“I’m sorry,” she said. “Nobody is to go in until the police get here. I’ll call them now.”

But she did not call them at once. Eileen, roused from her drugged sleep, had opened her door. She stood there swaying, one hand against the frame.

“What is it?” she said dazedly. “Has something happened?”

It was Carlton who answered, looking at her without feeling, as if he could no longer feel anything, pity or love or even anger.

“Mother is dead,” he said. “She has been murdered.”

Eileen stood very still, as if her reactions were dulled by the drug she had had. She did not look at Carlton. It was as though she saw none of them. Then her hold on the door relaxed and she slid in a dead faint to the floor.

Chapter 12

Hilda left her there with Jan and Ida bending over her. She felt very tired. For the first time in her sturdy self-reliant life she felt inadequate and useless. She had failed. They had trusted her and she had failed. Jan’s shocked face, Carlton’s dazed one, Susie’s tears, even Eileen’s fainting showed how terribly she had failed.

And it was too late to do anything. What use to call the doctor? Any doctor. Or even the police. The best they could do would be to exact justice. They could not bring back to life a little old lady who, whatever her faults, should not be lying upstairs with a kitchen knife in her heart.

She sat down wearily at the library desk and picked up the telephone. Even here things were wrong. It was some time before she got young Brooke’s office. Then the girl she had seen there answered it indignantly.

“Give a person time to get some clothes on,” she snapped. “What is it?”

“I want the doctor.”

“You can’t have him. He’s out.”

Eventually she learned that a woman had been knocked down at the corner by a bus, and Dr. Brooke had gone with her to a hospital. The girl did not know what hospital.

“Tell him when he comes back,” Hilda said sharply, “that old Mrs. Fairbanks has been killed, and to come over at once.”

“Jesus,” said the girl. “There goes the rent.”

Hilda hung up, feeling sick.

After that she called Inspector Fuller at his house. Her hands had stopped shaking by that time, but there was still a quaver in her voice. To her relief he answered at once.

“Yes?”

“This is Hilda Adams, Inspector.”

“Hello, Pink. What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’ve found some goldfish!”

Hilda swallowed.

“Mrs. Fairbanks is dead,” she said. “She’s been stabbed with a knife. It couldn’t have happened, but it did.”

His voice changed. There was no reproach in it, but it was cold and businesslike.

“Pull yourself together, Hilda. Lock the room, and hold everything until I get there. Keep the family out.”

“I’ve done that. I—”

But he had already hung up.

She went slowly up the stairs. Ida and Maggie had got Eileen into bed and were standing over her, the door to the room open. In the hall the group remained unchanged, save that Carlton was sitting down, his head in his hands.