“She said `I knew there was something wrong from the start. A man isn’t well one day and dead the next without some reason.'”
How perfectly it all seemed to fit!
CHAPTER XXX WHEN CHURCHYARDS YAWN
It was on Wednesday Riggs told us the story of his connection with some incidents that had been previously unexplained. Halsey had been gone since the Friday night before, and with the passage of each day I felt that his chances were lessening. I knew well enough that he might be carried thousands of miles in the box- car, locked in, perhaps, without water or food. I had read of cases where bodies had been found locked in cars on isolated sidings in the west, and my spirits went down with every hour.
His recovery was destined to be almost as sudden as his disappearance, and was due directly to the tramp Alex had brought to Sunnyside. It seems the man was grateful for his release, and when he learned some thing of Halsey’s whereabouts from another member of his fraternity–for it is a fraternity–he was prompt in letting us know.
On Wednesday evening Mr. Jamieson, who had been down at the Armstrong house trying to see Louise–and failing–was met near the gate at Sunnyside by an individual precisely as repulsive and unkempt as the one Alex had captured. The man knew the detective, and he gave him a piece of dirty paper, on which was scrawled the words–“He’s at City Hospital, Johnsville.” The tramp who brought the paper pretended to know nothing, except this: the paper had been passed along from a “hobo” in Johnsville, who seemed to know the information would be valuable to us.
Again the long distance telephone came into requisition. Mr. Jamieson called the hospital, while we crowded around him. And when there was no longer any doubt that it was Halsey, and that he would probably recover, we all laughed and cried together. I am sure I kissed Liddy, and I have had terrible moments since when I seem to remember kissing Mr. Jamieson, too, in the excitement.
Anyhow, by eleven o’clock that night Gertrude was on her way to Johnsville, three hundred and eighty miles away, accompanied by Rosie. The domestic force was now down to Mary Anne and Liddy, with the under-gardener’s wife coming every day to help out. Fortunately, Warner and the detectives were keeping bachelor hall in the lodge. Out of deference to Liddy they washed their dishes once a day, and they concocted queer messes, according to their several abilities. They had one triumph that they ate regularly for breakfast, and that clung to their clothes and their hair the rest of the day. It was bacon, hardtack and onions, fried together. They were almost pathetically grateful, however, I noticed, for an occasional broiled tenderloin.
It was not until Gertrude and Rosie had gone and Sunnyside had settled down for the night, with Winters at the foot of the staircase, that Mr. Jamieson broached a subject he had evidently planned before he came.
“Miss Innes,” he said, stopping me as I was about to go to my room up-stairs, “how are your nerves tonight?”
“I have none,” I said happily. “With Halsey found, my troubles have gone.”
“I mean,” he persisted, “do you feel as though you could go through with something rather unusual?”
“The most unusual thing I can think of would be a peaceful night. But if anything is going to occur, don’t dare to let me miss it.”
“Something is going to occur,” he said. “And you’re the only woman I can think of that I can take along.” He looked at his watch. “Don’t ask me any questions, Miss Innes. Put on heavy shoes, and some old dark clothes, and make up your mind not to be surprised at anything.”
Liddy was sleeping the sleep of the just when I went up-stairs, and I hunted out my things cautiously. The detective was waiting in the hall, and I was astonished to see Doctor Stewart with him.
They were talking confidentially together, but when I came down they ceased. There were a few preparations to be made: the locks to be gone over, Winters to be instructed as to renewed vigilance, and then, after extinguishing the hall light, we crept, in the darkness, through the front door, and into the night.