“I have no patient,” I replied, startled.
“I will put it in a different way, then.
How is Miss Armstrong?”
“She—she is doing very well,”
I stammered.
“Good,” cheerfully. “And our
ghost? Is it laid?”
“Mr. Jamieson,” I said suddenly, “I
wish you would do one thing: I wish you would
come to Sunnyside and spend a few days there.
The ghost is not laid. I want you to spend
one night at least watching the circular staircase.
The murder of Arnold Armstrong was a beginning, not
an end.”
He looked serious.
“Perhaps I can do it,” he said.
“I have been doing something else, but—well,
I will come out to-night.”
We were very silent during the trip back to Sunnyside.
I watched Gertrude closely and somewhat sadly.
To me there was one glaring flaw in her story, and
it seemed to stand out for every one to see.
Arnold Armstrong had had no key, and yet she said
she had locked the east door. He must have been
admitted from within the house; over and over I repeated
it to myself.
That night, as gently as I could, I told Louise the
story of her stepbrother’s death. She
sat in her big, pillow-filled chair, and heard me
through without interruption. It was clear that
she was shocked beyond words: if I had hoped
to learn anything from her expression, I had failed.
She was as much in the dark as we were.
A HOLE IN THE WALL
My taking the detective out to Sunnyside raised an
unexpected storm of protest from Gertrude and Halsey.
I was not prepared for it, and I scarcely knew how
to account for it. To me Mr. Jamieson was far
less formidable under my eyes where I knew what he
was doing, than he was of in the city, twisting circumstances
and motives to suit himself and learning what he wished
to know, about events at Sunnyside, in some occult
way. I was glad enough to have him there, when
excitements began to come thick and fast.
A new element was about to enter into affairs:
Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, would find Doctor
Walker back in his green and white house in the village,
and Louise’s attitude to him in the immediate
future would signify Halsey’s happiness or wretchedness,
as it might turn out. Then, too, the return
of her mother would mean, of course, that she would
have to leave us, and I had become greatly attached
to her.
From the day Mr. Jamieson came to Sunnyside there
was a subtle change in Gertrude’s manner to
me. It was elusive, difficult to analyze, but
it was there. She was no longer frank with me,
although I think her affection never wavered.
At the time I laid the change to the fact that I
had forbidden all communication with John Bailey,
and had refused to acknowledge any engagement between
the two. Gertrude spent much of her time wandering
through the grounds, or taking long cross-country walks.
Halsey played golf at the Country Club day after
day, and after Louise left, as she did the following
week, Mr. Jamieson and I were much together.
He played a fair game of cribbage, but he cheated
at solitaire.
