The Hole in the Wall
Bertha became conscious of voices, voices making sounds which her tortured brain laboriously tried to interpret into something with meaning. Lying back with her eyes closed and an interminable aching in her head, Bertha wondered, in a detached way, why a series of r sounds such as murderer should mean someone had killed someone else.
And abruptly, as though her cogitation had removed an obstruction somewhere in her mind, consciousness came pouring back in a flood.
Bertha’s eyes popped open, and as quickly snapped shut. Sergeant Sellers, looking extremely grave, was talking with Carlotta and Mrs. Goldring. Evidently he had just arrived on the scene, and Bertha, fully conscious despite the aching in her head, decided to hide behind her injuries, stalling off the evil hour when she would have to make an explanation to the officer.
Carlotta’s voice was rapid with excitement: “... fixing my hair and I saw this picture all skewgee on the wall. It had been pushed way over to one side. Well, Sergeant, you know how anything like that will attract your attention. I raised my eyes to it and then saw this thing sticking through the wall. I thought at first it was a gun, and I could see a gleam of someone’s eye. I screamed for Mother. And almost at the exact moment I screamed, this screw-driver thudded to the floor. I saw it was a screw-driver then, and the picture swung back into position.”
“Mother was in the kitchen feeding Mabel’s cat. She came running in to see what was the matter and she thought I’d gone crazy. Of course the picture had swung back into position just as soon as the screw-driver had been dropped.”
Mrs. Goldring interjected, “No, darling, not crazy, but I thought something terrible had happened. You have no idea how you looked. Your face was as white as a sheet and you were staring at that screw-driver that had fallen to the floor. You looked as though it were a poisonous snake about to bite you.”
“Well, anyway,” Carlotta resumed, “I screamed to Mother to run to the garage quick; that someone was out there. And we both of us ran through the passageway. Mother was first. She was the one who saw this man. He was bending over Mrs. Cool — only, of course, we didn’t know at the time it was Mrs. Cool. He had a club in his hand — something white. It looked like a piece of pipe wrapped in some heavy paper. But at first I thought it was a long knife wrapped up in the paper.”
“And what did he do?” Sergeant Sellers asked. “Exactly what did he do?”
“He looked up, saw us, and came running at us brandishing this weapon.”