"And her dog, a runty little French bull, was sleepin' on the rug beside the couch."
"What does that matter?"
"More'n you'd think! He's got a broken leg—provin' some kind of a struggle must'a'——"
"I see. Go on!"
"Well, Mrs. Hunt, the maid says, looked at Miss Blake's card a minute and didn't say anythin' special, but seemed kind of puzzled. Her only words was, 'Yes, I ought to see her.' So the maid goes for Miss Blake and shows her to the door, which she'd left ajar, and taps on it for her, and Mrs. Hunt calls to come in. So Miss Blake goes in and shuts the door after her, and the maid comes back to this room we're in now—it's round the corner of the hall from Mrs. Hunt's room—see? But she don't much more than get here—just to the door—when she hears the dog give a screech and then go on cryin' like as if he'd been hurt. The cook was in here, too, and she claims she heard a kind of jarrin' sound, like somethin' heavy fallin'; but Iffley—that's the maid, they call her Iffley—says all she noticed was the dog. Anyway she listened a second, then she started for Mrs. Hunt's room—and the cook, bein' nervous, locked herself in here and sat with her eyes tight shut and her fingers in her ears. Fact. She says she can't bear nothin' disagreeable. Too bad about her, ain't it!"
"And then?" I protested, crossly.
"Well, Mr. Hunt, when the Iffley woman turned the hall corner—the door of your poor wife's room opens, and Miss Blake walks out. She had the paper-knife in her right hand, and the knife and her hand was all bloody; her left hand was bloody too; and we've found blood on her clothes since. There was a queer, vacant look about her—that's what the maid says. She didn't seem to see anythin'. Naturally, the maid was scared stiff—but she got one look in at the door anyway—that was enough for her. She was too scared even to yell, she says. Paralyzed—she just flopped back against the wall half faintin'.
"And then she noticed somethin' that kind of brought her to again! Mr. Hunt, that young woman, Miss Blake—she'd gone quiet as you please and curled herself down on a rug in the hallway—that bloody knife in her hand—and she was either dead or fast asleep! And then the doorbell rang, and the Iffley woman says she don't know how she got past that prostrate figger on the rug—her very words, Mr. Hunt—that prostrate figger on the rug—but she did, somehow; got to the door. And when she opened it, there was Doctor Askew and the elevator man. And then she passed out. And I must say I don't much blame her, considerin'."
"Where's Miss Blake now?" I sharply demanded.
"She's still fast asleep, Mr. Hunt—to call it that. The doc says it's—somethin' or other—due to shock. Same as a trance."