The Circular Staircase - Page 23/154

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.