"
"Will you tell me what it was you had forgotten?"
"I can not tell you," she said slowly. "I--I did not leave the
billiard-room at once--"
"Why?" The detective's tone was imperative. "This is very
important, Miss Innes."
"I was crying," Gertrude said in a low tone. "When the French
clock in the drawing-room struck three, I got up, and then--I
heard a step on the east porch, just outside the card-room. Some
one with a key was working with the latch, and I thought, of
course, of Halsey. When we took the house he called that his
entrance, and he had carried a key for it ever since. The door
opened and I was about to ask what he had forgotten, when there
was a flash and a report. Some heavy body dropped, and, half
crazed with terror and shock, I ran through the drawing-room and
got up-stairs--I scarcely remember how."
She dropped into a chair, and I thought Mr. Jamieson must have
finished. But he was not through.
"You certainly clear your brother and Mr. Bailey admirably," he
said. "The testimony is invaluable, especially in view of the
fact that your brother and Mr. Armstrong had, I believe,
quarreled rather seriously some time ago."
"Nonsense," I broke in. "Things are bad enough, Mr. Jamieson,
without inventing bad feeling where it doesn't exist. Gertrude,
I don't think Halsey knew the--the murdered man, did he?"
But Mr. Jamieson was sure of his ground.
"The quarrel, I believe," he persisted, "was about Mr.
Armstrong's conduct to you, Miss Gertrude.
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