"My man!" she called.
Silence.
"I wish to speak to you."
More silence. Mrs. Waddington applied the supreme test.
"I want to return that ten-dollar bill to you."
Still silence. Mrs. Waddington was convinced. She crossed the threshold and started to feel round the walls for the switch. And, as she did so, something came to her through the throbbing darkness.
It was the smell of soup.
Mrs. Waddington stiffened like a pointing dog. Although when sitting in the vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton with Lord Hunstanton she had apparently been impervious to the fragrant scents which had so deeply affected his lordship, she was human. It was long past the hour at which she usually dined, and in the matter of sustenance she was a woman of regular habits. Already, while standing on the roof, she had been aware of certain pangs, and now she realised beyond all possibility of doubt that she was hungry. She quivered from head to foot. The smell of that soup seemed to call to the deeps of her being like the voice of an old, old love.
Moving forward like one in a trance, she groped along the wall, and found herself in an open doorway that appeared to lead into a passage. Here, away from the window, the darkness was blacker than ever: but, if she could not see, she could smell, and she needed no other guide than her nose. She walked along the passage, sniffing, and, coming to another open door, found the scent so powerful that she almost reeled. It had become a composite odour now, with a strong welsh rarebit motif playing through it. Mrs. Waddington felt for the switch, pressed it down, and saw that she was in a kitchen. And there, simmering on the range, was a saucepan.