Mary Roberts Rinehart Fullscreen Screw staircase (1907)

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He looked as surprised as a medical man ever does.

"I do not know the family," he said, preparing to get into his top buggy.

"Young Walker, down in Casanova, has been attending them.

I understand he is going to marry this young lady."

"You have been misinformed," I said stiffly.

"Miss Armstrong is going to marry my nephew."

The doctor smiled as he picked up the reins.

"Young ladies are changeable these days," he said.

"We thought the wedding was to occur soon.

Well, I will stop in this afternoon to see how my patient is getting along."

He drove away then, and I stood looking after him.

He was a doctor of the old school, of the class of family practitioner that is fast dying out; a loyal and honorable gentleman who was at once physician and confidential adviser to his patients.

When I was a girl we called in the doctor alike when we had measles, or when mother's sister died in the far West.

He cut out redundant tonsils and brought the babies with the same air of inspiring self-confidence.

Nowadays it requires a different specialist for each of these occurrences.

When the babies cried, old Doctor Wainwright gave them peppermint and dropped warm sweet oil in their ears with sublime faith that if it was not colic it was earache.

When, at the end of a year, father met him driving in his high side-bar buggy with the white mare ambling along, and asked for a bill, the doctor used to go home, estimate what his services were worth for that period, divide it in half—I don't think he kept any books—and send father a statement, in a cramped hand, on a sheet of ruled white paper.

He was an honored guest at all the weddings, christenings, and funerals—yes, funerals—for every one knew he had done his best, and there was no gainsaying the ways of Providence.

Ah, well, Doctor Wainwright is gone, and I am an elderly woman with an increasing tendency to live in the past.

The contrast between my old doctor at home and the Casanova doctor, Frank Walker, always rouses me to wrath and digression.

Some time about noon of that day, Wednesday, Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh telephoned me.

I have the barest acquaintance with her—she managed to be put on the governing board of the Old Ladies' Home and ruins their digestions by sending them ice-cream and cake on every holiday.

Beyond that, and her reputation at bridge, which is insufferably bad—she is the worst player at the bridge club—I know little of her.

It was she who had taken charge of Arnold Armstrong's funeral, however, and I went at once to the telephone.

"Yes," I said, "this is Miss Innes."

"Miss Innes," she said volubly,

"I have just received a very strange telegram from my cousin, Mrs. Armstrong.

Her husband died yesterday, in California and—wait, I will read you the message."

I knew what was coming, and I made up my mind at once.

If Louise Armstrong had a good and sufficient reason for leaving her people and coming home, a reason, moreover, that kept her from going at once to Mrs. Ogden Fitzhugh, and that brought her to the lodge at Sunnyside instead, it was not my intention to betray her.

Louise herself must notify her people.

I do not justify myself now, but remember, I was in a peculiar position toward the Armstrong family.

I was connected most unpleasantly with a cold-blooded crime, and my niece and nephew were practically beggared, either directly or indirectly, through the head of the family.

Mrs. Fitzhugh had found the message.

"'Paul died yesterday. Heart disease,'" she read. "'Wire at once if Louise is with you.'

You see, Miss Innes, Louise must have started east, and Fanny is alarmed about her."

"Yes," I said.

"Louise is not here," Mrs. Fitzhugh went on, "and none of her friends—the few who are still in town—has seen her.

I called you because Sunnyside was not rented when she went away, and Louise might have, gone there."

"I am sorry, Mrs. Fitzhugh, but I can not help you," I said, and was immediately filled with compunction.

Suppose Louise grew worse?

Who was I to play Providence in this case?

The anxious mother certainly had a right to know that her daughter was in good hands.

So I broke in on Mrs. Fitzhugh's voluble excuses for disturbing me.

"Mrs. Fitzhugh," I said. "I was going to let you think I knew nothing about Louise Armstrong, but I have changed my mind.

Louise is here, with me."

There was a clatter of ejaculations at the other end of the wire.

"She is ill, and not able to be moved.

Moreover, she is unable to see any one.

I wish you would wire her mother that she is with me, and tell her not to worry.