“I started to scream,” she said, “but it was too late.”
“What started you to scream? Seeing him, or hearing him?”
“It was both. I wasn’t in my chair, I was in the customer’s chair, with my back to the door — I was just sitting trying to think — and there was a little noise behind me, like a stealthy step, and I looked up and saw him reflected in the glass, right behind me with his arm raised, and I started to scream, but before I could get it out he struck—”
“Wait a minute.” I got up and moved my chair to the outer side of the little table and sat in it. “These details are important. You were like this?”
“That’s it. I was sitting thinking.”
I felt that the opinion I had formed of her previously had not done her justice. The crinkly glass of the partion wall could reflect no object whatever, no matter how the light was. Her contempt for mental processes was absolutely spectacular. I moved my chair back beside her. From that angle, as she lay there flat on her back, not only was her face lovely to see, but the rest of her was good for the eyes too.
I asked, “But you saw his reflection before he struck?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“Of course I did. That’s why I wouldn’t speak to them. That’s why I had to see you. It was that big one with the big ears and gold tooth, the one they call Stebbins, or they call him Sergeant.”