The following morning Louise had been ill. She had asked for Arnold,
and was told he had left town. Thomas had not the moral courage to
tell her of the crime. She refused a doctor, and shrank morbidly from
having her presence known. Mrs. Watson and Thomas had had their hands
full, and at last Rosie had been enlisted to help them. She carried
necessary provisions--little enough--to the lodge, and helped to keep
the secret.
Thomas told me quite frankly that he had been anxious to keep Louise's
presence hidden for this reason: they had all seen Arnold Armstrong
that night, and he, himself, for one, was known to have had no very
friendly feeling for the dead man. As to the reason for Louise's
flight from California, or why she had not gone to the Fitzhughs', or
to some of her people in town, he had no more information than I had.
With the death of her stepfather and the prospect of the immediate
return of the family, things had become more and more impossible. I
gathered that Thomas was as relieved as I at the turn events had taken.
No, she did not know of either of the deaths in the family.
Taken all around, I had only substituted one mystery for another.
If I knew now why Rosie had taken the basket of dishes, I did not know
who had spoken to her and followed her along the drive. If I knew that
Louise was in the lodge, I did not know why she was there. If I knew
that Arnold Armstrong had spent some time in the lodge the night before
he was murdered, I was no nearer the solution of the crime. Who was
the midnight intruder who had so alarmed Liddy and myself? Who had
fallen down the clothes chute? Was Gertrude's lover a villain or a
victim? Time was to answer all these things.