The Circular Staircase - Page 77/154

"You heard no other sound?" the coroner asked. "There was no one with

Mr. Armstrong when he entered?"

"It was perfectly dark. There were no voices and I heard nothing.

There was just the opening of the door, the shot, and the sound of

somebody falling."

"Then, while you went through the drawing-room and up-stairs to alarm

the household, the criminal, whoever it was, could have escaped by the

east door?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. That will do."

I flatter myself that the coroner got little enough out of me. I saw

Mr. Jamieson smiling to himself, and the coroner gave me up, after a

time. I admitted I had found the body, said I had not known who it was

until Mr. Jarvis told me, and ended by looking up at Barbara Fitzhugh

and saying that in renting the house I had not expected to be involved

in any family scandal. At which she turned purple.

The verdict was that Arnold Armstrong had met his death at the hands of

a person or persons unknown, and we all prepared to leave. Barbara

Fitzhugh flounced out without waiting to speak to me, but Mr. Harton

came up, as I knew he would.

"You have decided to give up the house, I hope, Miss Innes," he said.

"Mrs. Armstrong has wired me again."

"I am not going to give it up," I maintained, "until I understand some

things that are puzzling me. The day that the murderer is discovered,

I will leave."

"Then, judging by what I have heard, you will be back in the city very

soon," he said. And I knew that he suspected the discredited cashier

of the Traders' Bank.

Mr. Jamieson came up to me as I was about to leave the coroner's office.

"How is your patient?" he asked with his odd little smile.

"I have no patient," I replied, startled.

"I will put it in a different way, then. How is Miss Armstrong?"

"She--she is doing very well," I stammered.

"Good," cheerfully. "And our ghost? Is it laid?"

"Mr. Jamieson," I said suddenly, "I wish you would do one thing: I wish

you would come to Sunnyside and spend a few days there. The ghost is

not laid. I want you to spend one night at least watching the circular

staircase. The murder of Arnold Armstrong was a beginning, not an end."

He looked serious.

"Perhaps I can do it," he said. "I have been doing something else,

but--well, I will come out to-night."

We were very silent during the trip back to Sunnyside. I watched

Gertrude closely and somewhat sadly. To me there was one glaring flaw

in her story, and it seemed to stand out for every one to see. Arnold

Armstrong had had no key, and yet she said she had locked the east

door. He must have been admitted from within the house; over and over

I repeated it to myself.