“Take care of your grandmother!” retorted the girl. “This is child’s play to me.”
Poirot had rushed through the empty room and was pounding on the door leading into the corridor.
“Locked and bolted on the outside,” he growled. “And it will take time to burst it open.”
The cries for help were getting noticeably fainter. I saw despair in Poirot’s eyes. He and I together put our shoulders to the door.
Cinderella’s voice, calm and dispassionate, came from the window:
“You’ll be too late, I guess I’m the only one who can do anything.”
Before I could move a hand to stop her, she appeared to leap upward into space. I rushed and looked out. To my horror, I saw her hanging by her hands from the roof, propelling herself along by jerks in the direction of the lighted window.
“Good heavens! She’ll be killed,” I cried.
“You forget. She’s a professional acrobat, Hastings. It was the providence of the good God that made her insist on coming with us tonight. I only pray that she may be in time. Ah!”
A cry of absolute terror floated out on to the night as the girl disappeared through the right-hand window; then in Cinderella’s clear tones came the words: