Sleep was impossible, I think, for any of us. We dispersed finally to
bathe and dress, leaving Louise little the worse for her experience.
But I determined that before the day was over she must know the true
state of affairs. Another decision I made, and I put it into execution
immediately after breakfast. I had one of the unused bedrooms in the
east wing, back along the small corridor, prepared for occupancy, and
from that time on, Alex, the gardener, slept there. One man in that
barn of a house was an absurdity, with things happening all the time,
and I must say that Alex was as unobjectionable as any one could
possibly have been.
The next morning, also, Halsey and I made an exhaustive examination of
the circular staircase, the small entry at its foot, and the card-room
opening from it. There was no evidence of anything unusual the night
before, and had we not ourselves heard the rapping noises, I should
have felt that Louise's imagination had run away with her. The outer
door was closed and locked, and the staircase curved above us, for all
the world like any other staircase.
Halsey, who had never taken seriously my account of the night Liddy and
I were there alone, was grave enough now. He examined the paneling of
the wainscoting above and below the stairs, evidently looking for a
secret door, and suddenly there flashed into my mind the recollection
of a scrap of paper that Mr. Jamieson had found among Arnold
Armstrong's effects. As nearly as possible I repeated its contents to
him, while Halsey took them down in a note-book.
"I wish you had told me that before," he said, as he put the memorandum
carefully away. We found nothing at all in the house, and I expected
little from any examination of the porch and grounds. But as we opened
the outer door something fell into the entry with a clatter. It was a
cue from the billiard-room.
Halsey picked it up with an exclamation.
"That's careless enough," he said. "Some of the servants have been
amusing themselves."
I was far from convinced. Not one of the servants would go into that
wing at night unless driven by dire necessity. And a billiard cue! As
a weapon of either offense or defense it was an absurdity, unless one
accepted Liddy's hypothesis of a ghost, and even then, as Halsey
pointed out, a billiard-playing ghost would be a very modern evolution
of an ancient institution.
That afternoon we, Gertrude, Halsey and I, attended the coroner's
inquest in town. Doctor Stewart had been summoned also, it transpiring
that in that early Sunday morning, when Gertrude and I had gone to our
rooms, he had been called to view the body. We went, the four of us,
in the machine, preferring the execrable roads to the matinee train,
with half of Casanova staring at us. And on the way we decided to say
nothing of Louise and her interview with her stepbrother the night he
died. The girl was in trouble enough as it was.