"But I did not ring for Karen."
The woman stared at Mrs. Turner.
"But the bell rang, Mrs. Turner. Karen got up at once and, turning
on the light, looked at the clock. 'What do you think of that?' she
said. 'Ten minutes to three, and I'd just got to sleep!' I growled
about the light, and she put it out, after she had thrown on a
wrapper. The room was dark when she opened the door. There was a
little light in the chart-room, from the binnacle lantern. The door
at the top of the companionway was always closed at night; the light
came through the window near the wheel."
She had kept up very well to this point, telling her story calmly and
keeping her voice down. But when she reached the actual killing of
the Danish maid, she went to pieces. She took to shivering
violently, and her pulse, under my fingers, was small and rapid. I
mixed some aromatic spirits with water and gave it to her, and we
waited until she could go on.
For the first time, then, I realized that I was clad only in shirt
and trousers, with a handkerchief around my head where the accident
in the hold had left me with a nasty cut. My bare feet were thrust
into down-at-the-heel slippers. I saw Miss Lee's eyes on me, and
colored.
"I had forgotten," I said uncomfortably. "I'll have time to find
my coat while she is recovering. I have been so occupied--"
"Don't be a fool," Mrs. Johns said brusquely. "No one cares how you
look. We only thank Heaven you are alive to look after us. Do you
know what we have been doing, locked in down here? We have been--"
"Please, Adele!" said Elsa Lee. And Mrs. Johns, shrugging her
shoulders, went back to her salts.
The rest of the story we got slowly. Briefly, it was this. Karen,
having made her protest at being called at such an hour, had put on
a wrapper and pinned up her hair. The light was on. The stewardess
said she heard a curious chopping sound in the main cabin, followed
by a fall, and called Karen's attention to it. The maid, impatient
and drowsy, had said it was probably Mr. Turner falling over
something, and that she hoped she would not meet him. Once or twice,
when he had been drinking, he had made overtures to her, and she
detested him.
The sound outside ceased. It was about five minutes since the bell
had rung, and Karen yawned and sat down on the bed. "I'll let her
ring again," she said. "If she gets in the habit of this sort of
thing, I'm going to leave." The stewardess asked her to put out the
light and let her sleep, and Karen did so. The two women were in
darkness, and the stewardess dozed, for a minute only. She was
awakened by Karen touching her on the shoulder and whispering close
to her ear.