“You are laying up treasure, Miss Innes,” he said brokenly, “where neither moth nor rust corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal.”
“It is certainly a safer place than Sunnyside,” I admitted. And the thought of the carpet permitted him to smile. He stood just inside the doorway, looking from the luxury of the house to the beauty of the view.
“The rich ought to be good,” he said wistfully. “They have so much that is beautiful, and beauty is ennobling. And yet—while I ought to say nothing but good of the dead—Mr. Armstrong saw nothing of this fair prospect. To him these trees and lawns were not the work of God. They were property, at so much an acre. He loved money, Miss Innes. He offered up everything to his golden calf. Not power, not ambition, was his fetish: it was money.” Then he dropped his pulpit manner, and, turning to me with his engaging smile: “In spite of all this luxury,” he said, “the country people here have a saying that Mr. Paul Armstrong could sit on a dollar and see all around it. Unlike the summer people, he gave neither to the poor nor to the church. He loved money for its own sake.”
“And there are no pockets in shrouds!” I said cynically.
I sent him home in the car, with a bunch of hot-house roses for his wife, and he was quite overwhelmed. As for me, I had a generous glow that was cheap at the price of a church carpet. I received less gratification—and less gratitude—when I presented the new silver communion set to St. Barnabas.
I had a great many things to think about in those days. I made out a list of questions and possible answers, but I seemed only to be working around in a circle. I always ended where I began. The list was something like this:
Who had entered the house the night before the murder?
Thomas claimed it was Mr. Bailey, whom he had seen on the foot-path, and who owned the pearl cuff-link.
Why did Arnold Armstrong come back after he had left the house the night he was killed?
No answer. Was it on the mission Louise had mentioned?
Gertrude said she had locked the east entry. There was no key on the dead man or in the door. He must have been admitted from within.
Who had been locked in the clothes chute?
Some one unfamiliar with the house, evidently. Only two people missing from the household, Rosie and Gertrude. Rosie had been at the lodge. Therefore—but was it Gertrude? Might it not have been the mysterious intruder again?