The Circular Staircase - Page 40/154

Halsey threw up both hands despairingly.

"If that isn't like a girl!" he said. "Why didn't you do what I asked

you to, Gertrude? You send Bailey off with an empty gun, and throw

mine in a tulip bed, of all places on earth! Mine was a thirty-eight

caliber. The inquest will show, of course, that the bullet that killed

Armstrong was a thirty-eight. Then where shall I be?"

"You forget," I broke in, "that I have the revolver, and that no one

knows about it."

But Gertrude had risen angrily.

"I can not stand it; it is always with me," she cried. "Halsey, I did

not throw your revolver into the tulip bed. I--think--you--did

it--yourself!"

They stared at each other across the big library table, with young eyes

all at once hard, suspicious. And then Gertrude held out both hands to

him appealingly.

"We must not," she said brokenly. "Just now, with so much at stake,

it--is shameful. I know you are as ignorant as I am. Make me believe

it, Halsey."

Halsey soothed her as best he could, and the breach seemed healed. But

long after I went to bed he sat down-stairs in the living-room alone,

and I knew he was going over the case as he had learned it. Some

things were clear to him that were dark to me. He knew, and Gertrude,

too, why Jack Bailey and he had gone away that night, as they did. He

knew where they had been for the last forty-eight hours, and why Jack

Bailey had not returned with him. It seemed to me that without fuller

confidence from both the children--they are always children to me--I

should never be able to learn anything.

As I was finally getting ready for bed, Halsey came up-stairs and

knocked at my door. When I had got into a negligee--I used to say

wrapper before Gertrude came back from school--I let him in. He stood

in the doorway a moment, and then he went into agonies of silent mirth.

I sat down on the side of the bed and waited in severe silence for him

to stop, but he only seemed to grow worse.

When he had recovered he took me by the elbow and pulled me in front of

the mirror.

"'How to be beautiful,'" he quoted. "'Advice to maids and matrons,' by

Beatrice Fairfax!" And then I saw myself. I had neglected to remove

my wrinkle eradicators, and I presume my appearance was odd. I believe

that it is a woman's duty to care for her looks, but it is much like

telling a necessary falsehood--one must not be found out. By the time

I got them off Halsey was serious again, and I listened to his story.

"Aunt Ray," he began, extinguishing his cigarette on the back of my

ivory hair-brush, "I would give a lot to tell you the whole thing.

But--I can't, for a day or so, anyhow. But one thing I might have told

you a long time ago. If you had known it, you would not have suspected

me for a moment of--of having anything to do with the attack on Arnold

Armstrong. Goodness knows what I might do to a fellow like that, if

there was enough provocation, and I had a gun in my hand--under

ordinary circumstances. But--I care a great deal about Louise

Armstrong, Aunt Ray. I hope to marry her some day. Is it likely I

would kill her brother?"