“Worse than that, Mr. Jarvis,” I said. “I think it is murder.”
At the word there was a commotion. The cook began to cry, and Mrs. Watson knocked over a chair. The men were visibly impressed.
“Not any member of the family?” Mr. Jarvis asked, when he had got his breath.
“No,” I said; and motioning Liddy to look after Gertrude, I led the way with a lamp to the card-room door. One of the men gave an exclamation, and they all hurried across the room. Mr. Jarvis took the lamp from me–I remember that–and then, feeling myself getting dizzy and light-headed, I closed my eyes. When I opened them their brief examination was over, and Mr. Jarvis was trying to put me in a chair.
“You must get up-stairs,” he said firmly, “you and Miss Gertrude, too. This has been a terrible shock. In his own home, too.”
I stared at him without comprehension. “Who is it?” I asked with difficulty. There was a band drawn tight around my throat.
“It is Arnold Armstrong,” he said, looking at me oddly, “and he has been murdered in his father’s house.”
After a minute I gathered myself together and Mr. Jarvis helped me into the living-room. Liddy had got Gertrude up-stairs, and the two strange men from the club stayed with the body. The reaction from the shock and strain was tremendous: I was collapsed–and then Mr. Jarvis asked me a question that brought back my wandering faculties.
“Where is Halsey?” he asked.
“Halsey!” Suddenly Gertrude’s stricken face rose before me the empty rooms up-stairs. Where was Halsey?
“He was here, wasn’t he?” Mr. Jarvis persisted. “He stopped at the club on his way over.”
“I–don’t know where he is,” I said feebly.
One of the men from the club came in, asked for the telephone, and I could hear him excitedly talking, saying something about coroners and detectives. Mr. Jarvis leaned over to me.
“Why don’t you trust me, Miss Innes?” he said. “If I can do anything I will. But tell me the whole thing.”
I did, finally, from the beginning, and when I told of Jack Bailey’s being in the house that night, he gave a long whistle.
“I wish they were both here,” he said when I finished. “Whatever mad prank took them away, it would look better if they were here.
Especially–”
“Especially what?”
“Especially since Jack Bailey and Arnold Armstrong were notoriously bad friends. It was Bailey who got Arnold into trouble last spring–something about the bank. And then, too–”
“Go on,” I said. “If there is anything more, I ought to know.”
“There’s nothing more,” he said evasively. “There’s just one thing we may bank on, Miss Innes. Any court in the country will acquit a man who kills an intruder in his house, at night. If Halsey–”
“Why, you don’t think Halsey did it!” I exclaimed. There was a queer feeling of physical nausea coming over me.
“No, no, not at all,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “Come, Miss Innes, you’re a ghost of yourself and I am going to help you up-stairs and call your maid. This has been too much for you.”
Liddy helped me back to bed, and under the impression that I was in danger of freezing to death, put a hot-water bottle over my heart and another at my feet. Then she left me. It was early dawn now, and from voices under my window I surmised that Mr. Jarvis and his companions were searching the grounds. As for me, I lay in bed, with every faculty awake. Where had Halsey gone? How had he gone, and when? Before the murder, no doubt, but who would believe that? If either he or Jack Bailey had heard an intruder in the house and shot him–as they might have been justified in doing–why had they run away? The whole thing was unheard of, outrageous, and–impossible to ignore.
About six o’clock Gertrude came in. She was fully dressed, and I sat up nervously.
“Poor Aunty!” she said. “What a shocking night you have had!” She came over and sat down on the bed, and I saw she looked very tired and worn.