Down the
remaining stairs there advanced towards us a young woman, powerful
though short, wild-eyed, dishevelled, horror-stricken, and of a ghastly
pallor: and her hair was a fiery red.
Stock still and speechless we all stood as this apparition came slowly
towards us; but suddenly the detective slipped back into the room,
closing the door after him, to reappear a few moments later holding a
small paper packet, which, after a quick glance at the inspector, he
placed in his breast pocket.
"This is my daughter Miriam that we spoke about, gentlemen," said Mr.
Goldstein. "Miriam, those are the doctors and the police."
The girl looked at us from one to the other. "You have seen her, then,"
she said in a strange, muffled voice, and added: "She isn't dead, is
she? Not really dead?" The question was asked in a tone at once coaxing
and despairing, such as a distracted mother might use over the corpse of
her child. It filled me with vague discomfort, and, unconsciously, I
looked round towards Thorndyke.
To my surprise he had vanished.
Noiselessly backing towards the head of the stairs, where I could
command a view of the hall, or passage, I looked down, and saw him in
the act of reaching up to a shelf behind the street door.
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