The Circular Staircase - Page 48/154

It was about half-past eight when we left the dining-room and still

engrossed with one subject, the failure of the bank and its attendant

evils Halsey and I went out into the grounds for a stroll Gertrude

followed us shortly. "The light was thickening," to appropriate

Shakespeare's description of twilight, and once again the tree-toads

and the crickets were making night throb with their tiny life. It was

almost oppressively lonely, in spite of its beauty, and I felt a

sickening pang of homesickness for my city at night--for the clatter of

horses' feet on cemented paving, for the lights, the voices, the sound

of children playing. The country after dark oppresses me. The stars,

quite eclipsed in the city by the electric lights, here become

insistent, assertive. Whether I want to or not, I find myself looking

for the few I know by name, and feeling ridiculously new and small by

contrast--always an unpleasant sensation.

After Gertrude joined us, we avoided any further mention of the murder.

To Halsey, as to me, there was ever present, I am sure, the thought of

our conversation of the night before. As we strolled back and forth

along the drive, Mr. Jamieson emerged from the shadow of the trees.

"Good evening," he said, managing to include Gertrude in his bow.

Gertrude had never been even ordinarily courteous to him, and she

nodded coldly. Halsey, however, was more cordial, although we were all

constrained enough. He and Gertrude went on together, leaving the

detective to walk with me. As soon as they were out of earshot, he

turned to me.

"Do you know, Miss Innes," he said, "the deeper I go into this thing,

the more strange it seems to me. I am very sorry for Miss Gertrude.

It looks as if Bailey, whom she has tried so hard to save, is worse

than a rascal; and after her plucky fight for him, it seems hard."

I looked through the dusk to where Gertrude's light dinner dress

gleamed among the trees. She HAD made a plucky fight, poor child.

Whatever she might have been driven to do, I could find nothing but a

deep sympathy for her. If she had only come to me with the whole truth

then!

"Miss Innes," Mr. Jamieson was saying, "in the last three days, have

you seen a--any suspicious figures around the grounds? Any--woman?"

"No," I replied. "I have a houseful of maids that will bear watching,

one and all. But there has been no strange woman near the house or

Liddy would have seen her, you may be sure. She has a telescopic eye."

Mr. Jamieson looked thoughtful.

"It may not amount to anything," he said slowly. "It is difficult to

get any perspective on things around here, because every one down in

the village is sure he saw the murderer, either before or since the

crime. And half of them will stretch a point or two as to facts, to be

obliging. But the man who drives the hack down there tells a story

that may possibly prove to be important."