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 drawing-room 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 from 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 damp 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 finished 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. 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. Hockey sticks 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, half-way 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 and sepulchral as sealed tombs.
"Don't you always feel a closed door is mysterious?" she asked. "You wonder what lies on the other side."
"I'll make a guess," said Mrs. Oates. "A side of bacon and a string of Spanish onions, and if you open the store room door, you'll find I'm not far out. Come along. That's all here."
"No," Helen declared. "After your nice little bedtime tales, I shan't sleep until I've opened every door and satisfied myself that no one's hiding inside."
"And what would a shrimp like you do if you found the murderer?"
"Go for him, before I'd time to think. When you feel angry, you can't feel frightened."
In spite of Mrs. Oates' laughter, Helen insisted on fetch ing a candle from the scullery and exploring the basement. Mrs. Oates lagged behind her, as she made an exhaustive search of the pantry, store-room, larder, boot-closet, and the other offices.
At the end of the passage, she turned into a darker alley, where the coal-cellars and wood-house were located. She flashed her light over each recess, stooping behind dusty sacks and creeping into corners.
"What d' you expect to find?" asked Mrs. Oates. "A nice young man?"
Her grin faded, however, as Helen paused before a locked door.
"There's one place as you, nor no one else, will ever get into," she said grimly. "If the luny gets inside there, I'll say good luck to him."
"Why?"
