Gertrude had slipped out during my talk with Mrs.
Watson, and I dressed and went down-stairs.
The billiard and card-rooms were locked until the
coroner and the detectives got there, and the men
from the club had gone back for more conventional clothing.
I could hear Thomas in the pantry, alternately wailing
for Mr. Arnold, as he called him, and citing the tokens
that had precursed the murder. The house seemed
to choke me, and, slipping a shawl around me, I went
out on the drive. At the corner by the east
wing I met Liddy. Her skirts were draggled with
dew to her knees, and her hair was still in crimps.
“Go right in and change your clothes,”
I said sharply. “You’re a sight,
and at your age!”
She had a golf-stick in her hand, and she said she
had found it on the lawn. There was nothing
unusual about it, but it occurred to me that a golf-stick
with a metal end might have been the object that had
scratched the stairs near the card-room. I took
it from her, and sent her up for dry garments.
Her daylight courage and self-importance, and her
shuddering delight in the mystery, irritated me beyond
words. After I left her I made a circuit of
the building. Nothing seemed to be disturbed:
the house looked as calm and peaceful in the morning
sun as it had the day I had been coerced into taking
it. There was nothing to show that inside had
been mystery and violence and sudden death.
In one of the tulip beds back of the house an early
blackbird was pecking viciously at something that
glittered in the light. I picked my way gingerly
over through the dew and stooped down: almost
buried in the soft ground was a revolver! I scraped
the earth off it with the tip of my shoe, and, picking
it up, slipped it into my pocket. Not until
I had got into my bedroom and double-locked the door
did I venture to take it out and examine it.
One look was all I needed. It was Halsey’s
revolver. I had unpacked it the day before and
put it on his shaving-stand, and there could be no
mistake. His name was on a small silver plate
on the handle.
I seemed to see a network closing around my boy, innocent
as I knew he was. The revolver—I
am afraid of them, but anxiety gave me courage to
look through the barrel—the revolver had
still two bullets in it. I could only breathe
a prayer of thankfulness that I had found the revolver
before any sharp-eyed detective had come around.
I decided to keep what clues I had, the cuff-link,
the golf-stick and the revolver, in a secure place
until I could see some reason for displaying them.
The cuff-link had been dropped into a little filigree
box on my toilet table. I opened the box and
felt around for it. The box was empty—the
cuff-link had disappeared!
GERTRUDE’S ENGAGEMENT
At ten o’clock the Casanova hack brought up
three men. They introduced themselves as the
coroner of the county and two detectives from the
city. The coroner led the way at once to the
locked wing, and with the aid of one of the detectives
examined the rooms and the body. The other detective,
after a short scrutiny of the dead man, busied himself
with the outside of the house. It was only after
they had got a fair idea of things as they were that
they sent for me.
