The Circular Staircase

I was panic-stricken. As I ran along the corridor I was confident that

the mysterious intruder and probable murderer had been found, and that

he lay dead or dying at the foot of the chute. I got down the

staircase somehow, and through the kitchen to the basement stairs. Mr.

Jamieson had been before me, and the door stood open. Liddy was

standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding a frying-pan by the

handle as a weapon.

"Don't go down there," she yelled, when she saw me moving toward the

basement stairs. "Don't you do it, Miss Rachel. That Jamieson's down

there now. There's only trouble comes of hunting ghosts; they lead you

into bottomless pits and things like that. Oh, Miss Rachel, don't--" as

I tried to get past her.

She was interrupted by Mr. Jamieson's reappearance. He ran up the

stairs two at a time, and his face was flushed and furious.

"The whole place is locked," he said angrily. "Where's the laundry key

kept?"

"It's kept in the door," Liddy snapped. "That whole end of the cellar

is kept locked, so nobody can get at the clothes, and then the key's

left in the door? so that unless a thief was as blind as--as some

detectives, he could walk right in."

"Liddy," I said sharply, "come down with us and turn on all the lights."

She offered her resignation, as usual, on the spot, but I took her by

the arm, and she came along finally. She switched on all the lights

and pointed to a door just ahead.

"That's the door," she said sulkily. "The key's in it."

But the key was not in it. Mr. Jamieson shook it, but it was a heavy

door, well locked. And then he stooped and began punching around the

keyhole with the end of a lead-pencil. When he stood up his face was

exultant.

"It's locked on the inside," he said in a low tone. "There is somebody

in there."

"Lord have mercy!" gasped Liddy, and turned to run.

"Liddy," I called, "go through the house at once and see who is

missing, or if any one is. We'll have to clear this thing at once.

Mr. Jamieson, if you will watch here I will go to the lodge and find

Warner. Thomas would be of no use. Together you may be able to force

the door."

"A good idea," he assented. "But--there are windows, of course, and

there is nothing to prevent whoever is in there from getting out that

way."

"Then lock the door at the top of the basement stairs," I suggested,

"and patrol the house from the outside."

We agreed to this, and I had a feeling that the mystery of Sunnyside

was about to be solved. I ran down the steps and along the drive.

Just at the corner I ran full tilt into somebody who seemed to be as

much alarmed as I was. It was not until I had recoiled a step or two

that I recognized Gertrude, and she me.