It must have been then that I remembered the thermos of hot coffee left at night for O’Brien, and using the flash I went back to the kitchen. It was in its usual immaculate order; the range, long enough to serve a hotel, was bright, and Pierre’s brass kettles were shining around the walls. O’Brien’s lunch tray was there, and I poured a cup of coffee from the thermos jug. I was still holding it when I saw that the door to the servants’ hall was open and a light burning there. I walked over and glanced in. To my amazement O’Brien was asleep on the couch.

I went over, prepared to pour hot coffee on him, waken him to his job, and send him out to search for the man who had followed me. But it was not O’Brien. It was a dummy made of blankets and covered with one, its head buried in pillows, and a pair of shoes at the other end. My first reaction was one of pure rage. I hadn’t a doubt that he was out of the house on some business of his own. He would turn up toward morning, cocky as usual, confronting me.

“Well, maybe I did take a little nap, miss. Try it yourself some night. This place gets you after a bit.”

“You weren’t here at all, O’Brien.”

“I just went outside to look around. That’s an old gag, that blanket stuff. Crook looks in, sees me there, and goes away.”

Nevertheless, he might be about somewhere. I took the flash and went over the lower floor, room by room. I did not find him, but there were small sounds that made me jumpy. I tried to think they were the creakings and crackings of the house itself on a cold night, but at last they were too much for me. I shot up the staircase and stood in my room, panting and divided between a desire to stand there and yell my head off, to waken Tony, to call the police, or to rush out of the house, go down the hill, and crawl into bed with Miss Mattie. To do anything but stand still in my room with that horrible noise all around me, and O’Brien only a roll of blankets and a pair of shoes.

I remember getting Jim’s automatic out of my pocket. I remember taking off my coat and sitting down on the edge of my bed, the gun in my hand. I remember feeling like a child who doesn’t know what it is all about but is scared anyhow. And then I really heard sounds. Small and cautious as they were, they were going on, over my head in the trunk room.

It was more than I could bear. I went down the hall as quietly as I could and opened Tony’s sitting-room door. The room was dark. So was his bedroom. I went straight to the bed to rouse him, and at first I thought he was there. But what looked like a human body was merely pillows under the bed clothing. Like O’Brien, I thought stupidly. Like O’Brien.