Part 28 (1/2)
”The first thing I heard was-excuse me, Miss Innes, but it's what he said, 'The d.a.m.ned rascal,' he said, 'I'll see him in'-well, in h.e.l.l was what he said, 'in h.e.l.l first.' Then somebody else spoke up; it was a woman. She said, 'I warned them, but they thought I would be afraid.'”
”A woman! Did you wait to see who it was?”
”I wasn't spying, Miss Innes,” Warner said with dignity. ”But the next thing caught my attention. She said, 'I knew there was something wrong from the start. A man isn't well one day, and dead the next, without some reason.' I thought she was speaking of Thomas.”
”And you don't know who it was!” I exclaimed. ”Warner, you had the key to this whole occurrence in your hands, and did not use it!”
However, there was nothing to be done. I resolved to make inquiry when I got home, and in the meantime, my present errand absorbed me. This was nothing less than to see Louise Armstrong, and to attempt to drag from her what she knew, or suspected, of Halsey's disappearance. But here, as in every direction I turned, I was baffled.
A neat maid answered the bell, but she stood squarely in the doorway, and it was impossible to preserve one's dignity and pa.s.s her.
”Miss Armstrong is very ill, and unable to see any one,” she said. I did not believe her.
”And Mrs. Armstrong-is she also ill?”
”She is with Miss Louise and can not be disturbed.”
”Tell her it is Miss Innes, and that it is a matter of the greatest importance.”
”It would be of no use, Miss Innes. My orders are positive.”
At that moment a heavy step sounded on the stairs. Past the maid's white-strapped shoulder I could see a familiar thatch of gray hair, and in a moment I was face to face with Doctor Stewart. He was very grave, and his customary geniality was tinged with restraint.
”You are the very woman I want to see,” he said promptly. ”Send away your trap, and let me drive you home. What is this about your nephew?”
”He has disappeared, doctor. Not only that, but there is every evidence that he has been either abducted, or-” I could not finish. The doctor helped me into his capacious buggy in silence. Until we had got a little distance he did not speak; then he turned and looked at me.
”Now tell me about it,” he said. He heard me through without speaking.
”And you think Louise knows something?” he said when I had finished. ”I don't-in fact, I am sure of it. The best evidence of it is this: she asked me if he had been heard from, or if anything had been learned. She won't allow Walker in the room, and she made me promise to see you and tell you this: don't give up the search for him. Find him, and find him soon. He is living.”
”Well,” I said, ”if she knows that, she knows more. She is a very cruel and ungrateful girl.”
”She is a very sick girl,” he said gravely. ”Neither you nor I can judge her until we know everything. Both she and her mother are ghosts of their former selves. Under all this, these two sudden deaths, this bank robbery, the invasions at Sunnyside and Halsey's disappearance, there is some mystery that, mark my words, will come out some day. And when it does, we shall find Louise Armstrong a victim.”
I had not noticed where we were going, but now I saw we were beside the railroad, and from a knot of men standing beside the track I divined that it was here the car had been found. The siding, however, was empty. Except a few bits of splintered wood on the ground, there was no sign of the accident.
”Where is the freight car that was rammed?” the doctor asked a bystander.
”It was taken away at daylight, when the train was moved.”
There was nothing to be gained. He pointed out the house on the embankment where the old lady and her daughter had heard the crash and seen two figures beside the car. Then we drove slowly home. I had the doctor put me down at the gate, and I walked to the house-past the lodge where we had found Louise, and, later, poor Thomas; up the drive where I had seen a man watching the lodge and where, later, Rosie had been frightened; past the east entrance, where so short a time before the most obstinate effort had been made to enter the house, and where, that night two weeks ago, Liddy and I had seen the strange woman. Not far from the west wing lay the blackened ruins of the stables. I felt like a ruin myself, as I paused on the broad veranda before I entered the house.
Two private detectives had arrived in my absence, and it was a relief to turn over to them the responsibility of the house and grounds. Mr. Jamieson, they said, had arranged for more to a.s.sist in the search for the missing man, and at that time the country was being scoured in all directions.
The household staff was again depleted that afternoon. Liddy was waiting to tell me that the new cook had gone, bag and baggage, without waiting to be paid. No one had admitted the visitor whom Warner had heard in the library, unless, possibly, the missing cook. Again I was working in a circle.
CHAPTER XXVII