Only; when it’s a local murder, it seems slack to know nothing about it.”

“That’s right,” agreed Mrs. Oates, as she relaxed to gossip. “Well, the first girl was murdered in town. She did a dancing-turn, with no clothes on, at one of the Halls, but she was out of a job. She was in a public, and had one over the eight. They seen her go out of the bar, just before time. When the rest come out, she was lying in the gutter, dead. Her face was as black as that bit of coal.”

Helen shuddered. “The second murder was committed in the town, too, wasn’t it?” she asked. “Yes. She was a housemaid, poor thing. It was her evening out, and when her master came out into the garden, to give the dog its run, he found her all doubled up, on the drive, choked, like the other. And no one heard a whisper, though it was quite close to the drawingroom windows. So she must have been took by surprise.”

“I know,” nodded Helen. “There were shrubs on the lawn, that looked like people. And suddenly, a shrub leaped on her.” Mrs Oates stared at her, and then began to count on her fingers.

“Where was I? Let me see. One, two, three. Yes, the third was in a public-house, and it put everyone in a proper scare, because he’d come out into the country. The young lady in the bar had just popped into the kitchen, to swill a few glasses under the tap, and they found her there, two minutes after, choked with her own tea-cloth. There was people in the bar. But no one heard a sound. He must have crept in through the back-door, and jumped on her form behind.”

Helen listed with a sense of unreality. She told herself that these things had never really happened. And yet they toned in too well with the dam darkness of the valley, where trees crept up to windows, until it was possible to imagine confused faces peering down into the kitchen. Suddenly she felt sated with secondary horrors.

“Don’t tell my any more,” she implored.

But Mrs Oates was wound up to a finish.

“The last,” she said, “was five miles from here, as the crow flies. A pure young girl, about your own age. She was a nursery governess in some big family, but she was home for her holiday and she was going to a dance. She was up in her bedroom, and drawing her beautiful party-frock over head, when he fined the job for her. Twisted the lovely satin frock all round her neck, as it ate right into her throat, and wrapped it all over her face, so that she never saw another mortal thing on earth. Looking at herself in the glass, she was, and that was her last sight, which shows these beauty competitions don’t get you far.”

Helen did her best to resist the surge of her imagination, by picking on the weak spots in the tale.

“If she was looking at herself in the glass, she’d see him too, and be warned.