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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Pearson's, March 1926, with "An Unlocked Window"
"HAVE you locked up, Nurse Cherry?"
"Yes, Nurse Silver."
"Every door? Every window?"
"Yes, yes."
Yet even as she shot home the last bolt of the front door, at the back of Nurse Cherry's mind was a vague misgiving.
She had forgotten—something.
She was young and pretty, but her expression was anxious. While she had most of the qualities to ensure professional success, she was always on guard against a serious handicap.
She had a bad memory.
Hitherto, it had betrayed her only in burnt Benger and an occasional overflow in the bathroom. But yesterday's lapse was little short of a calamity.
Late that afternoon she had discovered the oxygen-cylinder, which she had been last to use, empty—its cap carelessly unscrewed.
The disaster called for immediate remedy, for the patient, Professor Glendower Baker, was suffering from the effects of gas-poisoning. Although dark was falling, the man, Iles, had to harness the pony for the long drive over the mountains, in order to get a fresh supply.
Nurse Cherry had sped his parting with a feeling of loss. Iles was a cheery soul and a tower of strength.
It was dirty weather with a spitting rain blanketing the elephant-grey mounds of the surrounding hills. The valley road wound like a muddy coil between soaked bracken and dwarf oaks.
Iles shook his head as he regarded the savage isolation of the landscape.
"I don't half like leaving you—a pack of women—with him about. Put up the shutters on every door and window, Nurse, and don't let no one come in till I get back."
He drove off—his lamps glow-worms in the gloom.
Darkness and rain. And the sodden undergrowth seemed to quiver and blur, so that stunted trees took on the shapes of crouching men advancing towards the house.
NURSE CHERRY hurried through her round of fastening the windows. As she carried her candle from room to room of the upper floors, she had the uneasy feeling that she was visible to any watcher.
Her mind kept wandering back to the bad business of the forgotten cylinder. It had plunged her in depths of self-distrust and shame. She was overtired, having nursed the patient single-handed, until the arrival, three days ago, of the second nurse. But that fact did not absolve her from blame.
"I'm not fit to be a nurse," she told herself in bitter self-reproach.
She was still in a dream when she locked the front door. Nurse Silver's questions brought her back to earth with a furtive sense of guilt.
Nurse Silver's appearance inspired confidence, for she was of solid build, with strong features and a black shingle. Yet, for all her stout looks, her nature seemed that of Job.
"Has he gone?" she asked in her harsh voice.
"Iles? Yes."
Nurse Cherry repeated his caution.
"He'll get back as soon as he can," she added, "but it probably won't be until dawn."
"Then," said Nurse Silver gloomily, "we are alone."
Nurse Cherry laughed.
"Alone? Three hefty women, all of us able to give a good account of ourselves."
"I'm not afraid." Nurse Silver gave her rather a peculiar look. "I'm safe enough."
"Why?"
"Because of you. He won't touch me with you here."
Nurse Cherry tried to belittle her own attractive appearance with a laugh.
"For that matter," she said, "we are all safe."
"Do you think so? A lonely house. No man. And two of us."
Nurse Cherry glanced at her starched nurse's apron. Nurse Silver's words made her feel like special bait—a goat tethered in a jungle, to attract a tiger.
"Don't talk nonsense," she said sharply.
The countryside, of late, had been chilled by a series of murders. In each case, the victim had been a trained nurse. The police were searching for a medical student—Sylvester Leek. It was supposed that his mind had become unhinged, consequent on being jilted by a pretty probationer. He had disappeared from the hospital after a violent breakdown during an operation.
Next morning, a night-nurse had been discovered in the laundry—strangled. Four days later, a second nurse had been horribly done to death in the garden of a villa on the outskirts of the small agricultural town. After the lapse of a fortnight, one of the nurses in attendance on Sir Thomas Jones had been discovered in her bedroom—throttled.
The last murder had taken place in a large mansion in the very heart of the country. Every isolated cottage and farm became infected with panic. Women barred their doors and no girl lingered late in the lane, without her lover.
Nurse Cherry wished she could forget the details she had read in the newspapers. The ingenuity with which the poor victims had been lured to their doom and the ferocity of the attacks all proved a diseased brain driven by malignant motive.
It was a disquieting thought that she and Nurse Silver were localized. Professor Baker had succumbed to gas-poisoning while engaged in work of national importance and his illness had been reported in the Press.
"In any case," she argued, "how could—he—know that we're left tonight?"
Nurse Silver shook her head.
"They always know."
"Rubbish! And he's probably committed suicide by now. There hasn't been a murder for over a month."
"Exactly. There's bound to be another, soon."
Nurse Cherry thought of the undergrowth creeping nearer to the house. Her nerve snapped.
"Are you trying to make me afraid?"
"Yes," said Nurse Silver, "I am. I don't trust you. You forget."
Nurse Cherry coloured angrily.
"You might let me forget that wretched cylinder."
"But you might forget again."
"Not likely."
As she uttered the words—like oil spreading over water—her mind was smeared with doubt.
Something forgotten.
SHE shivered as she looked up the well of the circular staircase, which was dimly lit by an oil-lamp suspended to a cross-bar. Shadows rode the walls and wiped out the ceiling like a flock of sooty bats.
An eerie place. Hiding-holes on every landing.
The house was tall and narrow, with two or three rooms on every floor. It was rather like a tower or a pepper-pot. The semi-basement was occupied by the kitchen and domestic offices. On the ground-floor were a sitting-room, the dining-room and the Professor's study. The first floor was devoted to the patient. On the second floor were the bedrooms of the nurses and of the Iles couple. The upper floors were given up to the Professor's laboratorial work.
Nurse Cherry remembered the stout shutters and the secure hasps. There had been satisfaction in turning the house into a fortress. But now, instead of a sense of security, she had a feeling of being caged.
She moved to the staircase.
"While we're bickering," she said, "we're neglecting the patient."
Nurse Silver called her back.
"I'm on duty now."
Professional etiquette forbade any protest. But Nurse Cherry looked after her colleague with sharp envy.
She thought of the Professor's fine brow, his wasted clear-cut features and visionary slate-grey eyes, with yearning. For after three years of nursing children, with an occasional mother or aunt, romance had entered her life.
From the first, she had been interested in her patient. She had scarcely eaten or slept until the crisis had passed. She noticed too, how his eyes followed her around the room and how he could hardly bear her out of his sight.
Yesterday he had held her hand in his thin fingers.
"Marry me, Stella," he whispered.
"Not unless you get well," she answered foolishly.
Since then, he had called her "Stella." Her name was music in her ears until her rapture was dashed by the fatal episode of the cylinder. She had to face the knowledge that, in case of another relapse, Glendower's life hung upon a thread.
She was too wise to think further, so she began to speculate on Nurse Silver's character. Hitherto, they had met only at meals, when she had been taciturn and moody.
To-night she had revealed a personal animus against herself, and Nurse Cherry believed she guessed its cause.
The situation was a hot-bed for jealousy. Two women were thrown into close contact with a patient and a doctor, both of whom were bachelors. Although Nurse Silver was the ill-favoured one, it was plain that she possessed her share of personal vanity. Nurse Cherry noticed, from her painful walk, that she wore shoes which were too small. More than that, she had caught her in the act of scrutinizing her face in the mirror.
These rather pitiful glimpses into the dark heart of the warped woman made Nurse Cherry uneasy.
The house was very still; she missed Nature's sounds of rain or wind against the window-pane and the cheerful voices of the Iles couple. The silence might be a background for sounds she did not wish to hear.
She spoke aloud, for the sake of hearing her own voice.
"Cheery if Silver plays up to-night. Well, well! I'll hurry up Mrs. Iles with the supper."
Her spirits rose as she opened the door leading to the basement. The warm spicy odour of the kitchen floated up the short staircase and she could see a bar of yellow light from the half-opened door.
When she entered, she saw no sign of supper. Mrs. Iles—a strapping blonde with strawberry cheeks—sat at the kitchen-table, her head buried in her huge arms.
As Nurse Cherry shook her gently, she raised her head.
"Eh?" she said stupidly.
"Gracious, Mrs. Iles. Are you ill?"
"Eh? Feel as if I'd one over the eight."
"What on earth d'you mean?"
"What you call 'tight.' Love-a-duck, my head's that swimmy—"
Nurse Cherry looked suspiciously at an empty glass upon the dresser, as Mrs. Iles's head dropped like a bleached sunflower.
Nurse Silver heard her hurrying footsteps on the stairs. She met her upon the landing.
"Anything wrong?"
"Mrs. Iles. I think she's drunk. Do come and see."
When Nurse Silver reached the kitchen, she hoisted Mrs. Iles under the armpits and set her on unsteady feet.
"Obvious," she said. "Help get her upstairs."
It was no easy task to drag twelve stone of protesting Mrs. Iles up three flights of stairs.
"She feels like a centipede, with every pair of feet going in a different direction," Nurse Cherry panted, as they reached the door of the Ileses' bedroom. "I can manage her now, thank you."
She wished Nurse Silver would go back to the patient, instead of looking at her with that fixed expression.
"What are you staring at?" she asked sharply.
"Has nothing struck you as strange?"
"What?"
In the dim light, Nurse Silver's eyes looked like empty black pits.
"To-day," she said, "there were four of us. First, Iles goes. Now, Mrs. Iles. That leaves only two. If anything happens to you or me, there'll only be one."
AS Nurse Cherry put Mrs. Iles to bed, she reflected that Nurse Silver was decidedly not a cheerful companion. She made a natural sequence of events appear in the light of a sinister conspiracy.
Nurse Cherry reminded herself sharply that Iles's absence was due to her own carelessness, while his wife was addicted to her glass.
Still, some unpleasant suggestion remained, like the sediment from a splash of muddy water. She found herself thinking with horror of some calamity befalling Nurse Silver. If she were left by herself she felt she would lose her senses with fright.
It was an unpleasant picture. The empty house—a dark shell for lurking shadows. No one on whom to depend. Her patient—a beloved burden and responsibility.
It was better not to think of that. But she kept on thinking. The outside darkness seemed to be pressing against the walls, bending them in. As her fears multiplied, the medical student changed from a human being with a distraught brain, to a Force, cunning and insatiable—a ravening blood-monster.
Nurse Silver's words recurred to her.
"They always know." Even so. Doors might be locked, but they would find a way inside.
Her nerves tingled at the sound of the telephone-bell, ringing far below in the hall.
She kept looking over her shoulder as she ran downstairs. She took off the receiver in positive panic, lest she should be greeted with a maniac scream of laughter.
It was a great relief to hear the homely Welsh accent of Dr. Jones.
He had serious news for her. As she listened, her heart began to thump violently.
"Thank you, doctor, for letting me know," she said. "Please ring up directly you hear more."
"Hear more of what?"
Nurse Cherry started at Nurse Silver's harsh voice. She had come downstairs noiselessly in her soft nursing-slippers.
"It's only the doctor," she said, trying to speak lightly. "He's thinking of changing the medicine."
"Then why are you so white? You are shaking."
Nurse Cherry decided that the truth would serve her best.
"To be honest," she said, "I've just had bad news. Something ghastly. I didn't want you to know, for there's no sense in two of us being frightened. But now I come to think of it, you ought to feel reassured."
She forced a smile.
"You said there'd have to be another murder soon. Well—there has been one."
"Where? Who? Quick."
Nurse Cherry understood what is meant by the infection of fear as Nurse Silver gripped her arm.
In spite of her effort at self-mastery, there was a quiver in her own voice.
"It's a—a hospital nurse. Strangled. They've just found the body in a quarry and they sent for Dr. Jones to make the examination. The police are trying to establish her identity."
Nurse Silver's eyes were wide and staring.
"Another hospital nurse? That makes four."
She turned on the younger woman in sudden suspicion.
"Why did he ring you up?"
Nurse Cherry did not want that question.
"To tell us to be specially on guard," she replied.
"You mean—he's near?"
"Of course not. The doctor said the woman had been dead three or four days. By now, he'll be far away."
"Or he may be even nearer than you think."
NURSE CHERRY glanced involuntarily at the barred front door. Her head felt as if it were bursting. It was impossible to think connectedly. But—somewhere—beating its wings like a caged bird, was the incessant reminder.
Something forgotten.
The sight of the elder woman's twitching lips reminded her that she had to be calm for two.
"Go back to the patient," she said, "while I get the supper. We'll both feel better after something to eat."
In spite of her new-born courage, it needed an effort of will to descend into the basement. So many doors, leading to scullery, larder and coal-cellar, all smelling of mice. So many hiding-places.
THE kitchen proved a cheerful antidote to depression. The caked fire in the open range threw a red glow upon the Welsh dresser and the canisters labelled 'Sugar' and 'Tea.' A sandy cat slept upon the rag mat. Everything looked safe and homely.
Quickly collecting bread, cheese, a round of beef, a cold white shape, and stewed prunes, she piled them on a tray. She added stout for Nurse Silver and made cocoa for herself. As she watched the milk froth up through the dark mixture and inhaled the steaming odour, she felt that her fears were baseless and absurd.
She sang as she carried her tray upstairs. She was going to marry Glendower.
The nurses used the bedroom which connected with the sick chamber for their meals, in order to be near the patient. As the night-nurse entered, Nurse Cherry strained her ears for the sound of Glendower's voice. She longed for one glimpse of him. Even a smile would help.
"How's the patient?" she asked.
"All right."
"Could I have a peep?"
"No. You're off duty."
As the women sat down, Nurse Cherry was amused to notice that Nurse Silver kicked off her tight shoes.
"You seem very interested in the patient, Nurse Cherry," she remarked sourly.
"I have a right to feel rather interested." Nurse Cherry smiled as she cut bread. "The doctor gives me the credit for his being alive."
"Ah! But the doctor thinks the world of you."
Nurse Cherry was not conceited, but she was human enough to know that she had made a conquest of the big Welshman.
The green glow of jealousy in Nurse Silver's eyes made her reply guardedly.
"Dr. Jones is decent to every one."
But she was of too friendly and impulsive a nature to keep her secret bottled up. She reminded herself that they were two women sharing an ordeal and she tried to establish some link of friendship.
"I feel you despise me," she said. "You think me lacking in self-control. And you can't forget that cylinder. But really, I've gone through such an awful strain. For four nights, I never took off my clothes."
"Why didn't you have a second nurse?"
"There was the expense. The Professor gives his whole life to enrich the nation and he's poor. Then, later, I felt I must do everything for him myself. I didn't want you, only Dr. Jones said I was heading for a break-down."
She looked at her left hand, seeing there the shadowy outline of a wedding-ring.
"Don't think me sloppy, but I must tell some one. The Professor and I are going to get married."
"If he lives."
"But he's turned the corner now."
"Don't count your chickens."
Nurse Cherry felt a stab of fear.
"Are you hiding something from me? Is he—worse?"
"No. He's the same. I was thinking that Dr. Jones might interfere. You've led him on, haven't you? I've seen you smile at him. It's light women like you that make the trouble in the world."
Nurse Cherry was staggered by the injustice of the attack. But as she looked at the elder woman's working face, she saw that she was consumed by jealousy. One life lay in the shadow, the other in the sun. The contrast was too sharp.
"We won't quarrel to-night," she said gently. "We're going through rather a bad time together and we have only each other to depend on. I'm just clinging to you. If anything were to happen to you, like Mrs. Iles, I should jump out of my skin with fright."
Nurse Silver was silent for a minute.
"I never thought of that," she said presently. "Only us two. And all these empty rooms, above and below. What's that?"
From the hall came the sound of muffled knocking. Nurse Cherry sprang to her feet.
"Someone at the front door."
Nurse Silver's fingers closed round her arm like iron loops.
"Sit down! It's him!"
THE two women stared at each other as the knocking
continued. It was loud and insistent. To Nurse Cherry's ears, it
carried a message of urgency.
"I'm going down," she said. "It may be Dr. Jones."
"How could you tell?"
"By his voice."
"You fool! Any one would imitate his accent."
Nurse Cheery saw the beads break out round Nurse Silver's mouth. Her fear had the effect of steadying her own Serves.
"I'm going down to find out who it is," she said. "It may be important news about the murder."
Nurse Silver dragged her away from the door.
"What did I say? You are the danger. You've forgotten already.
"Forgotten—what?"
"Didn't Iles tell you to open to no one? No one?"
Nurse Cherry hung her head. She sat down, in shamed silence.
The knocking ceased. Presently, they heard it again, at the back door.
Nurse Silver wiped her face.
"He means to get in." She laid her hand on Nurse Cherry's arm. "You're not even trembling. Are you never afraid?"
"Only of ghosts."
In spite of her brave front, Nurse Cherry was inwardly quaking at her own desperate resolution. Nurse Silver had justly accused her of endangering the household. Therefore, it was her plain duty to make once more the round of the house, either to see what she had forgotten, or to lay the doubt.
"I'm going upstairs," she said. "I want to look out."
"Unbar a window?" Nurse Silver's agitation rose in a gale. "You shall not! It's murdering folly! Think! That last nurse was found, dead, inside her bedroom!"
"All right, I won't!"
"You'd best be careful. You've been trying to spare me, but, perhaps, I've been trying to spare you. I'll only say this. There is something strange happening in this house!"
Nurse Cherry felt a chill at her heart. Only, since she was a nurse, she knew that it was really the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong? If, through her wretched memory, she again were the culprit, she must expiate her crime by shielding the others at any risk to herself.
She had to force herself to mount the stairs. Her candle, flickering in the draught, peopled the walls with distorted shapes. When she reached the top landing, without stopping to think, she walked resolutely into the laboratory and the adjoining room.
Both were securely barred and empty. Gaining courage, she entered the attic. Under its window was a precipitous slope of roof, without gutter or water-pipe to give finger-hold. Knowing that it would be impossible for any one to gain an entry, she opened the shutter and unfastened the window.
The cold air on her face refreshed her and restored her to calm. She realised that she had been suffering, to a certain extent, from claustrophobia.
The rain had ceased and a wind arisen. She could see a young, harried moon flying through the clouds. The dark humps of the bills were visible against the darkness, but nothing more.
She remained at the window for some time, thinking of Glendower. It was a solace to remember the happiness which awaited her once this night of terror was over.
Presently, the urge to see him grew too strong to be resisted. Nurse Silver's words had made her uneasy on his behalf. Even though she offended the laws of professional etiquette, she determined to see for herself that all was well.
Leaving the window open so that some air might percolate into the house, she slipped stealthily downstairs. She stopped on the second floor to visit her own room and that of Nurse Silver. All was quiet and secure. In her own quarters Mrs. Iles still snored in the sleep of the unjust.
There were two doors to the patient's room. The one led to the nurses' room, where Nurse Silver was still at her meal. The other led to the landing.
Directly Nurse Cherry entered she knew that her fear had been the premonition of love. Something was seriously amiss. Glendower's head tossed uneasily on the pillow. His face was deeply flushed. When she called him by name he stared at her, his luminous, grey eyes were ablaze.
He did not recognise her, for, instead of "Stella," he called her "Nurse."
"Nurse, Nurse." He mumbled something that sounded like "Man," and then slipped back in her arms, unconscious.
Nurse Silver entered the room at her cry. As she felt his pulse she spoke with dry significance.
"We could do with oxygen now!"
Nurse Cherry could only look at her with piteous eyes. "Shall I telephone for Dr. Jones?" she asked humbly.
"Yes."
It seemed like the continuation of an evil dream when she could get no answer to her ring. Again and again she tried desperately to galvanize the dead instrument.
Presently, Nurse Silver appeared on the landing.
"Is the doctor coming?"
"I—I can't get any answer." Nurse Cherry forced back her tears, "Oh, whatever can be wrong?"
"Probably a wet creeper twisted round the wire. But it doesn't matter now. The patient's sleeping."
Nurse Cherry's face registered no comfort. As though the shocks of the last few minutes had set in motion the arrested machinery of her brain, she remembered, suddenly, what she had forgotten.
The larder window.
She recollected now what had happened. When she entered the larder on her round of locking up, a mouse had run over her feet. She ran to fetch the cat, which chased it into a hole in the kitchen. In the excitement of the incident, she had forgotten to return, to close the window.
Her heart leapt violently as the realization that, all these hours, the house had been open to any marauder. Even while she and Nurse Silver had listened, shivering, to the knocking at the door, she had already betrayed the fortress.
"What's the matter?" asked Nurse Silver.
"Nothing. Nothing."
She dared not tell the older woman. Even now it was not too late to remedy her omission.
In her haste, she no longer feared the descent into the basement. She could hardly get down the stairs with sufficient speed.
As she entered the larder the wire-covered window flapped in the breeze. She secured it, and was just entering the kitchen when her eye fell on a dark patch in the passage.
It was the footprint of a man.
Nurse Cherry remembered that Iles had been in the act of getting fresh coal into the cellar when he had been called away to make his journey. He had not time to clean up, and the floor was still sooty with rain-Soaked dust.
As she raised her candle the footprint gleamed faintly. Stooping hastily, she touched it.
It was still damp.
AT first she stood as if petrified, staring at it stupidly. Then,
as she realized that, in front of her, lay a freshly-made
imprint, her nerve snapped completely. With a scream she dropped
her candle and tore up the stairs, calling on Nurse Silver.
She was answered by a strange voice. It was thick, heavy, indistinct. A voice she had never heard before.
Knowing not what awaited her on the other side of the door, yet driven on by the courage of ultimate fear, she rushed into, the nurses' sitting room.
No one was there save Nurse Silver. She sagged back in her chair, her eyes half-closed, her mouth open.
From her lips issued a second uncouth cry.
Nurse Cherry put her arm round her. "What is it?' Try to tell me."
It was plain that Nurse Silver was trying to warn her of some peril. She pointed to her glass and fought for articulation.
"Drugs! Listen! When you lock out, you lock in!"
Even as she spoke her eyes turned up horribly, exposing the balls in a blind white stare.
Almost mad with terror, Nurse Cherry tried to revive her. Mysteriously, through some unknown agency, what she had so dreaded had come to pass.
She was alone.
And somewhere—within the walls of the house—lurked a being—cruel and cunning—who, one after another, had removed each obstacle between himself and his objective.
He had marked down his victim. Herself.
In that moment she went clean over the edge of fear. She felt that it was not herself—Stella Cherry—but a stranger in the blue print uniform of a hospital nurse, who calmly speculated oh her course of action.
It was impossible to lock herself in the patient's room, for the key was stiff from disuse. And she had not the strength to move furniture which was sufficiently heavy to barricade the door.
The idea of flight was immediately dismissed. In order to get help she would have to run miles. She could not leave Glendower and two helpless women at the mercy of the baffled maniac.
There was nothing to be done. Her place was by Glendower. She sat down by his bed and took his hand in hers.
The time seemed endless. Her watch seemed sometimes to leap whole hours and then to crawl, she waited—listening to the myriad sounds in a house at nightfall. There were faint rustlings, the cracking of woodwork, the scamper of mice.
And a hundred times, some one seemed to steal up the stairs and linger just outside her door.
It was nearly 3 o'clock when suddenly a gong began to beat inside her temples. In the adjoining room was the unmistakable tramp of a man's footsteps.
It was not imagination on her part. They circled the room and then advanced toward the connecting door.
She saw the handle begin to turn slowly.
In one bound, she reached the door and rushed on to the landing and up the stairs. For a second, she paused before her own room. But its windows were barred and the door had no key. She could not be done to death there, in the dark.
As she paused, she heard the footsteps on the stairs. They advanced slowly, driving her on before them. Demented with terror, she fled up to the top story, instinctively seeking the open window.
She could go no higher. At the attic door she waited.
Something black appeared on the staircase wall. It was the shadow of her pursuer—a grotesque and distorted herald of crime.
Nurse Cherry gripped the balustrade to keep herself from falling. Everything was growing dark. She knew that she was on the point of fainting, when she was revived by sheer astonishment and joy.
Above the balustrade appeared the head of Nurse Silver.
Nurse Cherry called out to her in warning.
"Come quickly! There's a man in the house!"
She saw Nurse Silver start and fling back her head as if in alarm.
Then occurred the culminating horror of a night of dread.
A mouse ran across the passage.
Raising her heavy shoe, Nurse Silver stamped upon it, grinding her heel upon the tiny creature's head.
In that moment, Nurse Cherry knew the truth.
Nurse Silver was a man.
HER brain raced with lightning velocity. It was like a
searchlight, piercing the shadows and making the mystery clear.
She knew that the real Nurse Silver had been murdered by Sylvester Leek; on her way to the case. It was her strangled body which had just been found in the quarry. And the murderer had taken her place. The police description was that of a slightly built youth, with refined features. It would be easy for him to assume the disguise of a woman. He had the necessary medical knowledge to pose as nurse. Moreover, as he had the night-shift, no one in the household had come into close contact with him, save the patient.
But the patient had guessed the truth.
To silence his tongue, the killer had drugged him, even as he had disposed of the obstructing presence of Mrs. Iles. It was he, too, who had emptied the oxygen cylinder, to get Iles out of the way.
Yet, although he had been alone with his prey for hours, he had held his hand.
Nurse Cherry, with her new mental lucidity, knew the reason. There is a fable that the serpent slavers its victim, before swallowing it. In like manner, the maniac—before her final destruction—had wished to coat her with the foul saliva of fear.
All the evening he had been trying to terrorise her—plucking at each jangled nerve up to the climax of his feigned unconsciousness.
Yet, she knew that he, in turn, was fearful lest he should be frustrated in the commission of his crime. Since his victim's body, had been discovered in the quarry, the establishment of her identity would mark his hiding place. While Nurse Cherry was at the attic window, he had cut the telephone wire and donned his own shoes for purposes of flight.
SHE remembered his emotion during the knocking at the
door. It was probable that it was Dr. Jones who stood without,
come to assure himself that she was not alarmed. Had it been the
police, they would have effected an entry. The incident proved
that nothing had been discovered, and it was useless to count on
outside help.
She had to face it—alone.
In the dim light from the young moon, she saw the murderer enter the attic. The grotesque travesty of his nursing disguise added to the terror of the moment.
His eyes were fixed on the open window. It was plain that he was pretending to connect it with the supposed intruder. She, in her turn, had unconsciously deceived him. He probably knew nothing of the revealing footprint he had left in the basement passage.
"Shut the window, you damned fool!" he shouted.
As he leant over the low ledge to reach the swinging casement window, Nurse Cherry rushed at him in the instinctive madness of self-defence—thrusting him forward, over the sill.
She had one glimpse of dark, distorted features blotting out the moon and of arms sawing the air, like a starfish, in a desperate attempt to balance.
The next moment, nothing was there.
She sank to the ground, covering her ears with her hands to deaden the sound of the sickening slide over the tiled roof.
It was a long time before she was able to creep down to her patient's room. Directly she entered, its peace healed her like balm. Glendower slept quietly—a half-smile playing round his lips, as though he dreamt of her.
Thankfully, she went from room to room, unbarring each window and unlocking each door—letting in the dawn.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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