The Circular Staircase eBook

Mary Roberts Rinehart
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 266 pages of information about The Circular Staircase.

The Circular Staircase eBook

Mary Roberts Rinehart
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 266 pages of information about The Circular Staircase.

CHAPTER XXIV

FLINDERS

If Halsey had only taken me fully into his confidence, through the whole affair, it would have been much simpler.  If he had been altogether frank about Jack Bailey, and if the day after the fire he had told me what he suspected, there would have been no harrowing period for all of us, with the boy in danger.  But young people refuse to profit by the experience of their elders, and sometimes the elders are the ones to suffer.

I was much used up the day after the fire, and Gertrude insisted on my going out.  The machine was temporarily out of commission, and the carriage horses had been sent to a farm for the summer.  Gertrude finally got a trap from the Casanova liveryman, and we went out.  Just as we turned from the drive into the road we passed a woman.  She had put down a small valise, and stood inspecting the house and grounds minutely.  I should hardly have noticed her, had it not been for the fact that she had been horribly disfigured by smallpox.

“Ugh!” Gertrude said, when we had passed, “what a face!  I shall dream of it to-night.  Get up, Flinders.”

“Flinders?” I asked.  “Is that the horse’s name?”

“It is.”  She flicked the horse’s stubby mane with the whip.  “He didn’t look like a livery horse, and the liveryman said he had bought him from the Armstrongs when they purchased a couple of motors and cut down the stable.  Nice Flinders—­good old boy!”

Flinders was certainly not a common name for a horse, and yet the youngster at Richfield had named his prancing, curly-haired little horse Flinders!  It set me to thinking.

At my request Halsey had already sent word of the fire to the agent from whom we had secured the house.  Also, he had called Mr. Jamieson by telephone, and somewhat guardedly had told him of the previous night’s events.  Mr. Jamieson promised to come out that night, and to bring another man with him.  I did not consider it necessary to notify Mrs. Armstrong, in the village.  No doubt she knew of the fire, and in view of my refusal to give up the house, an interview would probably have been unpleasant enough.  But as we passed Doctor Walker’s white and green house I thought of something.

“Stop here, Gertrude,” I said.  “I am going to get out.”

“To see Louise?” she asked.

“No, I want to ask this young Walker something.”

She was curious, I knew, but I did not wait to explain.  I went up the walk to the house, where a brass sign at the side announced the office, and went in.  The reception-room was empty, but from the consulting-room beyond came the sound of two voices, not very amicable.

“It is an outrageous figure,” some one was storming.  Then the doctor’s quiet tone, evidently not arguing, merely stating something.  But I had not time to listen to some person probably disputing his bill, so I coughed.  The voices ceased at once:  a door closed somewhere, and the doctor entered from the hall of the house.  He looked sufficiently surprised at seeing me.

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The Circular Staircase from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.