The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart (best books to read in your 20s txt) 📖

About nine o’clock that night Liddy came into the living-room and reported that one of the housemaids declared she had seen two men slip around the corner of the stable. Gertrude had been sitting staring in front of her, jumping at every sound. Now she turned on Liddy pettishly.

“I declare, Liddy,” she said, “you are a bundle of nerves. What if Eliza did see some men around the stable? It may have been Warner and Alex.”

“Warner is in the kitchen, miss,” Liddy said with dignity. “And if you had come through what I have, you would be a bundle of nerves, too. Miss Rachel, I’d be thankful if you’d give me my month’s wages to-morrow. I’ll be going to my sister’s.”

“Very well,” I said, to her evident amazement. “I will make out the check. Warner can take you down to the noon train.”

Liddy’s face was really funny.

“You’ll have a nice time at your sister’s,” I went on. “Five children, hasn’t she?”

“That’s it,” Liddy said, suddenly bursting into tears. “Send me away, after all these years, and your new shawl only half done, and nobody knowin’ how to fix the water for your bath.”

“It’s time I learned to prepare my own bath.” I was knitting complacently. But Gertrude got up and put her arms around Liddy’s shaking shoulders.

“You are two big babies,” she said soothingly. “Neither one of you could get along for an hour without the other. So stop quarreling and be good. Liddy, go right up and lay out Aunty’s night things. She is going to bed early.”

After Liddy had gone I began to think about the men at the stable, and I grew more and more anxious. Halsey was aimlessly knocking the billiard-balls around in the billiard-room, and I called to him.

“Halsey,” I said when he sauntered in, “is there a policeman in Casanova?”

“Constable,” he said laconically. “Veteran of the war, one arm; in office to conciliate the G. A. R. element. Why?”

“Because I am uneasy to-night.” And I told him what Liddy had said. “Is there any one you can think of who could be relied on to watch the outside of the house to-night?”

“We might get Sam Bohannon from the club,” he said thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t be a bad scheme. He’s a smart darky, and with his mouth shut and his shirt-front covered, you couldn’t see him a yard off in the dark.”

Halsey conferred with Alex, and the result, in an hour, was Sam. His instructions were simple. There had been numerous attempts to break into the house; it was the intention, not to drive intruders away, but to capture them. If Sam saw anything suspicious outside, he was to tap at the east entry, where Alex and Halsey were to alternate in keeping watch through the night.

It was with a comfortable feeling of security that I went to bed that night. The door between Gertrude’s rooms and mine had been opened, and, with the doors into the hall bolted, we were safe enough. Although Liddy persisted in her belief that doors would prove no obstacles to our disturbers.

As before, Halsey watched the east entry from ten until two. He had an eye to comfort, and he kept vigil in a heavy oak chair, very large and deep. We went up-stairs rather early, and through the open door Gertrude and I kept up a running fire of conversation. Liddy was brushing my hair, and Gertrude was doing her own, with a long free sweep of her strong round arms.

“Did you know Mrs. Armstrong and Louise are in the village?” she called.

“No,” I replied, startled. “How did you hear it?”

“I met the oldest Stewart girl to-day, the doctor’s daughter, and she told me they had not gone back to town after the funeral. They went directly to that little yellow house next to Doctor Walker’s, and are apparently settled there. They took the house furnished for the summer.”

“Why, it’s a bandbox,” I said. “I can’t imagine Fanny Armstrong in such a place.”

“It’s true, nevertheless. Ella Stewart says Mrs. Armstrong has aged terribly, and looks as if she is hardly able to walk.”

I lay and thought over some of these things until midnight. The electric lights went out then, fading slowly until there was only a red-hot loop to be seen in the bulb, and then even that died away and we were embarked on the darkness of another night.

Apparently only a few minutes elapsed, during which my eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. Then I noticed that the windows were reflecting a faint pinkish light, Liddy noticed it at the same time, and I heard her jump up. At that moment Sam’s deep voice boomed from somewhere just below.

“Fire!” he yelled. “The stable’s on fire!”

I could see him in the glare dancing up and down on the drive, and a moment later Halsey joined him. Alex was awake and running down the stairs, and in five minutes from the time the fire was discovered, three of the maids were sitting on their trunks in the drive, although, excepting a few sparks, there was no fire nearer than a hundred yards.

Gertrude seldom loses her presence of mind, and she ran to the telephone. But by the time the Casanova volunteer fire department came toiling up the hill the stable was a furnace, with the Dragon Fly safe but blistered, in the road. Some gasolene exploded just as the volunteer department got to work, which shook their nerves as well as the burning building. The stable, being on a hill, was a torch to attract the population from every direction. Rumor had it that Sunnyside was burning, and it was amazing how many people threw something over their night-clothes and flew to the conflagration.

I take it Casanova has few fires, and Sunnyside was furnishing the people, in one way and another, the greatest excitement they had had for years.

The stable was off the west wing. I hardly know how I came to think of the circular staircase and the unguarded door at its foot. Liddy was putting my clothes into sheets, preparatory to tossing them out the window, when I found her, and