"The next morning Mrs. Tufnell was downstairs as usual at a quarter to seven. After she had lighted the kitchen fire, done her front steps and swept the hall she went to do the ground-floor rooms. She told the police afterwards that from the moment she got up she felt that there was something wrong in the house. Somehow or other she was frightened; she didn't know of what, but she was frightened. As soon as she had opened the office door she gave a terrified scream. Mr. Jessup was sitting at his desk just as Mrs. Tufnell had seen him the night before, with his big books in front of him and the safe door open. But his head had fallen forward on the desk, and his arms were spread out over his books. Mrs. Tufnell never doubted for a second but that he was dead, even before she saw the stick lying on the floor and that horrible, horrible dull red stain which spread from the back of the old man's head, right down to his neck and stained his collar and the top of his coat. Even before she saw all that she knew that Mr. Jessup was dead. Terrified, she clung to the open door; she could do nothing but stare and stare, for the room, the furniture, the motionless figure by the desk had started whirling round and round before her eyes, so that she felt that at any moment she might fall down in a dead faint. It seemed ages before she heard Ann's voice calling to her, asking what was the matter. Ann was lazy and never came downstairs before eight o'clock. She had apparently only just tumbled out of bed when she heard Mrs. Tufnell's scream. Now she came running downstairs, with her bare feet thrust into her slippers and a dressing-gown wrapped round her. "'What is it, Auntie?' she kept on asking as she ran. 'What has happened?' "And when she reached the office door, she only gave one look into the room and exclaimed, 'Oh, my God! He's killed him!' "Somehow Ann's exclamation of horror brought Mrs. Tufnell to her senses. With a great effort she pulled herself together, just in time, too, to grip Ann by the arm, or the girl would have measured her length on the tiled floor behind her. As it was, Mrs. Tufnell gave her a vigorous shake: "'What do you mean, Ann Weber?' she demanded in a hoarse whisper. 'What do you mean? Who has killed him?' "But Ann couldn't or wouldn't utter another word. She was as white as a sheet and, staggering backwards, she had fallen up against the bannisters at the foot of the stairs and was clinging to them, wide-eyed, with twitching mouth and shaking knees. "'Pull yourself together, Ann Weber,' Mrs. Tufnell said peremptorily, 'and run and fetch the police at once.' "But Ann looked as if she couldn't move. She kept on reiterating in a dry, meaningless manner, 'The police! The police,' until Mrs. Tufnell, who by now had gathered her wits together, gave her a vigorous push and then went upstairs to put on her bonnet. A few minutes later she had gone for the police. §3