"Aunt Ray!" Halsey said from the gloom behind the lamps. "What in the
world are you doing here?"
"Taking a walk," I said, trying to be composed. I don't think the
answer struck either of us as being ridiculous at the time. "Oh,
Halsey, where have you been?"
"Let me take you up to the house." He was in the road, and had Beulah
and the basket out of my arms in a moment. I could see the car plainly
now, and Warner was at the wheel--Warner in an ulster and a pair of
slippers, over Heaven knows what. Jack Bailey was not there. I got
in, and we went slowly and painfully up to the house.
We did not talk. What we had to say was too important to commence
there, and, besides, it took all kinds of coaxing from both men to get
the Dragon Fly up the last grade. Only when we had closed the front
door and stood facing each other in the hall, did Halsey say anything.
He slipped his strong young arm around my shoulders and turned me so I
faced the light.
"Poor Aunt Ray!" he said gently. And I nearly wept again. "I--I must
see Gertrude, too; we will have a three-cornered talk."
And then Gertrude herself came down the stairs. She had not been to
bed, evidently: she still wore the white negligee she had worn earlier
in the evening, and she limped somewhat. During her slow progress down
the stairs I had time to notice one thing: Mr. Jamieson had said the
woman who escaped from the cellar had worn no shoe on her right foot.
Gertrude's right ankle was the one she had sprained!
The meeting between brother and sister was tense, but without tears.
Halsey kissed her tenderly, and I noticed evidences of strain and
anxiety in both young faces.
"Is everything--right?" she asked.
"Right as can be," with forced cheerfulness.
I lighted the living-room and we went in there. Only a half-hour
before I had sat with Mr. Jamieson in that very room, listening while
he overtly accused both Gertrude and Halsey of at least a knowledge of
the death of Arnold Armstrong. Now Halsey was here to speak for
himself: I should learn everything that had puzzled me.
"I saw it in the paper to-night for the first time," he was saying.
"It knocked me dumb. When I think of this houseful of women, and a
thing like that occurring!"
Gertrude's face was still set and white. "That isn't all, Halsey," she
said. "You and--and Jack left almost at the time it happened. The
detective here thinks that you--that we--know something about it."
"The devil he does!" Halsey's eyes were fairly starting from his head.
"I beg your pardon, Aunt Ray, but--the fellow's a lunatic."