He beat Sawtelle up the stairs and was the first to reach the bedroom door. He stopped. Sawtelle, almost gibbering with anxiety and guilt, ran into him.
It was not at all what Norman expected.
The pink silk coverlet clutched around her, Evelyn Sawtelle had retreated to the side of the bed nearest the wall. Her teeth were chattering, and her face was a dirty white.
Beside the bed stood Tansy. For a moment Norman felt a great, sudden hope. Then he saw her eyes, and the hope shot away with sickening swiftness. She was not wearing the veil. In that heavy make-up, with those rouged cheeks and thickly carmined lips, she looked like some indecently daubed statue, impossibly grotesque against that background of ridiculously feminine pink silk hangings. But a hungry statue.
Sawtelle scrambled past him, shouting, "What's happened? What's happened?" He saw Tansy. "I didn't know you were here. When did you come in?" Then, "You frightened her!"
The statue spoke, and its quiet accents hushed him.
"Oh, no, I didn't frighten her. Did I, Evelyn?"
Evelyn Sawtelle was staring at Tansy in abject, wide-eyed terror, and her jaw was still shaking. But when she spoke, it was to say, "No, Tansy didn't ... frighten me. We were talking together ... and then ... I ... I thought I heard a noise."
"Just a noise, dear?" Sawtelle said, somewhat taken aback.
"Yes ... like footsteps ... very quiet footsteps in the hall." She did not take her eyes off Tansy, who nodded once when she had finished.