The Circular Staircase Read Online Free PDF Page B

sound, but being alone with one maid had not investigated. The house had been locked in the morning and apparently undisturbed.
     
      Then, as clearly as I could, I related how, the night before, a shot had roused us; that my niece and I had investigated and found a body; that I did not know who the murdered man was until Mr. Jarvis from the club informed me, and that I knew of no reason why Mr. Arnold Armstrong should steal into his father's house at night. I should have been glad to allow him entree there at any time.
     
      "Have you reason to believe, Miss Innes," the coroner asked, "that any member of your household, imagining Mr. Armstrong was a burglar, shot him in self-defense?"
     
      "I have no reason for thinking so," I said quietly.
     
      "Your theory is that Mr. Armstrong was followed here by some enemy, and shot as he entered the house?"
     
      "I don't think I have a theory," I said. "The thing that has puzzled me is why Mr. Armstrong should enter his father's house two nights in succession, stealing in like a thief, when he needed only to ask entrance to be admitted."
     
      The coroner was a very silent man: he took some notes after this, but he seemed anxious to make the next train back to town. He set the inquest for the following Saturday, gave Mr. Jamieson, the younger of the two detectives, and the more intelligent looking, a few instructions, and, after gravely shaking hands with me and regretting the unfortunate affair, took his departure, accompanied by the other detective.
     
      I was just beginning to breathe freely when Mr. Jamieson, who had been standing by the window, came over to me.
     
      "The family consists of yourself alone, Miss Innes?"
     
      "My niece is here," I said.
     
      "There is no one but yourself and your niece?"
     
      "My nephew." I had to moisten my lips.
     
      "Oh, a nephew. I should like to see him, if he is here."
     
      "He is not here just now," I said as quietly as I could. "I expect him--at any time."
     
      "He was here yesterday evening, I believe?"
     
      "No--yes."
     
      "Didn't he have a guest with him? Another man?"
     
      "He brought a friend with him to stay over Sunday, Mr. Bailey."
     
      "Mr. John Bailey, the cashier of the Traders' Bank I believe." And I knew that some one at the Greenwood Club had told. "When did they leave?"
     
      "Very early--I don't know at just what time."
     
      Mr. Jamieson turned suddenly and looked at me.
     
      "Please try to be more explicit," he said. "You say your nephew and Mr. Bailey were in the house last night, and yet you and your niece, with some women-servants, found the body. Where was your nephew?"
     
      I was entirely desperate by that time.
     
      "I do not know," I cried, "but be sure of this: Halsey knows nothing of this thing, and no amount of circumstantial evidence can make an innocent man guilty."
     
      "Sit down," he said, pushing forward a chair. "There are some things I have to tell you, and, in return, please tell me all you know. Believe me, things always come out. In the first place, Mr. Armstrong was shot from above. The bullet was fired at close range, entered below the shoulder and came out, after passing through the heart, well down the back. In other words, I believe the murderer stood on the stairs and fired down. In the second place, I found on the edge of the billiard-table a charred cigar which had burned itself partly out, and a cigarette which had consumed itself to the cork tip. Neither one had been more than lighted, then put down and forgotten. Have you any idea what it was that made your nephew and Mr. Bailey leave their cigars and their game, take out the automobile without calling the chauffeur, and all this at--let me see certainly before three o'clock in the morning?"
     
      "I don't