"Ouch!" cried Mrs. Waddington.
She had not intended to express any verbal comment on the incident, for those who creep at night through other people's kitchens must be silent and wary: but the sudden agony was so keen that she could not refrain from comment. And to her horror she found that her cry had been heard. There came through the darkness a curious noise like the drawing of a cork, and then somebody spoke.
"Who are you?" said an unpleasant, guttural voice.
Mrs. Waddington stopped, paralysed. She would not, in the circumstances, have heard with any real pleasure the most musical of speech: but a soft, sympathetic utterance would undoubtedly have afflicted her with a shade less of anguish and alarm. This voice was the voice of one without human pity; a grating, malevolent voice; a voice that set Mrs. Waddington thinking quiveringly in headlines:
'SOCIETY LEADER FOUND SLAIN IN KITCHEN.'
"Who are you?"
'BODY DISMEMBERED BENEATH SINK.'
"Who are you?"
'SEVERED HEAD LEADS TRACKERS TO DEATH-SPOT.'
"Who are you?"