"Well," I said, "if I ever get my hands on Halsey Innes, 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."
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 demoralized, she reported, and Liddy, brave with
the daylight, 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 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 delight 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.