Neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved.
At last Maida withdrew her hand.
“Set the lamp down,” I heard someone saying—it must have been I. “Set the lamp down before you drop it.”
We did not hear O’Leary enter the south door. All at once he was there with us, staring at the thing there on the floor, holding his electric torch to illumine it.
“When did it happen? How? Come into the hall. Tell me. Was I too late?”
Somehow we were out in the corridor; the lamp was left on the table in Room 18. The light from its small flame trembled and cast eery, creeping shadows.
“Quick,” said O’Leary. “Take that lamp to the basement, Miss Day. The light switch has been pulled out. You know where the switch-box is——”
I saw Maida flinch but she took the lamp, averting her eyes from the floor.
“Hurry! No, Miss Keate, stay here, please, at the door. If anyone tries to get in, stop him! Scream! I’ll not be far away.”
In a flash he was gone, out the south door. I was still standing as if petrified, there in front of the south door, when the green light over the chart desk at the opposite end of the corridor flashed up and the little red signal lights gleamed suddenly all up and down the hall. I breathed a sigh of relief; Maida was all right, then. And in another moment or two her white uniform came into view at the chart desk.