my window I surmised that Mr. Jarvis and his companions
were searching the grounds. As for me, I lay in bed, with every
faculty awake. Where had Halsey gone? How had he gone, and when?
Before the murder, no doubt, but who would believe that? If either he
or Jack Bailey had heard an intruder in the house and shot him--as they
might have been justified in doing--why had they run away? The whole
thing was unheard of, outrageous, and--impossible to ignore.

About six o'clock Gertrude came in. She was fully dressed, and I sat
up nervously.

"Poor Aunty!" she said. "What a shocking night you have had!" She came
over and sat down on the bed, and I saw she looked very tired and worn.

"Is there anything new?" I asked anxiously.

"Nothing. The car is gone, but Warner"--he is the chauffeur--"Warner
is at the lodge and knows nothing about it."

"Well," I said, "if I ever get my hands on Halsey Innes, I shall not
let go until I have told him a few things. When we get this cleared
up, I am going back to the city to be quiet. One more night like the
last two will end me. The peace of the country--fiddle sticks!"

Whereupon I told Gertrude of the noises the night before, and the
figure on the veranda in the east wing. As an afterthought I brought
out the pearl cuff-link.

"I have no doubt now," I said, "that it was Arnold Armstrong the night
before last, too. He had a key, no doubt, but why he should steal into
his father's house I can not imagine. He could have come with my
permission, easily enough. Anyhow, whoever it was that night, left
this little souvenir."

Gertrude took one look at the cuff-link, and went as white as the
pearls in it; she clutched at the foot of the bed, and stood staring.
As for me, I was quite as astonished as she was.

"Where did--you--find it?" she asked finally, with a desperate effort
at calm. And while I told her she stood looking out of the window with
a look I could not fathom on her face. It was a relief when Mrs.
Watson tapped at the door and brought me some tea and toast. The cook
was in bed, completely demoralized, she reported, and Liddy, brave with
the daylight, was looking for footprints around the house. Mrs. Watson
herself was a wreck; she was blue-white around the lips, and she had
one hand tied up.

She said she had fallen down-stairs in her excitement. It was natural,
of course, that the thing would shock her, having been the Armstrongs'
housekeeper for sever