When she nodded a “yes” I saw the tremendous possibilities involved.  If this detective could prove that Gertrude feared and disliked the murdered man, and that Mr. Armstrong had been annoying and possibly pursuing her with hateful attentions, all that, added to Gertrude’s confession of her presence in the billiard-room at the time of the crime, looked strange, to say the least.  The prominence of the family assured a strenuous effort to find the murderer, and if we had nothing worse to look forward to, we were sure of a distasteful publicity.

Mr. Jamieson shut his note-book with a snap, and thanked us.

“I have an idea,” he said, apropos of nothing at all, “that at any rate the ghost is laid here.  Whatever the rappings have been—­and the colored man says they began when the family went west three months ago—­they are likely to stop now.”

Which shows how much he knew about it.  The ghost was not laid:  with the murder of Arnold Armstrong he, or it, only seemed to take on fresh vigor.

Mr. Jamieson left then, and when Gertrude had gone up-stairs, as she did at once, I sat and thought over what I had just heard.  Her engagement, once so engrossing a matter, paled now beside the significance of her story.  If Halsey and Jack Bailey had left before the crime, how came Halsey’s revolver in the tulip bed?  What was the mysterious cause of their sudden flight?  What had Gertrude left in the billiard-room?  What was the significance of the cuff-link, and where was it?

CHAPTER VI

IN THE EAST CORRIDOR

When the detective left he enjoined absolute secrecy on everybody in the household.  The Greenwood Club promised the same thing, and as there are no Sunday afternoon papers, the murder was not publicly known until Monday.  The coroner himself notified the Armstrong family lawyer, and early in the afternoon he came out.  I had not seen Mr. Jamieson since morning, but I knew he had been interrogating the servants.  Gertrude was locked in her room with a headache, and I had luncheon alone.

Mr. Harton, the lawyer, was a little, thin man, and he looked as if he did not relish his business that day.

“This is very unfortunate, Miss Innes,” he said, after we had shaken hands.  “Most unfortunate—­and mysterious.  With the father and mother in the west, I find everything devolves on me; and, as you can understand, it is an unpleasant duty.”

“No doubt,” I said absently.  “Mr. Harton, I am going to ask you some questions, and I hope you will answer them.  I feel that I am entitled to some knowledge, because I and my family are just now in a most ambiguous position.”

I don’t know whether he understood me or not:  he took of his glasses and wiped them.

“I shall be very happy,” he said with old-fashioned courtesy.

“Thank you.  Mr. Harton, did Mr. Arnold Armstrong know that Sunnyside had been rented?”