With a deep breath of relief, I hastily tore my handkerchief into strips and applied the improvised bandage tightly enough to control the bleeding. Then with the scissors from my pocket-case, which I now carried from habit, I laid open the bloodstained sleeve. The wound on the arm, just above the elbow, was quite shallow; a glancing wound, which tailed off upwards into a scratch. A turn of the remaining strip of bandage secured it for the time being, and this done I once more explored the front of the smock, pulling its folds tightly apart in search of the dreaded cut. But there was none; and now, the bleeding being controlled, it was safe to take measures of restoration. Tenderly—and not without effort—I lifted her and carried her into the studio, where was a shabby but roomy couch, on which poor D’Arblay had been accustomed to rest when he stayed for the night. On this I laid her, and fetching some water and a towel, dabbed her face and neck. Presently she opened her eyes and heaved a deep sigh, looking at me with a troubled, bewildered expression, and evidently only half-conscious. Suddenly her eye caught the great bloodstain on her smock, and her expression grew wild and terrified. For a few moments she gazed at me with eyes full of horror; then, as the memory of her dreadful experience rushed back on her, she uttered a little cry and burst into tears, moaning and sobbing almost hysterically.
I rested her head on my shoulder and tried to comfort her; and she, poor girl, weak and shaken by the awful shock, clung to me trembling, and wept passionately with her face buried in my breast. As for me, I was almost ready to weep, too, if only from sheer relief and revulsion from my late terrors.
“Marion, darling!” I murmured into her ear as I stroked her damp hair. “Poor dear little woman! It was horrible. But you mustn’t cry any more now. Try to forget it, dearest.”
She shook her head passionately. “I can never do that,” she sobbed. “It will haunt me as long as I live. Oh! and I am so frightened, even now. What a coward I am!”
“Indeed you are not!” I exclaimed. “You are just weak from loss of blood. Why did you let me leave you, Marion?”
“I didn’t think I was hurt, and I wasn’t particularly frightened then; and I hoped that if you followed him he might be caught. Did you see him?”
“No. There is a thick fog outside. I didn’t dare to leave the threshold. Were you able to see what he was like?”
She shuddered and choked down a sob. “He is a dreadful-looking man,” she said. “I loathed him at the first glance: a beetle-browed, hook-nosed wretch, with a face like that of some horrible bird of prey. But I couldn’t see him very distinctly, for it is rather dark in the lobby, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat, pulled down over his brows.”
“Would you know him again? And can you give a description of him that would be of use to the police?”
“I am sure I should know him again,” she said with a shudder. “It was a face that one could never forget. A hideous face! The face of a demon. I can see it now, and it will haunt me, sleeping and waking, until I die.”
Her words ended with a catch of the breath, and she looked piteously into my face with wide, terrified eyes. I took her trembling hand and once more drew her head to my shoulder.
“You mustn’t think that, dear,” said I. “You are all unstrung now, but these terrors will pass. Try to tell me quietly just what this man was like. What was his height, for instance?”
“He was not very tall. Not much taller than I. And he was rather slightly built.”
“Could you see whether he was dark or fair?”
“He was rather dark. I could see a shock of hair sticking out from under his hat, and he had a moustache with turned-up ends and a beard; a rather short beard.”
“And now as to his face. You say he had a hooked nose?”
“Yes; a great, high-bridged nose like the beak of some horrible bird. And his eyes seemed to be deep-set under heavy brows with bushy eyebrows. The face was rather thin, with high cheekbones; a fierce, scowling, repulsive face.”
“And the voice? Should you know that again?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “He spoke in quite a low tone, rather indistinctly. And he said only a few words—something about having come to make some inquiries about the cost of a wax model. Then he stepped into the lobby and shut the outer door, and immediately, without another word, he seized my right arm and struck at me. But I saw the knife in his hand, and as I called out I snatched at it with my left hand, so that it missed my body and I felt it cut my right arm. Then I got hold of his wrist. But he had heard you coming, and wrenched himself free. The next moment he had opened the door and rushed out, shutting it behind him.”
She paused, and then added in a shaking voice: “If you had not been here—if I had been alone—”
“We won’t think of that, Marion. You were not alone, and you will never be again in this place. I shall see to that.”
At this she gave a little sigh of satisfaction, and looked into my face with the
