CHAPTER I I TAKE A COUNTRY HOUSE This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind , deserted her domestic gods in the city , took a furnished house for the summer out of town , and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous .
For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable ; for twenty years I had had the window-boxes filled in the spring , the carpets lifted , the awnings put up and the furniture covered with brown linen ; for as many summers I had said good-by to my friends , and , after watching their perspiring hegira , had settled down to a delicious quiet in town , where the mail comes three times a day , and the water supply does not depend on a tank on the roof .
And then -- the madness seized me .
When I look back over the months I spent at Sunnyside , I wonder that I survived at all .
As it is , I show the wear and tear of my harrowing experiences .
I have turned very gray -- Liddy reminded me of it , only yesterday , by saying that a little bluing in the rinse-water would make my hair silvery , instead of a yellowish white .
I hate to be reminded of unpleasant things and I snapped her off .
" No , " I said sharply , " I 'm not going to use bluing at my time of life , or starch , either . "
Liddy 's nerves are gone , she says , since that awful summer , but she has enough left , goodness knows !
And when she begins to go around with a lump in her throat , all I have to do is to threaten to return to Sunnyside , and she is frightened into a semblance of cheerfulness , -- from which you may judge that the summer there was anything but a success .
The newspaper accounts have been so garbled and incomplete -- one of them mentioned me but once , and then only as the tenant at the time the thing happened -- that I feel it my due to tell what I know .
Mr. Jamieson , the detective , said himself he could never have done without me , although he gave me little enough credit , in print .
I shall have to go back several years -- thirteen , to be exact -- to start my story .
At that time my brother died , leaving me his two children .
Halsey was eleven then , and Gertrude was seven .
All the responsibilities of maternity were thrust upon me suddenly ; to perfect the profession of motherhood requires precisely as many years as the child has lived , like the man who started to carry the calf and ended by walking along with the bull on his shoulders .
However , I did the best I could .
When Gertrude got past the hair-ribbon age , and Halsey asked for a scarf-pin and put on long trousers -- and a wonderful help that was to the darning .
-- I sent them away to good schools .
After that , my responsibility was chiefly postal , with three months every summer in which to replenish their wardrobes , look over their lists of acquaintances , and generally to take my foster-motherhood out of its nine months ' retirement in camphor .
I missed the summers with them when , somewhat later , at boarding-school and college , the children spent much of their vacations with friends .
Gradually I found that my name signed to a check was even more welcome than when signed to a letter , though I wrote them at stated intervals .
But when Halsey had finished his electrical course and Gertrude her boarding-school , and both came home to stay , things were suddenly changed .
The winter Gertrude came out was nothing but a succession of sitting up late at night to bring her home from things , taking her to the dressmakers between naps the next day , and discouraging ineligible youths with either more money than brains , or more brains than money .
Also , I acquired a great many things : to say lingerie for under-garments , " frocks " and " gowns " instead of dresses , and that beardless sophomores are not college boys , but college men .
Halsey required less personal supervision , and as they both got their mother 's fortune that winter , my responsibility became purely moral .
Halsey bought a car , of course , and I learned how to tie over my bonnet a gray baize veil , and , after a time , never to stop to look at the dogs one has run down .
People are apt to be so unpleasant about their dogs .
The additions to my education made me a properly equipped maiden aunt , and by spring I was quite tractable .
So when Halsey suggested camping in the Adirondacks and Gertrude wanted Bar Harbor , we compromised on a good country house with links near , within motor distance of town and telephone distance of the doctor .
That was how we went to Sunnyside .
We went out to inspect the property , and it seemed to deserve its name .
Its cheerful appearance gave no indication whatever of anything out of the ordinary .
Only one thing seemed unusual to me : the housekeeper , who had been left in charge , had moved from the house to the gardener 's lodge , a few days before .
As the lodge was far enough away from the house , it seemed to me that either fire or thieves could complete their work of destruction undisturbed .
The property was an extensive one : the house on the top of a hill , which sloped away in great stretches of green lawn and clipped hedges , to the road ; and across the valley , perhaps a couple of miles away , was the Greenwood Club House .
Gertrude and Halsey were infatuated .
" Why , it 's everything you want , " Halsey said " View , air , good water and good roads .
As for the house , it 's big enough for a hospital , if it has a Queen Anne front and a Mary Anne back , " which was ridiculous : it was pure Elizabethan .
Of course we took the place ; it was not my idea of comfort , being much too large and sufficiently isolated to make the servant question serious .
But I give myself credit for this : whatever has happened since , I never blamed Halsey and Gertrude for taking me there .
And another thing : if the series of catastrophes there did nothing else , it taught me one thing -- that somehow , somewhere , from perhaps a half-civilized ancestor who wore a sheepskin garment and trailed his food or his prey , I have in me the instinct of the chase .
Were I a man I should be a trapper of criminals , trailing them as relentlessly as no doubt my sheepskin ancestor did his wild boar .
But being an unmarried woman , with the handicap of my sex , my first acquaintance with crime will probably be my last .
Indeed , it came near enough to being my last acquaintance with anything .
The property was owned by Paul Armstrong , the president of the Traders ' Bank , who at the time we took the house was in the west with his wife and daughter , and a Doctor Walker , the Armstrong family physician .
Halsey knew Louise Armstrong , -- had been rather attentive to her the winter before , but as Halsey was always attentive to somebody , I had not thought of it seriously , although she was a charming girl .
I knew of Mr. Armstrong only through his connection with the bank , where the children 's money was largely invested , and through an ugly story about the son , Arnold Armstrong , who was reported to have forged his father 's name , for a considerable amount , to some bank paper .
However , the story had had no interest for me .
I cleared Halsey and Gertrude away to a house party , and moved out to Sunnyside the first of May .
The roads were bad , but the trees were in leaf , and there were still tulips in the borders around the house .
The arbutus was fragrant in the woods under the dead leaves , and on the way from the station , a short mile , while the car stuck in the mud , I found a bank showered with tiny forget-me-nots .
The birds -- do n't ask me what kind ; they all look alike to me , unless they have a hall mark of some bright color -- the birds were chirping in the hedges , and everything breathed of peace .
Liddy , who was born and bred on a brick pavement , got a little bit down-spirited when the crickets began to chirp , or scrape their legs together , or whatever it is they do , at twilight .
The first night passed quietly enough .
I have always been grateful for that one night 's peace ; it shows what the country might be , under favorable circumstances .
Never after that night did I put my head on my pillow with any assurance how long it would be there ; or on my shoulders , for that matter .
On the following morning Liddy and Mrs. Ralston , my own housekeeper , had a difference of opinion , and Mrs. Ralston left on the eleven train .
Just after luncheon , Burke , the butler , was taken unexpectedly with a pain in his right side , much worse when I was within hearing distance , and by afternoon he was started cityward .
That night the cook 's sister had a baby -- the cook , seeing indecision in my face , made it twins on second thought -- and , to be short , by noon the next day the household staff was down to Liddy and myself .
And this in a house with twenty-two rooms and five baths !
Liddy wanted to go back to the city at once , but the milk-boy said that Thomas Johnson , the Armstrongs ' colored butler , was working as a waiter at the Greenwood Club , and might come back .
I have the usual scruples about coercing people 's servants away , but few of us have any conscience regarding institutions or corporations -- witness the way we beat railroads and street-car companies when we can -- so I called up the club , and about eight o'clock Thomas Johnson came to see me .
Poor Thomas !
Well , it ended by my engaging Thomas on the spot , at outrageous wages , and with permission to sleep in the gardener 's lodge , empty since the house was rented .
The old man -- he was white-haired and a little stooped , but with an immense idea of his personal dignity -- gave me his reasons hesitatingly .
" I ai n't sayin ' nothin ' , Mis ' Innes , " he said , with his hand on the door-knob , " but there 's been goin 's - on here this las ' few months as ai n't natchal .
' Tai n't one thing an ' ' tai n't another -- it 's jest a door squealin ' here , an ' a winder closin ' there , but when doors an ' winders gets to cuttin ' up capers and there 's nobody nigh 'em , it 's time Thomas Johnson sleeps somewhar 's else . "