The Circular Staircase

As I drove rapidly up to the house from Casanova Station in the hack, I saw the detective Burns loitering across the street from the Walker place. So Jamieson was putting the sc...

The doctor from Englewood came very soon, and I went up to see the sick girl with him. Halsey had gone to supervise the fitting of the car with blankets and pillows, and Gertrud...

It was Monday evening when we found the body of poor old Thomas. Monday night had been uneventful; things were quiet at the house and the peculiar circumstances of the old man’s...

“If you have any reason for believing that your midnight guest was Mr. Armstrong, other than his visit here the next night, you ought to tell me, Miss Innes. We can take nothing...

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 invol...

Nothing that had gone before had been as bad as this. The murder and Thomas’ sudden death we had been able to view in a detached sort of way. But with Halsey’s disappearance eve...

The most commonplace incident takes on a new appearance if the attendant circumstances are unusual. There was no reason on earth why Mrs. Watson should not have carried a blanke...

That day was destined to be an eventful one, for when I entered the house and found Eliza ensconced in the upper hall on a chair, with Mary Anne doing her best to stifle her wit...

Liddy’s knees seemed to give away under her. Without a sound she sank down, leaving me staring at the window in petrified amazement. Liddy began to moan under her breath, and in...

The bitterness toward the dead president of the Traders’ Bank seemed to grow with time. Never popular, his memory was execrated by people who had lost nothing, but who were fill...

“Taking a walk,” I said, trying to be composed. I don’t think the answer struck either of us as being ridiculous at the time. “Oh, Halsey, where have you been?”

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. Gertrud...

For the first time in twenty years, I kept my bed that day. Liddy was alarmed to the point of hysteria, and sent for Doctor Stewart just after breakfast. Gertrude spent the morn...

In giving the gist of what happened at the inquest, I have only one excuse—to recall to the reader the events of the night of Arnold Armstrong’s murder. Many things had occurred...

The morning after Halsey’s return was Tuesday. Arnold Armstrong had been found dead at the foot of the circular staircase at three o’clock on Sunday morning. The funeral service...

Of Doctor Walker’s sensational escape that night to South America, of the recovery of over a million dollars in cash and securities in the safe from the chimney room—the papers...

I was panic-stricken. As I ran along the corridor I was confident that the mysterious intruder and probable murderer had been found, and that he lay dead or dying at the foot of...

When the detective left he enjoined absolute secrecy on everybody in the household. The Greenwood Club promised the same thing, and as there are no Sunday afternoon papers, the...

At ten o’clock the Casanova hack brought up three men. They introduced themselves as the coroner of the county and two detectives from the city. The coroner led the way at once...

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...

“What do you mean?” I said frantically. There was a depth of grief and conviction in her tone that was worse than anything she could have said. The shake braced her, anyhow, and...

We stood there, each avoiding the other’s eyes; we spoke low and reverently in the presence of death, and we tacitly avoided any mention of the suspicion that was in every mind....

Liddy discovered the fresh break in the trunk-room wall while we were at luncheon, and ran shrieking down the stairs. She maintained that, as she entered, unseen hands had been...

The next day, Friday, Gertrude broke the news of her stepfather’s death to Louise. She did it as gently as she could, telling her first that he was very ill, and finally that he...

If Halsey had only taken me fully into his confidence, through the whole affair, it would have been much simpler. If he had been altogether frank about Jack Bailey, and if the d...

We had discovered Louise at the lodge Tuesday night. It was Wednesday I had my interview with her. Thursday and Friday were uneventful, save as they marked improvement in our pa...

It was on Wednesday Riggs told us the story of his connection with some incidents that had been previously unexplained. Halsey had been gone since the Friday night before, and w...

I stood looking at the empty bed. The coverings had been thrown back, and Louise’s pink silk dressing-gown was gone from the foot, where it had lain. The night lamp burned dimly...

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...

The four days, from Saturday to the following Tuesday, we lived, or existed, in a state of the most dreadful suspense. We ate only when Liddy brought in a tray, and then very li...

“Mr. Jamieson,” I said, when we found ourselves alone after dinner that night, “the inquest yesterday seemed to me the merest recapitulation of things that were already known. I...

What with the excitement of the discovery, the walk home under the stars in wet shoes and draggled skirts, and getting up-stairs and undressed without rousing Liddy, I was compl...

It was about half-past eight when we left the dining-room, and still engrossed with one subject, the failure of the bank and its attendant evils, Halsey and I went out into the...

At dinner Mr. Jamieson suggested sending a man out in his place for a couple of days, but Halsey was certain there would be nothing more, and felt that he and Alex could manage...