“Give me my revolver, Aunt Ray,” he said;
and I got it—the one I had found in the
tulip bed—and gave it to him. He saw
Liddy there and divined at once that Louise was alone.
“You let me attend to this fellow, whoever it
is, Aunt Ray, and go to Louise, will you? She
may be awake and alarmed.”
So in spite of her protests, I left Liddy alone and
went back to the east wing. Perhaps I went a
little faster past the yawning blackness of the circular
staircase; and I could hear Halsey creaking cautiously
down the main staircase. The rapping, or pounding,
had ceased, and the silence was almost painful.
And then suddenly, from apparently under my very
feet, there rose a woman’s scream, a cry of
terror that broke off as suddenly as it came.
I stood frozen and still. Every drop of blood
in my body seemed to leave the surface and gather
around my heart. In the dead silence that followed
it throbbed as if it would burst. More dead
than alive, I stumbled into Louise’s bedroom.
She was not there!
IN THE EARLY MORNING
I stood looking at the empty bed. The coverings
had been thrown back, and Louise’s pink silk
dressing-gown was gone from the foot, where it had
lain. The night lamp burned dimly, revealing
the emptiness of the place. I picked it up, but
my hand shook so that I put it down again, and got
somehow to the door.
There were voices in the hall and Gertrude came running
toward me.
“What is it?” she cried. “What
was that sound? Where is Louise?”
“She is not in her room,” I said stupidly.
“I think—it was she—who
screamed.”
Liddy had joined us now, carrying a light. We
stood huddled together at the head of the circular
staircase, looking down into its shadows. There
was nothing to be seen, and it was absolutely quiet
down there. Then we heard Halsey running up the
main staircase. He came quickly down the hall
to where we were standing.
“There’s no one trying to get in.
I thought I heard some one shriek. Who was
it?”
Our stricken faces told him the truth.
“Some one screamed down there,” I said.
“And—and Louise is not in her room.”
With a jerk Halsey took the light from Liddy and ran
down the circular staircase. I followed him,
more slowly. My nerves seemed to be in a state
of paralysis: I could scarcely step. At
the foot of the stairs Halsey gave an exclamation and
put down the light.
“Aunt Ray,” he called sharply.
At the foot of the staircase, huddled in a heap, her
head on the lower stair, was Louise Armstrong.
She lay limp and white, her dressing-gown dragging
loose from one sleeve of her night-dress, and the
heavy braid of her dark hair stretching its length
a couple of steps above her head, as if she had slipped
down.
