Mrs Brooks had not been able to catch any word of farewell, temporary
or otherwise, between her tenants at the door above. They might have
quarrelled, or Mr d'Urberville might still be asleep, for he was not
an early riser. She went into the back room, which was more especially her own
apartment, and continued her sewing there. The lady lodger did not
return, nor did the gentleman ring his bell. Mrs Brooks pondered on
the delay, and on what probable relation the visitor who had called
so early bore to the couple upstairs. In reflecting she leant back
in her chair. As she did so her eyes glanced casually over the ceiling till they
were arrested by a spot in the middle of its white surface which she
had never noticed there before. It was about the size of a wafer
when she first observed it, but it speedily grew as large as the palm
of her hand, and then she could perceive that it was red. The oblong
white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the
appearance of a gigantic ace of hearts.
Mrs Brooks had strange qualms of misgiving. She got upon the table,
and touched the spot in the ceiling with her fingers. It was damp,
and she fancied that it was a blood stain.
Descending from the table, she left the parlour, and went upstairs,
intending to enter the room overhead, which was the bedchamber at
the back of the drawing-room. But, nerveless woman as she had now
become, she could not bring herself to attempt the handle. She
listened. The dead silence within was broken only by a regular beat.
Drip, drip, drip. Mrs Brooks hastened downstairs, opened the front door, and ran into
the street. A man she knew, one of the workmen employed at an
adjoining villa, was passing by, and she begged him to come in and go
upstairs with her; she feared something had happened to one of her
lodgers. The workman assented, and followed her to the landing.
She opened the door of the drawing-room, and stood back for him
to pass in, entering herself behind him. The room was empty; the
breakfast--a substantial repast of coffee, eggs, and a cold ham--lay
spread upon the table untouched, as when she had taken it up,
excepting that the carving-knife was missing. She asked the man to
go through the folding-doors into the adjoining room.
He opened the doors, entered a step or two, and came back almost
instantly with a rigid face. "My good God, the gentleman in bed is
dead! I think he has been hurt with a knife--a lot of blood had run
down upon the floor!" The alarm was soon given, and the house which had lately been so
quiet resounded with the tramp of many footsteps, a surgeon among the
rest. The wound was small, but the point of the blade had touched
the heart of the victim, who lay on his back, pale, fixed, dead, as
if he had scarcely moved after the infliction of the blow. In a
quarter of an hour the news that a gentleman who was a temporary
visitor to the town had been stabbed in his bed, spread through every
street and villa of the popular watering-place.