Miss King’s room was two floors higher than Ashenden’s, and as he accompanied the chambermaid along the corridor and up the stairs he asked her what was the matter with the old governess. She was flurried and stupid.
“I think she has had a stroke. I don’t know. The night-porter woke me and said Monsieur Bridet wanted me to get up at once.”
Monsieur Bridet was the assistant-manager.
“What is the time?” asked Ashenden.
“It must be three o’clock.”
They arrived at Miss King’s door and the maid knocked. It was opened by Monsieur Bridet. He had evidently been roused from his sleep; he wore slippers on his bare feet, grey trousers and a frock-coat over his pyjamas. He looked absurd. His hair as a rule plastered neatly on his head stood on end. He was extremely apologetic.
“A thousand excuses for disturbing you, Monsieur Ashenden, but she kept asking for you and the doctor said you should be sent for.”
“It doesn’t matter at all.”
Ashenden walked in. It was a small back room and all the lights were on. The windows were closed and the curtains drawn. It was intensely hot. The doctor, a bearded, grizzled Swiss, was standing at the bedside. Monsieur Bridet, notwithstanding his costume and his evident harassment, found in himself the presence of mind to remain the attentive manager, and with ceremony effected the proper introduction.
“This is Mr. Ashenden, for whom Miss King has been asking. Dr. Arbos of the Faculty of Medicine of Geneva.”
Without a word the doctor pointed to the bed. On it lay Miss King. It gave Ashenden a shock to look at her. She wore a large white cotton nightcap (on entering Ashenden had noticed the brown wig on a stand on the dressing-table) tied under the chin and a white, voluminous nightdress that came high up in the neck. Nightcap and nightdress belonged to a past age and reminded you of Cruikshank’s illustrations to the novels of Charles Dickens. Her face was greasy still with the cream she had used before going to bed to remove her makeup, but she had removed it summarily and there were streaks of black on her eyebrows and of red on her cheeks. She looked very small, lying in the bed, no larger than a child, and immensely old.
“She must be well over eighty,” thought Ashenden.
She did not look human, but like a doll, the caricature of an old, old witch that an ironic toymaker had amused himself with modelling. She lay perfectly still on her back, the tiny little body hardly marked under the flatness of the blanket, her face even smaller than usual because she had removed her teeth; and you would have thought she was dead but for the black eyes, strangely large in the shrunken mask, that stared unblinkingly. Ashenden thought their expression changed when she saw him.
“Well, Miss King, I’m sorry to see you like this,” he said with forced cheerfulness.
“She cannot speak,” said the doctor. “She had another little stroke when the maid went to fetch you. I have just given her an injection. She may partly recover the use of her tongue in a little while. She has something to say to you.”
“I will gladly wait,” said Ashenden.
He fancied that in those dark eyes he saw a look of relief. For a moment or two the four of them stood round the bed and stared at the dying woman.
“Well, if there is nothing I can do, I may just as well go back to bed,” said Monsieur Bridet then.
“Allez, mon ami,” said the doctor. “You can do nothing.”
Monsieur Bridet turned to Ashenden.
“May I have a word with you?” he asked.
“Certainly.”
The doctor noticed a sudden fear in Miss King’s eyes.
“Do not be alarmed,” he said kindly. “Monsieur Ashenden is not going. He will stay as long as you wish.”
The assistant-manager took Ashenden to the door and partly closed it so that those within should not hear his undertones.
“I can count on your discretion, Monsieur Ashenden, can I not? It is a very disagreeable thing to have anyone die in a hotel. The other guests do not like it and we must do all we can to prevent their knowing. I shall have the body removed the first possible moment and I shall be extremely obliged if you will not say that there has been a death.”
“You can have every confidence in me,” said Ashenden.
“It is very unfortunate that the manager should be away for the night. I am afraid he will be exceedingly displeased. Of course if it had been possible I would have sent for an ambulance and had her taken to the hospital, but the doctor said she might die before we got her downstairs and absolutely refused to let me. It is not my fault if she dies in the hotel.”
“Death so often chooses its moments without consideration,” murmured Ashenden.
“After all she is an old woman, she should have died years ago. What did this Egyptian prince want to have a governess of that age for? He ought to have sent her back to her own country. These Orientals, they are always giving trouble.”
“Where is the Prince now?” asked Ashenden. “She has been in his service for many years. Ought you not to wake him?”
“He is not in the hotel. He went out with his secretary. He may be playing baccarat. I do not know. Anyhow I cannot send all over Geneva to find him.”
“And the princesses?”
“They have not come in. They seldom return to the hotel till dawn. They are mad about dancing. I do not know where they are and in any case they would not thank me for dragging them away from their diversions, because their governess has had a stroke, I know what they are. The night-porter will tell them when they arrive and then they can please themselves. She does not want them. When the night-porter fetched me and I went into her room
