the house well she did not trouble to turn on the light—and was just entering her bedroom, which, if you remember, is next to ours, when to her alarm she heard somebody breathing quite close to her. She gave some sort of exclamation and tried to get her hand on the landing switch but encountered the hand of a man. Thinking it was a burglar, she started to scream, but the man gripped at her arm and said in a whisper, “It’s all right, Miss Milsom.” She clutched at his arm, and felt what she at once recognised as the sleeve of Munting’s quilted dressing-gown, which he frequently wears when doing his writing. She at once asked him what he was doing on her landing, and he mumbled something about fetching some article or other from his overcoat on the hall-stand and missing his way in the dark. She expostulated, and he pulled her away from the lighting-switch, saying, “Don’t make a disturbance—you’ll alarm Mrs. Harrison. It’s quite all right.” She told him she did not believe him, and according to her account, he then made advances to her, which she repelled with indignation. He replied, “Oh, very well!” and started off upstairs. She went back and turned the light on in time to see the tail of the dressing-gown disappearing upstairs. Thoroughly frightened, she rushed into my wife’s bedroom and had an attack of hysterics. Margaret endeavoured to soothe her, and they spent the rest of the night together. The next night, Miss Milsom summoned up courage to remain in her own room, bolting the door. Margaret did the same, and they suffered no further disturbance.
I then questioned Margaret. She was, naturally, very much upset, but thought that Miss Milsom was completely mistaken, and making a mountain out of a molehill. She is too innocent to see—what I, of course, saw very plainly—that this shameless attack was directed against herself and not against Miss Milsom. I did not suggest this to her (not wishing to alarm her), and promised to hear Munting’s version of the affair before taking any further steps.
I then interviewed Munting. He took the thing in the worst possible way—with a cool effrontery which roused me to the highest pitch of