‘They’ll get the key from her when they’ve done with Morgan,’ Margaret went on. But she was thinking how all this crazy locking of doors made it seem like a bad dream. She glanced round in the dying light and shivered. ‘Where are we?’
‘I don’t know. What does it matter?’ Gladys raised herself up and tried to listen through the door.
Margaret took up the candlestick and moved forward a few paces. She saw nothing but the dimmest shapes of furniture, however, for the little spluttering flame gave a last jump, trembled, and then rapidly dwindled. Her spirits sank with it as the darkness closed round her. She trailed back to the door and, when the last flicker had gone, she let the candlestick fall to the ground. ‘What’s happening?’ She bent forward.
‘Oh, I can’t hear a thing,’ Gladys whispered.
Together they listened at the door, and it seemed to be hours before they heard anything but their own quick breathing and heart-beats. They were lost in a pulsating darkness.
‘We can’t do anything but wait,’ whispered Margaret at last. Somehow she daren’t raise her voice above a whisper.
‘I can hear him moving about now; can you?’ Gladys listened again. ‘Bill and your husband don’t seem to have come out yet. I believe he’s going upstairs.’
‘Yes, he is,’ Margaret told her, and could feel her trembling. There was a long pause, during which they listened again, then Margaret went on: ‘I can’t hear anything now. Perhaps he’s waiting at the top. That’s horrible, isn’t it? Why doesn’t Philip come back? It’s awful waiting here.’
‘It’s worse waiting there,’ cried Gladys, raising her voice now. ‘With that ghastly loony creeping down. Oh, my God!’ She cleared her throat. ‘I expect you know what’s the matter with me, or you must think I’m going mad too.’
‘I feel we’re all going mad to-night,’ Margaret broke in, hastily. ‘Everything’s turned crazy and horrible. That’s the awful thing, isn’t it?—that you can’t trust anything, like being in a nightmare. Haven’t you been feeling that?’