Mrs. Citron looked at him in a meaning way. She solemnly poured out three glasses of muddy port and cut three slices of cake.
“We must leave enough for the undertaker and his men,” she said, measuring the bottle with her little alert eye. “Yes, I came at once. It was my duty. She was my relation, too, by marriage. And all the money was my cousin Grigg’s.”
The hearse and the one coach drew in at the curb. They threw an added shadow across the room where those two sat solemnly munching and sipping—the small, prim room with the putty-colored walls and the bits of fancywork, a sampler, mats, a beaded footstool—worked, no doubt, by Mrs. Grigg herself half a century before.
Clara Citron bustled up.
“The undertaker is such a very sympathetic man,” she said, wiping the loose crumbs of cake from her pale lips. “His wife’s great-uncle, or his sister-in-law’s great-uncle—I really forget which—was murdered in a similar way. He said he quite understood my feelings.”
“The undertaker has always got somebody who died in a similar way,” I said, with involuntary flippancy. “It is one of the business trappings; he brings it with the pall.”
Clara Citron gave me a stony glance, and Orion stared at me entreatingly. He seemed afraid of offending her; he was afraid of everything and everyone.
“I don’t know how we are going to get her downstairs,” the business-like little woman said. “It is such an awkward turn on the landing. We could lower her out of the window, but there is such a crowd.”
She peeped through the brown wire blind before she hurried away. Orion poured himself out a second glass of that deplorable port directly the door was shut on her and he dared. Every time there was a scrooping sound overhead he shook from head to foot. It seemed a long time before we heard the cautious, thumping tread of men bearing a heavy load. At the ominous resting of those feet we both knew, although we said nothing, although we did not even look at each other, that they were maneuvering the turn at the landing. We both drew a breath of relief when the steady stumping went on again, came nearer, passed the door, went down the steps. A faint murmur floated up from the crowd. Orion had his third glass of port.
Clara Citron came in, a little flushed and triumphant. She poured out more wine in clean glasses, cut more cake, and beckoned the men in. When they were ready she coaxed on new black kid gloves.