The Circular Staircase - Page 28/154

"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.