Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/54

Rh wound in one side of her throat, and from it a red line lay across her bare shoulder, down her arm, to a purple stain on the carpet.

Reggie went across the room in two strides and bent over her. She had been dead for hours.

"Who found her, Mrs. Betts?"

"The upper housemaid, sir. She's been having hysterics ever since."

"Bah! Was the room just like this?"

"No, sir. Miss Weston was asleep in that chair."

"What?" Reggie stared. The mistress murdered and the companion placidly asleep by her side—perhaps that would not have startled his calm mind. But he knew May Weston, and had written her off as a dull, simple creature—a cushion of a girl.

"Miss Weston was asleep in that chair," the housekeeper repeated. "I saw her myself. I came in, sir, when Amelia—when the housemaid screamed. Miss Weston was in evening dress too. She didn't wake at the screaming either—just stirred. I went to her and shook her, and 'Miss Weston,' I said, 'whatever's this?' I said, and she woke up and looked round her, sort of heavy, and she saw Miss Bolton lying there and the blood, and she screamed out, 'I did it—oh, I did it,' and she looked at me very queer and she fainted." Mrs. Betts stopped and stared at Reggie, waiting for him to express horror.

"So what did you do with her?" said Reggie. Mrs. Betts swallowed. "I had her carried to her