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‘Now don’t be stupid, Fou-Ling,’ said Mrs Fellows-Brown sharply ‘Come on I’ll have to pick you up’

She picked hionized protest They went out of the roo’s pop-eyed face turned over his fluffy shoulder, still staring with enormous attention at the doll on the chair…

‘That there doll,’ said Mrs Groves, ‘fair gives me the creeps, it does’

Mrs Groves was the cleaner She had just finished a crablike progress backwards along the floor Now she was standing up and working slowly round the room with a duster

‘Funny thing,’ said Mrs Groves, ‘never noticed it really until yesterday And then it hit ht say’

‘You don’t like it?’ asked Sybil

‘I tell you, Mrs Fox, it giveswoman ‘It ain’t natural, if you knohat I s and the way she’s slouched down there and the cunning look she has in her eye It doesn’t look healthy, that’s what I say’

‘You’ve never said anything about her before,’ said Sybil

‘I tell you, I never noticed her—not till this … Of course I know she’s been here some time but—’ She stopped and a puzzled expression flitted across her face ‘Sort of thing youup various cleaning i-roo to the room on the other side

Sybil stared at the relaxed doll An expression of bewilder on her face Alicia Coombe entered and Sybil turned sharply

‘Miss Coo have you had this creature?’

‘What, the doll? My dear, you know I can’t re out to that lecture and I hadn’t gone halfway down the street when I suddenly found I couldn’t reht Finally I toldI wanted to get at Fortnuot ho some tea that I remembered about the lecture Of course, I’ve always heard that people go gaga as they get on in life, but it’s happening to —and my spectacles, too Where did I put those spectacles? I had the in The Times’

‘The spectacles are on thetheave her to you?’

‘That’s a blank, too,’ said Alicia Cooave her to me or sent her to me, I suppose…However, she does seem to match the room very well, doesn’t she?’

‘Rather too well, I think,’ said Sybil ‘Funny thing is, I can’t remember when I first noticed her here’

‘Now don’t you get the same way as I a still’

‘But really, Miss Coombe, I don’t reht there was so creepy about her And then I thought I’d already thought so, and then I tried to reht so, and—well, I just couldn’t re! In a way, it was as if I’d never seen her before—only it didn’t feel like that It felt as though she’d been here a long time but I’d only just noticed her’

‘Perhaps she flew in through theone day on a broos here now all right’ She looked round ‘You could hardly iine the room without her, could you?’

‘No,’ said Sybil, with a slight shiver, ‘but I rather wish I could’

‘Could what?’

‘Iine the room without her’

‘Are we all going barmy about this doll?’ de with the poor thing? Looks like a decayed cabbage to ot spectacles on’ She put them on her nose and looked firmly at the doll ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I see what youbut—well, sly and rather determined, too’

‘Funny,’ said Sybil, ‘Mrs Fellows-Brown taking such a violent dislike to her’

‘She’s one who neverher mind,’ said Alicia Coombe

‘But it’s odd,’ persisted Sybil, ‘that this doll should make such an impression on her’

‘Well, people do take dislikes very suddenly sometimes’

‘Perhaps,’ said Sybil with a little laugh, ‘that doll never was here until yesterday…Perhaps she just—flew in through the , as you say, and settled herself here’ ‘No,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘I’m sure she’s been here some time Perhaps she only became visible yesterday’

‘That’s what I feel, too,’ said Sybil, ‘that she’s been here so her till yesterday’

‘Now, dear,’ said Alicia Cooup and down reat deal of supernatural hoo-hah about that creature, are you?’ She picked up the doll, shook it out, rearranged its shoulders, and sat it down again on another chair Ihtly and relaxed

‘It’s not a bit lifelike,’ said Alicia Coo at the doll ‘And yet, in a funny way, she does seem alive, doesn’t she?’

II

‘Oo, it did give me a turn,’ said Mrs Groves, as she went round the showrooo into the fitting-room any more’

‘What’s given you a turn?’ de-table in the corner, busy with various accounts ‘This woman,’ she added more for her own benefit than that of Mrs Groves, ‘thinks she can have two evening dresses, three cocktail dresses, and a suit every year without ever paying me a penny for them! Really, some people!’

‘It’s that doll,’ said Mrs Groves

‘What, our doll again?’

‘Yes, sitting up there at the desk, like a huive me a turn!’

‘What are you talking about?’

Alicia Coo outside, and into the roo-room There was a s in a chair drawn up to it, her long floppy arms on the desk, sat the doll