Thoroughly upset, and not knowing what to do, the good woman went back into the house. Mr. Athol had evidently left, for there was no sign of him in the dining-room or elsewhere. She then went upstairs and knocked at Mrs. Dunstan’s door. To her astonishment the gas was still burning in her mistress’s room, as she could see a thin ray of light filtering through the keyhole. At her first knock there came a quick, impatient answer:
“What is it?”
“Miss Violet, ’m,” said the cook, who was too agitated to speak very coherently, “she is gone——”
“The best thing she could do,” came promptly from the other side of the door. “You go to bed, Mrs. Kennett, and don’t worry.”
Whereupon the gas was suddenly turned off inside the room, and, in spite of Mrs. Kennett’s further feeble protests, no other word issued from the room save another impatient:
“Go to bed.”
The cook then did as she was bid; but before going to bed she made the round of the house, turned off all the gas, and finally bolted the front door.
3
Some three hours later the servants were called, as usual, by Miss Cruikshank, who then went down to open the area door to Mrs. Thomas, the charwoman.
At half-past six, when Mary the housemaid came down, candle in hand, she saw the charwoman a flight or two lower down, also apparently in the act of going downstairs. This astonished Mary not a little, as the woman’s work lay entirely in the basement, and she was supposed never to come to the upper floors.