I looked at the closed door into Gertrude’s dressing-room, and lowered my voice.
“The same horrible thought keeps recurring to me,” I whispered. “Halsey, Gertrude probably had your revolver: she must have examined it, anyhow, that night. After you–and Jack had gone, what if that ruffian came back, and she–and she–”
I couldn’t finish. Halsey stood looking at me with shut lips.
“She might have heard him fumbling at the door he had no key, the police say–and thinking it was you, or Jack, she admitted him. When she saw her mistake she ran up the stairs, a step or two, and turning, like an animal at bay, she fired.”
Halsey had his hand over my lips before I finished, and in that position we stared each at the other, our stricken glances crossing.
“The revolver–my revolver–thrown into the tulip bed!” he muttered to himself. “Thrown perhaps from an upper window: you say it was buried deep. Her prostration ever since, her–Aunt Ray, you don’t think it was Gertrude who fell down the clothes chute?”
I could only nod my head in a hopeless affirmative.
CHAPTER X THE TRADERS BANK
The morning after Halsey’s return was Tuesday. Arnold Armstrong had been found dead at the foot of the circular staircase at three o’clock on Sunday morning. The funeral services were to be held on Tuesday, and the interment of the body was to be deferred until the Armstrongs arrived from California. No one, I think, was very sorry that Arnold Armstrong was dead, but the manner of his death aroused some sympathy and an enormous amount of curiosity. Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh, a cousin, took charge of the arrangements, and everything, I believe, was as quiet as possible. I gave Thomas Johnson and Mrs. Watson permission to go into town to pay their last respects to the dead man, but for some reason they did not care to go.
Halsey spent part of the day with Mr. Jamieson, but he said nothing of what happened. He looked grave and anxious, and he had a long conversation with Gertrude late in the afternoon.
Tuesday evening found us quiet, with the quiet that precedes an explosion. Gertrude and Halsey were both gloomy and distraught, and as Liddy had already discovered that some of the china was broken–it is impossible to have any secrets from an old servant–I was not in a pleasant humor myself. Warner brought up the afternoon mail and the evening papers at seven–I was curious to know what the papers said of the murder. We had turned away at least a dozen reporters. But I read over the head-line that ran half-way across the top of the Gazette twice before I comprehended it. Halsey had opened the Chronicle and was staring at it fixedly.
“The Traders’ Bank closes its doors!” was what I read, and then I put down the paper and looked across the table.
“Did you know of this?” I asked Halsey.
“I expected it. But not so soon,” he replied.
“And you?” to Gertrude.
“Jack–told us–something,” Gertrude said faintly. “Oh, Halsey, what can he do now?”
“Jack!” I said scornfully. “Your Jack’s flight is easy enough to explain now. And you helped him, both of you, to get away! You get that from your mother; it isn’t an Innes trait. Do you know that every dollar you have, both of you, is in that bank?”
Gertrude tried to speak, but Halsey stopped her.
“That isn’t all, Gertrude,” he said quietly; “Jack is–under arrest.”
“Under arrest!” Gertrude screamed, and tore the paper out of his hand. She glanced at the heading, then she crumpled the newspaper into a ball and flung it to the floor. While Halsey, looking stricken and white, was trying to smooth it out and read it, Gertrude had dropped her head on the table and was sobbing stormily.
I have the clipping somewhere, but just now I can remember only the essentials.
On the afternoon before, Monday, while the Traders’ Bank was in the rush of closing hour, between two and three, Mr. Jacob Trautman, President of the Pearl Brewing Company, came into the bank to lift a loan. As security for the loan he had deposited some three hundred International Steamship Company 5’s, in total value three hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Trautman went to the loan clerk and, after certain formalities had been gone through, the loan clerk went to the vault. Mr. Trautman, who was a large and genial German, waited for a time, whistling under his breath. The loan clerk did not come back. After an interval, Mr. Trautman saw the loan clerk emerge from the vault and go to the assistant cashier: the two went hurriedly to the vault. A lapse of another ten minutes, and the assistant cashier came out and approached Mr. Trautman. He was noticeably white and trembling. Mr. Trautman was told that through an oversight the bonds had been misplaced, and was asked to return the following morning, when everything would be made all right.