When the detective left he enjoined absolute secrecy on everybody in
the household. The Greenwood Club promised the same thing, and as
there are no Sunday afternoon papers, the murder was not publicly known
until Monday. The coroner himself notified the Armstrong family
lawyer, and early in the afternoon he came out. I had not seen Mr.
Jamieson since morning, but I knew he had been interrogating the
servants. Gertrude was locked in her room with a headache, and I had
luncheon alone.
Mr. Harton, the lawyer, was a little, thin man, and he looked as if he
did not relish his business that day.
"This is very unfortunate, Miss Innes," he said, after we had shaken
hands. "Most unfortunate--and mysterious. With the father and mother
in the west, I find everything devolves on me; and, as you can
understand, it is an unpleasant duty."
"No doubt," I said absently. "Mr. Harton, I am going to ask you some
questions, and I hope you will answer them. I feel that I am entitled
to some knowledge, because I and my family are just now in a most
ambiguous position."
I don't know whether he understood me or not: he took of his glasses
and wiped them.
"I shall be very happy," he said with old-fashioned courtesy.
"Thank you. Mr. Harton, did Mr. Arnold Armstrong know that Sunnyside
had been rented?"
"I think--yes, he did. In fact, I myself told him about it."
"And he knew who the tenants were?"
"Yes."
"He had not been living with the family for some years, I believe?"
"No. Unfortunately, there had been trouble between Arnold and his
father. For two years he had lived in town."
"Then it would be unlikely that he came here last night to get
possession of anything belonging to him?"
"I should think it hardly possible," he admitted.
"To be perfectly frank, Miss Innes, I can not think of any reason
whatever for his coming here as he did. He had been staying at the
club-house across the valley for the last week, Jarvis tells me, but
that only explains how he came here, not why. It is a most unfortunate
family."
He shook his head despondently, and I felt that this dried-up little
man was the repository of much that he had not told me. I gave up
trying to elicit any information from him, and we went together to view
the body before it was taken to the city. It had been lifted on to the
billiard-table and a sheet thrown over it; otherwise nothing had been
touched. A soft hat lay beside it, and the collar of the dinner-coat
was still turned up. The handsome, dissipated face of Arnold
Armstrong, purged of its ugly lines, was now only pathetic. As we went
in Mrs. Watson appeared at the card-room door.