Mrs. Guittierez served him, and Wallace read the Sunday papers, which were always delivered to the door, as he ate. It was the maid’s and chauffeur’s Sunday off and the house was unusually quiet. In the kitchen the cook was getting things ready for Roger Priam’s breakfast.
Shortly before ten o’clock Alfred Wallace painstakingly restored the Sunday papers to their original state, pushed back his chair, and went out into the hall carrying the papers. Priam liked to have the newspapers within arm’s reach when he awakened Sunday mornings, and he flew into a rage if they were crumpled or disarranged.
Seeing a line of light beneath Priam’s door, Wallace quickened his step.
He went in without knocking.
The first he knew anything out of the ordinary had occurred, said Mr. Collier, he heard Wallace’s cry from Roger Priam’s room: “Mr. Collier! Mr. Collier! Come here!” The old man jumped up from his stamp albums and ran across the hall. Wallace was rattling the telephone, trying to get the operator. Just as he was shouting to Collier, “See about Mr. Priam! See if he’s all right!” the operator responded, and Wallace ― who seemed in a panic ― babbled something about the police and Lieutenant Keats. Collier picked his way across the room to his son-in-law’s wheelchair, which was still made up as a bed. Priam, in his night clothes, was up on one elbow, glaring about with a sort of vitreous horror. His mouth was open and his beard was in motion, but no sound passed them. As far as the old man could see, there was nothing wrong with Priam but stupefying fright. Collier eased the paralyzed man backward until he was supine, trying to soothe him; but Priam lay rigid, as if in a coma, his eyes tightly shut to keep out what he had seen, and the old man could get no response from him.
At this moment, Delia Priam returned from church.
Wallace turned from the phone and Collier from Priam at a choked sound from the doorway. Delia was staring into the room with eyes sick with disbelief. She was paler than her husband and she seemed about to faint.
“All this... all these...”
She began to titter.
Wallace said roughly, “Get her out of here.”