried on
with my investigations. Luckily, the roof was flat,
and I was able to go over every inch of it. But the


340 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
result was disappointing; no trap-door revealed it-
self, no glass window; nothing but a couple of pipes
two inches across, and standing perhaps eighteen
inches high and three feet apart, with a cap to pre-
vent rain from entering and raised to permit the
passage of air. I picked up a pebble from the roof
and dropped it down, listening with my ear at one of
the pipes. I could hear it strike on something with
a sharp, metallic sound, but it was impossible for me
to tell how far it had gone.
I gave up finally and went down the ladder again,
getting in through the ball-room window without be-
ing observed. I went back at once to the trunk-room,
and, sitting down on a box, I gave my mind, as con-
sistently as I could, to the problem before me. If the
pipes in the roof were ventilators to the secret room,
and there was no trap-door above, the entrance was
probably in one of the two rooms between which it lay
—unless, indeed, the room had been built, and the
opening then closed with a brick and mortar wall.
The mantel fascinated me. Made of wood and
carved, the more I looked the more I wondered that
I had not noticed before the absurdity of such a man-
tel in such a place. It was covered with scrolls and


AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS 343
table, with my feet on the chair. I imagined I could
hear the search going on through the house, and once
some one came into the trunk-room; I could distinctly
hear footsteps.
"In the chimney! In the chimney!" I called with all
my might, and was rewarded by a piercing shriek
from Liddy and the slam of the trunk-room door.
I felt easier after that, although the room was op-
pressively hot and enervating. I had no doubt the
search for me would now come in the right direction,
and after a little, I dropped into a doze. How long
I slept I do not know.
It must have been several hours, for I had been tired
from a busy day, and I wakened stiff from my awk-
ward position. I could not remember where I was for a
few minutes, and my head felt heavy and congested.
Gradually I roused to my surroundings, and to the
fact that in spite of the ventilators, the air was bad
and growing worse. I was breathing long, gasping
respirations, and my face was damp and clammy. I
must have been there a long time, and the searchers
were probably hunting outside the house, dredging the
creek, or beating the woodland. I knew that another
hour or two would find me unconscious, and with my


344 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
inability to cry out would go my only chance of rescue.
It was the combination of bad air and heat, probably,
for some inadequate ventilation was coming through
the pipes. I tried to retain my consciousness by walk-
ing the length of the room and back, over and over,
but I had not the strength to keep it up, so I sat down
on the table again, my back against the wall.
The house was very still. Once my straining ears
seemed to catch a footfall beneath me, possibly in my
own room. I groped for the chair from the table, and
pounded with it frantically on the floor. But nothing
happened: I realized bitterly that if the sound wa§
heard at all, no doubt it was classed with the other
rappings that had so alarmed us recently.
It was impossible to judge the flight of time. I
measured five minutes by counting my pulse, allow-
ing seventy-two beats to the minute. But it took
eternities, and toward the last I found it hard to
count; my head was confused.
And then—I heard sounds from below me, in the
house. There was a peculiar throbbing, vibrating
noise that I felt rather than heard, much like the puls-
ing beat of fire engines in the city. For one awful
moment I thought the house was on fire, and every


AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS 349
Innes," he said, "and I shall send one of the detectives
to guard it."
I hardly heard him. I wanted to laugh and cry in
the same breath—to crawl into bed and have a cup of
tea, and scold Liddy, and do any of the thousand
natural things that I had never expected to do again.
And the air! The touch of the cool night air on my
face!
As Alex and I reached the second floor, Mr. Jamie-
son met us. He was grave and quiet, and he nodded
comprehendingly when he saw the safe.
"Will you come with me for a moment, Miss In-
nes?" he asked soberly, and on my assenting, he led
the way to the east wing. There were lights moving
around below, and some of the maids were standing
gaping down. They screamed when they saw me, and
drew back to let me pass. There was a sort of hush
over the scene; Alex, behind me, muttered something
I could not hear, and brushed past me without cere-
mony. Then I realized that a man was lying doubled
up at the foot of the staircase, and that Alex was
stooping over him.
As I came slowly down, Winters stepped back, and
Alex straightened himself, looking at me across the


354 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
The next day, by degrees, I got the whole story.
Paul Armstrong had a besetting evil—the love of
money. Common enough, but he loved money, not for
what it would buy, but for its own sake. An examina-
tion of the books showed no irregularities in the past
year since John had been cashier, but before that, in
the time of Anderson, the old cashier, who had died,
much strange juggling had been done with the rec-
ords. The railroad in New Mexico had apparently
drained the banker's private fortune, and he deter-
mined to retrieve it by one stroke. This was nothing
less than the looting of the bank's securities, turning
them into money, and making his escape.
But the law has long arms. Paul Armstrong evi-
dently studied the situation carefully. Just as the
only good Indian is a dead Indian, so the only safe de-
faulter is a dead defaulter. He decided to die, to all
appearances, and when the hue and cry subsided, he
would be able to enjoy his money almost anywhere he
wished.
The first necessity was an accomplice. The con-
nivance of Doctor Walker was suggested by his lovu
for Louise. The man was unscrupulous, and with the
girl as a bait, Paul Armstrong soon had him fast. The


356 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
in front of the car to stop it, and fate played into their
hands. The car struck the train, and they had only to
dispose of the unconscious figure in the road. This
they did as I have told. For three days Halsey lay in
the box car, tied hand and foot, suffering tortures of
thirst, delirious at times, and discovered by a tramp at
Johnsville only in time to save his life.
To go back to Paul Armstrong. At the last mo-
ment his plans had been frustrated. Sunnyside, with
its hoard in the chimney-room, had been rented with-
out his knowledge! Attempts to dislodge me having
failed, he was driven to breaking into his own house.
The ladder in the chute, the burning of the stable and
the entrance through the card-room window—all were
in the course of a desperate attempt to get into the
chimney-room.
Louise and her mother had, from the first, been the
great stumbling-blocks. The plan had been to send
Louise away until it was too late for her to interfere,
but she came back to the hotel at C— just at the
wrong time. There was a terrible scene. The girl was
told that something of the kind was necessary; that
the bank was about to close and her stepfather would
either avoid arrest and disgrace in this way, or kill
t


358 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
Halsey «nd Jack Bailey out of the house, he went up
to the east entry, and in the billiard-room gave the
cashier what he had refused earlier in the evening—
the address of Paul Armstrong in California and a
telegram which had been forwarded to the club for
Sailey, from Doctor Walker. It was in response to
onj Bailey had sent, and it said that Paul Armstrong
ivas very ill.
Bailey was almost desperate. He decided to go west
and find Paul Armstrong, and to force him to dis-
gorge. But the catastrophe at the bank occurred
sooner than he had expected. On the moment of start-
ing west, at Andrews Station, where Mr. Jamieson had
located the car, he read that the bank had closed, and,
going back, surrendered himself.
John Bailey had known Faul Armstrong intimately.
He did not believe that the money was gone; in fact, it
was hardly possible in the interval since the securities,
had been taken. Where was it? And from some chance
remark let fall some months earlier by Arnold Arm-
strong at a dinner, Bailey felt sure there was a hidden
room at Sunnyside. He tried to see the architect of
the building, but, like the contractor, if he knew of the
room, he refused any information. It was Halsey's


THE ODDS AND ENDS 359
idea that John Bailey come to the house as a gardener,
and pursue his investigations as he could. His smooth
upper lip had been sufficient disguise, with his change
of clothes, and a hair-cut by a country barber.
So it was Alex, Jack Bailey, who had been our
ghost. Not only had he alarmed Louise—and himself,
he admitted—on the circular staircase, but he had dug
the hole in the trunk-room wall, and later sent Eliza
into hysteria. The note Liddy had found in Ger-
trude's scrap-basket was from him, and it was he who
had startled me into unconsciousness by the clothes
chute, and, with Gertrude's help, had carried me to
Louise's room. Gertrude, I learned, had watched all
night beside me, in an extremity of anxiety about me.
That old Thomas had seen his master, and thought
he had seen the Sunnyside ghost, there could be no
doubt. Of that story of Thomas', about seeing Jack
Bailey in the footpath between the club and Sunny-
side, the night Liddy and I heard the noise on the cir-
cular staircase—that, too, was right. On the night
before Arnold Armstrong was murdered, Jack Bailey
had made an attempt to search for the secret room.
He secured Arnold's keys from his room at the club,
and got into the house, armed with a golf-stick for


360 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
sounding the walls. He ran against the hamper at the
head of the stairs, caught his cuff-link in it, and
dropped the golf-stick with a crash. He was glad
enough to get away without an alarm being raised, and
he took the "owl" train to town.
The oddest thing to me was that Mr. Jamieson had
known for some time that Alex was Jack Bailey. But
the face of the pseudo-gardener was very queer indeed,
when that night, in the card-room, the detective turned
to him and said:
"How long are you and I going to play our little
comedy, Mr. Bailey?"
Well, it is all over now. Paul Armstrong rests in
Casanova churchyard, and this time there is no mis-
take. I went to the funeral, because I wanted to be
sure he was really buried, and I looked at the step of
the shaft where I had sat that night, and wondered if
it was all real. Sunnyside is for sale—no, I shall not
buy it. Little Lucien Armstrong is living with his
step-grandmother, and she is recovering gradually
from troubles that had extended over the entire period
of her second marriage. Anne Watson lies not far
from the man she killed, and who as surely caused her
death. Thomas, the fourth victim of the conspiracy,


362 THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
filled. Liddy or no Liddy, I shall advertise to-morrow
for a house in the country, and I don't care if it has
a Circular Staircase.
THE END


THE NOVELS OF
STEWART EDWARD WHITE
THE RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lajaren A. Hiller
Tbe romance of theson of "The Riverman." The young college
hero goes into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft" and comes
into the romance of his life.
ARIZONA NIGHTS. Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth.
A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life
of the ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece.
THE BLAZED TRAIL. With illustiations by Thomas Fogarty.
A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young
man who blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Mich-
igan pines.
THE CLAIM JUMPERS. A Romance.
The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the
Black Hills has a hard time of it, but "wins out" in more ways than
one.
CONJUROR'S HOUSE. Illustrated Theatrical Edition.
Dramatized under the title of "The Call of the North."
"Conjuror's House is a Hudson Bay trading post where the
head factor is the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and
won a bride on this forbidden land.
THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated.
The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and
their life is treated could only belong to one who is in love with the
forest and open air. Based on fact
THE RIVERMAN. Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood.
The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle
between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and
shrewdness on the other.
THE SILENT PLACES. Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin.
The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine
devotion, and masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian
and the instinct of the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story.
THE WESTERNERS.
A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the
best American novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no
other book has done in recent years.
THE 1 MYSTERY. In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams
With illustrations by Will Crawford.
The disappearance of three successive crews from the stout
ship "Laughing Las3" in mid-Pacific,isa mystery weird and inscrut-
able. In the solution, there is a story of the most exciting voyage
that man ever undertook.
Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York