“A telegram—­for Bailey,” he said.  “It came by special messenger from town, and was—­most important.  Bailey had started for here, and the messenger had gone back to the city.  The steward gave it to Arnold, who had been drinking all day and couldn’t sleep, and was going for a stroll in the direction of Sunnyside.”

“And he brought it?”

“Yes.”

“What was in the telegram?”

“I can tell you—­as soon as certain things are made public.  It is only a matter of days now,” gloomily.

“And Gertrude’s story of a telephone message?”

“Poor Trude!” he half whispered.  “Poor loyal little girl!  Aunt Ray, there was no such message.  No doubt your detective already knows that and discredits all Gertrude told him.”

“And when she went back, it was to get—­the telegram?”

“Probably,” Halsey said slowly.  “When you get to thinking about it, Aunt Ray, it looks bad for all three of us, doesn’t it?  And yet—­I will take my oath none of us even inadvertently killed that poor devil.”

I looked at the closed door into Gertrude’s dressing-room, and lowered my voice.

“The same horrible thought keeps recurring to me,” I whispered.  “Halsey, Gertrude probably had your revolver:  she must have examined it, anyhow, that night.  After you—­and Jack had gone, what if that ruffian came back, and she—­and she—­”

I couldn’t finish.  Halsey stood looking at me with shut lips.

“She might have heard him fumbling at the door he had no key, the police say—­and thinking it was you, or Jack, she admitted him.  When she saw her mistake she ran up the stairs, a step or two, and turning, like an animal at bay, she fired.”

Halsey had his hand over my lips before I finished, and in that position we stared each at the other, our stricken glances crossing.

“The revolver—­my revolver—­thrown into the tulip bed!” he muttered to himself.  “Thrown perhaps from an upper window:  you say it was buried deep.  Her prostration ever since, her—­Aunt Ray, you don’t think it was Gertrude who fell down the clothes chute?”

I could only nod my head in a hopeless affirmative.

CHAPTER X

THE TRADERS BANK

The morning after Halsey’s return was Tuesday.  Arnold Armstrong had been found dead at the foot of the circular staircase at three o’clock on Sunday morning.  The funeral services were to be held on Tuesday, and the interment of the body was to be deferred until the Armstrongs arrived from California.  No one, I think, was very sorry that Arnold Armstrong was dead, but the manner of his death aroused some sympathy and an enormous amount of curiosity.  Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh, a cousin, took charge of the arrangements, and everything, I believe, was as quiet as possible.  I gave Thomas Johnson and Mrs. Watson permission to go into town to pay their last respects to the dead man, but for some reason they did not care to go.