They moved slowly across the lawn and up the steps. Halsey was talking quietly, and Mrs. Watson was looking down and listening. She was a woman of a certain amount of dignity, most efficient, so far as I could see, although Liddy would have found fault if she dared. But just now Mrs. Watson’s face was an enigma. She was defiant, I think, under her mask of submission, and she still showed the effect of nervous shock.
“Mrs. Watson,” I said severely, “will you be so good as to explain this rather unusual occurrence?”
“I don’t think it so unusual, Miss Innes.” Her voice was deep and very clear: just now it was somewhat tremulous. “I was taking a blanket down to Thomas, who is–not well to-night, and I used this staircase, as being nearer the path to the lodge When– Mr. Innes called and then rushed at me, I–I was alarmed, and flung the blanket at him.”
Halsey was examining the cut on his forehead in a small mirror on the wall. It was not much of an injury, but it had bled freely, and his appearance was rather terrifying.
“Thomas ill?” he said, over his shoulder. “Why, _I_ thought I saw Thomas out there as you made that cyclonic break out of the door and over the porch.”
I could see that under pretense of examining his injury he was watching her through the mirror.
“Is this one of the servants’ blankets, Mrs. Watson?” I asked, holding up its luxurious folds to the light.
“Everything else is locked away,” she replied. Which was true enough, no doubt. I had rented the house without bed furnishings.
“If Thomas is ill,” Halsey said, “some member of the family ought to go down to see him. You needn’t bother, Mrs. Watson. I will take the blanket.”
She drew herself up quickly, as if in protest, but she found nothing to say. She stood smoothing the folds of her dead black dress, her face as white as chalk above it. Then she seemed to make up her mind.
“Very well, Mr. Innes,” she said. “Perhaps you would better go. I have done all I could.”
And then she turned and went up the circular staircase, moving slowly and with a certain dignity. Below, the three of us stared at one another across the intervening white blanket.
“Upon my word,” Halsey broke out, “this place is a walking nightmare. I have the feeling that we three outsiders who have paid our money for the privilege of staying in this spook- factory, are living on the very top of things. We’re on the lid, so to speak. Now and then we get a sight of the things inside, but we are not a part of them.”
“Do you suppose,” Gertrude asked doubtfully, “that she really meant that blanket for Thomas?”
“Thomas was standing beside that magnolia tree,” Halsey replied, “when I ran after Mrs. Watson. It’s down to this, Aunt Ray. Rosie’s basket and Mrs Watson’s blanket can only mean one thing: there is somebody hiding or being hidden in the lodge. It wouldn’t surprise me if we hold the key to the whole situation now. Anyhow, I’m going to the lodge to investigate.”
Gertrude wanted to go, too, but she looked so shaken that I insisted she should not. I sent for Liddy to help her to bed, and then Halsey and I started for the lodge. The grass was heavy with dew, and, man-like, Halsey chose the shortest way across the lawn. Half-way, however, he stopped.
“We’d better go by the drive,” he said. “This isn’t a lawn; it’s a field. Where’s the gardener these days?”
“There isn’t any,” I said meekly. “We have been thankful enough, so far, to have our meals prepared and served and the beds aired.
The gardener who belongs here is working at the club.”
“Remind me to-morrow to send out a man from town,” he said. “I know the very fellow.”
I record this scrap of conversation, just as I have tried to put down anything and everything that had a bearing on what followed, because the gardener Halsey sent the next day played an important part in the events of the next few weeks–events that culminated, as you know, by stirring the country profoundly. At that time, however, I was busy trying to keep my skirts dry, and paid little or no attention to what seemed then a most trivial remark.