"I do," Gertrude answered firmly. "At a quarter before three my
brother and Mr. Bailey left the house, by the main entrance.
I--was--there."
"Gertrude," I said excitedly, "you are dreaming! Why, at a quarter to
three--"
"Listen," she said. "At half-past two the downstairs telephone rang.
I had not gone to sleep, and I heard it. Then I heard Halsey answer
it, and in a few minutes he came up-stairs and knocked at my door.
We--we talked for a minute, then I put on my dressing-gown and
slippers, and went down-stairs with him. Mr. Bailey was in the
billiard-room. We--we all talked together for perhaps ten minutes.
Then it was decided that--that they should both go away--"
"Can't you be more explicit?" Mr. Jamieson asked. "WHY did they go
away?"
"I am only telling you what happened, not why it happened," she said
evenly. "Halsey went for the car, and instead of bringing it to the
house and rousing people, he went by the lower road from the stable.
Mr. Bailey was to meet him at the foot of the lawn. Mr. Bailey left--"
"Which way?" Mr. Jamieson asked sharply.
"By the main entrance. He left--it was a quarter to three. I know
exactly."
"The clock in the hall is stopped, Miss Innes," said Jamieson. Nothing
seemed to escape him.
"He looked at his watch," she replied, and I could see Mr. Jamieson's
snap, as if he had made a discovery. As for myself, during the whole
recital I had been plunged into the deepest amazement.
"Will you pardon me for a personal question?" The detective was a
youngish man, and I thought he was somewhat embarrassed. "What are
your--your relations with Mr. Bailey?"
Gertrude hesitated. Then she came over and put her hand lovingly in
mine.
"I am engaged to marry him," she said simply.
I had grown so accustomed to surprises that I could only gasp again,
and as for Gertrude, the hand that lay in mine was burning with fever.
"And--after that," Mr. Jamieson went on, "you went directly to bed?"
Gertrude hesitated.
"No," she said finally. "I--I am not nervous, and after I had
extinguished the light, I remembered something I had left in the
billiard-room, and I felt my way back there through the darkness."
"Will you tell me what it was you had forgotten?"
"I can not tell you," she said slowly. "I--I did not leave the
billiard-room at once--"
"Why?" The detective's tone was imperative. "This is very important,
Miss Innes."
"I was crying," Gertrude said in a low tone. "When the French clock in
the drawing-room struck three, I got up, and then--I heard a step on
the east porch, just outside the card-room. Some one with a key was
working with the latch, and I thought, of course, of Halsey. When we
took the house he called that his entrance, and he had carried a key
for it ever since. The door opened and I was about to ask what he had
forgotten, when there was a flash and a report. Some heavy body
dropped, and, half crazed with terror and shock, I ran through the
drawing-room and got up-stairs--I scarcely remember how."