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 perhaps twenty, was Louise Armstrong, having taken her stepfather’s name, and was at present in California with the family.
“They will probably return at once,” he concluded “sad 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 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 intelligence.”
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, but it lacked Halsey’s ease. The ones toward the bottom 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 curious; this one, as I said before, is puzzling.”
The second scrap, folded and refolded into a compass so tiny that the writing had been partly obliterated, 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 possible. 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 suspicion.”
“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?”
“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-humoredly, “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 “I 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 unfriendly 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 listened 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 rapidly 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 somebody 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 up the 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
