She switched on the lights and saw that it was a cloth doll with a rope tied tightly around its neck. The doll had brown yam hair, malevolent painted eyes, and a final disturbing detail. There were tears painted on the cloth face.
Miss Dewey pulled the doll down, setting it on the coffee table in front of the settee. This time Mr. Trainor would surely believe her. She would speak to him first thing in the morning. She didn’t want to leave the security of her own surroundings that night, although she nervously wondered if there was really any safety left there now.
Miss Dewey lay on the settee half the night staring into the darkness. She was, for the first time in her life, quite frightened. Before, someone had been in her flat when she was away. Now someone had entered her flat when she was in the building. She got up several times to check the door and the windows to see if they were still shut securely.
She must have finally dropped off to sleep because she awoke with a start just as sunlight was beginning to filter in through the closed window blinds. She was still on the settee, and the doll sat conspicuously on the coffee table. Miss Dewey felt a crick in her neck as she tried to get up. She rubbed it harshly. The fear she had felt the night before had now reduced itself to anger. She was not going to let whoever was doing this get away with it any longer.
She tidied up her bed first. She couldn’t have the police finding her flat anything but neat. She must contact them now; there was no other choice. She went into the washroom and smoothed back her iron hair into its usual severe bun, scrubbed her face, put her teeth in, and splashed some lavender cologne on. Then she chose a crisp gingham housedress, put on her orthopedic hose and sensible black shoes, and went into the kitchen. She took her heart medication and then proceeded to go directly to Mr. Trainor’s. She felt triumphant and quite sure of herself. He would, of course, believe her this time because she had evidence he could not deny.
A heavy-eyed Mr. Trainor answered the door only after Miss Dewey had knocked for well on five minutes. He was untidily whiskered, and what little hair remained on the sides of his bald head was sticking out, as if it had been styled that way. He had a yellowed T-shirt on that barely stretched over the substantial girth of his belly. He was yawning like a cat when Miss Dewey released her torrent of grievances.
“It’s about time,” she spat. “My flat’s been broken into again, while I was there, mind you!” Surprisingly, Miss Dewey didn’t comment on Mr. Trainor’s unkempt appearance; she was far too involved in relating her story.
He listened patiently, as he always did, to the details of her charges. He then attempted to smooth the sides of his sparse hair down, but they stubbornly popped back up again.
“Did you hear anything unusual last night?” he finally said. “Anyone moving about, perhaps?”
Miss Dewey smacked her lips with annoyance. “I told you, man, I was asleep. Are you daft?”
Not quite yet, he thought tiredly. “Did they nick something?”
“No, they didn’t take anything. I told you they left me something instead, something malicious. We’ll have to ring the police. Follow me,” she added with authority, motioning for him to come along.
Mr. Trainor pulled on a jersey that lay over the well-worn armchair just behind the door. It was a tatty, faded blue, but it did cover the much worse looking T-shirt. Besides, there was a definite chill in the air.
Miss Dewey grumbled all the way down the corridor. “I told you someone had been in my flat, but you just wouldn’t believe me. Well, now maybe you’ll take me seriously.”
Mr. Trainor thought that was unlikely, considering the nature of her past complaints. He yawned again and trudged heavily along behind her, like an obedient dog. Miss Dewey stopped sharply at her open door.
“I know I shut this door,” she said firmly. She turned to look back at Mr. Trainor; he raised his eyebrows doubtfully.
“I did!” There was a note of panic in her trembling voice. She hurried inside as Mr. Trainor trod along behind her, stopping short in the sitting room, her mouth open in surprise.
The doll was gone.
Miss Dewey scuttled frantically from room to room, searching for the doll. She mumbled incoherently to Mr. Trainor about a doll hanging from the doorway to her bedroom while she began busily overturning drawers and clearing shelves.
Mr. Trainor was uncommonly worried. Miss Dewey’s neat, tidy little flat was being destroyed, and she was doing it all by herself. It occurred to Mr. Trainor as he witnessed this scene of mayhem before him that Miss Dewey might be mental, and this alarmed him. It would never do to have a mental case at Waverly Mansions. The other tenants might get frightened and leave. Mr. Trainor could ill afford vacancies.
For once, Miss Dewey didn’t harass him for not believing her. She didn’t suggest that they call the police. In fact, she didn’t speak at all. She eventually collapsed on the floral patterned settee, staring blankly at the disaster she had created around her.
Mr. Trainor thought it best to say nothing about her behavior. He meekly returned to his own flat.
Later that day, Miss Dewey came to her senses and began the process of putting things back together again. She stayed up half the night, not even stopping to eat, until all her books were back on the shelf in ABC order and the tinned goods aligned in the pantry. Feeling weak but too fatigued to care for herself properly, she flung herself on her bed and fell asleep, almost immediately.
She slept heavily and woke up late, feeling groggy rather than refreshed. When she awoke, she was still curled up, uncovered, on top of the duvet. As she slowly focused her eyes and rolled over in a stretch, she turned to face the doll again, lying on the pillow beside her. The gloating eyes stared at her, and Miss Dewey screamed. Bloodcurdling and shrill. But no one heard, or at least no one came to her aid, except for the woman upstairs with the name she couldn’t remember and the face that was so nondescript it almost faded into oblivion.
“Are you all right, Miss Dewey?” the woman asked in a concerned voice when Miss Dewey dragged herself to the door in response to the bell. “I heard your screams through the vents, or I must have, because they were quite clear,” she added solicitously.
Miss Dewey opened her mouth to tell the woman upstairs everything that had happened, about the doll and the disarrangement of her flat. She was so distraught she felt an overpowering need to tell someone, but then she brought herself up short. She could not trust the woman upstairs, what with her obsequious gestures and her knowing eyes.
“I’m quite all right,” she replied gratingly. “I just saw — a spider. I have such a fear of spiders.” Miss Dewey was not even remotely afraid of spiders, but she had to make up something. Whenever she saw a spider, she simply squashed it with her shoe. Spiders were easily removed.
The woman nodded, this student of hers whom she couldn’t remember. “Well, if you need anything at all, just let me know,” she said, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on Miss Dewey.
Indeed, thought Miss Dewey. A woman who doesn’t even answer her own door could hardly be relied on for assistance. She called out after her, “I’ve forgotten, what is your name?”
The woman smiled ingratiatingly and replied, “Mind you keep your door locked, Miss Dewey. An old woman like yourself is not safe here alone.”
Miss Dewey began sweating. She had kept her door locked, hadn’t she? And had it stopped the intruder? No. She went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. She opened the cabinet containing her vast store of medicines. Miss Dewey had something for everything; today she chose a tablet for anxiety and chased it down with the water. She retrieved the doll along with her handbag and rushed thoughtlessly out.