The Circular Staircase (16 page)

 

      "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 Gertrude 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 the watchman pondered over it an the rest of the night. What did Bailey do when he went back to the Knickerbocker apartments that night? He packed 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 immediately turn public opinion in his favor, and surrendered 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. He was shrewd enough to disarm suspicion 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 on the eleven train, and was admitted to the Charity Hospital. She was suffering from blood-poisoning. I fully meant to go up and see her there, but other things drove her entirely from my mind. I telephoned to the hospital that day, however, and ordered a private room for her, and whatever comforts she might be allowed.

 

      Mrs. Armstrong arrived Monday evening with her husband's body, and the services were set for the next day. The house on Chestnut Street, in town, had been opened, and Tuesday morning Louise left us to go home. She sent for me before she went, and I saw she had been crying.

 

      "How can I thank you, Miss Innes?" she said. "You have taken me on faith, and--you have not asked me any questions. Some time, perhaps, I can tell you; and when that time comes, you will all despise me,--Halsey, too."

 

      I tried to tell her how glad I was to have had her but there was something else she wanted to say. She said it finally, when she had bade a constrained good-by to Halsey and the car was waiting at the door.

 

      "Miss Innes," she said in a low tone, "if they--if there is any attempt made to--to have you give up 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 coolness 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, Gertrude?" he asked!

 

      "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 sitting 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 meat," 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 emergency. 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 exchanged significant glances, and Warner got a lantern.

 

      "He can't have gone far," he said. "He was trembling 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. Gertrude, 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 one 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.

 

     

 

     

 

     

 

 

     

 

      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. "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 again, 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 the house." "Didn't he say anything else you could understand?" I asked. "He said something about the grave giving up its dead."

 

      Mr. Jamieson was going through the old man's pockets, and Gertrude was composing his arms, folding them across his white shirt-bosom, always so spotless.

 

      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, Halsey?"

 

      "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 trusted servant, should not have had a key to that particular door, although the servants' entry was in the west wing. 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 Gertrude 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 hiding from something. I am sorry in more than one way: I have always believed that Thomas knew something, or suspected something, that he would not tell. Do you know hour 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 a result. He came up early the next morning, just as we finished breakfast, in a professional looking car with a black hood. I found him striding up and down the living-room, and, in spite of my preconceived dislike, I had to admit that the man was presentable. A big fellow he was, tall and dark, as Gertrude had said, smooth-shaven and erect, with prominent features and a square jaw. He was painfully spruce in his appearance, and his manner was almost obtrusively polite.

 

      "I must make a double excuse for this early visit, Miss Innes," he said as he sat down. The chair was lower than he expected, and his dignity required collecting before he went on. "My professional duties are urgent and long neglected, and"--a fall to the every-day manner--"something must be done about that body."

 

      "Yes," I said, sitting on the edge of my chair. "I merely wished the address of Thomas' people. You might have telephoned, if you were busy."

 

      He smiled.

 

      "I wished to see you about something else," he said. "As for Thomas, it is Mrs. Armstrong's wish that would allow her to attend to the expense. About his relatives, I have already notified his brother, in the village. It was heart disease, I think. Thomas always had a bad heart."

 

      "Heart disease and fright," I said, still on the edge of my chair. But the doctor had no intention of leaving.

 

      "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 replied.

 

      "What, no ghost, no detectives!" he said, still with his smile. "What a disappointment to the village!"