I was panic-stricken. As I ran along the corridor I was confident that
the mysterious intruder and probable murderer had been found, and that
he lay dead or dying at the foot of the chute. I got down the
staircase somehow, and through the kitchen to the basement stairs. Mr.
Jamieson had been before me, and the door stood open. Liddy was
standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding a frying-pan by the
handle as a weapon.
"Don't go down there," she yelled, when she saw me moving toward the
basement stairs. "Don't you do it, Miss Rachel. That Jamieson's down
there now. There's only trouble comes of hunting ghosts; they lead you
into bottomless pits and things like that. Oh, Miss Rachel, don't--" as
I tried to get past her.
She was interrupted by Mr. Jamieson's reappearance. He ran up the
stairs two at a time, and his face was flushed and furious.
"The whole place is locked," he said angrily. "Where's the laundry key
kept?"
"It's kept in the door," Liddy snapped. "That whole end of the cellar
is kept locked, so nobody can get at the clothes, and then the key's
left in the door? so that unless a thief was as blind as--as some
detectives, he could walk right in."
"Liddy," I said sharply, "come down with us and turn on all the lights."
She offered her resignation, as usual, on the spot, but I took her by
the arm, and she came along finally. She switched on all the lights
and pointed to a door just ahead.
"That's the door," she said sulkily. "The key's in it."
But the key was not in it. Mr. Jamieson shook it, but it was a heavy
door, well locked. And then he stooped and began punching around the
keyhole with the end of a lead-pencil. When he stood up his face was
exultant.
"It's locked on the inside," he said in a low tone. "There is somebody
in there."
"Lord have mercy!" gasped Liddy, and turned to run.
"Liddy," I called, "go through the house at once and see who is
missing, or if any one is. We'll have to clear this thing at once.
Mr. Jamieson, if you will watch here I will go to the lodge and find
Warner. Thomas would be of no use. Together you may be able to force
the door."
"A good idea," he assented. "But--there are windows, of course, and
there is nothing to prevent whoever is in there from getting out that
way."
"Then lock the door at the top of the basement stairs," I suggested,
"and patrol the house from the outside."
We agreed to this, and I had a feeling that the mystery of Sunnyside
was about to be solved. I ran down the steps and along the drive.
Just at the corner I ran full tilt into somebody who seemed to be as
much alarmed as I was. It was not until I had recoiled a step or two
that I recognized Gertrude, and she me.