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

My taking the detective out to Sunnyside raised an unexpected storm of
protest from Gertrude and Halsey. I was not prepared for it, and I
scarcely knew how to account for it. To me Mr. Jamieson was far less
formidable under my eyes where I knew what he was doing, than he was of
in the city, twisting circumstances and motives to suit himself and
learning what he wished to know, about events at Sunnyside, in some
occult way. I was glad enough to have him there, when excitements
began to come thick and fast.

A new element was about to enter into affairs: Monday, or Tuesday at
the latest, would find Doctor Walker back in his green and white house
in the village, and Louise's attitude to him in the immediate future
would signify Halsey's happiness or wretchedness, as it might turn out.
Then, too, the return of her mother would mean, of course, that she
would have to leave us, and I had become greatly attached to her.

From the day Mr. Jamieson came to Sunnyside there was a subtle change
in Gertrude's manner to me. It was elusive,