The Circular Staircase Read Online Free PDF Page A

excitedly talking, saying something about coroners and detectives. Mr. Jarvis leaned over to me.
     
      "Why don't you trust me, Miss Innes?" he said. "If I can do anything I will. But tell me the whole thing."
     
      I did, finally, from the beginning, and when I told of Jack Bailey's being in the house that night, he gave a long whistle.
     
      "I wish they were both here," he said when I finished. "Whatever mad prank took them away, it would look better if they were here.
     
      Especially--"
     
      "Especially what?"
     
      "Especially since Jack Bailey and Arnold Armstrong were notoriously bad friends. It was Bailey who got Arnold into trouble last spring--something about the bank. And then, too--"
     
      "Go on," I said. "If there is anything more, I ought to know."
     
      "There's nothing more," he said evasively. "There's just one thing we may bank on, Miss Innes. Any court in the country will acquit a man who kills an intruder in his house, at night. If Halsey--"
     
      "Why, you don't think Halsey did it!" I exclaimed. There was a queer feeling of physical nausea coming over me.
     
      "No, no, not at all," he said with forced cheerfulness. "Come, Miss Innes, you're a ghost of yourself and I am going to help you up-stairs and call your maid. This has been too much for you."
     
      Liddy helped me back to bed, and under the impression that I was in danger of freezing to death, put a hot-water bottle over my heart and another at my feet. Then she left me. It was early dawn now, and from voices under my window I surmised that Mr. Jarvis and his companions were searching the grounds. As for me, I lay in bed, with every faculty awake. Where had Halsey gone? How had he gone, and when? Before the murder, no doubt, but who would believe that? If either he or Jack Bailey had heard an intruder in the house and shot him--as they might have been justified in doing--why had they run away? The whole thing was unheard of, outrageous, and--impossible to ignore.
     
      About six o'clock Gertrude came in. She was fully dressed, and I sat up nervously.
     
      "Poor Aunty!" she said. "What a shocking night you have had!" She came over and sat down on the bed, and I saw she looked very tired and worn.
     
      "Is there anything new?" I asked anxiously.
     
      "Nothing. The car is gone, but Warner"--he is the chauffeur-- "Warner is at the lodge and knows nothing about it."
     
      "Well," I said, "if I ever get my hands on Halsey Innes, I shall not let go until I have told him a few things. When we get this cleared up, I am going back to the city to be quiet. One more night like the last two will end me. The peace of the country-- fiddle sticks!"
     
      Whereupon I told Gertrude of the noises the night before, and the figure on the veranda in the east wing. As an afterthought I brought out the pearl cuff-link.
     
      "I have no doubt now," I said, "that it was Arnold Armstrong the night before last, too. He had a key, no doubt, but why he should steal into his father's house I can not imagine. He could have come with my permission, easily enough. Anyhow, whoever it was that night, left this little souvenir."
     
      Gertrude took one look at the cuff-link, and went as white as the pearls in it; she clutched at the foot of the bed, and stood staring. As for me, I was quite as astonished as she was.
     
      "Where did--you--find it?" she asked finally, with a desperate effort at calm. And while I told her she stood looking out of the window with a look I could not fathom on her face. It was a relief when Mrs. Watson tapped at the door and brought me some tea and toast. The cook was in bed, completely demoralized, she reported, and Liddy, brave with the daylight, was looking for footprints around the house. Mrs. Watson herself was a wreck; she was blue-white around the lips, and she had