A green baize curtain beyond the stairs caught Kenyon's eye and with the sudden thought that the murderers might still be in the house he drew his revolver and tiptoed towards it. Beyond lay the kitchen, orderly and tidy as the old woman must have left it, but the larder had been ransacked. A broken dish and fish bones scattered on the tiles showed the haste which the ravenous pack had made to satiate their hunger.
He crept back into the hall and peered into the shadows of the stairway. It was possible that they were sleeping off their debauch upstairs. Gingerly, and testing each stair before he trod upon it, he made his way up to the first floor landing. In the dim light three doors were visible and with sudden decision he stepped briskly towards the one which opened into the room above the study.
As he opened it a new tension gripped his strained senses. It was Ann's, he knew by the very scent of it before he had the door open a foot. The bright simplicity of the furnishings, so different from the rooms below, confirmed his thought a second later and then he looked towards the bed.
Ann lay there, a small dishevelled figure, huddled upon the outer coverlet, her head buried in the pillow. For a second he felt a restriction in his chest as though his heart had ceased to beat. Was she still alive? Perspiration broke out in pearls little of cold dew on his forehead as he stood crouched in the doorway. He wanted to run to her but his legs seemed paralysed and he could not move a foot. Veronica's prophecy came back to him, and with leaden fear that it might have been fulfilled he whispered again:
'Ann, darling, Ann!'
She did not move, but lay there horribly unnaturally quiet. Then breaking through the invisible bonds that held him rooted he stepped across to the narrow room and put his hand on her shoulder. Still she did not stir but beneath the thin cotton frock he felt her flesh warm to his touch.
'Ann,' he spoke louder now, shaking her slightly and at last she rolled over on her back.
'Kenyon!' The big eyes opened.
He covered his own for a second, wiping away the beads of sweat, and sank to his knees beside the bed.
She sat up suddenly, staring with wide distended eyes round the familiar room, then with a little gasp she flung her arms round his neck.
'There,' he soothed her, 'there, don't worry, sweet. No one shall hurt you now. I swear they shan't. Thank God you're safe!'
For some strange timeless interval they clung to each other, speechless instinctive creatures seeking to escape from the horror of a world that had gone insane. Cheek pressed to cheek, their only realisation was that they were together again, although about them mountains slipped into the sea. Her body shook with frightening, tearless tremors, but in his relief at finding her alive, it was his eyes which filled with tears.
'Kenyon?'
'Ann dearest.'
'Have I gone mad or is it really you?'
He pressed the little body in an even stronger grip, seeking to assure her by sheer physical force of his actual nearness.
'Yes, really, Ann darling, and we're both alive and well.'
She laughed then, but her laughter had a queer jarring note bordering upon the unnatural. For a moment he feared that her brain had given way.
'No nonsense,' he said sharply. 'You must try and pull yourself together, and tell me what's been happening here.'
She stopped then, as suddenly as she had begun, and drawing away put her hands upon his shoulders. As she stared at him her eyes were strangely bright and the pupils horrifyingly enlarged.
'Are they are they really dead? Or did I see it in a nightmare?'
He nodded slowly. It was impossible to conceal the truth, and she shivered slightly.
'Oh, it was horrible, Kenyon!'
'Where were you?' he asked gently.
'Outside the window. It was before dinner last night, I had gone up to the hill. I used to do that every evening. Just sit and gaze towards Shingle Street, thinking of you, and wondering if I'd ever see you again.' She spoke simply and naturally now, caressing his hair with her hand. 'I came back in the twilight and what it was I don't know, but something made me look in at the dining room window as I passed, so I saw it all.'
He took her other hand and kissed it as she went on: 'Poor Agatha was just coming through the door as I looked in; her eyes suddenly seemed to start out of her head and she fell forward on her face, then I saw the men! There were five of them and their faces were horrible, they sprang over her body and set on Uncle Timothy, and one of them snatched up the carving knife, but I couldn't look away. I simply couldn't. Oh, Kenyon!'
It was a wail rather than a cry and again he pressed her to him while her body quivered and shook with great choking sobs, yet he was glad to see her cry for he knew that tears would bring her relief, and after a desperate fit of weeping she looked up again.
'Then then I realised that if they saw me they might kill me too so I ran, just wildly out into the heath among the gorse and bracken, and when I was breathless I flung myself down in a deep ditch where the long grass hid me. How long I lay there I don't know. It must have been hours I think, for the dew had fallen and I was shivering with cold when I did screw up courage to come back. My teeth were chattering, I couldn't keep them still, but when I crept in through the back door, the men were gone, then in the dining room I- I saw them both.'
She burst into a fresh fit of sobbing at the awful memory, and for a little time Kenyon strove unsuccessfully to comfort her, but at last she choked her tears back and concluded her story.
'First I thought I'd go to Orford, but my legs simply would not work so I thought I'd better rest for a little until I felt able to face the journey. I crept up here and lay on the bed crying desperately for I don't know how long, and then I suppose, oh, it sounds awful, but I was simply dead beat, and I must have dropped asleep.'
'Thank God you did,' he answered fervently. 'It probably saved your brain.
'But, Kenyon, what shall we do?'
'Why, get back to Shingle Street just as fast as we can.'
'I' can't, dear; there'll be the funeral and all sorts of things to see to.'
'Well, we must arrange all that as best we can, but I promised Gregory that I'd be back this evening and nothing will induce me to leave you here another night.'
She smiled rather wanly. 'You haven't changed much, have you?'
'Listen, darling I'm not threatening to carry you off as I did before, but you must see this time that it's really dangerous for you to stay behind on your own.'
'Oh, I wouldn't stay here. I've plenty of friends in Orford who would take me in.'
'Perhaps, but what guarantee have you got that the same awful thing isn't going to happen again, and to you, in a week or so's time?'
'How can I go, it's impossible until after the funeral.'
'Then that must be this afternoon.'
'Kenyon! It's not decent!
'Why, surely you're not afraid of what people in the town will say, are you?'
'Of course not.' Ann shrugged impatiently. 'It is respect for them I-I loved them, Kenyon.'
'Steady, darling.' He put a supporting arm about her shoulders as she choked back her tears. 'Don't you think that they would wish it themselves, Ann? They'd be the very first to urge it, if it meant your safety.'
She nodded wearily. 'All right, if you can arrange it.'
'Good, we'd better go into Orford at once then, I'll leave you for a moment while you put a few things in a bag.'
Downstairs he applied himself to the grim task of laying the two poor battered bodies side by side and covering them decently, yet even beneath the sheets he unearthed for the purpose the Reverend Timothy gave rise to gruesome thoughts. One knee, bent under him, was held firm by rigor mortis and defied all Kenyon's efforts to force it down. At last he was compelled to leave it, a grotesque and faintly terrifying protuberance still cocked ceiling wards beneath the linen.