"Miss Innes," the detective began, "what is your opinion of the figure
you saw on the east veranda the night you and your maid were in the
house alone?"
"It was a woman," I said positively.
"And yet your maid affirms with equal positiveness that it was a man."
"Nonsense," I broke in. "Liddy had her eyes shut--she always shuts
them when she's frightened."
"And you never thought then that the intruder who came later that night
might be a woman--the woman, in fact, whom you saw on the veranda?"
"I had reasons for thinking it was a man," I said remembering the pearl
cuff-link.
"Now we are getting down to business. WHAT were your reasons for
thinking that?"
I hesitated.
"If you have any reason for believing that your midnight guest was Mr.
Armstrong, other than his visit here the next night, you ought to tell
me, Miss Innes. We can take nothing for granted. If, for instance, the
intruder who dropped the bar and scratched the staircase--you see, I
know about that--if this visitor was a woman, why should not the same
woman have come back the following night, met Mr. Armstrong on the
circular staircase, and in alarm shot him?"
"It was a man," I reiterated. And then, because I could think of no
other reason for my statement, I told him about the pearl cuff-link.
He was intensely interested.
"Will you give me the link," he said, when I finished, "or, at least,
let me see it? I consider it a most important clue."
"Won't the description do?"
"Not as well as the original."
"Well, I'm very sorry," I said, as calmly as I could, "I--the thing is
lost. It--it must have fallen out of a box on my dressing-table."
Whatever he thought of my explanation, and I knew he doubted it, he
made no sign. He asked me to describe the link accurately, and I did
so, while he glanced at a list he took from his pocket.
"One set monogram cuff-links," he read, "one set plain pearl links, one
set cuff-links, woman's head set with diamonds and emeralds. There is
no mention of such a link as you describe, and yet, if your theory is
right, Mr. Armstrong must have taken back in his cuffs one complete
cuff-link, and a half, perhaps, of the other."
The idea was new to me. If it had not been the murdered man who had
entered the house that night, who had it been?
"There are a number of strange things connected with this case," the
detective went on. "Miss Gertrude Innes testified that she heard some
one fumbling with the lock, that the door opened, and that almost
immediately the shot was fired. Now, Miss Innes, here is the strange
part of that. Mr. Armstrong had no key with him. There was no key in
the lock, or on the floor. In other words, the evidence points
absolutely to this: Mr. Armstrong was admitted to the house from
within."