The Circular Staircase eBook

Mary Roberts Rinehart
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 266 pages of information about The Circular Staircase.

The Circular Staircase eBook

Mary Roberts Rinehart
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 266 pages of information about The Circular Staircase.

“Halsey,” I asked, “have you any idea of the nature of the interview between Louise Armstrong and Arnold the night he was murdered?”

“It was stormy.  Thomas says once or twice he almost broke into the room, he was so alarmed for Louise.”

“Another thing, Halsey,” I said, “have you ever heard Louise mention a woman named Carrington, Nina Carrington?”

“Never,” he said positively.

For try as we would, our thoughts always came back to that fatal Saturday night, and the murder.  Every conversational path led to it, and we all felt that Jamieson was tightening the threads of evidence around John Bailey.  The detective’s absence was hardly reassuring; he must have had something to work on in town, or he would have returned.

The papers reported that the cashier of the Traders’ Bank was ill in his apartments at the Knickerbocker—­a condition not surprising, considering everything.  The guilt of the defunct president was no longer in doubt; the missing bonds had been advertised and some of them discovered.  In every instance they had been used as collateral for large loans, and the belief was current that not less than a million and a half dollars had been realized.  Every one connected with the bank had been placed under arrest, and released on heavy bond.

Was he alone in his guilt, or was the cashier his accomplice?  Where was the money?  The estate of the dead man was comparatively small—­a city house on a fashionable street, Sunnyside, a large estate largely mortgaged, an insurance of fifty thousand dollars, and some personal property—­this was all.

The rest lost in speculation probably, the papers said.  There was one thing which looked uncomfortable for Jack Bailey:  he and Paul Armstrong together had promoted a railroad company in New Mexico, and it was rumored that together they had sunk large sums of money there.  The business alliance between the two men added to the belief that Bailey knew something of the looting.  His unexplained absence from the bank on Monday lent color to the suspicion against him.  The strange thing seemed to be his surrendering himself on the point of departure.  To me, it seemed the shrewd calculation of a clever rascal.  I was not actively antagonistic to Gertrude’s lover, but I meant to be convinced, one way or the other.  I took no one on faith.

That night the Sunnyside ghost began to walk again.  Liddy had been sleeping in Louise’s dressing-room on a couch, and the approach of dusk was a signal for her to barricade the entire suite.  Situated as its was, beyond the circular staircase, nothing but an extremity of excitement would have made her pass it after dark.  I confess myself that the place seemed to me to have a sinister appearance, but we kept that wing well lighted, and until the lights went out at midnight it was really cheerful, if one did not know its history.

On Friday night, then, I had gone to bed, resolved to go at once to sleep.  Thoughts that insisted on obtruding themselves I pushed resolutely to the back of my mind, and I systematically relaxed every muscle.  I fell asleep soon, and was dreaming that Doctor Walker was building his new house immediately in front of my windows:  I could hear the thump-thump of the hammers, and then I waked to a knowledge that somebody was pounding on my door.

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Project Gutenberg
The Circular Staircase from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.