“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. CHAPTER XVIII. A HOLE IN THE WALL