"Of course!"
"But if he really did do it, I don't care! Let the fool suffer for it. Did I tell him to? When you come right down to it, even if I had, what the devil? The one that does a thing is more to blame than the one that asks him to!"
The carriage stopped, and Alicia and Candelas got out. They made their way in under a poverty-stricken doorway. Candelas called:
"Janitress! Janitress!"
No answer.
"Follow me," said Alicia. "I know the way."
She started along, daintily holding up her pearl-hued petticoat and shaking the big plume of her hat with a graceful motion. They went through a damp, ugly yard, then another, and began to climb a high stairway. The silken frou-frou of their skirts and the tinkling of their bangled bracelets broke the stillness. They reached the fourth story, and stopped in front of a door that stood ajar. Alicia tapped with her knuckles. No one answered. She knocked again. A voice, the voice of Enrique, feebly answered from within:
"Come!"
The girls found themselves in a dark room that stank of blood. Alicia could not repress a coarse exclamation of disgust.
"How sickening! Phew!" she cried. "What's this smell?"