“What sort of a noise was it?” demanded Penfield as she remained silent. “When did you hear it and where?”
“Peoples—they talk under my window,” she stammered. “My bed it is—how you say?” with a graceful gesture, “it is close by. The woman she say: I will do it to-night.’ And the man he reply: ‘Don’t lose your nerve.’ Then, gentlemens, I hear,” her eyes were twice their usual size, “the north door shut and by and by feetsteps go softly, softly by my door. Then—” her voice trailed off.
“Well, what?” asked Penfield, after a second’s wait.
“Nothings, gentlemens; I go to sleep.” There was more than a hint of obstinacy in both tone and appearance, and Penfield showed his displeasure.
“Come, come!” he exclaimed. “You can tell us more than that. If you don’t, you will get into serious trouble with the police.”
“But, indeed, gentlemens, I go to sleep,” she protested, tears again welling to her eyes. “Nothing more do I know until Herman bang upon our door this morning and say the master is dead.”
Penfield eyed her steadily. “Did you recognize the woman’s voice?” he asked.
“Please, gentlemens, it was,” she gazed in fright about the room. “It was—” her eyes had strayed to David Curtis. She saw him facing her, his whole expression one of suspense. Her voice ended in a gurgle.
“Go for some aromatic spirits of ammonia,” directed Penfield, as Doctor Mayo sprang to his assistance. “The girl will be all right in a minute; there, let in the air, the room is stuffy. What think ye, doctor,” as Curtis approached. “A fake or faint?”
Curtis ran his fingers gently over the girl’s forehead and across her closed eyelids, then listened to her rapid breathing.
“A case of excitement and fright combined,” he said, as smelling salts were thrust into his hand by Fernando, who had stuck his head inside the door at the sound of the commotion and, with the quickness which characterized all his movements, secured Anne’s bottle of salts which she had left on the hall mantelpiece some days before and forgotten. Curtis moved the salts back and forth before Gretchen, and in a few minutes her blue eyes opened, only to close the next instant as he bent over her.
“It is all right, Gretchen.” His calm voice held a soothing quality which brought confidence to overwrought nerves. “You have nothing to fear.”