The Circular Staircase

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS

  As I drove rapidly up to the house from Casanova Station in the hack, Isaw the detective Burns loitering across the street from the Walkerplace. So Jamieson was putting the screws on--lightly now, but readyto give them a twist or two, I felt certain, very soon.

  The house was quiet. Two steps of the circular staircase had beenpried off, without result, and beyond a second message from Gertrude,that Halsey insisted on coming home and they would arrive that night,there was nothing new. Mr. Jamieson, having failed to locate thesecret room, had gone to the village. I learned afterwards that hecalled at Doctor Walker's, under pretense of an attack of acuteindigestion, and before he left, had inquired about the evening trainsto the city. He said he had wasted a lot of time on the case, and agood bit of the mystery was in my imagination! The doctor was underthe impression that the house was guarded day and night. Well, give aplace a reputation like that, and you don't need a guard at all,--thusJamieson. And sure enough, late in the afternoon, the two privatedetectives, accompanied by Mr. Jamieson, walked down the main street ofCasanova and took a city-bound train.

  That they got off at the next station and walked back again toSunnyside at dusk, was not known at the time. Personally, I knewnothing of either move; I had other things to absorb me at that time.

  Liddy brought me some tea while I rested after my trip, and on the traywas a small book from the Casanova library. It was called The UnseenWorld and had a cheerful cover on which a half-dozen sheeted figureslinked hands around a headstone.

  At this point in my story, Halsey always says: "Trust a woman to addtwo and two together, and make six." To which I retort that if two andtwo plus X make six, then to discover the unknown quantity is thesimplest thing in the world. That a houseful of detectives missed itentirely was because they were busy trying to prove that two and twomake four.

  The depression due to my visit to the hospital left me at the prospectof seeing Halsey again that night. It was about five o'clock whenLiddy left me for a nap before dinner, having put me into a gray silkdressing-gown and a pair of slippers. I listened to her retreatingfootsteps, and as soon as she was safely below stairs, I went up to thetrunk-room. The place had not been disturbed, and I proceeded at onceto try to discover the entrance to the hidden room. The openings oneither side, as I have said, showed nothing but perhaps three feet ofbrick wall.

  There was no sign of an entrance--no levers, no hinges, to give a hint.Either the mantel or the roof, I decided, and after a half-hour at themantel, productive of absolutely no result, I decided to try the roof.

  I am not fond of a height. The few occasions on which I have climbed astep-ladder have always left me dizzy and weak in the knees. The topof the Washington monument is as impossible to me as the elevation ofthe presidential chair. And yet--I climbed out on to the Sunnysideroof without a second's hesitation. Like a dog on a scent, like mybearskin progenitor, with his spear and his wild boar, to me now therewas the lust of the chase, the frenzy of pursuit, the dust of battle.I got quite a little of the latter on me as I climbed from theunfinished ball-room out through a window to the roof of the east wingof the building, which was only two stories in height.

  Once out there, access to the top of the main building was renderedeasy--at least it looked easy--by a small vertical iron ladder,fastened to the wall outside of the ball-room, and perhaps twelve feethigh. The twelve feet looked short from below, but they were difficultto climb. I gathered my silk gown around me, and succeeded finally inmaking the top of the ladder.

  Once there, however, I was completely out of breath. I sat down, myfeet on the top rung, and put my hair pins in more securely, while thewind bellowed my dressing-gown out like a sail. I had torn a greatstrip of the silk loose, and now I ruthlessly finished the destructionof my gown by jerking it free and tying it around my head.

  From far below the smallest sounds came up with peculiar distinctness.I could hear the paper boy whistling down the drive, and I heardsomething else. I heard the thud of a stone, and a spit, followed by along and startled meiou from Beulah. I forgot my fear of a height, andadvanced boldly almost to the edge of the roof.

  It was half-past six by that time, and growing dusk.

  "You boy, down there!" I called.

  The paper boy turned and looked around. Then, seeing nobody, he raisedhis eyes. It was a moment before he located me: when he did, he stoodfor one moment as if paralyzed, then he gave a horrible yell, anddropping his papers, bolted across the lawn to the road withoutstopping to look around. Once he fell, and his impetus was so greatthat he turned an involuntary somersault. He was up and off againwithout any perceptible pause, and he leaped the hedge--which I am sureunder ordinary stress would have been a feat for a man.

  I am glad in this way to settle the Gray Lady story, which is still achoice morsel in Casanova. I believe the moral deduced by the villagewas that it is always unlucky to throw a stone at a black cat.

  With Johnny Sweeny a cloud of dust down the road, and the dinner-hourapproaching, I hurried on with my investigations. Luckily, the roofwas flat, and I was able to go over every inch of it. But the resultwas disappointing; no trap-door revealed itself, no glass window;nothing but a couple of pipes two inches across, and standing perhapseighteen inches high and three feet apart, with a cap to prevent rainfrom entering and raised to permit the passage of air. I picked up apebble from the roof and dropped it down, listening with my ear at oneof the pipes. I could hear it strike on something with a sharp,metallic sound, but it was impossible for me to tell how far it hadgone.

  I gave up finally and went down the ladder again, getting in throughthe ball-room window without being observed. I went back at once tothe trunk-room, and, sitting down on a box, I gave my mind, asconsistently as I could, to the problem before me. If the pipes in theroof were ventilators to the secret room, and there was no trap-doorabove, the entrance was probably in one of the two rooms between whichit lay--unless, indeed, the room had been built, and the opening thenclosed with a brick and mortar wall.

  The mantel fascinated me. Made of wood and carved, the more I lookedthe more I wondered that I had not noticed before the absurdity of sucha mantel in such a place. It was covered with scrolls and panels, andfinally, by the merest accident, I pushed one of the panels to theside. It moved easily, revealing a small brass knob.

  It is not necessary to detail the fluctuations of hope and despair, andnot a little fear of what lay beyond, with which I twisted and turnedthe knob. It moved, but nothing seemed to happen, and then Idiscovered the trouble. I pushed the knob vigorously to one side, andthe whole mantel swung loose from the wall almost a foot, revealing acavernous space beyond.

  I took a long breath, closed the door from the trunk-room into thehall--thank Heaven, I did not lock it--and pulling the mantel-door wideopen, I stepped into the chimney-room. I had time to get a hazy viewof a small portable safe, a common wooden table and a chair--then themantel door swung to, and clicked behind me. I stood quite still for amoment, in the darkness, unable to comprehend what had happened. ThenI turned and beat furiously at the door with my fists. It was closedand locked again, and my fingers in the darkness slid over a smoothwooden surface without a sign of a knob.

  I was furiously angry--at myself, at the mantel door, at everything. Idid not fear suffocation; before the thought had come to me I hadalready seen a gleam of light from the two small ventilating pipes inthe roof. They supplied air, but nothing else. The room itself wasshrouded in blackness.

  I sat down in the stiff-backed chair and tried to remember how manydays one could live without food and water. When that grew monotonousand rather painful, I got up and, according to the time-honored rulefor people shut in unknown and ink-black prisons, I felt my wayaround--it was small enough, goodness knows. I felt nothing but asplintery surface of boards, and in endeavoring to get back to thechair, something struck me full in the face, and fell with th
e noise ofa thousand explosions to the ground. When I had gathered up my nervesagain, I found it had been the bulb of a swinging electric light, andthat had it not been for the accident, I might have starved to death inan illuminated sepulcher.

  I must have dozed off. I am sure I did not faint. I was never morecomposed in my life. I remember planning, if I were not discovered,who would have my things. I knew Liddy would want my heliotropepoplin, and she's a fright in lavender. Once or twice I heard mice inthe partitions, and so I sat on the table, with my feet on the chair.I imagined I could hear the search going on through the house, and oncesome one came into the trunk-room; I could distinctly hear footsteps.

  "In the chimney! In the chimney!" I called with all my might, and wasrewarded by a piercing shriek from Liddy and the slam of the trunk-roomdoor.

  I felt easier after that, although the room was oppressively hot andenervating. I had no doubt the search for me would now come in theright direction, and after a little, I dropped into a doze. How long Islept I do not know.

  It must have been several hours, for I had been tired from a busy day,and I wakened stiff from my awkward position. I could not rememberwhere I was for a few minutes, and my head felt heavy and congested.Gradually I roused to my surroundings, and to the fact that in spite ofthe ventilators, the air was bad and growing worse. I was breathinglong, gasping respirations, and my face was damp and clammy. I musthave been there a long time, and the searchers were probably huntingoutside the house, dredging the creek, or beating the woodland. I knewthat another hour or two would find me unconscious, and with myinability to cry out would go my only chance of rescue. It was thecombination of bad air and heat, probably, for some inadequateventilation was coming through the pipes. I tried to retain myconsciousness by walking the length of the room and back, over andover, but I had not the strength to keep it up, so I sat down on thetable again, my back against the wall.

  The house was very still. Once my straining ears seemed to catch afootfall beneath me, possibly in my own room. I groped for the chairfrom the table, and pounded with it frantically on the floor. Butnothing happened: I realized bitterly that if the sound was heard atall, no doubt it was classed with the other rappings that had soalarmed us recently.

  It was impossible to judge the flight of time. I measured five minutesby counting my pulse, allowing seventy-two beats to the minute. But ittook eternities, and toward the last I found it hard to count; my headwas confused.

  And then--I heard sounds from below me, in the house. There was apeculiar throbbing, vibrating noise that I felt rather than heard, muchlike the pulsing beat of fire engines in the city. For one awful momentI thought the house was on fire, and every drop of blood in my bodygathered around my heart; then I knew. It was the engine of theautomobile, and Halsey had come back. Hope sprang up afresh. Halsey'sclear head and Gertrude's intuition might do what Liddy's hysteria andthree detectives had failed in.

  After a time I thought I had been right. There was certainly somethinggoing on down below; doors were slamming, people were hurrying throughthe halls, and certain high notes of excited voices penetrated to meshrilly. I hoped they were coming closer, but after a time the soundsdied away below, and I was left to the silence and heat, to the weightof the darkness, to the oppression of walls that seemed to close in onme and stifle me.

  The first warning I had was a stealthy fumbling at the lock of themantel-door. With my mouth open to scream, I stopped. Perhaps thesituation had rendered me acute, perhaps it was instinctive. Whateverit was, I sat without moving, and some one outside, in absolutestillness, ran his fingers over the carving of the mantel and--foundthe panel.

  Now the sounds below redoubled: from the clatter and jarring I knewthat several people were running up the stairs, and as the soundsapproached, I could even hear what they said.

  "Watch the end staircases!" Jamieson was shouting. "Damnation--there'sno light here!" And then a second later. "All together now.One--two--three--"

  The door into the trunk-room had been locked from the inside. At thesecond that it gave, opening against the wall with a crash andevidently tumbling somebody into the room, the stealthy fingers beyondthe mantel-door gave the knob the proper impetus, and--the door swungopen, and closed again. Only--and Liddy always screams and puts herfingers in her ears at this point--only now I was not alone in thechimney room. There was some one else in the darkness, some one whobreathed hard, and who was so close I could have touched him with myhand.

  I was in a paralysis of terror. Outside there were excited voices andincredulous oaths. The trunks were being jerked around in a franticsearch, the windows were thrown open, only to show a sheer drop offorty feet. And the man in the room with me leaned against themantel-door and listened. His pursuers were plainly baffled: I heardhim draw a long breath, and turn to grope his way through theblackness. Then--he touched my hand, cold, clammy, death-like.

  A hand in an empty room! He drew in his breath, the sharp intaking ofhorror that fills lungs suddenly collapsed. Beyond jerking his handaway instantly, he made no movement. I think absolute terror had himby the throat. Then he stepped back, without turning, retreating footby foot from The Dread in the corner, and I do not think he breathed.

  Then, with the relief of space between us, I screamed, ear-splittingly,madly, and they heard me outside.

  "In the chimney!" I shrieked. "Behind the mantel! The mantel!"

  With an oath the figure hurled itself across the room at me, and Iscreamed again. In his blind fury he had missed me; I heard him strikethe wall. That one time I eluded him; I was across the room, and I hadgot the chair. He stood for a second, listening, then--he made anotherrush, and I struck out with my weapon. I think it stunned him, for Ihad a second's respite when I could hear him breathing, and some oneshouted outside:

  "We--Can't--get--in. How--does--it--open?"

  But the man in the room had changed his tactics. I knew he wascreeping on me, inch by inch, and I could not tell from where. Andthen--he caught me. He held his hand over my mouth, and I bit him. Iwas helpless, strangling,--and some one was trying to break in themantel from outside. It began to yield somewhere, for a thin wedge ofyellowish light was reflected on the opposite wall. When he saw that,my assailant dropped me with a curse; then--the opposite wall swungopen noiselessly, closed again without a sound, and I was alone. Theintruder was gone.

  "In the next room!" I called wildly. "The next room!" But the soundof blows on the mantel drowned my voice. By the time I had made themunderstand, a couple of minutes had elapsed. The pursuit was taken upthen, by all except Alex, who was determined to liberate me. When Istepped out into the trunk-room, a free woman again, I could hear thechase far below.

  I must say, for all Alex's anxiety to set me free, he paid littleenough attention to my plight. He jumped through the opening into thesecret room, and picked up the portable safe.

  "I am going to put this in Mr. Halsey's room, Miss Innes," he said,"and I shall send one of the detectives to guard it."

  I hardly heard him. I wanted to laugh and cry in the same breath--tocrawl into bed and have a cup of tea, and scold Liddy, and do any ofthe thousand natural things that I had never expected to do again. Andthe air! The touch of the cool night air on my face!

  As Alex and I reached the second floor, Mr. Jamieson met us. He wasgrave and quiet, and he nodded comprehendingly when he saw the safe.

  "Will you come with me for a moment, Miss Innes?" he asked soberly, andon my assenting, he led the way to the east wing. There were lightsmoving around below, and some of the maids were standing gaping down.They screamed when they saw me, and drew back to let me pass. Therewas a sort of hush over the scene; Alex, behind me, muttered somethingI could not hear, and brushed past me without ceremony. Then Irealized that a man was lying doubled up at the foot of the staircase,and that Alex was stooping over him.

  As I came slowly down, Winters stepped back, and Alex straightenedhimself, looking at
me across the body with impenetrable eyes. In hishand he held a shaggy gray wig, and before me on the floor lay the manwhose headstone stood in Casanova churchyard--Paul Armstrong.

  Winters told the story in a dozen words. In his headlong flight downthe circular staircase, with Winters just behind, Paul Armstrong hadpitched forward violently, struck his head against the door to the eastveranda, and probably broken his neck. He had died as Winters reachedhim.

  As the detective finished, I saw Halsey, pale and shaken, in thecard-room doorway, and for the first time that night I lost myself-control. I put my arms around my boy, and for a moment he had tosupport me. A second later, over Halsey's shoulder, I saw somethingthat turned my emotion into other channels, for, behind him, in theshadowy card-room, were Gertrude and Alex, the gardener, and--there isno use mincing matters--he was kissing her!

  I was unable to speak. Twice I opened my mouth: then I turned Halseyaround and pointed. They were quite unconscious of us; her head was onhis shoulder, his face against her hair. As it happened, it was Mr.Jamieson who broke up the tableau.

  He stepped over to Alex and touched him on the arm.

  "And now," he said quietly, "how long are you and I to play OUR littlecomedy, Mr. Bailey?"

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  THE ODDS AND ENDS

  Of Doctor Walker's sensational escape that night to South America, ofthe recovery of over a million dollars in cash and securities in thesafe from the chimney room--the papers have kept the public wellinformed. Of my share in discovering the secret chamber they have beensingularly silent. The inner history has never been told. Mr.Jamieson got all kinds of credit, and some of it he deserved, but ifJack Bailey, as Alex, had not traced Halsey and insisted on thedisinterring of Paul Armstrong's casket, if he had not suspected thetruth from the start, where would the detective have been?

  When Halsey learned the truth, he insisted on going the next morning,weak as he was, to Louise, and by night she was at Sunnyside, underGertrude's particular care, while her mother had gone to BarbaraFitzhugh's.

  What Halsey said to Mrs. Armstrong I never knew, but that he wasconsiderate and chivalrous I feel confident. It was Halsey's wayalways with women.

  He and Louise had no conversation together until that night. Gertrudeand Alex--I mean Jack--had gone for a walk, although it was nineo'clock, and anybody but a pair of young geese would have known thatdew was falling, and that it is next to impossible to get rid of asummer cold.

  At half after nine, growing weary of my own company, I went downstairsto find the young people. At the door of the living-room I paused.Gertrude and Jack had returned and were there, sitting together on adivan, with only one lamp lighted. They did not see or hear me, and Ibeat a hasty retreat to the library. But here again I was driven back.Louise was sitting in a deep chair, looking the happiest I had everseen her, with Halsey on the arm of the chair, holding her close.

  It was no place for an elderly spinster. I retired to my upstairssitting-room and got out Eliza Klinefelter's lavender slippers. Ah,well, the foster motherhood would soon have to be put away in camphoragain.

  The next day, by degrees, I got the whole story.

  Paul Armstrong had a besetting evil--the love of money. Common enough,but he loved money, not for what it would buy, but for its own sake.An examination of the books showed no irregularities in the past yearsince John had been cashier, but before that, in the time of Anderson,the old cashier, who had died, much strange juggling had been done withthe records. The railroad in New Mexico had apparently drained thebanker's private fortune, and he determined to retrieve it by onestroke. This was nothing less than the looting of the bank'ssecurities, turning them into money, and making his escape.

  But the law has long arms. Paul Armstrong evidently studied thesituation carefully. Just as the only good Indian is a dead Indian, sothe only safe defaulter is a dead defaulter. He decided to die, to allappearances, and when the hue and cry subsided, he would be able toenjoy his money almost anywhere he wished.

  The first necessity was an accomplice. The connivance of Doctor Walkerwas suggested by his love for Louise. The man was unscrupulous, andwith the girl as a bait, Paul Armstrong soon had him fast. The planwas apparently the acme of simplicity: a small town in the west, anattack of heart disease, a body from a medical college dissecting-roomshipped in a trunk to Doctor Walker by a colleague in San Francisco,and palmed off for the supposed dead banker. What was simpler?

  The woman, Nina Carrington, was the cog that slipped. What she onlysuspected, what she really knew, we never learned. She was achambermaid in the hotel at C--, and it was evidently her intention toblackmail Doctor Walker. His position at that time was uncomfortable:to pay the woman to keep quiet would be confession. He denied thewhole thing, and she went to Halsey.

  It was this that had taken Halsey to the doctor the night hedisappeared. He accused the doctor of the deception, and, crossing thelawn, had said something cruel to Louise. Then, furious at herapparent connivance, he had started for the station. Doctor Walker andPaul Armstrong--the latter still lame where I had shot him--hurriedacross to the embankment, certain only of one thing. Halsey must nottell the detective what he suspected until the money had been removedfrom the chimney-room. They stepped into the road in front of the carto stop it, and fate played into their hands. The car struck thetrain, and they had only to dispose of the unconscious figure in theroad. This they did as I have told. For three days Halsey lay in thebox car, tied hand and foot, suffering tortures of thirst, delirious attimes, and discovered by a tramp at Johnsville only in time to save hislife.

  To go back to Paul Armstrong. At the last moment his plans had beenfrustrated. Sunnyside, with its hoard in the chimney-room, had beenrented without his knowledge! Attempts to dislodge me having failed,he was driven to breaking into his own house. The ladder in the chute,the burning of the stable and the entrance through the card-roomwindow--all were in the course of a desperate attempt to get into thechimney-room.

  Louise and her mother had, from the first, been the greatstumbling-blocks. The plan had been to send Louise away until it wastoo late for her to interfere, but she came back to the hotel at C--just at the wrong time. There was a terrible scene. The girl was toldthat something of the kind was necessary, that the bank was about toclose and her stepfather would either avoid arrest and disgrace in thisway, or kill himself. Fanny Armstrong was a weakling, but Louise wasmore difficult to manage. She had no love for her stepfather, but herdevotion to her mother was entire, self-sacrificing. Forced intoacquiescence by her mother's appeals, overwhelmed by the situation, thegirl consented and fled.

  From somewhere in Colorado she sent an anonymous telegram to JackBailey at the Traders' Bank. Trapped as she was, she did not want tosee an innocent man arrested. The telegram, received on Thursday, hadsent the cashier to the bank that night in a frenzy.

  Louise arrived at Sunnyside and found the house rented. Not knowingwhat to do, she sent for Arnold at the Greenwood Club, and told him alittle, not all. She told him that there was something wrong, and thatthe bank was about to close. That his father was responsible. Of theconspiracy she said nothing. To her surprise, Arnold already knew,through Bailey that night, that things were not right. Moreover, hesuspected what Louise did not, that the money was hidden at Sunnyside.He had a scrap of paper that indicated a concealed room somewhere.

  His inherited cupidity was aroused. Eager to get Halsey and JackBailey out of the house, he went up to the east entry, and in thebilliard-room gave the cashier what he had refused earlier in theevening--the address of Paul Armstrong in California and a telegramwhich had been forwarded to the club for Bailey, from Doctor Walker.It was in response to one Bailey had sent, and it said that PaulArmstrong was very ill.

  Bailey was almost desperate. He decided to go west and find PaulArmstrong, and to force him to disgorge. But the catastrophe at thebank occurred sooner than he had expected. On the moment of startingwest, at Andrews
Station, where Mr. Jamieson had located the car, heread that the bank had closed, and, going back, surrendered himself.

  John Bailey had known Paul Armstrong intimately. He did not believethat the money was gone; in fact, it was hardly possible in theinterval since the securities had been taken. Where was it? And fromsome chance remark let fall some months earlier by Arnold Armstrong ata dinner, Bailey felt sure there was a hidden room at Sunnyside. Hetried to see the architect of the building, but, like the contractor,if he knew of the such a room he refused any information. It wasHalsey's idea that John Bailey come to the house as a gardener, andpursue his investigations as he could. His smooth upper lip had beensufficient disguise, with his change of clothes, and a hair-cut by acountry barber.

  So it was Alex, Jack Bailey, who had been our ghost. Not only had healarmed--Louise and himself, he admitted--on the circular staircase,but he had dug the hole in the trunk-room wall, and later sent Elizainto hysteria. The note Liddy had found in Gertrude's scrap-basket wasfrom him, and it was he who had startled me into unconsciousness by theclothes chute, and, with Gertrude's help, had carried me to Louise'sroom. Gertrude, I learned, had watched all night beside me, in anextremity of anxiety about me.

  That old Thomas had seen his master, and thought he had seen theSunnyside ghost, there could be no doubt. Of that story of Thomas',about seeing Jack Bailey in the footpath between the club andSunnyside, the night Liddy and I heard the noise on the circularstaircase--that, too, was right. On the night before Arnold Armstrongwas murdered, Jack Bailey had made his first attempt to search for thesecret room. He secured Arnold's keys from his room at the club and gotinto the house, armed with a golf-stick for sounding the walls. He ranagainst the hamper at the head of the stairs, caught his cuff-link init, and dropped the golf-stick with a crash. He was glad enough to getaway without an alarm being raised, and he took the "owl" train to town.

  The oddest thing to me was that Mr. Jamieson had known for some timethat Alex was Jack Bailey. But the face of the pseudo-gardener wasvery queer indeed, when that night, in the card-room, the detectiveturned to him and said:

  "How long are you and I going to play our little comedy, MR. BAILEY?"

  Well, it is all over now. Paul Armstrong rests in Casanova churchyard,and this time there is no mistake. I went to the funeral, because Iwanted to be sure he was really buried, and I looked at the step of theshaft where I had sat that night, and wondered if it was all real.Sunnyside is for sale--no, I shall not buy it. Little Lucien Armstrongis living with his step-grandmother, and she is recovering graduallyfrom troubles that had extended over the entire period of her secondmarriage. Anne Watson lies not far from the man she killed, and who assurely caused her death. Thomas, the fourth victim of the conspiracy,is buried on the hill. With Nina Carrington, five lives weresacrificed in the course of this grim conspiracy.

  There will be two weddings before long, and Liddy has asked for myheliotrope poplin to wear to the church. I knew she would. She haswanted it for three years, and she was quite ugly the time I spilledcoffee on it. We are very quiet, just the two of us. Liddy stillclings to her ghost theory, and points to my wet and muddy boots in thetrunk-room as proof. I am gray, I admit, but I haven't felt as well ina dozen years. Sometimes, when I am bored, I ring for Liddy, and wetalk things over. When Warner married Rosie, Liddy sniffed and saidwhat I took for faithfulness in Rosie had been nothing but mawkishness.I have not yet outlived Liddy's contempt because I gave them silverknives and forks as a wedding gift.

  So we sit and talk, and sometimes Liddy threatens to leave, and often Idischarge her, but we stay together somehow. I am talking of renting ahouse next year, and Liddy says to be sure there is no ghost. To beperfectly frank, I never really lived until that summer. Time haspassed since I began this story. My neighbors are packing up foranother summer. Liddy is having the awnings put up, and the windowboxes filled. Liddy or no Liddy, I shall advertise to-morrow for ahouse in the country, and I don't care if it has a Circular Staircase.