"My nephew." I had to moisten my lips.
"Oh, a nephew. I should like to see him, if he is here."
"He is not here just now," I said as quietly as I could. "I expect
him--at any time."
"He was here yesterday evening, I believe?"
"No--yes."
"Didn't he have a guest with him? Another man?"
"He brought a friend with him to stay over Sunday, Mr. Bailey."
"Mr. John Bailey, the cashier of the Traders' Bank I believe." And I
knew that some one at the Greenwood Club had told. "When did they
leave?"
"Very early--I don't know at just what time."
Mr. Jamieson turned suddenly and looked at me.
"Please try to be more explicit," he said. "You say your nephew and
Mr. Bailey were in the house last night, and yet you and your niece,
with some women-servants, found the body. Where was your nephew?"
I was entirely desperate by that time.
"I do not know," I cried, "but be sure of this: Halsey knows nothing of
this thing, and no amount of circumstantial evidence can make an
innocent man guilty."
"Sit down," he said, pushing forward a chair. "There are some things I
have to tell you, and, in return, please tell me all you know. Believe
me, things always come out. In the first place, Mr. Armstrong was shot
from above. The bullet was fired at close range, entered below the
shoulder and came out, after passing through the heart, well down the
back. In other words, I believe the murderer stood on the stairs and
fired down. In the second place, I found on the edge of the
billiard-table a charred cigar which had burned itself partly out, and
a cigarette which had consumed itself to the cork tip. Neither one had
been more than lighted, then put down and forgotten. Have you any idea
what it was that made your nephew and Mr. Bailey leave their cigars and
their game, take out the automobile without calling the chauffeur, and
all this at--let me see certainly before three o'clock in the morning?"
"I don't know," I said; "but depend on it, Mr. Jamieson, Halsey will be
back himself to explain everything."
"I sincerely hope so," he said. "Miss Innes, has it occurred to you
that Mr. Bailey might know something of this?"
Gertrude had come down-stairs and just as he spoke she came in. I saw
her stop suddenly, as if she had been struck.
"He does not," she said in a tone that was not her own. "Mr. Bailey
and my brother know nothing of this. The murder was committed at
three. They left the house at a quarter before three."
"How do you know that?" Mr. Jamieson asked oddly. "Do you KNOW at what
time they left?"