The Strawstack Murders by Dorothy Cameron Disney

Author:Dorothy Cameron Disney [Disney, Dorothy Cameron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480245334
Amazon: 148024533X
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2012-11-14T05:00:00+00:00

13

I couldn’t believe that I was unharmed, uninjured—alone beside the open window. It seemed to me that never again would I be able to move or make a sound, but that I must remain there always, with my fingers clamped to the window sill, the whirling rain at my back, the blackness of the bedroom pressing at my eyeballs, the silence of it ringing in my ears. I didn’t move until, very faintly, I heard the squeak of an opening door. I turned then, turned sharply. But the connecting door between Dorothy’s room and mine was already closing swiftly and the intruder was on the other side of it. In the fan-shaped wedge of light something small flipped quickly out of sight. Something which looked like a tassel attached to a length of cord.

I screamed with all my force. Almost at once I heard other doors opening along the hall, excited voices, the rush of footsteps. Light gushed in from the hall, and people were streaming in, surrounding me, exclaiming. I believe that it was Fred who reached me first, and I know that within the space of seconds they were all there—Marian was, and Simon and Ames, and Verity in her flannel nightgown. Even Jane was there, white and shaken from exertion.

“Quick!” I gasped. “Go quickly. I’m all right, but someone’s in my bedroom.”

Simon raced into my room, and Ames went after him. But the intruder wasn’t in the room, and they found no sign of him. Mystified, they rejoined us. “Who was it, Margaret? What happened? What were you doing here?”

I tried to give a clear, ungarbled account. My family looked increasingly bewildered. It did not occur to me that no matter how calmly I related the bare, unvarnished facts, my adventure might sound too fantastic for belief. But after Simon had packed the others off to bed, and carried me bodily to my own bed, and stationed Verity there to guard me, I had my first inkling of the general reaction to my story. Simon prescribed a sedative so that I might enjoy a “dreamless sleep.” I was calmer, my terror was ebbing, and I felt baffled as I looked at him.

“Do you think that I was dreaming, Simon?”

“You’re exhausted, dear.” He leaned to pat my cheek. “Lie back, and close your eyes and let the sedative work.”

“There was someone in Dorothy’s room,” I insisted. “Someone who grabbed my hand and held me, and pushed me against the wall. Someone who slipped through the door in here.”

“We’ll talk about it,” said Simon, “in the morning. You’re in no condition to talk now. I’m counting on you, Verity, to keep her quiet.”

He tiptoed from the room. Verity obeyed Simon’s orders to the letter. She wouldn’t listen, nor would she speak. She sat silently, immovably beside the bed as she had sat when I was six years old, and presently I dropped those futile efforts of mine to fit that terrifying incident in the other bedroom into the picture of Dorothy Fithian’s death.

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