All at once she realized that the voice she heard was Miss Cheale’s voice. Leaping out of bed, she caught up her outdoor jacket and put it on; then, after listening intently, she opened her door, leaving the candle alight.
For a moment the darkness baffled her. Then she felt along the wall, and at last found the cord which ran down along the side of the dangerous, ladder-like stairs. Putting one bare foot slowly, cautiously, before the other, down she went, very, very slowly, terrified lest she should make the smallest sound.
At last her feet rested on the landing out of which opened Miss Cheale’s sitting room and bedroom, and, as she stood there, the voice suddenly stopped.
Was it possible that Agatha Cheale had heard the stuffless sounds which she had made while treading with her bare feet down the wooden stairs?
Then, to her mingled fright and relief, she heard the voice begin again, speaking now loudly, now almost in a whisper.
Tip-toeing across the lobby, she crouched down outside the closed bedroom door, and there at last she heard quite clearly the words that seemed tumbling out one after another, as if the lips that uttered them could not get them out quickly enough.
And yet those words, those sentences, were punctuated with strange pauses. It was as if the speaker were taking part in an eager, sometimes embittered, argument with an unseen opponent.
“I am speaking up. I have nothing to conceal.... A tall dark man.... I think I should.... It is a broad corridor.... No, I did not think of it, I thought him a workman.... I did not know I was free to speak sooner.”
The staccato sentences were uttered with extraordinary energy. Then with a complete change of voice came the quiet words:
“I always liked Mrs. Garlett very much.... Yes, she was invariably most kind to me. Of course Mr. Garlett was also kind and considerate, but I saw very little of him.... I was naturally with Mrs. Garlett very much more.... Undoubtedly ... as long, that is, as Mr. and Mrs. Garlett wished me to stay. Three hundred pounds is not an exceptional salary.... No communication with Mr. Garlett.... Once, just after the war.”