“You saw her last alive,” said the manager, “and you took up the party to her room last night.”
The lift man was speechless. The drops stood on his forehead. He looked the image of guilt.
And as we stood staring at him Aunt Pussy ambled in in her dressing-gown, with her comb in her hand, having probably left something in the room she had only yesterday vacated.
Her eyes fell first on the dead body, and then on the lift man.
I expected her to scream or faint, but she did neither. She seemed frozen. Then she raised a steady comb and pointed it at the lift man.
“He is her murderer,” she said solemnly. “He meant to murder me. He told me so a year ago. He has followed me here to do it. But he did not know I had changed my rooms, and he has killed her instead.”
I don’t know what happened after that, for I was entirely taken up with Aunt Pussy. I put my hand over her mouth, and hustled her back to her rooms.
“He will be hanged now,” she said over and over again throughout that awful day. “He is certain to be hanged, and when he is really dead I shall feel safe. Then I shall take a house, and you shall have a motor, and anything you like, Janet. He’s in prison now, isn’t he?”
“Yes, poor creature. He is under arrest. A policeman has taken him away.”