“The guts?”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t think I could face it.”

“Yes, you could. And you’ll get no peace till you do. I’ve been running away from myself for twenty years, and it doesn’t work. What’s the good of making mistakes if you don’t use them? Have a shot. Start on Wilfrid.”

“Damn Wilfrid!… All right. I’ll try. I’ll knock the sawdust out of Wilfrid, anyhow.”

He took his right hand from the paddle and held it out to her, deprecatingly.

“‘Always laying down the law with exquisite insolence to somebody.’ I’m sorry.”

She accepted the hand and the apology and they paddled on in amity. But it was true, she thought, that she had had to accept a good deal more than that. She was quite surprised by her own lack of resentment.

They parted at the postern.

“Good-night, Harriet. I’ll bring back your manuscript tomorrow. Would some time in the afternoon suit you? I must lunch with young Gerald, I suppose, and play the heavy uncle.”

“Come round about six, then. Good-night-and thank you very much.”

“I am in your debt.”

He waited politely while she shut and locked the heavy grille against him. “And so-o-o” (in saccharine accents), “the co-onvent gates closed behind So-oonia!”

He smote his forehead with a theatrical gesture and an anguished cry and reeled away almost into the arms of the Dean, who was coming up the road at her usual brisk trot.

“Serve him right,” said Harriet, and fled up the path without waiting to see what happened.

As she got into bed she recalled the extempore prayer of a well-meaning but incoherent curate, heard once and never forgotten:

“Lord, teach us to take our hearts and look them in the face, however difficult it may be.”

16

Oh, Miss!”

“We are so sorry to disturb you, madam.”

“Good gracious, Carrie, what is it?”

When you have been lying awake for an hour or so wondering how to reconstruct a Wilfrid without inflicting savage mayhem upon your plot, and have just tumbled into an uneasy slumber haunted by the embalmed bodies of dukes, it is annoying to be jerked into consciousness again by two excited and partly hysterical maid-servants in dressing-gowns.

“Oh, miss, the Dean said to come and tell you. Annie and me have been so frightened. We nearly caught it.”

“Caught what?”

“Whatever it is, miss. In the Science lecture-room, miss. We saw it there. It was awful.”

Harriet sat up, dazed.

“And it’s gone off, miss, rampaging something horrible, and nobody knows what it mayn’t be up to, so we thought we ought to tell somebody.”

“For goodness’ sake, Carrie, do tell me. Sit down, both of you, and begin from the beginning.”

“But, miss, didn’t we ought to see what’s gone with it? Out through the dark-room window, that’s where it went, and it may be murdering people at this very minute. And the room locked and the key inside-there might be a dead body lying there, all blood.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Harriet. But she got out of bed, none the less and began to hunt for her slippers. “If somebody’s playing another practical joke, we must try and stop it. But don’t let’s have any nonsense about blood and bodies. Where did it go to?”

“We don’t know, miss.”

Harriet looked at the stout and agitated Carrie, whose face was puckered and twitching and her eyes bolting with imminent hysteria. She had never thought the present head scout any too dependable, and was inclined to put down her abundant energy to an excess of thyroid.

“Where is the Dean, then?”

“Waiting by the lecture-room door, miss. She said to fetch you-”

“All right.”

Harriet put her torch into her dressing-gown pocket and hustled her visitors out.

“Now tell me quickly what’s the matter, and don’t make a noise.”

“Well, miss, Annie comes to me and says-”

“When was this?”

“About a quarter of an hour ago, miss, or it might be more or less.”

“About that, madam.”

“I was in bed and asleep, never dreaming of nothing, and Annie says, ‘Have you got the keys, Carrie? There’s something funny going on in the lecture-room.’ So I says to Annie-”

“Just a minute. Let Annie tell her part first.”

“Well, madam, you know the Science lecture-room at the back of the New Quad, and how you can see it from our wing. I woke up about half-past one and happened to look out of my window and I saw a light in the lecture room. So I thought, that’s funny, as late as this. And I saw a shadow on the curtain, like somebody moving about.”

“The curtains were drawn, then?”

“Yes, madam; but they’re only buff casement-cloth, you know, so I could see the shadow as plain as plain. So I watched a bit, and the shadow went away but the light stayed on and I thought it was funny. So I went and woke Carrie and said to her to give me the keys so as I could go and look in case it was something that wasn’t quite right. And she saw the light, too. And I said, ‘Oh, Carrie, come with me; I don’t like to go alone.’ So Carrie came down with me.”

“Did you go through the Hall or across the yard?”

“Across the yard, madam. We thought it would be quicker. Through the yard and the iron gate. And we tried to look through the window, but it was tight shut and the curtains pulled close.”

They were out of Tudor Building now; its corridors as they passed through had seemed quiet enough. Nor did there seem to be any disturbance in the Old Quad. The Library Wing was dark, except for a lamp burning in Miss de Vine’s window and the dim illumination of the passage lights.

“When we came to the lecture-room door, it was locked and the key in it, because I stooped down to look through the hole, but I couldn’t see anything. And then I saw that the curtain wasn’t quite drawn across the door-it has glass panels, you know, miss. So I looked through the crack and saw something all in black, madam. And I said, ‘Oh, there it is!’ And Carrie said, ‘Let me see,’ and she gave me a bit of a push and my elbow bumped against the door and that must have frightened it, because the light went out.”

“Yes, miss,” said Carrie, eagerly. “And I said, ‘There now!’ and then there was a most awful crash inside-dreadful, it was, and something bumping, and I calls out, ‘Oh, it’s coming out after us!’”

“And I said to Carrie, ‘Run and fetch the Dean! We’ve got it in here.’ So Carrie went for the Dean and I heard whoever it was moving about a bit, and then I didn’t hear anything more.”

“And the Dean came along and we waited a bit, and I said ‘Ooh! do you think it’s lying in there with its throat cut?’ and the Dean said, ‘There, now! How silly we’ve been. It’ll have gone out through the window.’ And I says, ‘But all them windows are barred,’ I says. And the Dean says, ‘The darkroom window, that’s where it’s gone.’ The dark-room door was locked too, so we run round outside and sure enough, there’s the window wide open. So the Dean says, ‘Fetch Miss Vane.’ So we comes for you, miss.”

By this time they had reached the east angle of the New Quad, where Miss Martin stood waiting.

“Our friend’s vanished, I’m afraid,” said the Dean. “We ought to have been quick enough to think of that window. I’ve been round this quad, but I can’t find anything wrong there. Let’s hope the creature’s gone back to bed.”

Harriet examined the door. It was certainly locked from the inside, and the curtain over the glass panel did not fit quite closely. But everything within was dark and silent.

“What does Sherlock Holmes do now?” inquired the Dean.