CHAPTER XVII IN THE EARLY MORNING
I stood looking at the empty bed. The coverings had been thrown back, and Louise’s pink silk dressing-gown was gone from the foot, where it had lain. The night lamp burned dimly, revealing the emptiness of the place. I picked it up, but my hand shook so that I put it down again, and got somehow to the door.
There were voices in the hall and Gertrude came running toward me.
“What is it?” she cried. “What was that sound? Where is Louise?”
“She is not in her room,” I said stupidly. “I think–it was she–who screamed.”
Liddy had joined us now, carrying a light. We stood huddled together at the head of the circular staircase, looking down into its shadows. There was nothing to be seen, and it was absolutely quiet down there. Then we heard Halsey running up the main staircase. He came quickly down the hall to where we were standing.
“There’s no one trying to get in. I thought I heard some one shriek. Who was it?”
Our stricken faces told him the truth.
“Some one screamed down there,” I said. “And–and Louise is not in her room.”
With a jerk Halsey took the light from Liddy and ran down the circular staircase. I followed him, more slowly. My nerves seemed to be in a state of paralysis: I could scarcely step. At the foot of the stairs Halsey gave an exclamation and put down the light.
“Aunt Ray,” he called sharply.
At the foot of the staircase, huddled in a heap, her head on the lower stair, was Louise Armstrong. She lay limp and white, her dressing-gown dragging loose from one sleeve of her night-dress, and the heavy braid of her dark hair stretching its length a couple of steps above her head, as if she had slipped down.
She was not dead: Halsey put her down on the floor, and began to rub her cold hands, while Gertrude and Liddy ran for stimulants. As for me, I sat there at the foot of that ghostly staircase– sat, because my knees wouldn’t hold me–and wondered where it would all end. Louise was still unconscious, but she was breathing better, and I suggested that we get her back to bed before she came to. There was something grisly and horrible to me, seeing her there in almost the same attitude and in the same place where we had found her brother’s body. And to add to the similarity, just then the hall clock, far off, struck faintly three o’clock.
It was four before Louise was able to talk, and the first rays of dawn were coming through her windows, which faced the east, before she could tell us coherently what had occurred. I give it as she told it. She lay propped in bed, and Halsey sat beside her, unrebuffed, and held her hand while she talked.
“I was not sleeping well,” she began, “partly, I think, because I had slept during the afternoon. Liddy brought me some hot milk at ten o’clock and I slept until twelve. Then I wakened and–I got to thinking about things, and worrying, so I could not go to sleep.
“I was wondering why I had not heard from Arnold since the–since I saw him that night at the lodge. I was afraid he was ill, because–he was to have done something for me, and he had not come back. It must have been three when I heard some one rapping. I sat up and listened, to be quite sure, and the rapping kept up. It was cautious, and I was about to call Liddy.
Then suddenly I thought I knew what it was. The east entrance and the circular staircase were always used by Arnold when he was out late, and sometimes, when he forgot his key, he would rap and I would go down and let him in. I thought he had come back to see me–I didn’t think about the time, for his hours were always erratic. But I was afraid I was too weak to get down the stairs.
The knocking kept up, and just as I was about to call Liddy, she ran through the room and out into the hall. I got up then, feeling weak and dizzy, and put on my dressing-gown. If it was Arnold, I knew I must see him.