A HINT OF SCANDAL
In giving the gist of what happened at the inquest, I have only one
excuse—to recall to the reader the events of the night of Arnold
Armstrong’s murder. Many things had occurred which were not brought out
at the inquest and some things were told there that were new to me.
Altogether, it was a gloomy affair, and the six men in the corner, who
constituted the coroner’s jury, were evidently the merest puppets in
the hands of that all-powerful gentleman, the coroner.
Gertrude and I sat well back, with our veils down. There were a number
of people I knew: Barbara Fitzhugh, in extravagant mourning—she always
went into black on the slightest provocation, because it was
becoming—and Mr. Jarvis, the man who had come over from the Greenwood
Club the night of the murder. Mr. Harton was there, too, looking
impatient as the inquest dragged, but alive to every particle of
evidence. From a corner Mr. Jamieson was watching the proceedings
intently.
Doctor Stewart was called first. His evidence was told briefly, and
amounted to this: on the Sunday morning previous, at a quarter before
five, he had been called to the telephone. The message was from a Mr.
Jarvis, who asked him to come at once to Sunnyside, as there had been
an accident there, and Mr. Arnold Armstrong had been shot. He had
dressed hastily, gathered up some instruments, and driven to Sunnyside.
He was met by Mr. Jarvis, who took him at once to the east wing. There,
just as he had fallen, was the body of Arnold Armstrong. There was no
need of the instruments: the man was dead. In answer to the coroner’s
question—no, the body had not been moved, save to turn it over. It lay
at the foot of the circular staircase. Yes, he believed death had been
instantaneous. The body was still somewhat warm and rigor mortis had
not set in. It occurred late in cases of sudden death. No, he believed
the probability of suicide might be eliminated; the wounds could have
been self-inflicted, but with difficulty, and there had been no weapon
found.
The doctor’s examination was over, but he hesitated and cleared his
throat.
“Mr. Coroner,” he said, “at the risk of taking up valuable time, I
would like to speak of an incident that may or may not throw some light
on this matter.”
The audience was alert at once.
“Kindly proceed, Doctor,” the coroner said.
“My home is in Englewood, two miles from Casanova,” the doctor began.
“In the absence of Doctor Walker, a number of Casanova people have been
consulting me. A month ago—five weeks, to be exact—a woman whom I had
never seen came to my office. She was in deep mourning and kept her
veil down, and she brought for examination a child, a boy of six. The
little fellow was ill; it looked like typhoid, and the mother was
frantic. She wanted a permit to admit the youngster to the Children’s
Hospital in town here, where I am a member of the staff, and I gave her
one. The incident would have escaped me, but for a curious thing. Two
days before Mr. Armstrong was shot, I was sent for to go to the Country
Club: some one had been struck with a golf-ball that had gone wild. It
was late when I left—I was on foot, and about a mile from the club, on
the Claysburg road, I met two people. They were disputing violently,
and I had no difficulty in recognizing Mr. Armstrong. The woman, beyond
doubt, was the one who had consulted me about the child.”
At this hint of scandal, Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh sat up very straight.
Jamieson was looking slightly skeptical, and the coroner made a note.
“The Children’s Hospital, you say, Doctor?” he asked.
“Yes. But the child, who was entered as Lucien Wallace, was taken away
by his mother two weeks ago. I have tried to trace them and failed.”
All at once I remembered the telegram sent to Louise by some one signed
F. L. W.—presumably Doctor Walker. Could this veiled woman be the Nina
Carrington of the message? But it was only idle speculation. I had no
way of finding out, and the inquest was proceeding.
The report of the coroner’s physician came next. The post-mortem
examination showed that the bullet had entered the chest in the fourth
left intercostal space and had taken an oblique course downward and
backward, piercing both the heart and lungs. The left lung was
collapsed, and the exit point of the ball had been found in the muscles
of the back to the left of the spinal column. It was improbable that
such a wound had been self-inflicted, and its oblique downward course
pointed to the fact that the shot had been fired from above. In other
words, as the murdered man had been found dead at the foot of a
staircase, it was probable that the shot had been fired by some one
higher up on the stairs. There were no marks of powder. The bullet, a
thirty-eight caliber, had been found in the dead man’s clothing, and
was shown to the jury.
Mr. Jarvis was called next, but his testimony amounted to little.
He had been summoned by telephone to Sunnyside, had come over at once
with the steward and Mr. Winthrop, at present out of town. They had
been admitted by the housekeeper, and had found the body lying at the
foot of the staircase. He had made a search for a weapon, but there was
none around. The outer entry door in the east wing had been unfastened
and was open about an inch.
I had been growing more and more nervous. When the coroner called Mr.
John Bailey, the room was filled with suppressed excitement. Mr.
Jamieson went forward and spoke a few words to the coroner, who nodded.
Then Halsey was called.
“Mr. Innes,” the coroner said, “will you tell under what circumstances
you saw Mr. Arnold Armstrong the night he died?”
“I saw him first at the Country Club,” Halsey said quietly. He was
rather pale, but very composed. “I stopped there with my automobile for
gasolene. Mr. Armstrong had been playing cards. When I saw him there,
he was coming out of the card-room, talking to Mr. John Bailey.”
“The nature of the discussion—was it amicable?”
Halsey hesitated.
“They were having a dispute,” he said. “I asked Mr. Bailey to leave the
club with me and come to Sunnyside over Sunday.”
“Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Innes, that you took Mr. Bailey away from the
club-house because you were afraid there would be blows?”
“The situation was unpleasant,” Halsey said evasively.
“At that time had you any suspicion that the Traders’ Bank had been
wrecked?”
“No.”
“What occurred next?”
“Mr. Bailey and I talked in the billiard-room until two-thirty.”
“And Mr. Arnold Armstrong came there, while you were talking?”
“Yes. He came about half-past two. He rapped at the east door, and I
admitted him.”
The silence in the room was intense. Mr. Jamieson’s eyes never left
Halsey’s face.
“Will you tell us the nature of his errand?”
“He brought a telegram that had come to the club for Mr. Bailey.”
“He was sober?”
“Perfectly, at that time. Not earlier.”
“Was not his apparent friendliness a change from his former attitude?”
“Yes. I did not understand it.”
“How long did he stay?”
“About five minutes. Then he left, by the east entrance.”
“What occurred then?”
“We talked for a few minutes, discussing a plan Mr. Bailey had in mind.
Then I went to the stables, where I kept my car, and got it out.”
“Leaving Mr. Bailey alone in the billiard-room?”
Halsey hesitated.
“My sister was there.”
Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh had the courage to turn and eye Gertrude through
her lorgnon.
“And then?”
“I took the car along the lower road, not to disturb the household. Mr.
Bailey came down across the lawn, through the hedge, and got into the
car on the road.”
“Then you know nothing of Mr. Armstrong’s movements after he left the
house?”
“Nothing. I read of his death Monday evening for the first time.”
“Mr. Bailey did not see him on his way across the lawn?”
“I think not. If he had seen him he would have spoken of it.”
“Thank you. That is all. Miss Gertrude Innes.”
Gertrude’s replies were fully as concise as Halsey’s. Mrs. Fitzhugh
subjected her to a close inspection, commencing with her hat and ending
with her shoes. I flatter myself she found nothing wrong with either
her gown or her manner, but poor Gertrude’s testimony was the reverse
of comforting. She had been summoned, she said, by her brother, after
Mr. Armstrong had gone.
She had waited in the billiard-room with Mr. Bailey, until the
automobile had been ready. Then she had locked the door at the foot of
the staircase, and, taking a lamp, had accompanied Mr. Bailey to the
main entrance of the house, and had watched him cross the lawn. Instead
of going at once to her room, she had gone back to the billiard-room
for something which had been left there. The card-room and
billiard-room were in darkness. She had groped around, found the
article she was looking for, and was on the point of returning to her
room, when she had heard some one fumbling at the lock at the east
outer door. She had thought it was probably her brother, and had been
about to go to the door, when she heard it open. Almost immediately
there was a shot, and she had run panic-stricken through the
drawing-room and had roused the house.
“You heard no other sound?” the coroner asked. “There was no one with
Mr. Armstrong when he entered?”
“It was perfectly dark. There were no voices and I heard nothing. There
was just the opening of the door, the shot, and the sound of somebody
falling.”
“Then, while you went through the drawing-room and up-stairs to alarm
the household, the criminal, whoever it was, could have escaped by the
east door?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. That will do.”
I flatter myself that the coroner got little enough out of me. I saw
Mr. Jamieson smiling to himself, and the coroner gave me up, after a
time. I admitted I had found the body, said I had not known who it was
until Mr. Jarvis told me, and ended by looking up at Barbara Fitzhugh
and saying that in renting the house I had not expected to be involved
in any family scandal. At which she turned purple.
The verdict was that Arnold Armstrong had met his death at the hands of
a person or persons unknown, and we all prepared to leave. Barbara
Fitzhugh flounced out without waiting to speak to me, but Mr. Harton
came up, as I knew he would.
“You have decided to give up the house, I hope, Miss Innes,” he said.
“Mrs. Armstrong has wired me again.”
“I am not going to give it up,” I maintained, “until I understand some
things that are puzzling me. The day that the murderer is discovered, I
will leave.”
“Then, judging by what I have heard, you will be back in the city very
soon,” he said. And I knew that he suspected the discredited cashier of
the Traders’ Bank.
Mr. Jamieson came up to me as I was about to leave the coroner’s
office.
“How is your patient?” he asked with his odd little smile.
“I have no patient,” I replied, startled.
“I will put it in a different way, then. How is Miss Armstrong?”
“She—she is doing very well,” I stammered.
“Good,” cheerfully. “And our ghost? Is it laid?”
“Mr. Jamieson,” I said suddenly, “I wish you would do one thing: I wish
you would come to Sunnyside and spend a few days there. The ghost is
not laid. I want you to spend one night at least watching the circular
staircase. The murder of Arnold Armstrong was a beginning, not an end.”
He looked serious.
“Perhaps I can do it,” he said. “I have been doing something else,
but—well, I will come out to-night.”
We were very silent during the trip back to Sunnyside. I watched
Gertrude closely and somewhat sadly. To me there was one glaring flaw
in her story, and it seemed to stand out for every one to see. Arnold
Armstrong had had no key, and yet she said she had locked the east
door. He must have been admitted from within the house; over and over I
repeated it to myself.
That night, as gently as I could, I told Louise the story of her
stepbrother’s death. She sat in her big, pillow-filled chair, and heard
me through without interruption. It was clear that she was shocked
beyond words: if I had hoped to learn anything from her expression, I
had failed. She was as much in the dark as we were.