Gertrude’s replies were fully as concise as Halsey’s.  Mrs. Fitzhugh subjected her to a close inspection, commencing with her hat and ending with her shoes.  I flatter myself she found nothing wrong with either her gown or her manner, but poor Gertrude’s testimony was the reverse of comforting.  She had been summoned, she said, by her brother, after Mr. Armstrong had gone.

She had waited in the billiard-room with Mr. Bailey, until the automobile had been ready.  Then she had locked the door at the foot of the staircase, and, taking a lamp, had accompanied Mr. Bailey to the main entrance of the house, and had watched him cross the lawn.  Instead of going at once to her room, she had gone back to the billiard-room for something which had been left there.  The card-room and billiard-room were in darkness.  She had groped around, found the article she was looking for, and was on the point of returning to her room, when she had heard some one fumbling at the lock at the east outer door.  She had thought it was probably her brother, and had been about to go to the door, when she heard it open.  Almost immediately there was a shot, and she had run panic-stricken through the drawing-room and had roused the house.

“You heard no other sound?” the coroner asked.  “There was no one with Mr. Armstrong when he entered?”

“It was perfectly dark.  There were no voices and I heard nothing.  There was just the opening of the door, the shot, and the sound of somebody falling.”

“Then, while you went through the drawing-room and up-stairs to alarm the household, the criminal, whoever it was, could have escaped by the east door?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.  That will do.”

I flatter myself that the coroner got little enough out of me.  I saw Mr. Jamieson smiling to himself, and the coroner gave me up, after a time.  I admitted I had found the body, said I had not known who it was until Mr. Jarvis told me, and ended by looking up at Barbara Fitzhugh and saying that in renting the house I had not expected to be involved in any family scandal.  At which she turned purple.

The verdict was that Arnold Armstrong had met his death at the hands of a person or persons unknown, and we all prepared to leave.  Barbara Fitzhugh flounced out without waiting to speak to me, but Mr. Harton came up, as I knew he would.

“You have decided to give up the house, I hope, Miss Innes,” he said.  “Mrs. Armstrong has wired me again.”

“I am not going to give it up,” I maintained, “until I understand some things that are puzzling me.  The day that the murderer is discovered, I will leave.”

“Then, judging by what I have heard, you will be back in the city very soon,” he said.  And I knew that he suspected the discredited cashier of the Traders’ Bank.

Mr. Jamieson came up to me as I was about to leave the coroner’s office.

“How is your patient?” he asked with his odd little smile.