"
"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.
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