It was with my nearest approach to a nervous collapse that I heard the familiar throbbing of an automobile engine. As it came closer I recognized the outline of the Dragon Fly, and knew that Halsey had come back.
Strange enough it must have seemed to Halsey, too, to come across me in the middle of the night, with the skirt of my gray silk gown over my shoulders to keep off the dew, holding a red and green basket under one arm and a black cat under the other. What with relief and joy, I began to cry, right there, and very nearly wiped my eyes on Beulah in the excitement.
CHAPTER IX JUST LIKE A GIRL
“Aunt Ray!” Halsey said from the gloom behind the lamps. “What in the world are you doing here?”
“Taking a walk,” I said, trying to be composed. I don’t think the answer struck either of us as being ridiculous at the time. “Oh, Halsey, where have you been?”
“Let me take you up to the house.” He was in the road, and had Beulah and the basket out of my arms in a moment. I could see the car plainly now, and Warner was at the wheel–Warner in an ulster and a pair of slippers, over Heaven knows what. Jack Bailey was not there. I got in, and we went slowly and painfully up to the house.
We did not talk. What we had to say was too important to commence there, and, besides, it took all kinds of coaxing from both men to get the Dragon Fly up the last grade. Only when we had closed the front door and stood facing each other in the hall, did Halsey say anything. He slipped his strong young arm around my shoulders and turned me so I faced the light.
“Poor Aunt Ray!” he said gently. And I nearly wept again. “I–I must see Gertrude, too; we will have a three-cornered talk.”
And then Gertrude herself came down the stairs. She had not been to bed, evidently: she still wore the white negligee she had worn earlier in the evening, and she limped somewhat. During her slow progress down the stairs I had time to notice one thing: Mr. Jamieson had said the woman who escaped from the cellar had worn no shoe on her right foot. Gertrude’s right ankle was the one she had sprained!
The meeting between brother and sister was tense, but without tears. Halsey kissed her tenderly, and I noticed evidences of strain and anxiety in both young faces.
“Is everything–right?” she asked.
“Right as can be,” with forced cheerfulness.
I lighted the living-room and we went in there. Only a half-hour before I had sat with Mr. Jamieson in that very room, listening while he overtly accused both Gertrude and Halsey of at least a knowledge of the death of Arnold Armstrong. Now Halsey was here to speak for himself: I should learn everything that had puzzled me.
“I saw it in the paper to-night for the first time,” he was saying. “It knocked me dumb. When I think of this houseful of women, and a thing like that occurring!”
Gertrude’s face was still set and white. “That isn’t all, Halsey,” she said. “You and–and Jack left almost at the time it happened. The detective here thinks that you–that we–know something about it.”
“The devil he does!” Halsey’s eyes were fairly starting from his head. “I beg your pardon, Aunt Ray, but–the fellow’s a lunatic.”
“Tell me everything, won’t you, Halsey?” I begged. “Tell me where you went that night, or rather morning, and why you went as you did. This has been a terrible forty-eight hours for all of us.”
He stood staring at me, and I could see the horror of the situation dawning in his face.
“I can’t tell you where I went, Aunt Ray,” he said, after a moment. “As to why, you will learn that soon enough. But Gertrude knows that Jack and I left the house before this thing– this horrible murder–occurred.”
“Mr. Jamieson does not believe me,” Gertrude said drearily. “Halsey, if the worst comes, if they should arrest you, you must–tell.”