At this hint of scandal, Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh sat up very straight. Jamieson was looking slightly skeptical, and the coroner made a note.
“The Children’s Hospital, you say, Doctor?” he asked.
“Yes. But the child, who was entered as Lucien Wallace, was taken away by his mother two weeks ago. I have tried to trace them and failed.”
All at once I remembered the telegram sent to Louise by some one signed F. L. W.–presumably Doctor Walker. Could this veiled woman be the Nina Carrington of the message? But it was only idle speculation. I had no way of finding out, and the inquest was proceeding.
The report of the coroner’s physician came next. The post-mortem examination showed that the bullet had entered the chest in the fourth left intercostal space and had taken an oblique course downward and backward, piercing both the heart and lungs. The left lung was collapsed, and the exit point of the ball had been found in the muscles of the back to the left of the spinal column. It was improbable that such a wound had been self- inflicted, and its oblique downward course pointed to the fact that the shot had been fired from above. In other words, as the murdered man had been found dead at the foot of a staircase, it was probable that the shot had been fired by some one higher up on the stairs. There were no marks of powder. The bullet, a thirty-eight caliber, had been found in the dead man’s clothing, and was shown to the jury.
Mr. Jarvis was called next, but his testimony amounted to little.
He had been summoned by telephone to Sunnyside, had come over at once with the steward and Mr. Winthrop, at present out of town. They had been admitted by the housekeeper, and had found the body lying at the foot of the staircase. He had made a search for a weapon, but there was none around. The outer entry door in the east wing had been unfastened and was open about an inch.
I had been growing more and more nervous. When the coroner called Mr. John Bailey, the room was filled with suppressed excitement. Mr. Jamieson went forward and spoke a few words to the coroner, who nodded. Then Halsey was called.
“Mr. Innes,” the coroner said, “will you tell under what circumstances you saw Mr. Arnold Armstrong the night he died?”
“I saw him first at the Country Club,” Halsey said quietly. He was rather pale, but very composed. “I stopped there with my automobile for gasolene. Mr. Armstrong had been playing cards. When I saw him there, he was coming out of the card-room, talking to Mr. John Bailey.”
“The nature of the discussion–was it amicable?”
Halsey hesitated.
“They were having a dispute,” he said. “I asked Mr. Bailey to leave the club with me and come to Sunnyside over Sunday.”
“Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Innes, that you took Mr. Bailey away from the club-house because you were afraid there would be blows?”
“The situation was unpleasant,” Halsey said evasively.
“At that time had you any suspicion that the Traders’ Bank had been wrecked?”
“No.”
“What occurred next?”
“Mr. Bailey and I talked in the billiard-room until two-thirty.”
“And Mr. Arnold Armstrong came there, while you were talking?”
“Yes. He came about half-past two. He rapped at the east door, and I admitted him.”
The silence in the room was intense. Mr. Jamieson’s eyes never left Halsey’s face.
“Will you tell us the nature of his errand?”
“He brought a telegram that had come to the club for Mr. Bailey.”
“He was sober?”
“Perfectly, at that time. Not earlier.”
“Was not his apparent friendliness a change from his former attitude?”
“Yes. I did not understand it.”
“How long did he stay?”
“About five minutes. Then he left, by the east entrance.”
“What occurred then?”
“We talked for a few minutes, discussing a plan Mr. Bailey had in mind. Then I went to the stables, where I kept my car, and got it out.”
“Leaving Mr. Bailey alone in the billiard-room?”
Halsey hesitated.
“My sister was there?”
Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh had the courage to turn and eye Gertrude through her lorgnon.