CHAPTER XXIX
A SCRAP OF PAPER
For the first time in twenty years, I kept my bed that day. Liddy wasalarmed to the point of hysteria, and sent for Doctor Stewart justafter breakfast. Gertrude spent the morning with me, readingsomething--I forget what. I was too busy with my thoughts to listen.I had said nothing to the two detectives. If Mr. Jamieson had beenthere, I should have told him everything, but I could not go to thesestrange men and tell them my niece had been missing in the middle ofthe night; that she had not gone to bed at all; that while I wassearching for her through the house, I had met a stranger who, when Ifainted, had carried me into a room and left me there, to get better ornot, as it might happen.
The whole situation was terrible: had the issues been less vital, itwould have been absurd. Here we were, guarded day and night by privatedetectives, with an extra man to watch the grounds, and yet we might aswell have lived in a Japanese paper house, for all the protection wehad.
And there was something else: the man I had met in the darkness hadbeen even more startled than I, and about his voice, when he mutteredhis muffled exclamation, there was something vaguely familiar. Allthat morning, while Gertrude read aloud, and Liddy watched for thedoctor, I was puzzling over that voice, without result.
And there were other things, too. I wondered what Gertrude's absencefrom her room had to do with it all, or if it had any connection. Itried to think that she had heard the rapping noises before I did andgone to investigate, but I'm afraid I was a moral coward that day. Icould not ask her.
Perhaps the diversion was good for me. It took my mind from Halsey,and the story we had heard the night before. The day, however, was along vigil, with every ring of the telephone full of possibilities.Doctor Walker came up, some time just after luncheon, and asked for me.
"Go down and see him," I instructed Gertrude. "Tell him I am out--formercy's sake don't say I'm sick. Find out what he wants, and from thistime on, instruct the servants that he is not to be admitted. I loathethat man."
Gertrude came back very soon, her face rather flushed.
"He came to ask us to get out," she said, picking up her book with ajerk. "He says Louise Armstrong wants to come here, now that she isrecovering."
"And what did you say?"
"I said we were very sorry we could not leave, but we would bedelighted to have Louise come up here with us. He looked daggers atme. And he wanted to know if we would recommend Eliza as a cook. Hehas brought a patient, a man, out from town, and is increasing hisestablishment--that's the way he put it."
"I wish him joy of Eliza," I said tartly. "Did he ask for Halsey?"
"Yes. I told him that we were on the track last night, and that it wasonly a question of time. He said he was glad, although he didn'tappear to be, but he said not to be too sanguine."
"Do you know what I believe?" I asked. "I believe, as firmly as Ibelieve anything, that Doctor Walker knows something about Halsey, andthat he could put his finger on him, if he wanted to."
There were several things that day that bewildered me. About threeo'clock Mr. Jamieson telephoned from the Casanova station and Warnerwent down to meet him. I got up and dressed hastily, and the detectivewas shown up to my sitting-room.
"No news?" I asked, as he entered. He tried to look encouraging,without success. I noticed that he looked tired and dusty, and,although he was ordinarily impeccable in his appearance, it was clearthat he was at least two days from a razor.
"It won't be long now, Miss Innes," he said. "I have come out here ona peculiar errand, which I will tell you about later. First, I want toask some questions. Did any one come out here yesterday to repair thetelephone, and examine the wires on the roof?"
"Yes," I said promptly; "but it was not the telephone. He said thewiring might have caused the fire at the stable. I went up with himmyself, but he only looked around."
Mr. Jamieson smiled.
"Good for you!" he applauded. "Don't allow any one in the house thatyou don't trust, and don't trust anybody. All are not electricians whowear rubber gloves."
He refused to explain further, but he got a slip of paper out of hispocketbook and opened it carefully.
"Listen," he said. "You heard this before and scoffed. In the lightof recent developments I want you to read it again. You are a cleverwoman, Miss Innes. Just as surely as I sit here, there is something inthis house that is wanted very anxiously by a number of people. Thelines are closing up, Miss Innes."
The paper was the one he had found among Arnold Armstrong's effects,and I read it again:
"----by altering the plans for----rooms, may be possible. The bestway, in my opinion, would be to----the plan for----in one ofthe----rooms----chimney."
"I think I understand," I said slowly. "Some one is searching for thesecret room, and the invaders--"
"And the holes in the plaster--"
"Have been in the progress of his--"
"Or her--investigations."
"Her?" I asked.
"Miss Innes," the detective said, getting up, "I believe that somewherein the walls of this house is hidden some of the money, at least, fromthe Traders' Bank. I believe, just as surely, that young Walkerbrought home from California the knowledge of something of the sortand, failing in his effort to reinstall Mrs. Armstrong and her daughterhere, he, or a confederate, has tried to break into the house. On twooccasions I think he succeeded."
"On three, at least," I corrected. And then I told him about the nightbefore. "I have been thinking hard," I concluded, "and I do notbelieve the man at the head of the circular staircase was DoctorWalker. I don't think he could have got in, and the voice was not his."
Mr. Jamieson got up and paced the floor, his hands behind him.
"There is something else that puzzles me," he said, stepping before me."Who and what is the woman Nina Carrington? If it was she who camehere as Mattie Bliss, what did she tell Halsey that sent him racing toDoctor Walker's, and then to Miss Armstrong? If we could find thatwoman we would have the whole thing."
"Mr. Jamieson, did you ever think that Paul Armstrong might not havedied a natural death?"
"That is the thing we are going to try to find out," he replied. Andthen Gertrude came in, announcing a man below to see Mr. Jamieson.
"I want you present at this interview, Miss Innes," he said. "May Riggscome up? He has left Doctor Walker and he has something he wants totell us."
Riggs came into the room diffidently, but Mr. Jamieson put him at hisease. He kept a careful eye on me, however, and slid into a chair bythe door when he was asked to sit down.
"Now, Riggs," began Mr. Jamieson kindly. "You are to say what you haveto say before this lady."
"You promised you'd keep it quiet, Mr. Jamieson." Riggs plainly didnot trust me. There was nothing friendly in the glance he turned on me.
"Yes, yes. You will be protected. But, first of all, did you bringwhat you promised?"
Riggs produced a roll of papers from under his coat, and handed themover. Mr. Jamieson examined them with lively satisfaction, and passedthem to me. "The blue-prints of Sunnyside," he said. "What did I tellyou? Now, Riggs, we are ready."
"I'd never have come to you, Mr. Jamieson," he began, "if it hadn'tbeen for Miss Armstrong. When Mr. Innes was spirited away, like, andMiss Louise got sick because of it, I thought things had gone farenough. I'd done some things for the doctor before that wouldn't justbear looking into, but I turned a bit squeamish."
"Did you help with that?" I asked, leaning forward.
"No, ma'm. I didn't even know of it until the next day, when it cameout in the Casanova Weekly Ledger. But I know who did it, all right.I'd better start at the beginning.
"When Doctor Walker went away to California with the Armstrong family,there was talk in the town that when he came back he would be marriedto Miss Armstrong, and we all expected it. First thing I knew, I got aletter from him, in the west. He seemed to be excited, and he saidMiss Armstrong
had taken a sudden notion to go home and he sent me somemoney. I was to watch for her, to see if she went to Sunnyside, andwherever she was, not to lose sight of her until he got home. I tracedher to the lodge, and I guess I scared you on the drive one night, MissInnes."
"And Rosie!" I ejaculated.
Riggs grinned sheepishly.
"I only wanted to make sure Miss Louise was there. Rosie started torun, and I tried to stop her and tell her some sort of a story toaccount for my being there. But she wouldn't wait."
"And the broken china--in the basket?"
"Well, broken china's death to rubber tires," he said. "I hadn't anycomplaint against you people here, and the Dragon Fly was a good car."
So Rosie's highwayman was explained.
"Well, I telegraphed the doctor where Miss Louise was and I kept an eyeon her. Just a day or so before they came home with the body, I gotanother letter, telling me to watch for a woman who had been pittedwith smallpox. Her name was Carrington, and the doctor made thingspretty strong. If I found any such woman loafing around, I was not tolose sight of her for a minute until the doctor got back.
"Well, I would have had my hands full, but the other woman didn't showup for a good while, and when she did the doctor was home."
"Riggs," I asked suddenly, "did you get into this house a day or twoafter I took it, at night?"
"I did not, Miss Innes. I have never been in the house before. Well,the Carrington woman didn't show up until the night Mr. Halseydisappeared. She came to the office late, and the doctor was out. Shewaited around, walking the floor and working herself into a passion.When the doctor didn't come back, she was in an awful way. She wantedme to hunt him, and when he didn't appear, she called him names; saidhe couldn't fool her. There was murder being done, and she would seehim swing for it.
"She struck me as being an ugly customer, and when she left, abouteleven o'clock, and went across to the Armstrong place, I was not farbehind her. She walked all around the house first, looking up at thewindows. Then she rang the bell, and the minute the door was openedshe was through it, and into the hall."
"How long did she stay?"
"That's the queer part of it," Riggs said eagerly. "She didn't comeout that night at all. I went to bed at daylight, and that was thelast I heard of her until the next day, when I saw her on a truck atthe station, covered with a sheet. She'd been struck by the expressand you would hardly have known her--dead, of course. I think shestayed all night in the Armstrong house, and the agent said she wascrossing the track to take the up-train to town when the express struckher."
"Another circle!" I exclaimed. "Then we are just where we started."
"Not so bad as that, Miss Innes," Riggs said eagerly. "Nina Carringtoncame from the town in California where Mr. Armstrong died. Why was thedoctor so afraid of her? The Carrington woman knew something. I livedwith Doctor Walker seven years, and I know him well. There are fewthings he is afraid of. I think he killed Mr. Armstrong out in thewest somewhere, that's what I think. What else he did I don'tknow--but he dismissed me and pretty nearly throttled me--for tellingMr. Jamieson here about Mr. Innes' having been at his office the nighthe disappeared, and about my hearing them quarreling."
"What was it Warner overheard the woman say to Mr. Innes, in thelibrary?" the detective asked me.
"She said 'I knew there was something wrong from the start. A manisn't well one day and dead the next without some reason.'"
How perfectly it all seemed to fit!