In the bright morning the whole city steamed and sparkled in the thawing sunlight. Ice-coated trees on the mountain made glittering, lacy patterns with their sunlit branches, and the banked, melting snow on the hills turned a thousand sidewalks into rivulets that twinkled and twisted in the sunlight on their way down the slopes. Icicles on the sloping roofs sparkled like chandeliers, and on the house on Crescent Street three giant icicles had formed on the steps and were dripping over the basement entrance to Peggy’s apartment.
Mrs. Agnew, standing at her front window, looked out at the melting snow with satisfaction. She wanted to go up to Sherbrooke Street to one of the little hat shops. When it was bitter cold she hated those windy corners. She believed they were the coldest corners in Montreal. You climbed right into the wind when you got to Sherbrooke, and it really took hold of you.
Through her window she saw two Negroes, who had been coming up on the other side of the street, stop before her house and look over.
Elton Wagstaffe and the grim, bony-faced café manager were inspecting Mrs. Agnew’s house, making sure they had the right number. Wagstaffe usually wore a camel-haired tan-coloured coat, but today he had on a double-breasted dark coat and a black fedora, and the manager also had on a dark coat and dark fedora. Both the same height, they both had the same solemn, sedate air. They turned to consult each other before crossing the street in step. To Mrs. Agnew they looked like a couple of Negro undertakers or solemn emissaries who were carrying out an important mission. As they climbed her steps, they had a lordly air. Without waiting for the bell to ring, she hurried out to the hall and waited for them.
“How do you do?” she said uneasily when she had opened the door.
“How do you do?” Wagstaffe said, his tone formal.
“How do you do?” the manager repeated in the same tone.
“What can I do for you?” Mrs. Agnew assumed their own solemn tone and held her kimono tight across her chest.
“A Miss Sanderson lives here?”
“Well, she lives downstairs. It’s the other door, just below.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Wagstaffe, bowing, and they both raised their hats.
“But she wouldn’t be in,” Mrs. Agnew added quickly because she had become very curious. “Have you a message for her? I could give her the message.”
Glancing at each other, they hesitated cautiously. “Are you by any chance the landlady here?” Wagstaffe asked.
“I’m Mrs. Agnew, the lady of the house.”
“You would know if Miss Sanderson had left town?”
“Left town? Of course I would. Why would she leave town?”
“She has said nothing about getting out of town?”
“Why, no! What is this?”
“Our apologies, Mrs. Agnew,” said the manager.
“What’ll I say to her?”
“Just tell her we were here.”
“And that you asked if she had got out of town?”
“Exactly, ma’am, and thank you,” they said. Again they raised their hats, bowed, turned together, and left her standing there mystified. They descended the steps and went down the street with their measured stride without once looking back. Only then did she realize that she hadn’t asked them their names.
“Well! Well, what do you know?” she said. She had been extraordinarily impressed by their dignity. And they had really expected to find that Peggy had left town. In that case there must have been some talk about her leaving town. But Peggy had borrowed ten dollars from her a week ago. She counted on Peggy repaying her that night when she came home from the factory; she was planning to advance herself the ten from her own purse and go up to that Sherbrooke hat shop. She wanted something new that night when her grinning, bald, inexhaustible little man from St. Agathe came to see her. She liked Peggy. She couldn’t believe the girl would skip out without paying her. It wasn’t like her at all. But the girl’s Negro friends might know a lot more about her. Above all, Mrs. Agnew wanted to count on getting the money for that hat.
It was easy to find out if the girl had left. In two minutes she could tell if she had taken her things. She wouldn’t leave in her overalls, and her dresses and things should be in her room. So she went along the hall and down the back stairs and tapped on Peggy’s door. “Peggy, Peggy,” she called, not expecting an answer, but protecting herself in case the girl was home, sick. There was no answer, and she opened the door.
The strong morning sunlight was all on the front of the house, and it had not yet reached the window of Peggy’s room. Anyway, the curtain was drawn and the light was burning.
“Oh, there you are, Peggy,” she said when she saw one bare foot dangling over the edge of the bed. “Are you asleep, dearie? You had two callers, Peggy. I should have made sure you weren’t at work. I say, dearie, wake up.”
Taking a few steps toward the bed she raised both her hands and opened her mouth wide to scream; but her throat was paralyzed. She couldn’t call out; she couldn’t run. The girl lay naked on the bed. Her torn white blouse had been thrown on the floor. Her black skirt was on the floor, and sticking out from under it was a drawing of a girl in overalls; and the skirt could have been poured on the drawing. Peggy’s wide-open eyes stared horribly at the ceiling and her mouth gaped. Around her throat were big bluish welts, and on her left breast was a heavy dark bruise. Her head was twisted a little to one side, her arms straight at her sides, the palms open and twisted back. She looked small, round, and white. Only her hair had any life in it, for the ceiling light touched the side of her head and there were gleams of gold in the fair hair.
The strangling tightness around Mrs. Agnew’s own throat made her own eyes bulge as horribly as Peggy’s; then it snapped and she cried, “Murder! Murder! Help!” She ran out of the room, turned back idiotically to slam the door after her, and staggered frantically up the stairs, still screaming.