She was left alone, standing there with Mr. Goodrick, when she suddenly became aware that the staircase leading to the upper part of the house had become crowded with noiseless figures, looking down upon what was toward with motionless, eager faces.
"What shall we do?" Mary said. "What does it all mean?"
"I am sure I don't know," Goodrick answered, "but if you are not afraid, don't you think we had better follow our friends? I suppose the inspector is after some thief or criminal whom he has just recognised."
"I am not afraid," Mary said.
"Come along, then," he answered, and together they went to the end of the hall and stumbled down some greasy steps.
A light was at the bottom, red light through an open door, and they turned into a sort of kitchen.
There was nobody there, but one man who crouched in a corner and a fat, elderly Jewish woman, whose mouth dropped in fear, and whose eyes were set and fixed in terror, like the eyes of a doll.
Through an open door in a corner of the kitchen beyond there came strange sounds—oaths, curses—sounds which seemed even farther away than the door suggested that they were.
The sounds seemed to rise up from the very bowels of the earth, from some deeper inferno even than this.
Then Mary, for the first time, began to be in real terror. She clung to the imperturbable little editor.