"How could I? The feel of the skirts told me it was a woman, and I fancied from the way she moved, that she must have hurt herself; but I couldn't see, and though I don't mind owning that I wondered what was up, I didn't want to be caught in what looked like prying, though no idea of doing anything of the kind had entered my head, and my one wish was to get quietly away. Then something did happen which took my breath away."
"What was that? I should imagine you are not the kind of person whose breath is easily taken away."
"I heard someone, who, I had no doubt, was a man from the noise he made, come rushing along, though I couldn't think from where. I heard him go rushing towards the someone who had just passed me, and I heard him speak to her."
"That's a lie, not a word was spoken."
"Then if that's so, I must have dreamt it, and it's one of the funniest dreams I ever had; because I thought I heard him say, 'Here it is, take it. Look out--there's someone coming!' In my dream I heard him say it as plainly as I hear myself speaking now."
"Each word you utter makes me understand you more clearly."
"That's what I want you to do, miss; to understand me. Then off this whoever it was went tearing, and along came somebody else, who turned on one of the lights, and I saw it was a tall, middle-aged gentleman, with a moustache. I got down behind a chair, so that I couldn't hear quite all that you said to each other; then he went off, and you took something which was under a cushion on the seat of the chair by which you were. I could see that it was a leather bag, and I said to myself, 'That's what that other party gave her,' who I'd heard speaking in my dream. You put the bag in the chest by which I am standing, and when you went after that tall gentleman, I wondered what it was; but, as I've said, it wasn't any business of mine, and I didn't like to take the liberty of looking."
"I appreciate the feelings by which you were actuated."
"But when, as I did later, I heard about all that lot of jewellery which had been stolen from the different ladies' rooms, that set me thinking. Miss Forster, would you mind my seeing what is in the bag which you put inside this chest, which you came downstairs to give the man I never saw a chance of passing on to you? Do you mind?"
The woman stood with her hand resting on the chest as if she waited for the girl's permission to raise the lid.