She held out her hands in front of her, with a pleasant inflection on the final word.
“And I can’t think of what took place before. I feel that I ought to know who I am, and what brought me here; but I can’t quite lay my hand on it. The people are there, but I can’t quite make out their faces, or who they are, or what they want with me. They all look at me, and I can hear them clapping. Then it all comes back to the man lying dead upon the floor; that’s where it all seems to begin and end. I wonder if I killed him. I wish I knew. It is so strange that I may have killed him and yet not know. I know that he deserved to be killed, but did I do it?”
Glancing round, her eyes rested on the door in the opposite corner which led into Lawrence’s bedroom. She crossed to it.
“What’s in here?”
She turned the handle and went in. I was at the door within five seconds of her passing through it; Miss Adair, Hume, and the constable still at my heels. We must have presented a spectacle which was not without its comic side as we went scurrying across the carpet. But what I saw as I looked into that bedchamber banished from my mind all thoughts of the incongruous; it must, for the time being, have paralysed the muscles of the body; or I do not think that I should have remained for even so long as I did a silent witness of that piteous scene.
One of the first things I realised was the presence in the room of Inspector Symonds. He, in company with a colleague, was submitting the contents of the apartment to an official examination. As Miss Moore entered the two men turned and stared—as well they might. She, on her part, paid them no attention; they were at her back, in an alcove, formed by the bay of the window, in which stood a bureau, whose drawers they were ransacking. Her eyes saw one thing, and one thing only—something which lay under a sheet upon the bed.
“What’s that?” she asked herself. “What’s under the sheet?”
She went towards the bed doubtfully, as if uncertain as to the direction which her adventure might be taking. We watched her, silent. The officials, I take it, were for the moment too much taken aback by her appearance to know what to make of her. While for me, that was one of the occasions in my life on which I lost my presence of mind. If I had known what to do I could not have done it; my nerves were all in a flutter, like so many loose strings. She went close up to the bed; then stood still, looking down at the something whose shape she saw outlined.
“What is it under the sheet?”
She lifted up a corner, then let it fall. “It’s the man I saw lying dead.” I saw her tremble. A new look came on her face—half curiosity, half awe. “I wonder if I should know him if I saw him now? If it would all come back to me? I wonder if it would?”