And if her dress was over her head how could she see herself? Besides her arms would protect her throat.”

All the same, she could not help making a mental picture of the scene. Because her own possession were so few, perhaps, she had a keen sense of property, and always exercised a proprietary right over her room, even if someone else paid the rent.

She imagined that the murdered governess occupied a bedroom much like her own at the Summit-brightly-lit and well-furnished. It was cluttered with girlish treasures, symbolic of the cross-roads—childish relics and womanhood’s trophies, of restaurant souvenirs. Hockeysticks jostled with futuristic, long-bodied dolls; photographs of school-groups stood beside the latest boy. Powder, vanishing-cream-and the distorted satin shape on the carpet.

“How did he get in?” Helen asked, desperately anxious to prove that this, horror could not be true.

“Quite easy,” Mrs Oates told her. “He climbed up the front porch, just under her bedroom window.”

“But how could he tell she would be there alone?”

“Ah, but he’s a luny, and they know everything. He’s after girls. Believe me, or believe me not, if there was a girl anywhere about, he’d smell her out.”

Helen glanced apprehensively at the window. She could barely distinguish glistening twigs tossing amidst dim undergrowth.

“Have you locked the, back door?” she asked.

“I locked it hours ago. I always do when Oates is away.”

“Isn’t he rather late getting back?”

“Nothing to make a song about.” Mrs. Oates glanced at the clock, which told her its customary lie. “The rain will turn them steep lanes to glue, and the car’s that old, Oates says he has to get out and carry it up the hills.”

“Will he carry the new nurse too?”

Mrs. Oates, however, resented Helen’s attempt to introduce a lighter note.

“I’m not worrying about her,” she replied, with dignity. “I could trust Oates alone with the very highest in the land.”

“I’m sure you could.” Helen glanced again at the greyness outside the window. “Suppose we put the shutters up and make things look more cheerful?”

“What’s the. good of locking up?” grumbled Mrs. Oates, as she rose reluctantly. “If he’s a mind to come in, he’ll find a way… . Still, it’s got to be done.” But Helen enjoyed the task of barring the windows. It gave her a sense of victory over the invading night. When the short red curtains were drawn over the panes, the kitchen presented the picture of a delightful domestic interior.

“There’s another window in the scullery,” remarked Mrs Oates, opening a door at the far end of the kitchen.

On the other side loomed the blackness of a coal-mine. Then Mrs. Oates found the switch and snapped on the light, revealing a bare clean room, with blue-washed walls, a mangle, copper, and plate-racks.

“What a mercy this basement is wired,” said Helen.

“Most of it’s as dark as a lover’s lane,” Mrs. Oates told her. “There’s only a light in the passage, and switches in the storeroom and pantry. Oates did say as how he’d finish the job properly, and that’s as far as he’ll ever get. He’s only got one wife to work for him, poor man.”

“What a labyrinth,” cried Helen, as she opened the scullery door and gazed down the vista of the passage, dimly lit by’ one small electric-bulb, swinging from the ceiling, halfway down its length. The light revealed a section of stone-slabbed floor and hinted at darker recesses lost in obscurity..

On either side. were closed doors, dingy with shabby brown paint. To Helen’s imagination they looked grim andsepulchral as sealed tombs.

“Don’t you always feel a closed door is mysterious?” she asked.