Halsey hesitated.
“They were having a dispute,” he said. “I asked Mr. Bailey to leave the club with me and come to Sunnyside over Sunday.”
“Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Innes, that you took Mr. Bailey away from the club-house because you were afraid there would be blows?”
“The situation was unpleasant,” Halsey said evasively.
“At that time had you any suspicion that the Traders’ Bank had been wrecked?”
“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. Jamieson’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 entrance.”
“What occurred then?”
“We talked for a few minutes, discussing a plan 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 have 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. I flatter myself she found nothing wrong with either her gown or her manner, but poor Gertrude’s testimony was the reverse of comforting. She had been summoned, she said, by her brother, after Mr. Armstrong 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 staircase, 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 something 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 entered?”
“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 upstairs to alarm the household, the criminal, whoever it was, could have escaped by the east door?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. That will do.”
I flatter 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.
