We bustled our charge into a chair before a big fieldstone fireplace which gave the large room its look of welcome, though the even heat came from sets of steampipes under the windows. “Should we give her some soup? Or tea? Or shall I get Barbara or one of the other women?”
His fluttering brushed the outside of my mind. Here in the light I instinctively expected to see some faint color in the girl’s cheeks or hands, but there was none. She looked no more than sixteen, perhaps because she was severely dressed in some school uniform. Her hair, which had merely been a disordered frame for her face in the moonlight, now showed itself as deeply black, hanging in thick, soft curls around her shoulders. Her features, which seemed made to reflect emotions—full, mobile lips, faintly slanted eyes, high nostrils—were instead impassive, devoid of vitality, and this unnatural quiescence was heightened by the dark eyes, now wide open and expressionless. Her mouth moved slowly, as though to form words, but nothing came forth except the faintest of guttural sounds.
“She’s trying to say something.” I leaned forward as though by sympathetic magic to help the muscles which seemed to respond with such difficulty.
“Why,” exclaimed Dorn, “she’s ... dumb!”
She looked agonizedly toward him. I patted her arm helplessly.
“I’ll go get—” he began.
A door opened and Barbara Haggerwells blinked at us. “I thought I heard someone ride up, Ace. Do you suppose....” Then she caught sight of the girl. Her face set in those lines of strange anger I had seen in the bookstore.
“Miss Haggerwells—” “Barbara—” Dorn and I spoke together. Either she did not hear us or we made no impression. She faced me in offended outrage. “Really, Mr Backmaker, I thought I’d explained there were no facilities here for this sort of thing.”
“You misunderstand,” I said, “I happened—” Dorn broke in. “Barbara, she’s been in a holdup. She’s dumb....”
Fury made her ugly. “Is that an additional attraction?”