Mr. Jamieson looked thoughtful.
“It may not amount to anything,” he said slowly. “It is difficult to get any perspective on things around here, because every one down in the village is sure he saw the murderer, either before or since the crime. And half of them will stretch a point or two as to facts, to be obliging. But the man who drives the hack down there tells a story that may possibly prove to be important.”
“I have heard it, I think. Was it the one the parlor maid brought up yesterday, about a ghost wringing its hands on the roof? Or perhaps it’s the one the milk-boy heard: a tramp washing a dirty shirt, presumably bloody, in the creek below the bridge?”
I could see the gleam of Mr. Jamieson’s teeth, as he smiled.
“Neither,” he said. “But Matthew Geist, which is our friend’s name, claims that on Saturday night, at nine-thirty, a veiled lady—”
“I knew it would be a veiled lady,” I broke in.
“A veiled lady,” he persisted, “who was apparently young and beautiful, engaged his hack and asked to be driven to Sunnyside. Near the gate, however, she made him stop, in spite of his remonstrances, saying she preferred to walk to the house. She paid him, and he left her there. Now, Miss Innes, you had no such visitor, I believe?”
“None,” I said decidedly.
“Geist thought it might be a maid, as you had got a supply that day. But he said her getting out near the gate puzzled him. Anyhow, we have now one veiled lady, who, with the ghostly intruder of Friday night, makes two assets that I hardly know what to do with.”
“It is mystifying,” I admitted, “although I can think of one possible explanation. The path from the Greenwood Club to the village enters the road near the lodge gate. A woman who wished to reach the Country Club, unperceived, might choose such a method. There are plenty of women there.”