“Put her in here. Then go down and send Nettie up. We’ll undress her,” she said tersely, with the cool air of business that follows a shock.
They both looked at the bed at the same moment. Pamela stared, started, contracted her forehead. Then she threw a stronger look of terror and dislike at the doll-like, silly head of Gainah, which hung over Jethro’s shoulder.
“The wicked old woman!” she gasped. “I always knew she wasn’t safe; these queer people are much more dangerous than a full-blown lunatic. All the crimes that one reads of in the newspapers are committed by people like she was—peculiar people. She meant to murder me. She thought I was sleeping in this bed. Look at the knife.”
She stopped, with a wild leaping at her throat. Jethro had tumbled his burden down on one side of the humped-up bed. He drew out the knife. Pamela was close behind him. Together they traced its course. She put her shaking, twitching fingers through the close long cuts, which rent everything down to the very bed. All around the cut in the ticking were down and feathers that had puffed out. The down flew about their heads, stirred by the quick, short breaths of horror which gushed from their lungs.
“She meant to kill me. I took the sheets away and slept in the guest-room. It looked rather like a body—you can see the likeness yourself: the doubled-up bolster, the blankets all heaped up under the quilt. She meant to kill me. Show her the knife.”
She took it from Jethro and held it up, held it close to the stony, widely-opened eyes of the figure at the edge of the bed. But the eyes gave no sign, the mouth did not relax.
“She doesn’t understand; it is no good trying to make any impression on her.”
She put the knife on the dressing-table.
“I’m afraid to touch her,” she said. “What an escape!”
“She’s lost her reason.” He looked down sorrowfully.