The Blind Side by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page A

back to her that she was in Lucy’s bed, in Lucy’s room, in Lucy’s flat. She became a little wider awake and pushed away the sheet, which had got tucked up under her chin. There was a most extraordinary weight upon her spirits—a horrid sense that something had happened, and that in about a half a minute she was going to remember what it was. She pulled herself up in bed and stretched. It wasn’t the Merville man. There had been some nasty moments, but she had got away and could afford to snap her fingers. It was not Miss Fenton’s habit to hang shuddering over an unpleasant might-have-been.
    She sat up frowning. A dream—that was what it was. She had had a perfect beast of a dream, and some of the nightmare feeling was still hanging around. She couldn’t remember the dream, but it must have been a particularly bad one for her to feel like this. She threw the sheet right off her, swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and stayed there staring, with a hand on either side of her, pressing down hard upon the mattress and the old linen sheet which covered it. The hem of her pale pink nightgown was stained a handsbreadth deep with blood … and her right foot too.
    Just for a moment the black curtain which hid her dream trembled and grew thin. From behind it came somebody’s voice crying out in a frightened way.
    The curtain thickened and darkened again. She was looking at the blood on the hem of her nightgown, and at her blood-stained foot. All at once she jumped up. The nightgown fell round her to her feet. The stain ran right across the front of the hem, but broader on the right-hand side, as if she had stepped on it with that stained right foot.
    She made a little sound of disgust and ran out of the room and across the hall to the bathroom. She washed her foot, and threw the nightdress into cold water to soak.
    It was when she was coming back that she saw the blurred print of her foot on the threshold of the room where she had slept. She found her dressing gown and put it on, and then went back to switch on the hall light. The prints ran all across the hall from the front door to the threshold of Cousin Lucy’s room. When she stooped down and looked closely she could trace them across the Turkey carpet to the bed.
    She stood by the front door for a long time before she opened it. There were the prints again, running straight from the door of No. 8 to the door of No. 7—straight from Ross Craddock’s flat to the one where she had slept—and dreamed a horrible dream.
    She went back into the flat, took a pail of water and a swab, and washed the prints away, first the ones on the landing, and then, very carefully, the ones inside the flat. She poured the water away, and rinsed the bucket, and washed the swab quite clean before hanging it up to dry. The sheets were stained. She wondered what she should do about them. You can’t wash sheets in a flat. At least, you can wash them, but you can’t get them dried and ironed—not in time. In time for what? Rush was an early riser. If he came stumping up the stairs.… Well, let him come—she had washed the landing clean. But behind the door of No. 8—behind Ross Craddock’s door—She cut her thoughts short. The door was shut, the door was locked. There was nothing to do about it. Get on with the things which have to be done here.
    She took the sheets into the bathroom and sponged out all the stains. She hung them over a couple of chairs by the open window to dry. They wouldn’t take long on such a hot morning. Whilst they were drying she had a bath and dressed herself.
    All this time she hadn’t let herself think. When there wasn’t anything more to do she found that her knees were shaking. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and all the things which she had been trying not to think about came rushing into her mind. Something dreadful had happened. It would come back to her out of that