Part 5 (1/2)

”Sit down,” I said grimly. ”Have you found a clue that will incriminate me, Mr. Jamieson?”

He had the grace to look uncomfortable. ”No,” he said. ”If you had killed Mr. Armstrong, you would have left no clues. You would have had too much intelligence.”

After that we got along better. He was fis.h.i.+ng in his pocket, and after a minute he brought out two sc.r.a.ps of paper. ”I have been to the club-house,” he said, ”and among Mr. Armstrong's effects, I found these. One is curious; the other is puzzling.”

The first was a sheet of club note-paper, on which was written, over and over, the name ”Halsey B. Innes.” It was Halsey's flowing signature to a dot, but it lacked Halsey's ease. The ones toward the bottom of the sheet were much better than the top ones. Mr. Jamieson smiled at my face.

”His old tricks,” he said. ”That one is merely curious; this one, as I said before, is puzzling.”

The second sc.r.a.p, folded and refolded into a compa.s.s so tiny that the writing had been partly obliterated, was part of a letter-the lower half of a sheet, not typed, but written in a cramped hand.

”--by altering the plans for--rooms, may be possible. The best way, in my opinion, would be to--the plan for--in one of the--rooms--chimney.”

That was all.

”Well?” I said, looking up. ”There is nothing in that, is there? A man ought to be able to change the plan of his house without becoming an object of suspicion.”

”There is little in the paper itself,” he admitted; ”but why should Arnold Armstrong carry that around, unless it meant something? He never built a house, you may be sure of that. If it is this house, it may mean anything, from a secret room-”

”To an extra bath-room,” I said scornfully. ”Haven't you a thumb-print, too?”

”I have,” he said with a smile, ”and the print of a foot in a tulip bed, and a number of other things. The oddest part is, Miss Innes, that the thumb-mark is probably yours and the footprint certainly.”

His audacity was the only thing that saved me: his amused smile put me on my mettle, and I ripped out a perfectly good scallop before I answered.

”Why did I step into the tulip bed?” I asked with interest.

”You picked up something,” he said good-humoredly, ”which you are going to tell me about later.”

”Am I, indeed?” I was politely curious. ”With this remarkable insight of yours, I wish you would tell me where I shall find my four-thousand-dollar motor car.”

”I was just coming to that,” he said. ”You will find it about thirty miles away, at Andrews Station, in a blacksmith shop, where it is being repaired.”

I laid down my knitting then and looked at him.

”And Halsey?” I managed to say.

”We are going to exchange information,” he said ”I am going to tell you that, when you tell me what you picked up in the tulip bed.”

We looked steadily at each other: it was not an unfriendly stare; we were only measuring weapons. Then he smiled a little and got up.

”With your permission,” he said, ”I am going to examine the card-room and the staircase again. You might think over my offer in the meantime.”

He went on through the drawing-room, and I listened to his footsteps growing gradually fainter. I dropped my pretense at knitting and, leaning back, I thought over the last forty-eight hours. Here was I, Rachel Innes, spinster, a granddaughter of old John Innes of Revolutionary days, a D. A. R., a Colonial Dame, mixed up with a vulgar and revolting crime, and even attempting to hoodwink the law! Certainly I had left the straight and narrow way.

I was roused by hearing Mr. Jamieson coming rapidly back through the drawing-room. He stopped at the door.