“Is Hannah still in the bathroom?” Lida asked.
“I think so,” Helen said. “You know how the bathroom is en suite?”
“Of course it’s en suite,” Sheila Kashinian said. “What else would it be?”
“The problem is,” Helen Tevorakian said, ignoring this, “the bathroom door is on the other side of the bedroom from the bedroom door to the hall, and I can’t get to the bathroom door because the hall bedroom door is locked now too, and I don’t know what is going on.”
“The bedroom door is locked?”
“Do you mean Paul Hazzard locked it?” Sheila demanded.
“I suppose he must have,” Helen Tevorakian said.
“Why would he do a thing like that?”
Lida Arkmanian had had enough. “This is really impossible,” she said. “Neither one of them is behaving like a sane person. We have to do something about this.”
“Maybe Howard could go up and break down the bedroom door,” Sheila suggested.
“I think it would do just as well if I went up there and knocked on the bedroom door,” Lida said, “and told them both to stop it. Oh, when I get my hands on that man, I’m going to slap his face. Just let me up there.”
Beside Gregor, Candida DeWitt stirred. “No,” she called out in a loud, clear voice. “Let me go up there. I’ll probably have better luck talking sense into Paul than you will.”
Lida, Sheila, and Helen all turned in unison, keeping absolutely still as Candida crossed the room to the spiral stairs.
“I think you’ve done enough damage for one night,” Lida said coldly when Candida arrived. “I think you ought to have the good manners to get out of here and let the rest of us clean this up.”
“I didn’t send that invitation to myself,” Candida said mildly. “I find it interesting to speculate on just who did. What I said is true, by the way. I will have more luck talking sense into Paul than any of you would. I know what to say to him.”
“She might have a point,” Helen Tevorakian said reluctantly.
“Well, the good God only knows,” Lida said, “I don’t want to talk to the man. I just want to injure him.”
“So do I,” Candida said grimly. “And trust me, if I ever get my hands on him, I’ll do damage to a far more sensitive stretch of his skin than his face. Have we agreed? Shall I go up there?”
“Yes,” Helen Tevorakian said quickly.
Candida nodded to each of the three women in turn and hurried up the stairs. Helen, Lida, and Sheila looked at each other doubtfully.
“I hope we did the right thing,” Helen Tevorakian said. “She seems like a very nice woman, but—”
“I know what you mean,” Lida said. “The problem with strangers is that you don’t know how they’re going to behave—”
“I don’t care so much about how she’s going to behave,” Sheila said. “What I want to know is what it is she thinks she’s up to.”
“It’s so quiet up there,” Helen Tevorakian said. “It was when I was upstairs too. I stood out in the hall and listened and listened, but all I could hear was Paul Hazzard pacing back and forth, not talking to Hannah or anything. And Hannah was crying, of course.”
“Maybe they’ll all come down soon,” Lida said.
Sheila Kashinian snorted. “What do you think it is we’re going to do then?”
“If we don’t hear anything for five minutes, I’ll go up myself and try to help,” Lida said definitely. “That way we just won’t be sitting here, waiting for the phone to ring, if you know what I mean.”
“I used to sit around waiting for the phone to ring when I was engaged to Jack,” Helen Tevorakian said. “Then, when he would finally call, I’d pretend I didn’t recognize his voice.”
“Don’t let’s get into all that now,” Sheila Kashinian said. “We’ll forget where we are and we’ll never get anything done.”
There was the sound of rapid footsteps upstairs, and then a hollow bang, as if a door had been opened too quickly and hit the wall behind it. Everyone looked expectantly at the top of the spiral stairs. Gregor expected to see a high-heeled foot emerge from the landing above. Surely the first person down would be Candida DeWitt.
There was the sound of more footsteps. There was what seemed to be a gasp. And then it started.
It was the loudest and highest scream Gregor Demarkian had ever heard in his life. It went on and on and on and on without stopping. It had a staccato backbeat to it that rent and pierced and punctuated its rhythm like the percussion section in an orchestra of manic depressives. Everyone in the living room froze. Gregor made himself move forward only with the most determined exercise of will he had ever made in his life.