“We might get Sam Bohannon from the club,” he said thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t be a bad scheme. He’s a smart darky, and with his mouth shut and his shirt-front covered, you couldn’t see him a yard off in the dark.”
Halsey conferred with Alex, and the result, in an hour, was Sam. His instructions were simple. There had been numerous attempts to break into the house; it was the intention, not to drive intruders away, but to capture them. If Sam saw anything suspicious outside, he was to tap at the east entry, where Alex and Halsey were to alternate in keeping watch through the night.
It was with a comfortable feeling of security that I went to bed that night. The door between Gertrude’s rooms and mine had been opened, and, with the doors into the hall bolted, we were safe enough. Although Liddy persisted in her belief that doors would prove no obstacles to our disturbers.
As before, Halsey watched the east entry from ten until two. He had an eye to comfort, and he kept vigil in a heavy oak chair, very large and deep. We went up-stairs rather early, and through the open door Gertrude and I kept up a running fire of conversation. Liddy was brushing my hair, and Gertrude was doing her own, with a long free sweep of her strong round arms.
“Did you know Mrs. Armstrong and Louise are in the village?” she called.
“No,” I replied, startled. “How did you hear it?”
“I met the oldest Stewart girl to-day, the doctor’s daughter, and she told me they had not gone back to town after the funeral. They went directly to that little yellow house next to Doctor Walker’s, and are apparently settled there. They took the house furnished for the summer.”
“Why, it’s a bandbox,” I said. “I can’t imagine Fanny Armstrong in such a place.”
“It’s true, nevertheless. Ella Stewart says Mrs. Armstrong has aged terribly, and looks as if she is hardly able to walk.”
I lay and thought over some of these things until midnight. The electric lights went out then, fading slowly until there was only a red-hot loop to be seen in the bulb, and then even that died away and we were embarked on the darkness of another night.