“Do you?” said Roberta helplessly.
A tall figure in chauffeur’s uniform appeared in the passage behind Mike.
“Oh, hullo Giggle,” cried Mike.
“Beg pardon, Miss,” said Giggle. “Beg pardon, Master Michael, but I’ve got to go. There’s that coupling — I’ve got it fixed. His lordship’s in a hurry, so if you—”
“I’ll come with you, Giggle,” said Mike warmly.
They disappeared together. Roberta heard Mike’s eager voice die away. “Violet!” yelled the distant voice again. She heard the groan of the lift. Roberta waited.
The tick of the carriage-clock came up again. In a distant part of the flat a door banged. The lift groaned once more. Outside, far beneath the windows and reaching away for miles and miles, surged the ocean of sound which is the voice of London. People were talking, now, in the room next door: A low murmur of voices.
Roberta felt lonely and irresolute and, for the moment, isolated from the calamity that had befallen her friends. She felt that wherever she went she would be hideously in their way. Perhaps if she played trains with Mike it would be a help.
Mike was taking a long time. Roberta took a cigarette from a box on the sideboard and hunted about the room for matches. At last she found some. She lit her cigarette and leant over the window sill. She became aware of a new sound. It came up through her conscious thoughts, gaining definition and edge. It was a thin blade of sound, sharp and insistent. It grew louder. It was inside the building, an intermittent, horridly shrill noise that came closer. A hand closed round Roberta’s heart. Someone was screaming.