"Good gracious, Aunt Ray," she exclaimed, "what is the matter?"
"There's somebody locked in the laundry," I panted. "That
is--unless--you didn't see any one crossing the lawn or skulking around
the house, did you?"
"I think we have mystery on the brain," Gertrude said wearily. "No, I
haven't seen any one, except old Thomas, who looked for all the world
as if he had been ransacking the pantry. What have you locked in the
laundry?"
"I can't wait to explain," I replied. "I must get Warner from the
lodge. If you came out for air, you'd better put on your overshoes."
And then I noticed that Gertrude was limping--not much, but
sufficiently to make her progress very slow, and seemingly painful.
"You have hurt yourself," I said sharply.
"I fell over the carriage block," she explained. "I thought perhaps I
might see Halsey coming home. He--he ought to be here."
I hurried on down the drive. The lodge was some distance from the
house, in a grove of trees where the drive met the county road. There
were two white stone pillars to mark the entrance, but the iron gates,
once closed and tended by the lodge-keeper, now stood permanently open.
The day of the motor-car had come; no one had time for closed gates and
lodge-keepers. The lodge at Sunnyside was merely a sort of
supplementary servants' quarters: it was as convenient in its
appointments as the big house and infinitely more cozy.
As I went down the drive, my thoughts were busy. Who would it be that
Mr. Jamieson had trapped in the cellar? Would we find a body or some
one badly injured? Scarcely either. Whoever had fallen had been able
to lock the laundry door on the inside. If the fugitive had come from
outside the house, how did he get in? If it was some member of the
household, who could it have been? And then--a feeling of horror almost
overwhelmed me. Gertrude! Gertrude and her injured ankle! Gertrude
found limping slowly up the drive when I had thought she was in bed!
I tried to put the thought away, but it would not go. If Gertrude had
been on the circular staircase that night, why had she fled from Mr.
Jamieson? The idea, puzzling as it was, seemed borne out by this
circumstance. Whoever had taken refuge at the head of the stairs could
scarcely have been familiar with the house, or with the location of the
chute. The mystery seemed to deepen constantly. What possible
connection could there be between Halsey and Gertrude, and the murder
of Arnold Armstrong? And yet, every way I turned I seemed to find
something that pointed to such a connection.
At the foot of the drive the road described a long, sloping,
horseshoe-shaped curve around the lodge. There were lights there,
streaming cheerfully out on to the trees, and from an upper room came
wavering shadows, as if some one with a lamp was moving around. I had
come almost silently in my evening slippers, and I had my second
collision of the evening on the road just above the house. I ran full
into a man in a long coat, who was standing in the shadow beside the
drive, with his back to me, watching the lighted windows.