Mrs Plummer closed the door behind her carefully--with an odd carefulness. Coming a few steps into the room she stopped. Looking about her with what the girl felt was almost an agony of eagerness, it seemed strange that she should not see her; her eyes travelled over her more than once. Then she drew a long breath like a sigh. Raising both hands to her forehead she brushed back the thin wisps of her faded hair. It was with a feeling which was half-shame, half-awe that the girl heard her break into speech. It was as though she were intruding herself into the other's very soul, and as if the woman was speaking with a voice out of the grave.
Indeed, there was an eerie quality about the actual utterance--a lifelessness, a monotony, an absence of light and shade. She spoke as she might fancy an automaton would speak--all on the same note. The words came fluently enough, the sentences seemed disconnected.
"I couldn't find it. I can't think where I put it. It's so strange. I just dropped it like that." Mrs Plummer made a sudden forward movement with her extended right hand, then went through the motion of dropping something from it on to the floor. With sensations which in their instant, increasing horror altogether transcended anything which had gone before, the girl began to understand. "I can't quite remember. I don't think I picked it up again. I feel sure I didn't bring it home. I should have found it if I had. I have looked everywhere--everywhere." The sightless eyes looked here and there, anxiously, restlessly, searchingly, so that the girl began to read the riddle of the disordered room. "I must find it. I shall never rest until I do--never! I must know where it is! The knife! the knife!"
As the unconscious woman repeated for the second time the last two words, a sudden inspiration flashed through the listener's brain; it possessed her with such violence that, for some seconds, it set her trembling from head to foot. When the first shock its advent had occasioned had passed away, the tremblement was followed by a calm which was perhaps its natural sequence.
Without waiting to hear or see more she passed out of the room with rapid, even steps along the corridor to her own chamber. There she was greeted by Evans.
"You've been a long time, miss. I suppose Mrs Plummer couldn't find the book you wanted." Then she was evidently struck by the peculiarity of the girl's manner. "What has happened? I hope there's nothing else that's wrong. Miss Arnott, what are you doing there?"
The girl was unlocking the wardrobe drawer in which she had that afternoon replaced Hugh Morice's knife. She took the weapon out.
"Evans, come with me! I'll show you who killed that man in Cooper's Spinney! Be quick!"
She took the lady's-maid by the wrist and half-led, half-dragged her from the room. Evans looked at her with frightened face, plainly in doubt as to whether her young mistress had not all at once gone mad. But she offered no resistance. On the landing outside the door they encountered Mr Stacey and Mr Gilbert, who were apparently just coming up to bed. Miss Arnott hailed them.
"Mr Stacey! Mr Gilbert! you wish to know who it was who murdered Robert Champion? Come with me quickly. You shall see!"