For a moment she could not stir, her legs were sinking under her. Then she staggered to the table, felt for matches, and lit the lamp. She stood gasping and panting, not daring to turn her head.
Courage ebbed back. Something must be done. Police. Ambulance. Topper. She started to leave the room. The man groaned, very faintly.
Perhaps she’d better put a pillow under his head. She tiptoed back to her fallen assailant, intending to approach him from behind. The word “malingering” occurred to her. And no doubt he had a pistol of his own.
And then she stopped and screamed twice. The man lying in his blood was Eustace Bylant.
Some time later she was wondering if she had fainted. She was sitting on a chair, shaking from head to foot, her teeth chattering. Hours seemed to pass.
Slowly her blood resumed its even flow, her limbs obeyed her will, and suddenly she laughed.
“So! Caveman stuff! Eustace! And he would have committed hara-kiri before he would have introduced such a scene into one of his novels. And a rotten psychologist after all.”
She felt not the slightest remorse, nor stab of pity. She would have shot him as deliberately if she had guessed who he was.
But something must be done and at once.
She slipped a pillow under his head and went out to the room under the stair where the telephone was concealed. She took down the receiver, but stood in doubt. He must have a doctor—but whom? Her grandmother’s old physician had retired. She literally did not know the name of a doctor in New Jersey. Eustace had one in New York, for he suffered at times from dyspepsia. But here—what on earth should she do? She must consult Topper.