The Circular Staircase - Page 25/154

"His old tricks," he said. "That one is merely curious; this one, as I

said before, is puzzling."

The second scrap, folded and refolded into a compass so tiny that the

writing had been partly obliterated, was part of a letter--the lower

half of a sheet, not typed, but written in a cramped hand.

"----by altering the plans for----rooms, may be possible. The best

way, in my opinion, would be to----the plan for----in one of

the----rooms----chimney."

That was all.

"Well?" I said, looking up. "There is nothing in that, is there? A man

ought to be able to change the plan of his house without becoming an

object of suspicion."

"There is little in the paper itself," he admitted; "but why should

Arnold Armstrong carry that around, unless it meant something? He

never built a house, you may be sure of that. If it is this house, it

may mean anything, from a secret room--"

"To an extra bath-room," I said scornfully. "Haven't you a

thumb-print, too?"

"I have," he said with a smile, "and the print of a foot in a tulip

bed, and a number of other things. The oddest part is, Miss Innes,

that the thumb-mark is probably yours and the footprint certainly."

His audacity was the only thing that saved me: his amused smile put me

on my mettle, and I ripped out a perfectly good scallop before I

answered.

"Why did I step into the tulip bed?" I asked with interest.

"You picked up something," he said good-humoredly, "which you are going

to tell me about later."

"Am I, indeed?" I was politely curious. "With this remarkable insight

of yours, I wish you would tell me where I shall find my

four-thousand-dollar motor car."

"I was just coming to that," he said. "You will find it about thirty

miles away, at Andrews Station, in a blacksmith shop, where it is being

repaired."

I laid down my knitting then and looked at him.

"And Halsey?" I managed to say.

"We are going to exchange information," he said "I am going to tell you

that, when you tell me what you picked up in the tulip bed."

We looked steadily at each other: it was not an unfriendly stare; we

were only measuring weapons. Then he smiled a little and got up.

"With your permission," he said, "I am going to examine the card-room

and the staircase again. You might think over my offer in the

meantime."

He went on through the drawing-room, and I listened to his footsteps

growing gradually fainter. I dropped my pretense at knitting and,

leaning back, I thought over the last forty-eight hours. Here was I,

Rachel Innes, spinster, a granddaughter of old John Innes of

Revolutionary days, a D. A. R., a Colonial Dame, mixed up with a vulgar

and revolting crime, and even attempting to hoodwink the law!

Certainly I had left the straight and narrow way.