Free Weekend with Death by Patricia Wentworth

She struck a match and burned it, and smeared out the ash upon the carpet by the bed. With the needle back in her work-box and the scissors on the dressing-table, no one could ever know that she had opened the packet and sewn it up again.
    She had pushed it back under the pile of pyjamas, when something made her look round. If it was a sound it was a very soft one. She could not have said that she had heard anything, but in the act of pushing home the drawer she turned her head towards the door and saw the handle move. At once her mind was cold and clear. She shut the drawer, stepped back from it, and said,
    â€œWho is there?”
    There were only four people besides herself in the house. Mrs. Perkins and Thompson slept in the basement.
    If it was Morgan—well, in that moment of cold anger she felt quite capable of annihilating Morgan.

CHAPTER IX
    It wasn’t Morgan. It was Joanna.
    Her plaintive “Are you awake?” brought Sarah to the door with the least possible delay. The Victorian chair pushed aside, she threw it open and revealed Miss Cattermole in a reassuringly solid camel-coloured dressing-gown, with her hair screwed up tight to her head in aluminium curlers. Her eyes looked large, and vague, and frightened. She clutched at Sarah and said,
    â€œOh, my dear—forgive me—I do hope you were not asleep. Oh, no, I see you have your shoes and stockings on. But, my dear, I had such a terrible dream. That is the worst of being so psychic—it makes one too receptive. And when I woke up I had such a palpitation, and I thought perhaps if you would come down to my room and stay there a little, I shouldn’t feel so nervous—only I am really very sorry to disturb you.”
    As she spoke she came a little way into the room, peering to right and left with an odd, startled glance. It slid over the chair which had guarded the door and slid away.
    Sarah said quickly, “Of course I’ll come. Why, how cold you are! Would you like some tea, or a hot water bottle?”
    Joanna was trembling. She looked very small and shrunken without her wild halo of hair.
    â€œNo—no—oh, no, I don’t want anything. If you would just come down with me and stay a little—”
    Sarah went down with her and got her into bed. There was a gas fire in the room, burning brightly and throwing out a good heat. Joanna, in the large double bed which had belonged to her parents, looked smaller than ever. She sat up against three immense pillows in frilled linen pillow-cases and told Sarah all about her dream. Now that it was over and she had company, she was able to derive a good deal of gloomy pleasure from it.
    â€œI don’t quite know where I was, but it was an empty house and I couldn’t get out. There were a great many doors and windows, but they were all locked and I couldn’t get out. I have always been very much afraid of being shut in anywhere. I could never understand how people could go down into the catacombs and places like that—I am sure I should faint—and in my dream this place was much worse, because there was the sense of an evil presence —” Joanna’s voice dropped to a rustling whisper.
    â€œBut it was only a dream. Would you like a little more light?”
    Sarah could have done with more herself. A heavily shaded lamp by the bedside did very little to relieve a pervading gloom. The room was dark—L-shaped like the drawing-room. Round the corner it ran away into a black cave. The gas fire struck a cheerful modern note. Sarah found herself with an affection for it.
    Miss Joanna said in a creeping voice, “And what made it so much worse was that I was quite sure something dreadful was going to happen. It was coming nearer every moment, and the dreadful thing was that it was always just behind me—just out of sight.”
    â€œDon’t you think we had better talk about something else?”
    â€œNo—I think it does me