Gerda took a quick step forward and struck Stella across her face. Stella fell back, her mouth open, but silent. “I said shut up,” Gerda said harshly. “Do you understand?”
Making a terrific effort, Denny crawled on to his knees and then levered himself upright. He stood holding on to the back of a chair, making a sobbing noise in his throat. “Help me, Stella,” he gasped. “Don’t let me die, Stella—help me.”
He put his hand on the knife and tried to pull it out, but the sudden wave of pain was too much, and he fell on to his knees.
Stella scrambled off the settee and ran out of the room. She came back a moment later with a towel. “Here,” she said frantically to Gerda, “stop him bleeding.”
Gerda snatched the towel from her savagely and went over to Denny. She took hold of the hilt of the knife and jerked it out of the wound. Denny gave a high-pitched cry like the whinnying of a horse. Blood welled out of him in a scarlet stream. He fell forward on his face and clawed at the stained carpet. He writhed for a moment, then relaxed limply. Blood continued to gush from the wound until eventually it ceased.
The two girls stood watching him. Stella, in horror, unable to move or to take her eyes from him, and Gerda hard, inscrutable and cold.
She said: “He’s dead now. You’d better go into the kitchen.”
Stella ran to her. “You mustn’t. I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to take that money. You killed him for it, didn’t you?”
“It’s no use to him now,” Gerda said. “Go into the other room, or I shall be angry with you.”
Stella hid her face in her hands and stumbled out of the room. The noise of the hurricane rose to a terrific crescendo as she slammed the door behind her.