But Mr. Jamieson was not quite through questioning him.
“And so you showed it to Sam, at the club, and asked him if he knew any one who owned such a link, and Sam said–what?”
“Wal, Sam, he ‘lowed he’d seen such a pair of cuff-buttons in a shirt belongin’ to Mr. Bailey–Mr. Jack Bailey, sah.”
“I’ll keep this link, Thomas, for a while,” the detective said. “That’s all I wanted to know. Good night.”
As Thomas shuffled out, Mr. Jamieson watched me sharply.
“You see, Miss Innes,” he said, “Mr. Bailey insists on mixing himself with this thing. If Mr. Bailey came here that Friday night expecting to meet Arnold Armstrong, and missed him–if, as I say, he had done this, might he not, seeing him enter the following night, have struck him down, as he had intended before?”
“But the motive?” I gasped.
“There could be motive proved, I think. Arnold Armstrong and John Bailey have been enemies since the latter, as cashier of the Traders’ Bank, brought Arnold almost into the clutches of the law. Also, you forget that both men have been paying attention to Miss Gertrude. Bailey’s flight looks bad, too.”
“And you think Halsey helped him to escape?”
“Undoubtedly. Why, what could it be but flight? Miss Innes, let me reconstruct that evening, as I see it. Bailey and Armstrong had quarreled at the club. I learned this to-day. Your nephew brought Bailey over. Prompted by jealous, insane fury, Armstrong followed, coming across by the path. He entered the billiard- room wing–perhaps rapping, and being admitted by your nephew. Just inside he was shot, by some one on the circular staircase. The shot fired, your nephew and Bailey left the house at once, going toward the automobile house. They left by the lower road, which prevented them being heard, and when you and Miss Gertrude got down-stairs everything was quiet.”
“But–Gertrude’s story,” I stammered.
“Miss Gertrude only brought forward her explanation the following morning. I do not believe it, Miss Innes. It is the story of a loving and ingenious woman.”
“And–this thing to-night?”
“May upset my whole view of the case. We must give the benefit of every doubt, after all. We may, for instance, come back to the figure on the porch: if it was a woman you saw that night through the window, we might start with other premises. Or Mr. Innes’ explanation may turn us in a new direction. It is possible that he shot Arnold Armstrong as a burglar and then fled, frightened at what he had done. In any case, however, I feel confident that the body was here when he left. Mr. Armstrong left the club ostensibly for a moonlight saunter, about half after eleven o’clock. It was three when the shot was fired.”
I leaned back bewildered. It seemed to me that the evening had been full of significant happenings, had I only held the key. Had Gertrude been the fugitive in the clothes chute? Who was the man on the drive near the lodge, and whose gold-mounted dressing- bag had I seen in the lodge sitting-room?
It was late when Mr. Jamieson finally got up to go. I went with him to the door, and together we stood looking out over the valley. Below lay the village of Casanova, with its Old World houses, its blossoming trees and its peace. Above on the hill across the valley were the lights of the Greenwood Club. It was even possible to see the curving row of parallel lights that marked the carriage road. Rumors that I had heard about the club came back–of drinking, of high play, and once, a year ago, of a suicide under those very lights.
Mr. Jamieson left, taking a short cut to the village, and I still stood there. It must have been after eleven, and the monotonous tick of the big clock on the stairs behind me was the only sound.
Then I was conscious that some one was running up the drive. In a minute a woman darted into the area of light made by the open door, and caught me by the arm. It was Rosie–Rosie in a state of collapse from terror, and, not the least important, clutching one of my Coalport plates and a silver spoon.