 This is a LibyVox recording. All LibyVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibyVox.org. Recording by Wynna Hathaway. The Circular Staircase. By Mary Roberts Reinhardt. CHAPTER XXVI. Halcy's Disappearance. Nothing that had gone before had been as bad as this. The murder and Thomas's sudden death we had been able to view in a detached sort of way. But with Halcy's disappearance everything was altered. Our little circle intact until now was broken. We were no longer onlookers who saw a battle passing around them. We were the center of action. Of course there was no time then to voice such an idea. My mind seemed able to hold only one thought. That Halcy had been felt it dealt with and that every minute lost might be fatal. Mr. Jameson came back about eight o'clock the next morning. He was covered with mud and his hat was gone. All together we were a sad looking trio that gathered around a breakfast that no one could eat. Over a cup of black coffee the detective told us what he had learned of Halcy's movements the night before. Up to a certain point the car had made it easy enough to follow him. And I gathered that Mr. Burns, the other detective, had followed a similar car for miles at dawn only to find it was a touring car on an endurance run. He left here about ten minutes after eight. Mr. Jameson said. He went alone and at eight twenty he stopped at Dr. Walker's. I went to the doctor's about midnight but he had been called out on the case and had not come back at four o'clock. From the doctor's it seems Mr. Innis walked across the lawn to the cottage Mrs. Armstrong and her daughter have taken. Mrs. Armstrong had retired and he said perhaps a dozen words to Miss Louise. She will not say what they were but the girl evidently suspects what has occurred. That is she suspects foul play but she doesn't know of what nature. Then apparently he started directly for the station. He was going very fast. The flag man at the Carroll Street crossing says he saw the car pass. He knew the siren. Along somewhere in the dark stretch between Carroll Street and the depot he evidently swerved suddenly. Perhaps someone in the road and went full into the sight of a freight. We found it there last night. He might have been thrown under the train by the force of the shock. I said tremulously. Kurtrude shuddered. We examined every inch of track. There was no sign. But surely he can't be gone. I cried. Aren't there traces in the mud? Anything? There is no mud. Only dust. There's been no rain and the footpath there is of cinders. Miss Innis I am inclined to think that he has met with bad treatment in the light of what has gone before. I do not think he has been murdered. I shrank from the word. Burns is back in the country on a clue we got from the night clerk at the drugstore. There will be two more men here by noon and the city office is on the lookout. The creek, Kurtrude asked. The creek is shallow now. If it were swollen with rain it would be different. There is hardly any water in it. Now is Innis, he said, turning to me. I must ask you some questions. Had Mr. Halsey any possible reason for going away like this without warning? None whatever. He went away once before. He persisted. And you were assured then. He did not leave the dragonfly jammed into the side of a freight car before. No, but he left it for repairs in a blacksmith shop a long distance from here. Do you know if he had any enemies, anyone who might wish him out of the way? Not that I know of unless, no, I cannot think of any. Was he in the habit of carrying money? He never carried it far. No, he never had more than enough for current expenses. Mr. Jameson got up then and began to pace the room. It was an unwanted concession to the occasion. Then I think we get at it by elimination. The chances are against flight. If he was hurt we find no trace of him. It looks almost like an abduction. This young Dr. Walker, have you any idea why Mr. Innis should have gone there last night? I cannot understand it, Gertrude said thoughtfully. I don't think he knew Dr. Walker at all, and their relations could hardly have been cordial, under the circumstances. Jameson pricked up his ears, and little by little he drew from us the unfortunate story of Halsey's love affair, and the fact that Louise was going to marry Dr. Walker. Mr. Jameson listened attentively. There are some interesting developments here, he said thoughtfully. The woman who claims to be the mother of Lucy and Wallace has not come back. Your nephew has apparently been spirited away. There is an organized attempt being made to enter this house. In fact, it has been entered. Witness the incident with the cook yesterday. And I have a new piece of information. He looked carefully away from Gertrude. Mr. John Bailey is not at his snicker bunker apartment, and I don't know where he is. It's a hash, that's what it is. It's a Chinese puzzle. They won't fit together unless Mr. Bailey and your nephew have again, once again, Gertrude surprised me. They are not together, she said hotly. I know where Mr. Bailey is, and my brother is not with him. The detective turned and looked at her keenly. Miss Gertrude, he said, if you and Miss Louise would only tell me everything you know and surmise about this business, I should be able to do a great many things. I believe I could find your brother, and I might be able to, well, to do some other things. But Gertrude's glance did not falter. Nothing that I know could help you to find Halsey, she said stubbornly. I know absolutely as little of his disappearance as she do, and I can only say this. I do not trust Dr. Walker. I think he hated Halsey, and he would get rid of him if he could. Perhaps you're right. In fact, I had some such theory myself. But Dr. Walker went out late last night to a serious case in Summitville, and is still there. Burns traced him there. We have made guarded inquiry at the Greenwood Club and through the village. There is absolutely nothing to go on but this. On the embankment above the railroad, at the point where we found the machine, is a small house. An old woman and a daughter who is very lame live there. They say that they distinctly heard the shock when the dragonfly hit the car, and they went to the bottom of their garden and looked over. The automobile was there, they could see the lights, and they thought someone had been injured. It was very dark, but they could make out two figures standing together. The women were curious and leaving the fence, they went back and by a roundabout path down to the road. When they got there, the car was still standing, the headlight broken and the bonnet crushed, but there was no one to be seen. The detective went away immediately, and the Gertrude and me was left the woman's part, to watch and wait. By luncheon nothing had been found, and I was frantic. I went upstairs to Hulse's room finally, from sheer inability to sit across from Gertrude any longer, and meet her terror-filled eyes. Liddy was in my dressing room, suspiciously red-eyed and trying to put a right sleeve in a left arm-hole of a new waist for me. I was too much shaken to scold. What name did that woman in the kitchen give? She demanded, viciously ripping out the offending sleeve. Bliss, Matty Bliss, I replied. Bliss, M.P. Well, that's not what she has on the suitcase. It is marked NFC. The new cook and her initials troubled me not at all. I put on my bonnet and sent for what the Casanova library man called a stylish turnout. Having once made up my mind to a course of action, I am not one to turn back. Warner drove me. He was plainly disgusted, and he steered the library horse as he would the dragonfly, feeling uneasily with his left foot for the clutch, and, working his right elbow with an imaginary horn, every time a dog got in the way. Warner had something on his mind, and after we had turned into the road he voiced it. Miss Innis, he said, I overheard a part of a conversation yesterday that I didn't understand. It wasn't my business to understand it for that matter. But I've been thinking all day that I better tell you. One day afternoon, while you and Miss Gertrude were out driving, I had got the car in some sort of shape again after the fire, and I went to the library to call Mr. Innis to see it. I went into the living room where Miss Liddy said he was, and halfway across to the library I heard him talking to someone. He seemed to be walking up and down, and he was in a rage, I can tell you. What did he say? The first thing I heard was, excuse me, Miss Innis, but it's what he said. The damn rascal, he said, I'll see him in, well, in hell was what he said, in hell 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 Innis, Warner said with dignity. But the next thing caught my attention. She said, I knew there was something wrong from the start, and 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 Halcy'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 pass her. Miss Armstrong is very ill and unable to see anyone. She said, I did not believe her. And Mrs. Armstrong is she also ill? She is with Miss Louise and cannot be disturbed. Tell her it is Miss Innis and that it is a matter of greatest importance. It would be of no use, Miss Innis. My orders are positive. At that moment a heavy step sounded on the stairs. Past the maid's white-strap shoulder I could see a familiar touch of gray hair and in a moment I was face-to-face with Dr. 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'm 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 worker 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 divine that it was here the car had been found. The siding, however, was empty. Except for 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. He 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 driver had seen a man watching the lodge and where, later, Rosie had been frightened. Past the east entrance were so short a time before the most obstinate effort had been made to enter the house, and where that night, two weeks ago, Lydia 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 passed 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. Jameson, they said, had arranged for more to assist 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. Lydia was waiting to tell me that the nook cook had gone, baggy 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. End of Chapter 26. Recording by Wynna Hathaway in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Chapter 27 of the Circular Staircase. This is a Libby Fox recording. All Libby Fox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibbyVox.org, recording by Wynna Hathaway. The Circular Staircase by Mary Robert Reinhardt. Chapter 27. Who is Sunina Carrington? The four days, from Saturday to the following Tuesday, we lived or existed in a state of the most dreadful suspense. We ate only when Lydia brought in a tray, and then very little. The papers, of course, had got hold of the story, and we were besieged by newspaper men. From all over the country false clues came pouring in and raised hopes that crumbled again to nothing. Every morgue within a hundred miles, every hospital, had been visited without result. Mr. Jameson personally took charge of the organized search, and every evening, no matter where he happened to be, he called us by long-distance telephone. It was the same formula. Nothing to-day, a new clue to work on, better luck to-morrow. And, hard-sick, you would put up the receiver and sit down again to our vigil. The inaction was deadly. Lydia cried all day, and because she knew I objected to tears, sniffled audibly around the corner. For Heaven's sake, smile! I snapped at her. And her ghastly attempt at a grin, with her swollen nose and red eyes, made me hysterical. I laughed and cried together, and pretty soon, like the two old fools we were, we were sitting together, whipping into the same handkerchief. Things were happening, of course, all the time, but they made little or no impression. The charity hospital called up Dr. Stewart and reported that Mrs. Watson was in critical condition. I understood also that legal steps were being taken to terminate my lease at Sunnyside. Louise was out of danger, but very ill, and a trained nurse guarded her like a gorgon. There was a rumor in the village brought up by Lydia from the Butchers that a wedding had already taken place between Louise and Dr. Walker's, and this roused me for the first time to action. On Tuesday then, I sent for the car and prepared to go out. As I waited at the Port Cochere, I saw the under-gardener, an inoffensive, grayish-haired man, trimming borders near the house. The day detective was watching him, sitting on the carriage-block. When he saw me, he got up. Miss Innis, he said, taking off his hat. Do you know where Alex the Gardener is? Why, no. Isn't he here? I asked. You've been gone since just today afternoon. Have you employed him long? Only a couple of weeks. Is he efficient, a capable man? I hardly know, I said vaguely. The place looks all right, and I know very little about such things. I know much more about boxers of roses than bushes of them. This man, pointing to the assistant, says Alex isn't a Gardener, that he doesn't know anything about plants. That's very strange, I said, thinking hard. Why, he came to me from the Braves, who are in Europe. Exactly, the detective smiled. Every man who cuts grass isn't a Gardener, Miss Innis, and just now it is our policy to believe every person around here a rascal until he proves to be the other thing. Warnory came up with the car then, and the conversation stopped. As he helped me in, however, the detective said something further. Not a word or a sign to Alex if he comes back. He said cautiously. I went first to Dr. Walker's. I was tired of pitting about the bush, and I felt that the key to Halsey's disappearance was here at Casanova, in spite of Mr. Jameson's theories. The doctor was in. He came at once to the door of his consulting room, and there was no mask of projality in his manner. Please come in. He said curtly. I shall stay here, I think, doctor. I did not like his face or his manner. There was a subtle change in both. He had thrown off the air of friendliness, and I thought, too, that he looked anxious and haggard. Dr. Walker, I said, I have come to you to ask some questions. I hope you will answer them. As you know, my nephew has not yet been found. So I understand. Stiffly. I believe, if you would, you could help us, and that leads to one of my questions. Will you tell me what was the nature of the conversation you held with him the night he was attacked and carried off? Attacked? Carried off? He said with pretended surprise. Really, Miss Innis, don't you think you exaggerate? I understand it is not the first time Mr. Innis has disappeared. You're a quibbling, doctor. This is some matter of life and death. Will you answer my question? Certainly. He said his nerves were bad, and I gave him a prescription for them. I'm violating professional ethics when I tell you even as much as that. I could not tell him he lied. I think I looked it, but I hazarded a random shot. I thought perhaps, I said watching him narrowly, that it might be about Nina Carrington. For a moment I thought he was going to strike me. He grew livid in a small crooked blood vessel in his temple, swelled and throbbed curiously. Then he forced a short laugh. Who is Nina Carrington? He asked. I'm about to discover that, I replied, and he was quiet at once. It was not difficult to divine that he feared Nina Carrington a good deal more than he did the devil. Our leave taking was brief. In fact, he merely stared at each other over the waiting room table with its litter of year old magazines. Then I turned and went out. To Richfield, I told Warner, and on the way I thought and thought hard. Nina Carrington, Nina Carrington, the roar and rush of the wheels seemed to sing the words. Nina Carrington and C. And I then knew, knew as surely as if I had seen the whole thing. There had been an NC on the suitcase belonging to the woman with the pitted face. How simple it all seemed. Matty Bliss had been Nina Carrington. It was she Warner had heard in the library. It was something she had told Halsey that had taken him frantically to Dr. Walker's office and from there perhaps to his death. If we could find the woman, we might find what had become of Halsey. We were almost at Richfield now, so I kept on. My mind was not on my errand there now. It was back with Halsey on that memorable night. What was it he had said to Louise that had sent her up to Sunnyside, half wild with fear for him. Made up my mind as the car drew up before the Tate Cottage, that I would see Louise if I had to break into the house at night. Almost exactly the same scene as before greeted my eyes at the cottage. Mrs. Tate, the baby carriage in the path, the children of the swing, all were the same. She came forward to meet me and I noticed that some of the anxious lines had gone out of her face. She looked young, almost pretty. I'm glad you have come back, she said. I think I will have to be honest and give you back your money. Why, I asked, has the mother come? No, but someone came and paid the boys' board for a month. She talked to him for a long time. But when I asked him afterward, he didn't know her name. A young woman? Not very young, about forty, I suppose. She was small and fair-haired, just a little bit gray and very sad. She was in deep mourning and I think when she came she expected to go at once. But the child, Lucienne, interested her. She talked to him for a long time and indeed she looked much happier when she left. You are sure this was not the real mother? Oh, mercy, no. Why, she didn't know which of the three was Lucienne. I thought perhaps she was a friend of yours. But, of course, I didn't ask. She was not pockmarked, I asked at the venture. No, indeed, a skin like a baby's. But perhaps she will know the initials. She gave Lucienne a handkerchief and forgot it. It was very fine, blackboarded. It had three handwork letters in the corner. F-B-A. No, I said with truth enough. She is not a friend of mine. F-B-A was Fanny Armstrong without a chance of doubt. With another warning to Mrs. Tate as to silence we started back to Sunnyside. So Fanny Armstrong knew of Lucienne Wallace and was sufficiently interested to visit him and pay for his support. Who was the child's mother and where was she? Who was Nina Carrington? Did either of them know where Halsey was or what had happened to him? All the way home we passed the little cemetery where Thomas had been laid to rest. I wondered if Thomas could have helped us to find Halsey had he lived. Further along was the more imposing burdle-ground where Honored Armstrong and his father lay in the shadow of a taller granite shaft. Of the three I think Thomas was the only one sincerely mourned. End of Chapter 27. Recording by Wina Hathaway in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Of the Circular Staircase. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Reinhardt. Chapter 28. A Tramp and the Two-Sake. The bitterness toward the dead president of the Traders Bank seemed to grow with time. Never popular his memory was executed by people who had lost nothing but who were filled with disgust by constantly hearing new stories of the man's grasping avarice. The Traders had been a favorite bank for small tradespeople and in its savings department he had solicited the smallest deposits. People who had thought to be self-supporting to the last found themselves confronting the poor house. Their two or three hundred dollar savings wiped away. All bank failures have this element however and the directors were trying to promise twenty percent on deposits. But like everything else those days the bank failure was almost forgotten by Gertrude and myself. We did not mention Jack Bailey. I had found nothing to change my impression of his guilt and Gertrude knew how I felt. As for the murder of the bank president's son I was of two minds. One day I thought Gertrude knew or at least suspected that Jack had done it. The next I feared that it had been Gertrude herself that night alone on the Circular Staircase. And then the mother of Lucian Wallace would obtrude herself and an almost equally good case might be made against her. There were times of course when I was disposed to throw all those suspicions aside and fix definitely on the unknown whoever that might be. I had my greatest disappointment when it came to tracing Nina Carrington. The woman had gone without leaving a trace. Marked as she was it should have been easy to follow her but she was not to be found. A description to one of the detectives on my arrival at home had started the ball rolling. But by night she had not been found. I told Gertrude then about the telegram to Louise when she had been ill before about my visit to Dr. Walker and my suspicions that Maddie Bliss and Nina Carrington were the same. She thought, as I did, that there was little doubt of it. I said nothing to her, however, of the detective suspicions about Alex. Little things that I had not noticed at the time now came back to me. I had an uncomfortable feeling that perhaps Alex was a spy and that by taking him into the house I had played into the enemy's hand. But by eight o'clock that night Alex himself appeared and with him a strange and repulsive individual. They made a queer pair for Alex was almost as disreputable as the tramp and he had a badly swollen eye. Gertrude had been sitting listlessly waiting for the evening message from Mr. Jamison but when the singular pair came in as they did without ceremony she jumped up and stood staring. Winters the detective who watched the house at night followed them and kept his eye sharply on Alex's prisoner for that was the situation as it developed. He was a tall, lanky individual, ragged and dirty and just now he looked both terrified and embarrassed. Alex was too much engrossed to be either and to this day I don't think I ever asked him why he went off without permission the day before. Miss Innis, Alex began abruptly. This man can tell us something very important about the disappearance of Mr. Innis. I found him trying to sell this watch. He took a watch from his pocket and put it on the table. It was Halsey's watch. I had given it to him on his twenty-first birthday. I was dumb with apprehension. He says he had a pair of cuff links also but he sold them. Fair a dollar and a half put in the disreputable individual Horsley with an eye on the detective. He is not dead, I implored. The tramp cleared his throat. Numb, he said huskily. He was used up pretty bad but he weren't dead. He was coming to himself when I... He stopped and looked at the detective. I didn't steal at Mr. Winters, he whined. I found it in the road, honest to God I did. Mr. Winters paid no attention to him. He was watching Alex. I'd better tell what he told me. Alex broke in. It'll be quicker. When Jameson... When Mr. Jameson calls up we can start him right. Mr. Winters, I found this man trying to sell that watch on Fifth Street. He offered it to me for three dollars. How did you know the watch? Winters snapped at him. I had seen it before, many times. I used it at night when I was watching at the foot of the staircase. The detective whined. When he offered the watch to me, I knew it and I pretended I was going to buy it. We went into an alley and I got the watch. The tramp shivered. It was plain how Alex had secured the watch. Then I got the story from this fellow. He claims to have seen the whole affair. He says he was in an empty car, in the car the automobile struck. The tramp broke in here and told his story with frequent interruptions by Alex and Mr. Winters. He used a strange medley. The detective was satisfied. When he offered the watch to me I knew it and I pretended I was going to buy it. We went into an alley and I got the watch. The tramp shivered. It was plain how Alex had secured the watch. In which familiar words took unfamiliar meanings, but it was gradually made clear to us. On the night in question the tramp had been pounding his ear. This struck me as being graphic in an empty boxcar along the siding at Casanova. The train was going west and due to leave at dawn. The tramp and the breakie were friendly and things were going well. About ten o'clock perhaps earlier a terrific crash against the side of the car roused him. He tried to open the door but could not move it. He got out of the other side and just as he did so he heard someone groan. The habits of a lifetime made him cautious. He slipped onto the bumper of a car and peered through. An automobile had struck the car and stood there on two wheels. The tail lights were burning but the headlights were out. Two men were stooping over someone who lay on the ground. Then the taller of the two started on a dog trot along the train looking for an empty. He found one four cars away and ran back again. The two lifted the unconscious man into the empty boxcar and getting in themselves stayed there for three or four minutes. When they came out after closing the sliding door they cut up over the railroad embankment toward the town. One, the short one, seemed to limp. The tramp was wary. He waited for ten minutes or so. Some women came down a path to the road and inspected the automobile. When they had gone he crawled into the boxcar and closed the door again. Then he lighted a match. The figure of a man unconscious gagged and with his hands tied lay far at the end. The tramp lost no time. He went through his pockets, found a little money in the cufflinks and took them. Then he loosened the gag. It had been cruelly tight and went his way again closing the door of the boxcar. Outside on the road he found the watch. He got on the fast freight east some time after and rode into the city. He had sold the cufflinks but on offering the watch to Alex he had been copped. The story, with its cold recital of illony, was done. I hardly knew if I were more anxious or less. That it was Halsey there could be no doubt. How badly he was hurt, how far he had been carried, were the questions that demanded immediate answer. But it was the first real information we had had. My boy had not been murdered outright. But instead of vague terrors there was now the real fear that he might be lying in some strange hospital receiving the casual attention commonly given to the charity cases. Even this, had we known it, would have been paradise to the terrible truth. I wake yet and feel myself cold and trembling with the horror of Halsey's situation for three days after his disappearance. Mr. Winters and Alex disposed of the tramp with a warning. It was evident he had told us all he knew. We had occasion within a day or two to be doubly thankful that we had given him his freedom. When Mr. Jameson telephoned that night we had news for him. He told me what I had not realized before, that it would not be possible to find Halsey at once, even with this clue. The cars, by this time, three days, might be scattered over the Union. But he said to keep on hoping that it was the best news we had had. And in the meantime, consumed with anxiety as we were, things were happening at the house in rapid succession. We had one peaceful day, then Liddy took sick in the night. I went in when I heard her groaning and found her with a hot water bottle to her face, and her right cheeks swollen until it was glassy. Toothache, I asked, not too gently. You deserve it. A woman of your age who would rather go around with an exposed nerf in her head than have the tooth pulled, it would be over in a moment. So would hanging, Liddy protested, from behind the hot water bottle. I was hunting around for cotton and lauding them. You have a tooth just like it yourself, Miss Rachel, she whimpered, and I'm sure Dr. Boyle's been trying to take it out for years. There was no lauding them, and Liddy made a terrible fuss when I proposed Carbolic acid, just because I had put too much on the cotton ones and burned her mouth. I'm sure it never did her any permanent harm. Indeed, the doctor said afterward that living on a liquid diet had been a splendid rest for her stomach, but she would have none of the acid, and she kept me awake groaning. So at last I got up and went to Gertrude's door. To my surprise, it was locked. I went around by the hall and into her bedroom that way. The bed was turned down, and her dressing gown and nightdress lay ready in the little room next, but Gertrude was not there. She had not undressed. I don't know what terrible thoughts came to me in the minute I stood there. Through the door I could hear Liddy grumbling, with a squeal now and then when the pain stabbed harder. Then automatically I got the lauding them and went back to her. It was fully a half an hour before Liddy's groans subsided. At intervals I went to the door into the hall and looked out, but I saw and heard nothing suspicious. Finally, when Liddy had dropped into a dose, I even ventured as far as the head of the circular staircase, but there floated up to me only the even breathing of winters, the night detective, sleeping just inside the entry. And then, far off, I heard the rapping noise that had lured Louise down the staircase that other night, two weeks before. It was over my head, and very faint, three or four short muffle taps, a pause, and then again, stealthily repeated. The sound of Mr. Winter's breathing was comforting. With the thought that there was help within call, something kept me from waking him. I did not move for a moment. Ridiculous things Liddy had said about a ghost. I am not at all superstitious, except perhaps in the middle of the night, with everything dark, things like that came back to me. Almost beside me was the close shoot. I could feel it, but I could see nothing. As I stood listening intently, I heard a sound near me. It was vague, indefinite. Then it ceased. There was an uneasy movement in a grunt from the foot of the circular staircase, and silence again. I stood perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe. Then I knew I had been right. Someone was stealthily passing the head of the staircase and coming toward me in the dark. I leaned against the wall for support. My knees were giving way. The steps were close now, and suddenly I thought of Gertrude. Of course it was Gertrude. I put out one hand in front of me, but I touched nothing. My voice almost refused me, but I managed to gasp out, Gertrude! Good Lord! a man's voice exclaimed just beside me, and then I collapsed. I felt myself going, felt someone catch me, a horrible nausea that was all I remembered. When I came to, it was dawn. I was lying on the bed in Louise's room, with the cherub on the ceiling staring down at me, and there was a blanket from my own bed thrown over me. I felt weak and dizzy, but I managed to get up and totter to the door. At the foot of the circular staircase Mr. Winters was still asleep. Hardly able to stand, I crept back to my room. The door into Gertrude's room was no longer locked. She was sleeping like a tired child, and in my dressing room Liddy hugged a cold hot water bottle and mumbled in her sleep. There are some things you can't hold with handcuffs. She was muttering thickly. Chapter 29. A scrap of paper. For the first time in twenty years I kept my bed that day. Liddy was alarmed to the point of hysteria, and sent for Dr. Stewart just after breakfast. Gertrude spent morning with me, reading something. I forget what. I was too busy with my thoughts to listen. I had said nothing to the two detectives. If Mr. Jameson had been there, I should have told him everything, but I could not go to these strange men and tell them my niece had been missing in the middle of the night. That she had not gone to bed at all. That while I was searching for her through the house, I met a stranger who, when I fainted, had carried me into a room and left me there to get better or not as it might happen. The whole situation was terrible. Had the issues been less vital, it would have been absurd. Here we were, guarded day and night by private detectives with an extra man to watch the grounds, and yet we might as well have lived in a Japanese paper house for all the protection we had. And there was something else. The men I had met in the darkness had been even more startled than I, and about his voice, when he muttered this muffled exclamation, there was something vaguely familiar. All that morning, while Gertrude read the loud and leave me watch for the doctor, I was posting over that voice without result. And there were other things too. I wondered what Gertrude's absence from her room had to do with it all, or if it had any connection. I tried to think that she had heard rapping noises before I did and going to investigate. But I'm afraid I was a moral coward that day. I could not ask her. Perhaps the diversion was good for me. It took my mind from Alcy and the story we had heard the night before. The day, however, was a long vigil, with every ring of the telephone full of possibilities. Dr. Walker came up, sometime just after luncheon, and asked for me. Go down and see him. I instructed Gertrude. Tell him I'm out. From Rossi's sake, don't say I'm sick. Find out what he wants, and from the same on, instruct servants that he is not to be admitted. I love that man. Gertrude came back very soon, her face rather flushed. He came to ask us to get out. She said, picking up her book with the jerk. He says Louise Armstrong wants to come here, now that she is recovering. And what did you say? I said we were very sorry we could not leave, but we'd be delighted to have Louise come up here with us. He looked daggers at me, and he wanted to know if we would recommend Eliza as a cook. He has brought a patient, a man, out from town, and is increasing his establishment. That's the way he put it. I wish him joy of Eliza. I said partly. Did he ask for Rossi? Yes. I told him that you were on the track last night, and that it was only a question of time. He said he was glad, although he didn't appear to be, but he said not to be to sanguine. Do you know what I believe? I ask. I believe, as firmly as I believe anything, that Dr. Walker knows something about Rossi, and that he could put his finger on him if he wanted to. There were several things that day that bewildered me. About three o'clock Mr. Jameson telephoned from the cousin of a station, and Warner went down to meet him. I got up and dressed hastily, and an detective was shown up to my seating room. No news? I asked as he entered. He tried to look encouraging, but without success. I noticed that he looked tyrant dusty, and, although he was ordinarily impeccable in his appearance, it was clear that he was at least two days from a razor. It won't be long now, Miss Inns. He said, I have come out here on a peculiar errand, which I'll tell you about later. First, I want to ask some questions. Did anyone come out here yesterday to repair the telephone, and examine the wires on the roof? Yes, I said promptly. But it was not the telephone. He said the wiring might have caused fire at the table. I went up with him myself, but he only looked around. Mr. Jameson smiled. Good for you. He applauded. Don't allow anyone in the house that you don't trust, and don't trust anybody. All are not electricians who wear rubber gloves. He refused to explain further, but he got a slip of paper out of his pocketbook and opened it carefully. Listen, he said, You heard this before and scoffed. In light of recent developments, I want you to read it again. You are a clever woman, Miss Inns. Just as surely as I sit here, there is something in this house that is wanted very anxiously by a number of people. The lines are closing up, Miss Inns. The paper was one he had found among Arnold Armstrong's effects, and I read it again. Space. By altering the plan 4. Space. Rooms may be possible. The best way, in my opinion, would be to Space. The plan 4. Space. In one of the Space. Space. Rooms. Space. Chimney. I think I understand. I said slowly Someone is searching for the secret room and invaders and holes in the blaster have been in the progress of his or her investigations. Her? I asked. Miss Inns. The detective said, getting up. I believe that somewhere in the walls of this house is hidden some of the money, at least, from the traders' bank. I believe, just as surely, that young Walker brought home from California the knowledge of something absurd and filling in his effort to reinstall Mrs. Armstrong and her daughter here, he, or a confederate, has tried to break into the house. On two occasions, I think he succeeded. On three, at least, I corrected. And then I told him about the night before. I haven't thinking hard, I concluded. And I have not believed that the man at the head of the circular staircase was Dr. Walker. I don't think he could have got in, and the voice was not his. Mr. Jameson got up and placed floor, his hands behind him. There is something else that puzzles me. He said, stepping before me. Who and what is the woman in the Carrington? If it was she who came here as Matthew, please. What did she tell Alcy that sent him racing to Dr. Walker's, and then to Mrs. Armstrong? If you could find that woman with half-doll thing. Mr. Jameson, did you ever think that while Armstrong might have died a natural death? That is the thing we are going to try to find out. He replied. And then Gertrude came in, announcing a man below to see Mr. Jameson. I want you present at his interview, Miss Inns. He said, May Riggs come up? He has left Dr. Walker, and he has something he wants to tell us. Riggs came into the room defiantly. But Mr. Jameson put him at ease. He kept a careful eye on me, however, and slid into a chair by the door when he was asked to sit down. Now, Riggs. Began Mr. Jameson kindly. You are to say what you have to say before this lady. You promised you'd keep it quiet, Mr. Jameson. Riggs plainly did not trust me. There was nothing friendly in the glance he turned on me. Yes, yes, you'll be protected. But first of all, did you bring what you promised? Riggs produced a roll of papers from under his coat and handed them over. Mr. Jameson examined them with low satisfaction and passed them to me. The blueprint of Sonny's side. He said, What did I tell you? Now, Riggs, we are ready. I'll never have come to you, Mr. Jameson. He began. If it hadn't been for Miss Armstrong. When Mr. Inns was spirited away, like, and Miss Lewis got sick because of it, I thought things had gone far enough. I'd done some things for the doctor before that wouldn't just bear looking into, but I'd churned a bit squirmish. Did you help with that? I asked, leaning forward. No, ma'am. I didn't even know of it until the next day, when it came out in the Casanova weekly ledger. But I know who did it, all right. I'd better start at the beginning. When Dr. Walker went to wage California with Armstrong's family, there was shock in the town that, when he came back, he would be married to Miss Armstrong and the world expected it. First thing I knew, I got a letter from him, in the west. He seemed to be excited, and he said Miss Armstrong had taken a sudden notion to go home and to send me some money. It was to watch for her, to see if she went to Sunnyside and, wherever she was, not lose sight of her until he got home. I traced her to the lodge, and I guess I scared you on the drive one night, Miss Inns. And Rosie, I ejaculated. Rick screamed shabbishly. I only wanted to make sure Miss Lewis was there. Rosie started to run, and I tried to stop her and tell her some sort of a story to account for my being there. But she wouldn't wait. And the broken china, in the basket? Well, broken china's desk to rubber tires. He said, I hadn't any complaint against you people here, and the dragonfly was a good car. So, Rosie's highwayman was explained. Well, I telegraphed the doctor where Miss Lewis was, and I kept an eye on her. Just a day or so before they came home with body, I got another letter, telling me to watch for a woman who had been pitted with smallpox. Her name was Carrington, and the doctor may think she's pretty strong. If I found any such woman loafing around, I was not to lose sight of her for a minute until the doctor got back. Well, I would have had my hands full, but the other woman didn't show up for a good while, and when she did, the doctor was home. Riggs, I asked suddenly, did you get into this house a day or two after I took it, at night? I did not, Miss Inns. I have never been in the house before. Well, the Carrington woman didn't show up until the night Mr. Alcy disappeared. She came to the office late, and the doctor was out. She waited around, walking the floor and working herself into a passion. When the doctor didn't come back, she was in an awful way. She wanted me to hunt him, and when he didn't appear, she called him names. Said he couldn't fool her. There was murder being done, and she would seem swing for it. She struck me as being an ugly customer, and when she left, about eleven o'clock, and went across to the Armstrong Place, I was not far behind her. She walked all around the house first, looking up at the windows. Then she rang the bell, and the minute the door was open, she went through it, and into the hall. How long did she stay? That's the pure part of it. Riggs said eagerly. She didn't come out at night at all. I went to bed at daylight, and that was the last I heard of her until the next day, when I saw her on a truck at station, covered with the sheet. She'd been struck by the express, and you hardly have known her. Dead, of course. I think she stayed all night in the Armstrong house, and the agent said she was crossing the track to take the up train to town when the express struck her. Another circle. I exclaimed. Then we are just where we started. Not too bad as that, Miss Inns. Riggs said eagerly. Nina Carrington came from the town in California, where Mr. Armstrong died. Why was the doctor so afraid of her? The Carrington woman knew something. I lived with Dr. Walker seven years, and I know him well. There are few things he is afraid of. I think he killed Mr. Armstrong out in the West somewhere. That's what I think. What else he did, I don't know. But he dismissed me and pretty nearly throttled me, for telling Mr. James and here, about Mr. Inns having been at his office the night he disappeared, and about my hearing them quarreling. What was it, Warner, over her the woman saved Mr. Inns in the library? The detective asked me. She said I knew there was something wrong from the start. A man isn't well one day, and dead next without some reason. How perfectly it all seemed to fit. End of Chapter 29. Chapter 30 at Circular Staircase This is a LibreBox recording. All LibreBox recordings are on the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreBox.org. Recording by Anna Svissi-Mont Portugal. Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Reinhardt. Chapter 30. When Church Yards Yorn It was on Wednesday, Riggs told us the story of his connection with some incidents that had been previously unexplained. All he had been gone since Friday night before. Under the passes of each day, I felt that his chances were lessening. I knew well enough that he might be carried a thousand miles in the boxcar, locked in perhaps, without water or food. I had read of cases where bodies had been found locked in cars on isolated sidings in the west, and my spirits went down with every hour. His recovery was destined to be almost as sudden as this disappearance, and was due directly to the tramp Alex had brought to Sunnyside. It seems the man was grateful for his relief, and when he learned something of all his whereabouts from another member of his fraternity, for it is a fraternity, he was prompt in letting us know. On Wednesday evening, Mr. Jameson, who had been down at Tharmstrong House trying to see Louise and failing, was met near the gate at Sunnyside by an individual precisely as repulsive and unkempt as one Alex had captured. The man knew the detective, and he gave him a piece of dirty paper, only to scroll the words. It is at City Hospital, Johnsville. The tramp who brought the paper pretended to know nothing, except this. The paper had been passed along from a hobo in Johnsville, who seemed to know the information would be valuable to us. Again, the long-distance telephone came into requisition. Mr. Jameson called the hospital, while we crowded around him. And when there was no longer any doubt that it was Aussie, and that he would probably recover, we all laughed and cried together. I am sure I kissed Liddy, and I've had terrible moments since when I seem to remember kissing Mr. Jameson too with the excitement. Anyhow, by eleven o'clock that night, Gertrude was on our way to Johnsville, three hundred and eighty miles away, accompanied by Rosie. The domestic force was now down to marry Anne and Liddy, with the under gardener's wife coming every day to help out. Fortunately, one of the detects were keeping bachelor hall in the lodge. Out of their friends to Liddy, they washed their dishes once a day, and they concluded queer messes, according to their several abilities. They had one triumph that they ate regularly for breakfast, and that clung to their clothes and their hair the rest of the day. It was bacon, hard-tack, and onions fried together. They were almost specifically grateful, however, I noticed, for an occasional brawl tenderloin. It was not until Gertrude and Rosie had gone on sunny side that settled down for the night, with winters at foot of staircase, that Mr. Jameson brooched the subject he had evidently planned before he came. Miss Innes, he said, stopping me as I was about to go to my room upstairs. How are your nerves tonight? I have none. I said happily. With all she found, my troubles have gone. I mean, he persisted. Do you feel as though you could go through with something rather unusual? The most unusual thing I can think of would be a peaceful night. But if anything is going to occur, don't dare to let me miss it. Something is going to occur, he said. And you're the only woman I can think of that I can take along. He looked at his watch. Don't ask me any questions, Miss Innes. Put on heavy shoes and some old dark clothes and make up your mind not to be surprised at anything. Lily was sleeping, sleep of the just when I went upstairs, and I hunted out my things cautiously. The detective was waiting in the hall, and I was astonished to see Dr. Stewart with him. They were chucking confidently together, but when I came down they seized. There were a few preparations to be made. The logs to be gone over, winters to be instructed as to renew the vigilance, and then, after extinguishing the whole light, we crept in the darkness through the front door and into the night. I asked no questions. I felt that they were doing me honour in making me one of the party, and I would show them I could be as silent as they. We went across the fields, passing through the woods that reached almost the ruins at the table, going over the tiles now and then, and sometimes stepping over low fences. Once only somebody spoke, and then it was an emphatic bit of profanity from Dr. Stewart when he ran into a wire fence. We were joined at the end of five minutes by another man, who fell into step with the doctor silently. He carried something over his shoulder, which I could not make out. In this way we walked for perhaps twenty minutes. I had lost all sense of direction. I merely stumbled along in silence, allowing Mr. Jameson to guide me this way or that as the path demanded. I hardly know what I expected. Once, when through a miscalculation, I jumped a little short over a ditch and landed above my shoe tops in the water on whose. I remember wondering if these were really I, and if I had ever tasted life until that summer. I walked along with water sloshing in my boots, and I was actually cheerful. I remember whispering to Mr. Jameson that I had never seen stars so lovely, and that it was a mistake when the Lord had made nights so beautiful to sleep through it. The doctor was puffing somewhat, when we finally came to a halt. I confessed that just at that minute even sunnyside seemed a cheerful spot. We had paused at the edge of a level-cleared place, bordered all around with the primitive trimmed evergreen trees. Between them I caught a glimpse of starlight shining down on rows of white headstones and an occasion more imposing monument, or towering shaft. In spite of myself, I drew my breath in sharply. We were on the edge of the Casanova churchyard. I saw now both men who had joined the party and the implements he carried. It was Alex, armed with two long handled spades. After a first shock of surprise, I flattered myself I was both cold and quiet. We went in single file between the rows of headstones and old dough. When I found myself last, I had an instinctive desire to keep looking back for my shoulder. I found that, the first uneasiness past, a cemetery at night is much the same as any other country place, filled with vague shadows and unexpected noises. Once indeed, but Mr. Jameson said it was an owl and I tried to believe him. In shadow of the Armstrong granite shaft we stopped. I think the doctor wanted to send me back. It's no place for a woman. I heard him protesting angrily. But the detective said something about witnesses and the doctor only came over and felt my pulse. Anyhow, I don't believe you're any worse off here than you would be in that nightmare of a house. He said finally and put his coat on steps of the shaft from it to sit on. There is an era of finality about a grave. One watches the earth thrown in with feeling that this is the end. Whatever has gone before, whatever is to come in eternity, that particular temple of the soul has been given back to the elements from which it came. Thus, there is a sense of desecration, of a reversal of the everlasting fitness of things in resurrecting a body from its mother clay. And yet at night, in the Casanova's short yard, I sat quietly by and watched Alex and Mr. Jameson steaming over their work without a single qualm except fear of detection. The doctor kept a keen lookout, but no one appeared. Once in a while he came over to me and gave me a reassuring pat on shoulder. I never expected to come to this. He said once, There's one thing sure. I will not be suspected of complicity. A doctor is generally supposed to be a hand-eared at baring folks, then a-ticking them up. The uncanny moment came when Alex and Jameson tossed spades on the grass and I confess I hid my face. There was a period of stress, I think, while the heavy coffin was being raised. I felt that my composure was going and, for I fear I would shriek, I tried to think of something else. What I'm sure Trudeau'd reach I'll see. Anything but grisly reality that laid just beyond me on the grass. And then I heard a low exclamation from the detective and I felt pressured the doctor's fingers on my arm. Now, Miss Inns. He said gently, If you'll come over. I held on to him frantically and somehow I got chairman looked down. The leaf of the casket I'd been raised and the silver plate on it proved we had made no mistake. But face that showed in the light of lantern was a face I had never seen before. The man who lay before us was not Paul Armstrong. End of Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Of the Circular Staircase This is a Librebox recording. All Librebox recordings are on the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librebox.org. Recording by NSVC Mount Portugal. The Circular Staircase by Mary Robbers Reinhardt. Chapter 31. Between Two Fireplaces What with the excitement of discovery? The walk home under the stars in wet shoes and draggled skirts and getting upstairs and undressed without rousing Liddy, I was completely used up. What to do with my boots was the greatest puzzle of all. There being no place in house safe from Liddy until I decided to sleep upstairs next morning and dropped him into the hole the ghost had made in the trunk room wall. I went to sleep as soon as I reached this decision and in my dreams I lived over again the events of the night. Again I saw the group around silent figure on the grass and again, as had happened at the grave, I heard Alex's voice dance and triumphant. Then we've got him. He said, only in my dreams he said it over and over until he seemed to shriek it in my ears. I wakened early in spite of my fatigue and lay there thinking. Who was Alex? I no longer believed that he was a gardener. Who was the man whose body we had resurrected? And where was Palarme Strong? Probably living safely in some extraditionalist country on the fortune he had stolen. Did Lewis and her mother know of shameful and wicked deception? What had Thomas known and Mrs. Watson? Who was Nina Carrington? The last question it seemed to me was answered. In some way the woman had learned of substitution and had tried to use her knowledge for blackmail. Nina Carrington's own story died with her, but, however it happened, it was clear that she had carried her knowledge to Halsey the afternoon Gertrude and I were looking for clues to the man I had shot on the east veranda. Halsey had been half-crazed by what he heard. It was evident that Lewis was marrying Dr. Walker to keep shameful secret for her mother's sake. Halsey, always reckless, had gone at once to Dr. Walker and denounced him. There had been a scene and he left on his way to the station to meet and notify Mr. Jameson of what he had learned. The doctor was active mentally and physically. Accompanied perhaps by Riggs, who had shown himself not overscrupulous until he quarrelled with his employer he had gone across to the railroad embankment and, by jumping in front of the car, had caused Halsey to swerve. The rest of the story we knew. That was my reconstructed theory of that afternoon and evening. It was almost correct, not quite. There was a telegram that morning from Gertrude. Halsey conscious and improving, probably home in day or so. Gertrude. With Halsey found and improving in health and with that last something to work on, I began that day, Thursday, with fresh courage. As Mr. Jameson had said, the lines were closing up. That I was to be caught and almost finished in the closing was happily unknown to us all. It was late when I got up. I lay in my bed, looking around the four walls of the room and trying to imagine behind what one of them, a secret chamber might lie. Certainly in daylight, Sunnyside deserved its name. Never was a house more cheery and open, less sinister in general appearance. There was not a corner apparently that was not open and above board and yet, somewhere behind its handsomely papered walls, I believe firmly that there lay a hidden room with all the possibilities it would involve. I made a mental note to have the house major during the day, to discover any discrepancy between the outer and inner walls, and I tried to recall again the exact wording of the paper Jameson had found. The sleep had said chimney. It was the only clue and the house as large as Sunnyside was full of them. There was an open fireplace in my dressing room, but none in the bedroom. And as I lay there, looking around, I thought of something that made me sit up suddenly. The trunk room, just over my head, had an open fireplace and a brick chimney and yet, there was nothing of the kind in my room. I got out of my bed and examined the opposite wall closely. There was apparently no flue and I knew there was none in the hall just beneath. The house was heated by steam, as I have said before. In living room was a huge open fireplace, but it was on the other side. Why did the trunk room have both a radiator and an open fireplace? Architects were not usually erratic. It was not 15 minutes before I was upstairs, under the tape measuring lieu of a foot rule, he got to justify Mr. Jameson's opinion of my intelligence and firmly resolved not to tell him of my suspicion until I had more in theory to go on. The holding the trunk room wall still yoned there between the chimney and the outer wall. I examined it again with no new result. The space between the brick wall and the plaster and the left one, however, had a new significance. The whole showed only one side of the chimney and I determined to investigate what lay in the space on the other side of the mantle. I worked feverishly. Lydia went to the village to market, he being her firm belief that store people send short measure unless she watched scales, and that, since the failure of the traders bank, we must watch the corners. And I knew that what I wanted to do must be done before she came back. I had no tools, but after rummaging around I found a pair of garden scissors and a hatchet, and thus armed I set to work. The placer came out easily, the left thing was more obstinate. I gave under the blows, only to spring back into place again, and the necessity for caution made it doubly hard. I had a blister on my palm and at last the hatchet went through and fell with what sounded like the report of a gun to my overstrained nerves. I sat on a trunk, waiting to hear Lydia fly upstairs with household behind her like the tale of a comet. But nothing happened, and the growing feeling of uncanniness I set to work enlarging the opening. The result was absolutely nil. When I could hold a lighted candle in the opening I saw precisely what I had seen on the other side of the chimney, a space between the true wall and the false one, bustled with seven feet long and above three feet wide. It was in no sense of the word a secret chamber, and it was evident it had not been disturbed since the house was built. It was a supreme disappointment. It had been Mr. James' idea that hidden room, if there was one, would be found somewhere near the circular staircase. In fact, I knew that he had once investigated the entire length of the clothes shoot, hanging to a rope with his in view. I was reluctantly about to concede that he had been right, where my eyes fell on the mantel and fireplace. The latter had evidently never been used. It was close to the metal fire front, and only when the front refused to move, an investigation showed that it was not intended to be moved, did my spirit revive. I hurried into the next room. Yes, sure enough, there was a similar mantel and fireplace there, similarly closed. In both rooms the chimney flew extended well out from the wall. I measured with a tape line my hands trembling so that I could scarcely hold it. They extended two feet and a half into each room, which, with the three feet of space between the two petitions, made eight feet to be accounted for. Eight feet in one direction and almost seven in the other, or a chimney it was. But I had only located the hidden room. I was not in it, and no amount of pressing of the carving of the wooden mantels, no searched floors for loose boards, none of the customary methods availed at all. That there was a means of entrance and probably a simple one I could be certain. But what, what would I find if I did get in? Was the detective right, and were the bonds and money from the traders bank there? Or was our whole theory wrong? Would not Armstrong have taken his booty with him? If he had not, and if Dr Walker was in secret, he would have known how to enter the chimney room. Then, who had dug the other hole in the false partition? End of Chapter 31 Chapter 32 of The Circular Staircase This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ian Skillan The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Reinhardt Chapter 32 Anne Watson's Story Liddy discovered the fresh break in the trunk-room wall while we were at luncheon, and ran shrieking down the stairs. She maintained that, as she had entered, unseen hands had been digging at the plaster. That they'd stopped when she went in, and she'd felt a gust of cold, damp air. In support of her story, she carried in my wet and muddy boots that I'd unluckily forgotten to hide, and held them out to the detective and myself. What did I tell you? she said dramatically. Look at them! They're yours, Miss Rachel, and covered with mud and soap to the tops. I tell you, you can scoff all you like, some things been wearing your shoes. As sure as you sit there there's the smell of the graveyard on them. How do we know they weren't tramping through the cast and over churchyard last night and sitting in the graves? Mr. Jameson almost choked to death. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were doing that very thing, Liddy, said, when he got his breath. They certainly looked like it. I think the detective had a plan on which he was working, and which was meant to be a coup. But things went so fast there was no time to carry it into effect. The first thing that occurred was a message from the charity hospital that Mrs. Watson was dying, and had asked for me. I didn't care much about going. There's a sort of melancholy pleasure to be had out of a funeral with its pomp and ceremony, but I shrank from a death bed. However, Liddy got out the black things and the crepe veil I keep for such occasions, and I went. I left Mr. Jameson and the day detective going over every inch of the circular staircase, pounding, probing and measuring. I was inwardly elated to think of the surprise I was going to give them that night. As it turned out, I did surprise them, almost into spasms. I drove from the train to the charity hospital, and was at once taken to a ward. There, in a grey-walled room, in a high-iron bed, lay Mrs. Watson. She was very weak, and she only opened her eyes and looked at me when I sat down beside her. I was conscience-stricken. We'd been so engrossed that I'd left this poor creature to die without even a word of sympathy. The nurse gave her a stimulant, and in a little while she was able to talk. So broken and half-coherent, however, was her story that I shall tell it in my own way. In an hour from the time I entered the charity hospital, I had heard a sad and pitiful narrative, and I'd seen a woman slip into the unconsciousness that's only a step from death. Briefly, then, I saw a woman slip into the unconsciousness that's only a step from death. Then, the housekeeper's story was this. She was almost 40 years old, and had been the sister and mother of a large family of children. One by one they had died and been buried beside their parents in their little town in the middle west. There was only one sister left, the baby, Lucy. On her, the older girl had lavished all the love of an impulsive and emotional nature. When Anne the Elder was 32 and Lucy was 19, a young man had come to the town. He was going east after spending the summer at the celebrated ranch in Wyoming. One of those places where wealthy men sent worthless and dissipated sons for a season of temperance, fresh air and hunting. The sisters, of course, knew nothing of this, and the young man's ardour rather carried them away. In a word, seven years before, Lucy Haswell had married a young man whose name was given as Aubrey Wallace. Anne Haswell had married a carpenter in her native town and was a widow. For three months everything went fairly well. Aubrey took his bride to Chicago where they lived at a hotel. Perhaps a very unsophistication that had charmed him in Valley Mill, jarred on him in the city. He had been far from a model husband, even for the three months, and when he disappeared, Anne was almost thankful. It was different with a young wife, however. She drooped and fretted, and on the birth of her baby boy, she had died. Anne took the child and named him Lucian. Anne had no children of her own, and in Lucian she had lavished all her aborted maternal instinct. On one thing she was determined, however, that was that Aubrey Wallace should educate his boy. It was part of her devotion to the child that she should be ambitious for him. He must have every opportunity. And so she came east. She drifted around doing plain sewing and keeping a home somewhere, always for the boy. Finally, however, she realised that their only training had been domestic. And she put the boy in an Episcopalian home and secured the position of housekeeper to the Armstrong's. There she found Lucian's father, this time under his own name. It was Arnold Armstrong. I gathered that there was no particular enmity at the time in Anne's mind. She told him of the boy and threatened exposure if he didn't provide for him. Indeed, for a time he did so. Then he realised that Lucian was the ruling passion in this lonely woman's life. He found out where the child was hidden and threatened to take him away and was frantic the positions became reversed. Where Arnold had given money for Lucian's support, as the years went on, he forced money from Anne Watson instead, until she was almost penniless. The lower Arnold sank in the scale the heavier his demands became. With the rupture between him and his family, things were worse. Anne took the child from the home and hid him in a farmhouse near Casanova on the Claesburg Road. There she went sometimes to see the boy, and there he had taken a fever. The people were Germans. He called the farmers white grossmutter. He had grown into a beautiful boy and he was all Anne had to live for. The Armstrongs left for California, and Arnold's persecutions began anew. He was furious over the child's disappearance, and she was afraid he would do her some hurt. She left the big house and went down to the lodge. When I had rented Sunnyside however, she had thought the persecutions would stop. She had applied for the position of housekeeper and secured it. That had been on Saturday. That night Louise arrived unexpectedly. Thomas sent for Mrs. Watson and then went for Arnold Armstrong at the Greenwood Club. Anne had been fond of Louise, she reminded her of Lucy. She didn't know what the trouble was, but Louise had been in a state of terrible excitement. Mrs. Watson tried to hide from Arnold, but he was ugly. He left the lodge and went up to the house about 2.30, was admitted at the East entrance, and came out again very soon. Something had occurred she didn't know what, but very soon Mr. Innes and another gentleman left using the car. Thomas and she had got Louise quiet, and little before three Mrs. Watson started up to the house. Thomas had a key to the East entry and he gave it to her. On the way across the lawn she was confronted by Arnold, who for some reason was determined to get into the house. He had a golf stick in his hand that he had picked up somewhere, and on her refusal he had struck her with it. One hand had been badly cut and it was that poisoning having set in which was killing her. She broke away in a frenzy of rage and fear, got upstairs into the house while Gertrude and Jack Bailey were at the front door. She went upstairs hardly knowing what she was doing. Gertrude's door was open and Halsey's revolver lay there on the bed. She picked it up and turning, ran partway down the circular staircase. She could hear Arnold fumbling at the lock outside. She slipped down quietly and opened the door. He was inside before she got back to the stairs. It was quite dark, but she could see his white shirt bosom. From the fourth step she fired. As he fell, somebody in the billiard room screamed and ran. When the alarm was raised, she had no time to get upstairs. She hid in the West Wing until everyone was down in the lower level. Then she slipped upstairs and threw the revolver out of the upper window, going down again in time to admit the men from the Greenwood Club. If Thomas had suspected he never told, when she found the hand Arnold injured was growing worse, she gave the address of Lucian to the old man and almost a hundred dollars. The money was for Lucian's board until she recovered. She had sent for me to ask if I tried to interest the Armstrong's in the child. When she found herself growing worse, she had written to Mrs. Armstrong, telling her nothing but that Arnold's legitimate child was at Richfield and imploring her to recognize him. She was dying. The boy was in Armstrong and entitled to his father's share of the estate. The papers were in her trunk at Sunnyside, with letters from the dead man that would prove what she had said. She was going. She would not be judged by earthly laws, and somewhere else, perhaps Luci would plead for her. It was she who had cracked down the circular staircase, drawn by a magnet that light. Mr. Jimison had heard someone there. Pursued, she had fled madly anywhere through the first door she came to. She had fallen down the clothes shoot and been saved by the basket beneath. I could have tried with relief. Then it had not been gutted, after all. That was the story. Sad and tragic, though it was, the very telling of it seemed to relieve the dying woman. She didn't know that Thomas was dead, and I didn't tell her. I promised to look after little Lucian and sat with her until the intervals of consciousness grew shorter and finally ceased altogether. She died that night. End of Chapter 32, recording by Ian Skillan. Chapter 33 of The Circular Staircase This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Reinhart. Chapter 33 At the Foot of the Stairs As I drove rapidly up to the house from Casanova Station in the hack, I saw the detective burns loitering across the street from the Walker Place. So Jamison was putting the screws on, lightly now, but ready to give them a twist or two I felt certain, very soon. The house was quiet. Two steps of the Circular Staircase had been pried off, without result, and beyond a second message from Gertrude that Halsey insisted on coming home and they would arrive at the house. Throughout that night there was nothing new. Mr. Jamison, having failed to locate the secret room, had gone to the village. I learned afterwards that he called at Dr. Walker's under pretense of an attack of acute indigestion, and before he left had inquired about the evening trains to the city. He said he had wasted a lot of time on the case and a good bit of the mystery was in my imagination. The doctor was under the impression that the house was guarded day and night. Well, give a place a reputation like that and you don't need a guard at all, thus Jamison. And sure enough, late in the afternoon the two private detectives, accompanied by Mr. Jamison, walked down the main street of Casanova and took a city-bound train. That they got off at the next station and walked back again to Sunnyside at Dusk was not known at the time. Personally I knew nothing of either move, I had other things to absorb me at that time. Liddy brought me some tea while I rested after my trip, and on the tray was a small book from the Casanova Library. It was called The Unseen World and had a cheerful cover on which a half-dozen sheeted figures linked hands around a headstone. At this point in my story Halsey always says, Trust a woman to add two and two together and make six. To which I retort that if two and two plus X makes six, then to discover the unknown quantity is the simplest thing in the world. That a house full of detectives missed it entirely was because they were busy trying to prove that two and two make four. The depression due to my visit to the hospital left me at the prospect of seeing Halsey again that night. It was about five o'clock when Liddy left me for a nap before dinner, having put me into a grey silk dressing gown and a pair of slippers. I listened to her retreating footsteps, and as soon as she was safely below stairs I went up to the trunk room. The place had not been disturbed and I proceeded at once to try to discover the entrance to the hidden room. The openings on either side, as I have said, showed nothing but perhaps three feet of brick wall. There was no sign of an entrance, no levers, no hinges, to give a hint. Either the mantle or the roof, I decided, and after a half hour at the mantle, productive of absolutely no result, I decided to try the roof. I am not fond of a height. The few occasions on which I have climbed a step ladder have always left me dizzy and weak in the knees. The top of the Washington Monument is as impossible to me as the elevation of the Presidential Chair. And yet I climbed out onto the sunny side roof without a second's hesitation. Like a dog on a stint, like my bare skin progenitor, with his spear and his wild boar, to me now there was the lust of the chase, the frenzy of pursuit, the dust of battle. I got quite a little of the ladder only as I climbed from the unfinished ballroom out through a window to the roof of the east wing of the building, which was only two stories in height. Once out there, access to the top of the main building was rendered easy, at least it looked easy, by a small vertical iron ladder, fastened to the wall outside of the ballroom, and perhaps twelve feet high. The twelve feet looked short from below, but they were difficult to climb. I gathered my silk gown around me and succeeded finally in making the top of the ladder. Once there, however, I was completely out of breath. I sat down, my feet on the top rung, and put my hairpins in more securely, while the wind bellowed my dressing gown out like a sail. I had torn a great strip of the silk loose, and now I ruthlessly finished the destruction of my gown by jerking it free and tying it around my head. From far below the smallest sounds came up with peculiar distinctness. I could hear the paper boy whistling down the drive, and I heard something else. I heard the thud of a stone and a spit, followed by a long and startled meow from Bula. I forgot my fear of a height and advanced boldly almost to the edge of the roof. It was half past six by that time and growing dusk. You boy, down there, I called. The paper boy turned and looked around, then seeing nobody he raised his eyes. It was a moment before he located me. When he did, he stood for one moment as if paralyzed. Then he gave a horrible yell, and dropping his papers, bolted across the lawn to the road without stopping to look around. Once he fell, and his impetus was so great that he turned an involuntary somersault. He was up and off again without any perceptible pause, and he leaped the hedge, which I am sure under ordinary stress would have been a feat for a man. I am glad in this way to settle the gray lady's story which is still a choice morsel in Casanova. I believe the moral deduced by the village was that it is always unlucky to throw a stone at a black cat. With Johnny Sweeney a cloud of dust down the road and the dinner hour approaching, I hurried on with my investigations. Luckily the roof was flat and I was able to go over every inch of it, but the result was disappointing. No trapdoor revealed itself, no glass window, nothing but a couple of pipes two inches across, and standing perhaps eighteen inches high and three feet apart with a cap to prevent rain from entering and rays to permit the passage of air. I picked up a pebble from the roof and dropped it down, listening with my ear at one of the pipes. I could hear its strike on something with a sharp metallic sound, but it was impossible for me to tell how far it had gone. I gave up finally and went down the ladder again, getting in through the ballroom window without being observed. I went back at once to the trunk room, and sitting down on a box I gave my mind as consistently as I could to the problem before me. If the pipes in the roof were ventilators to the secret room, and there was no trapdoor above, the entrance was probably in one of the two rooms between which it lay, unless indeed the room had been built and the opening then closed with a brick and mortar wall. The mantle fascinated me. Made of wood and carved, the more I looked the more I wondered that I had not noticed before the absurdity of such a mantle in such a place. It was covered with scrolls and panels, and finally by the nearest accident I pushed one of the panels to the side. It moved easily revealing a small brass knob. It is not necessary to detail the fluctuations of hope and despair and not a little fear of what lay beyond with which I twisted and turned the knob. It moved but nothing seemed to happen, and then I discovered the trouble. I pushed the knob vigorously to one side and the whole mantle swung loose from the wall almost a foot, revealing a cavernous space beyond. I took a long breath, closed the door from the trunk room into the hall, thank heaven I did not lock it, and pulling the mantle door wide open I stepped into the chimney room. I had time to get a hazy view of a small portable safe, a common wooden table and a chair. Then the mantle door swung too and clicked behind me. I stood quite still for a moment in the darkness unable to comprehend what had happened. Then I turned and beat furiously at the door with my fists. It was closed and locked again, and my fingers in the darkness slid over a smooth wooden surface without a sign of a knob. I was furiously angry at myself, at the mantle door, at everything. I did not fear suffocation. Before the thought had come to me I had already seen a gleam of light from the two small ventilating pipes in the roof. They supplied air, but nothing else. The room itself was shrouded in blackness. I sat down in the stiff-backed chair and tried to remember how many days one could live without food and water. When that grew monotonous and rather painful I got up and, according to the time-honored rule for people shut in unknown and ink-black prisons, I felt my way around. It was small enough, goodness knows. I felt nothing but a splintery surface of boards, and in endeavouring to get back to the chair something struck me full in the face and fell with the noise of a thousand explosions to the ground. When I had gathered up my nerves again I found it had been the bulb of a swinging electric light, and that had it not been for the accident I might have starved to death in an illuminated sepulcher. I must have dozed off. I am sure I did not faint. I was never more composed in my life. I remember planning if I were not discovered who would have my things. I knew Liddy would want my heliotrope poplin and she's a fright in lavender. Once or twice I heard mice in the petitions and so I sat on the table with my feet on the chair. I imagined I could hear the search going on through the house, and once someone came into the trunk-room I could distinctly hear footsteps. In the chimney, in the chimney, I called with all my might, and was rewarded by a piercing shriek from Liddy and the slam of the trunk-room door. I felt easier after that, although the room was oppressively hot and innervating. I had no doubt the search for me would now come in the right direction, and after a little I dropped into a dose. How long I slept I do not know. It must have been several hours, for I had been tired from a busy day, and I wakened stiff from my awkward position. I could not remember where I was for a few minutes, and my head felt heavy and congested. Gradually I roused to my surroundings into the fact that in spite of the ventilators the air was bad and growing worse. I was breathing long, gasping respirations, and my face was damp and clammy. I must have been there a long time and the searchers were probably hunting outside the house, dredging the creek or beating the woodland. I knew that another hour or two would find me unconscious, and with my inability to cry out would go my only chance of rescue. It was the combination of bad air and heat probably for some inadequate ventilation was coming through the pipes. I tried to retain my consciousness by walking the length of the room in back over and over, but I had not the strength to keep it up, so I sat down on the table again, my back against the wall. The house was very still. Once my straining ears seemed to catch a footfall beneath me, possibly in my own room. I groped for the chair from the table, and pounded with it frantically on the floor. But nothing happened. I realized bitterly that if the sound was heard at all, no doubt it was classed with the other wrappings that had so alarmed us recently. It was impossible to judge the flight of time. I measured five minutes by counting my pulse, allowing seventy-two beats to the minute. But it took eternities, and toward the last I found it hard to count. My head was confused. And then I heard sounds from below me in the house. There was a peculiar throbbing, vibrating noise that I felt rather than heard, much like the pulsing beat of fire engines in the city. For one awful moment I felt the house was on fire, and every drop of blood in my body gathered around my heart. Then I knew. It was the engine of the automobile, and Halsey had come back. Hope sprang up afresh. Halsey's clear head and Gertrude's intuition might do what Liddy's hysteria and three detectives had failed in. After a time I thought I had been right. There was certainly something going on down below. Doors were slamming, people were hurrying through the halls, and certain high notes of excited voices penetrated to me shrilly. I hoped they were coming closer, but after a time the sounds died away below, and I was left to the silence and heat, to the weight of the darkness, to the oppression of walls that seemed to close in on me and stifle me. The first warning I had was a stealthy fumbling at the lock of the mantel door. With my mouth open to scream, I stopped. Perhaps the situation had rendered me acute. Perhaps it was instinctive. Whatever it was I sat without moving, and someone outside an absolute stillness ran his fingers over the carving of the mantel and found the panel. Now the sounds below redoubled. From the clatter and jarring I knew that several people were running up the stairs, and as the sounds approached I could even hear what they said. Watch the end staircases, Jameson was shouting. Damn nation, there's no light here. And then a second later. All together now. One, two, three. The door into the trunk room had been locked from the inside. At the second that it gave, opening against the wall with a crash, and evidently tumbling somebody into the room, the stealthy fingers beyond the mantel door gave the knob the proper impetus, and the door swung open and closed. Only, and Liddy always screams and puts her fingers in her ears at this point. Only now I was not alone in the chimney room. There was someone else in the darkness. Someone who breathed hard and who was so close I could have touched him with my hand. I was in a paralysis of terror. Outside there were excited voices and incredulous oaths. The trunks were being jerked around in a frantic search. The windows were thrown open only to show a sheer drop of forty feet, and the man in the room with me leaned against the mantel door and listened. His pursuers were plainly baffled. I heard him draw a long breath, then turn to grope his way through the blackness. Then he touched my hand, cold, clammy, death-like. A hand in an empty room. He drew in his breath the sharp intaking of horror that Phil's lungs suddenly collapsed. Beyond jerking his hand away instantly he made no movement. I think absolute terror had him by the throat. Then he stepped back without turning, retreating foot by foot from the dread in the corner, and I do not think he breathed. Then with the relief of space between us I screamed, ear-splittingly, madly, and they heard me outside. In the chimney I shrieked, behind the mantel, the mantel! With an oath the figure hurled itself across the room at me, and I screamed again. In his blind fury he had missed me. I heard him strike the wall. That one time I eluded him. I was across the room and I had got the chair. He stood for a second, listening, then he made another rush, and I struck out with my weapon. I think it stunned him, for I had a second's respite when I could hear him breathing, and someone shouted outside. We can't get in! How does it open? But the man in the room had changed his tactics. I knew he was creeping on me inch by inch, and I could not tell from where. And then he caught me. He held his hand over my mouth and I bit him. I was helpless, strangling, and someone was trying to break in the mantel from outside. It began to yield somewhere for a thin wedge of yellowish light was reflected on the opposite wall. When he saw that my assailant dropped me with a curse. Then the opposite wall swung open noiselessly, closed again without a sound, and I was alone. The intruder was gone. In the next room, I called wildly, the next room. But the sound of blows on the mantel drowned my voice. By the time I had made them understand, a couple of minutes had elapsed. The pursuit was taken up then by all except Alex, who was determined to liberate me. When I stepped out into the trunk-room, a free woman again, I could hear the chase far below. I must say, for all Alex's anxiety to set me free, he paid little enough attention to my plight. He jumped through the opening into the secret room and picked up the portable safe. I am going to put this in Mr. Halsey's room, Miss Ennis, he said, and I shall send one of the detectives to guard it. I hardly heard him. I wanted to laugh and cry in the same breath, to crawl into bed and have a cup of tea and scald Liddy, and do any of the thousand natural things that I had never expected to do again. And the air, the touch of the cool night air on my face. As Alex and I reached the second floor, Mr. Jameson met us. He was grave and quiet, and he nodded comprehendingly when he saw the safe. Will you come with me for a moment, Miss Ennis? He asked soberly, and on my assenting he led the way to the east wing. There were lights moving around below, and some of the maids were standing, gaping down. They screamed when they saw me, and drew back to let me pass. There was a sort of hush over the scene. Alex, behind me, muttered something I could not hear, and brushed past me without ceremony. Then I realized that a man was lying doubled up at the foot of the staircase, and that Alex was stooping over him. As I came slowly down, Winters stepped back, and Alex straightened himself, looking at me across the body with impenetrable eyes. In his hand he held a shaggy gray wig, and before me on the floor lay the man whose headstone stood in Casanova Churchyard, Paul Armstrong. Winters told the story in a dozen words. In his headlong flight down the circular staircase, with Winters just behind, Paul Armstrong had pitched forward violently, struck his head against the door to the east veranda, and probably broken his neck. He had died as Winters reached him. As the detective finished I saw Halsey, pale and shaken, in the card room doorway, and for the first time that night I lost my self-control. I put my arms around my boy, and for a moment he had to support me. A second later, over Halsey's shoulder, I saw something that turned my emotion into other channels. For behind him, in the shadowy card room, were Gertrude and Alex, the gardener, and, there is no use mincing matters, he was kissing her. I was unable to speak. Twice I opened my mouth, then I turned Halsey around and pointed. They were quite unconscious of us. Her head was on his shoulder, his face against her hair. As it happened it was Mr. Jameson who broke up the tableau. He stepped over to Alex and touched him on the arm. And now, he said quietly, how long are you and I to play our little comedy, Mr. Bailey?