The
man who lay before us was not Paul Armstrong!
CHAPTER XXXI
BETWEEN TWO FIREPLACES
What with the excitement of the discovery, the walk home under
the stars in wet shoes and draggled skirts, and getting up-stairs
and undressed without rousing Liddy, I was completely used up.
What to do with my boots was the greatest puzzle of all, there
being no place in the house safe from Liddy, until I decided to
slip upstairs the next morning and drop them into the hole the
"ghost" had made in the trunk-room wall.
I went asleep as soon as I reached this decision, and in my
dreams I lived over again the events of the night. Again I saw
the group around the silent figure on the grass, and again, as
had happened at the grave, I heard Alex's voice, tense and
triumphant:
"Then we've got them," he said. Only, in my dreams, he said it
over and over until he seemed to shriek it in my ears.
I wakened early, in spite of my fatigue, and lay there thinking.
Who was Alex? I no longer believed that he was a gardener. Who
was the man whose body we had resurrected? And where was Paul
Armstrong? Probably living safely in some extraditionless
country on the fortune he had stolen. Did Louise and her mother
know of the shameful and wicked deception? What had Thomas
known, and Mrs. Watson? Who was Nina Carrington?
This last question, it seemed to me, was answered. In some way
the woman had learned of the substitution, and had tried to use
her knowledge for blackmail.
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