When I came to it was dawn. I was lying on the bed in Louise's
room, with the cherub on the ceiling staring down at me, and
there was a blanket from my own bed thrown over me. I felt weak
and dizzy, but I managed to get up and totter to the door. At
the foot of the circular staircase Mr. Winters was still asleep.
Hardly able to stand, I crept back to my room. The door into
Gertrude's room was no longer locked: she was sleeping like a
tired child. And in my dressing-room Liddy hugged a cold hot-
water bottle, and mumbled in her sleep.
"There's some things you can't hold with hand cuffs," she was
muttering thickly.
CHAPTER XXIX
A SCRAP OF PAPER
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 morning with
me, reading something--I forget what. I was too busy with my
thoughts to listen. I had said nothing to the two detectives.
If Mr. Jamieson had been there, I should have told him
everything, but I could not go to these strange men and tell them
my niece had been missing in the middle of the night; that she
had not gone to bed at all; that while I was searching for her
through the house, I had met a stranger who, when I fainted, had
carried me into a room and left me there, to get better or not,
as it might happen.
The whole situation was terrible: had the issues been less vital,
it would have been absurd.
Pages:
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227