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that did not fumble but knew.
    A feeling of relief swept over her. It would be all right now.
    Dr Tanios was saying in firm, reassuring tones:
    “No, it's all right. No bones broken... Just badly shaken and bruised - and of course she's had a bad shock. But she's been very lucky that it's no worse.”
    Then he had cleared the others off a little and picked her up quite easily and carried her up to her bedroom, where he had held her wrist for a minute, counting, then nodded his head, sent Minnie (who was still crying and being generally a nuisance) out of the room to fetch brandy and to heat water for a hot bottle.
    Confused, shaken, and racked with pain, she felt acutely grateful to Jacob Tanios in that moment. The relief of feeling oneself in capable hands. He gave you just that feeling of assurance - of confidence - that a doctor ought to give.
    There was something - something she couldn't quite get hold of - something vaguely disquieting - but she wouldn't think of it now. She would drink this and go to sleep as they told her.
    But surely there was something missing - someone.
    Oh, well, she wouldn't think... Her shoulder hurt her. She drank down what she was given.
    She heard Dr Tanios say - and in what a comfortable assured voice: “She'll be all right, now.”
    She closed her eyes.
    She awoke to a sound that she knew - a soft, muffled bark.
    She was wide awake in a minute.
    Bob - naughty Bob! He was barking outside the front door - his own particular 'out all night very ashamed of myself' bark, pitched in a subdued key but repeated hopefully.
    Miss Arundell strained her ears. Ah, yes, that was all right. She could hear Minnie going down to let him in. She heard the creak of the opening front door, a confused low murmur - Minnie's futile reproaches -
    “Oh, you naughty little doggie - a very naughty little Bobsie -” She heard the pantry door open. Bob's bed was under the pantry table.
    And at that moment Emily realized what it was she had subconsciously missed at the moment of her accident. It was Bob! All that commotion - her fall, people running - normally Bob would have responded by a crescendo of barking from inside the pantry.
    So that was what had been worrying her at the back of her mind. But it was explained now - Bob, when he had been let out last night, had shamelessly and deliberately gone off on pleasure bent. From time to time he had these lapses from virtue - though his apologies afterwards were always all that could be desired.
    So that was all right. But was it? What else was there worrying her, nagging at the back of her head. Her accident - something to do with her accident.
    Ah, yes, somebody had said - Charles - that she had slipped on Bob's ball which he had left on the top of the stairs...
    The ball had been there - he had held it up in his hand...
    Emily Arundell's head ached. Her shoulder throbbed. Her bruised body suffered...
    But in the midst of her suffering her mind was clear and lucid. She was no longer confused by shock. Her memory was perfectly clear.
    She went over in her mind all the events from six o'clock yesterday evening... She retraced every step... till she came to the moment when she arrived at the stairhead and started to descend the stairs...
    A thrill of incredulous horror shot through her...
    Surely - surely, she must be mistaken... One often had queer fancies after an event had happened. She tried - earnestly she tried - to recall the slippery roundness of Bob's ball under her foot...
    But she could recall nothing of the kind. Instead -
    “Sheer nerves,” said Emily Arundell. “Ridiculous fancies.”
    But her sensible, shrewd, Victorian mind would not admit that for a moment. There was no foolish optimism about the Victorians.
    They could believe the worst with the utmost ease.
    Emily Arundell believed the worst.

Dumb Witness

Chapter 4
    MISS ARUNDELL WRITES A LETTER
    It was Friday. The relations had left.
    They left on the Wednesday as originally planned. One and all,