The Circular Staircase | Page 9

she replied. "It's a mercy it didn't fall out on the
way."
When Liddy had gone I examined the fragment attentively. I had never
seen it before, and I was certain it was not Halsey's. It was of Italian
workmanship, and consisted of a mother-of-pearl foundation, encrusted
with tiny seed-pearls, strung on horsehair to hold them. In the center
was a small ruby. The trinket was odd enough, but not intrinsically of
great value. Its interest for me lay in this: Liddy had found it lying in
the top of the hamper which had blocked the east-wing stairs.
That afternoon the Armstrongs' housekeeper, a youngish good- looking
woman, applied for Mrs. Ralston's place, and I was glad enough to take
her. She looked as though she might be equal to a dozen of Liddy, with
her snapping black eyes and heavy jaw. Her name was Anne Watson,
and I dined that evening for the first time in three days.
CHAPTER III
MR. JOHN BAILEY APPEARS
I had dinner served in the breakfast-room. Somehow the huge
dining-room depressed me, and Thomas, cheerful enough all day,
allowed his spirits to go down with the sun. He had a habit of watching
the corners of the room, left shadowy by the candles on the table, and
altogether it was not a festive meal.
Dinner over I went into the living-room. I had three hours before the
children could possibly arrive, and I got out my knitting. I had brought
along two dozen pairs of slipper soles in assorted sizes--I always send
knitted slippers to the Old Ladies' Home at Christmas--and now I
sorted over the wools with a grim determination not to think about the
night before. But my mind was not on my work: at the end of a

half-hour I found I had put a row of blue scallops on Eliza Klinefelter's
lavender slippers, and I put them away.
I got out the cuff-link and went with it to the pantry. Thomas was
wiping silver and the air was heavy with tobacco smoke. I sniffed and
looked around, but there was no pipe to be seen.
"Thomas," I said, "you have been smoking."
"No, ma'm." He was injured innocence itself. "It's on my coat, ma'm.
Over at the club the gentlemen--"
But Thomas did not finish. The pantry was suddenly filled with the
odor of singeing cloth. Thomas gave a clutch at his coat, whirled to the
sink, filled a tumbler with water and poured it into his right pocket with
the celerity of practice.
"Thomas," I said, when he was sheepishly mopping the floor, "smoking
is a filthy and injurious habit. If you must smoke, you must; but don't
stick a lighted pipe in your pocket again. Your skin's your own: you can
blister it if you like. But this house is not mine, and I don't want a
conflagration. Did you ever see this cuff-link before?"
No, he never had, he said, but he looked at it oddly.
"I picked it up in the hall," I added indifferently. The old man's eyes
were shrewd under his bushy eyebrows.
"There's strange goin's-on here, Mis' Innes," he said, shaking his head.
"Somethin's goin' to happen, sure. You ain't took notice that the big
clock in the hall is stopped, I reckon?"
"Nonsense," I said. "Clocks have to stop, don't they, if they're not
wound?"
"It's wound up, all right, and it stopped at three o'clock last night," he
answered solemnly. "More'n that, that there clock ain't stopped for
fifteen years, not since Mr. Armstrong's first wife died. And that ain't

all,--no MA'M. Last three nights I slep' in this place, after the electrics
went out I had a token. My oil lamp was full of oil, but it kep' goin' out,
do what I would. Minute I shet my eyes, out that lamp'd go. There ain't
no surer token of death. The Bible sez, LET YER LIGHT SHINE!
When a hand you can't see puts yer light out, it means death, sure."
The old man's voice was full of conviction. In spite of myself I had a
chilly sensation in the small of my back, and I left him mumbling over
his dishes. Later on I heard a crash from the pantry, and Liddy reported
that Beulah, who is coal black, had darted in front of Thomas just as he
picked up a tray of dishes; that the bad omen had been too much for
him, and he had dropped the tray.
The chug of the automobile as it climbed the hill was the most
welcome sound I had heard for a long time, and with Gertrude and
Halsey actually before me, my troubles seemed over for good. Gertrude
stood smiling in the hall, with her hat quite over one ear, and her