He stopped in mid-stride, and turned quickly back to the other communicating door. This one was not locked. It was a double door like the one to Freddie’s room, but the second handle turned smoothly with his fingers. As he started to open it, the door outlined itself with light; he did the only possible thing, and threw it wide open quickly but without any noise, and stepped swiftly through and to one side, with his gun balanced for instant aiming in any direction.
He didn’t see anything to aim at. He didn’t see anyone there except Lissa.
She was something to see, if one had the time. She was sitting upright in bed, and she wore a filmy flesh-colored nightgown with white overtones. At least, that was the first impression. After a while, you realised that it was just a filmy white nightgown and the flesh color was Lissa. She had her mouth open, and she looked exactly as if she was going to scream again. Then she didn’t look like that any more.
“Hullo,” she said, quite calmly. “I thought that’d fetch you.”
“Wouldn’t there have been a more subtle way of doing it?” Simon asked.
“But there was someone here, really. Look.”
Then he saw it — the black wooden hilt of a knife that stood up starkly from the bedding close beside her. The resignation went out of his face again as if it had never been there.
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know — out of one of the doors. If he didn’t go into your room, he must have gone out on to the porch or into Ginny’s room.”
Simon crossed to the other door and stepped out on to the verandah. Lights came on as he did so, and he saw Freddie Pellman swaying in the doorway at the dead end of the L.