It was about half-past eight when we left the dining-room and still
engrossed with one subject, the failure of the bank and its attendant
evils Halsey and I went out into the grounds for a stroll Gertrude
followed us shortly. "The light was thickening," to appropriate
Shakespeare's description of twilight, and once again the tree-toads
and the crickets were making night throb with their tiny life. It was
almost oppressively lonely, in spite of its beauty, and I felt a
sickening pang of homesickness for my city at night--for the clatter of
horses' feet on cemented paving, for the lights, the voices, the sound
of children playing. The country after dark oppresses me. The stars,
quite eclipsed in the city by the electric lights, here become
insistent, assertive. Whether I want to or not, I find myself looking
for the few I know by name, and feeling ridiculously new and small by
contrast--always an unpleasant sensation.
After Gertrude joined us, we avoided any further mention of the murder.
To Halsey, as to me, there was ever present, I am sure, the thought of
our conversation of the night before. As we strolled back and forth
along the drive, Mr. Jamieson emerged from the shadow of the trees.
"Good evening," he said, managing to include Gertrude in his bow.
Gertrude had never been even ordinarily courteous to him, and she
nodded coldly. Halsey, however, was more cordial, although we were all
constrained enough. He and Gertrude went on together, leaving the
detective to walk with me. As soon as they were out of earshot, he
turned to me.
"Do you know, Miss Innes," he said, "the deeper I go into this thing,
the more strange it seems to me. I am very sorry for Miss Gertrude.
It looks as if Bailey, whom she has tried so hard to save, is worse
than a rascal; and after her plucky fight for him, it seems hard."
I looked through the dusk to where Gertrude's light dinner dress
gleamed among the trees. She HAD made a plucky fight, poor child.
Whatever she might have been driven to do, I could find nothing but a
deep sympathy for her. If she had only come to me with the whole truth
then!
"Miss Innes," Mr. Jamieson was saying, "in the last three days, have
you seen a--any suspicious figures around the grounds? Any--woman?"
"No," I replied. "I have a houseful of maids that will bear watching,
one and all. But there has been no strange woman near the house or
Liddy would have seen her, you may be sure. She has a telescopic eye."
Mr. Jamieson looked thoughtful.
"It may not amount to anything," he said slowly. "It is difficult to
get any perspective on things around here, because every one down in
the village is sure he saw the murderer, either before or since the
crime. And half of them will stretch a point or two as to facts, to be
obliging. But the man who drives the hack down there tells a story
that may possibly prove to be important."