But my second thought was for her. She might go clean out of her mind if she were suddenly confronted with him. What would it be best to do? When he had put down Mrs. Curtis at Floor 7, and we were rumbling towards Floor 8, he volunteered, as we bumped with violence against the roof that he was new to the work. I asked him what hours he came on and went off at. He said, "Heleven p.hem. to hate hay-hem." He did not recognise me--as, indeed, why should he?--but he looked more downcast and villainous than ever. It was evident that life had not gone well with him since he had been foreman at Brown and Prodgers. "Lady's son from Horsetralia just arrived," he remarked conversationally, jerking his thumb towards the lower landing. "Took 'im up 'arf an hour ago." I was surprised that Mr. Curtis should have already arrived, but in another moment I forgot all about it, for the first object that met my eyes as I opened my door was Aunt Pussy in a state of great agitation, sitting fully dressed on my bed. It seemed that after we had started for the play she had stood a moment in the hall looking after us, and she had seen her murderer pass, and not only had he passed, but he had exchanged a few words with the hall porter airing himself on the hotel steps. "We must leave. We must leave to-morrow, Janet," she repeated, in an agony of terror. "I know he'll get in and kill me. That's why he spoke to the porter. Let's go and live at Margate. No, not Margate; it's too public. But I saw a little house at Southwold once; tumbling down it was, with no road up to it. Such a horrid place! We might go and live _there_. No one would ever think I should go there. Promise me you will take me away from London to-morrow, Janet." I promised, I realised that we must go at once, and I calculated that if Aunt Pussy, who always breakfasted in her room, only left it at ten o'clock to enter a cab to take her to the station it was impossible she should run across the new night porter, who went off duty several hours earlier. She must never know that he was actually in the house. I tried to calm her, but dawn was already in the sky, or rather reflected on the tiles of our air-shaft, before she fell asleep, and I could go to my room and try to do the same. I did it so effectually that it was nearly ten o'clock before I went down to breakfast, leaving Aunt Pussy still slumbering. While I drank my coffee I looked out the trains for Southwold, and noted down the name of a quiet hotel there, and then went to the manager's office to give up our rooms. When I got there a tired, angry young man, with a little bag, was interviewing the manager, who was eyeing him doubtfully, while a few paces away the hall porter, all gold braid and hair-oil and turned-out feet, was watching the scene. "Surely Mrs. Curtis told you she was expecting me, her son," he was saying as I came up.