Diana Glass
The Help
A thundering on my door. I open my eyes to a dim blue gloom.
I know from the light that it must be very early in the morning.
I sit up in bed, heart thumping and suddenly very alert.
Before I answer the door I call out ‘Who’s there?
’ and am relieved to hear the unmistakable patrician tones of Mrs Bantry. ‘It’s me Diana! Quickly, open up.
‘Do you hear that?’ she says, as I join her in the corridor, pulling a robe hastily about me.
‘The most inhuman and awful howling – coming from somewhere above. Please don’t say there has been yet another death.
I have never been the sort of woman to talk about my nerves, but I am beginning to feel that mine will not take much more of this. ’
I can hear it now and understand why it has so upset Mrs Bantry.
The sound is truly hair-raising, an agonised wail.
It seems to be coming from the floor above us.
We wake Miss Marple and the three of us climb the stairs to the next floor, following the noises which seem to grow ever more tortured, more animal.
My sense of dread mounts. What are we about to find?
‘I can’t bear it,’ says Mrs Bantry, as though echoing my thoughts. ‘Is this safe? It sounds as though someone else is being murdered at this very moment.’