CHAPTER XI
HALSEY MAKES A CAPTURE
It was about half-past eight when we left the dining-room and stillengrossed with one subject, the failure of the bank and its attendantevils Halsey and I went out into the grounds for a stroll Gertrudefollowed us shortly. "The light was thickening," to appropriateShakespeare's description of twilight, and once again the tree-toadsand the crickets were making night throb with their tiny life. It wasalmost oppressively lonely, in spite of its beauty, and I felt asickening pang of homesickness for my city at night--for the clatter ofhorses' feet on cemented paving, for the lights, the voices, the soundof children playing. The country after dark oppresses me. The stars,quite eclipsed in the city by the electric lights, here becomeinsistent, assertive. Whether I want to or not, I find myself lookingfor the few I know by name, and feeling ridiculously new and small bycontrast--always an unpleasant sensation.
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 ofour conversation of the night before. As we strolled back and forthalong the drive, Mr. Jamieson emerged from the shadow of the trees.
"Good evening," he said, managing to include Gertrude in his bow.
Gertrude had never been even ordinarily courteous to him, and shenodded coldly. Halsey, however, was more cordial, although we were allconstrained enough. He and Gertrude went on together, leaving thedetective to walk with me. As soon as they were out of earshot, heturned 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 worsethan a rascal; and after her plucky fight for him, it seems hard."
I looked through the dusk to where Gertrude's light dinner dressgleamed among the trees. She HAD made a plucky fight, poor child.Whatever she might have been driven to do, I could find nothing but adeep sympathy for her. If she had only come to me with the whole truththen!
"Miss Innes," Mr. Jamieson was saying, "in the last three days, haveyou 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 orLiddy 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 toget any perspective on things around here, because every one down inthe village is sure he saw the murderer, either before or since thecrime. And half of them will stretch a point or two as to facts, to beobliging. But the man who drives the hack down there tells a storythat may possibly prove to be important."
"I have heard it, I think. Was it the one the parlor maid brought upyesterday, about a ghost wringing its hands on the roof? Or perhapsit's the one the milk-boy heard: a tramp washing a dirty shirt,presumably bloody, in the creek below the bridge?"
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 shepreferred 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 havenow 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 possibleexplanation. The path from the Greenwood Club to the village entersthe road near the lodge gate. A woman who wished to reach the CountryClub, unperceived, might choose such a method. There are plenty ofwomen there."
I think this gave him something to ponder, for in a short time he saidgood night and left. But I myself was far from satisfied. I wasdetermined, however, on one thing. If my suspicions--for I hadsuspicions--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 herselfsince her talk with Halsey, sat down at the mahogany desk in theliving-room to write a letter. Halsey prowled up and down the entireeast wing, now in the card-room, now in the billiard-room, and now andthen blowing his clouds of tobacco smoke among the pink and goldhangings of the drawing-room. After a little I joined him in thebilliard-room, and together we went over the details of the discoveryof the body.
The card-room was quite dark. Where we sat, in the billiard-room, onlyone of the side brackets was lighted, and we spoke in subdued tones, asthe hour and the subject seemed to demand. When I spoke of the figureLiddy and I had seen on the porch through the card-room window Fridaynight, Halsey sauntered into the darkened room, and together we stoodthere, 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 ArnoldArmstrong had been found. I was a bit nervous, and I put my hand onHalsey's sleeve. Suddenly, from the top of the staircase above us camethe sound of a cautious footstep. At first I was not sure, butHalsey's attitude told me he had heard and was listening. The step,slow, measured, infinitely cautious, was nearer now. Halsey tried toloosen my fingers, but I was in a paralysis of fright.
The swish of a body against the curving rail, as if for guidance, wasplain enough, and now whoever it was had reached the foot of thestaircase and had caught a glimpse of our rigid silhouettes against thebilliard-room doorway. Halsey threw me off then and strode forward.
"Who is it?" he called imperiously, and took a half dozen rapid stridestoward 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, and,for an instant, quiet. I screamed, I think. Then I remember turningon the lights and finding Halsey, white with fury, trying to untanglehimself from something warm and fleecy. He had cut his forehead alittle on the lowest step of the stairs, and he was rather a ghastlysight.
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 ateach other over--of all things on earth--a white silk and wool blanket,exquisitely fine! It was the most unghostly thing in the world, withits lavender border and its faint scent. Gertrude was the first tospeak.
"Somebody--had it?" she asked.
"Yes. Halsey tried to stop whoever it was and fell. Gertrude, thatblanket is not mine. I have never seen before."
She held it up and looked at it: then she went to the door on to theveranda and threw it open. Perhaps a hundred feet from the house weretwo figures, that moved slowly toward us as we looked.
When they came within range of the light, I recognized Halsey, and withhim Mrs. Watson, the housekeeper.