I stepped across the corpse and opened the door a foot or so.

There stood a woman with a lamp. She was a middle-aged woman with an
egg-shaped face, fat and white and puffy, and pale, crafty eyes. She was
in her outdoor clothes, with an enormous vulgar-looking hat and an
old-fashioned sealskin cape with a high collar. The cape which was
glistening with rain was half open, and displayed a vast bosom tightly
compressed into a white silk blouse. In one hand she carried an oil
lamp.

"Frau Schratt," she said by way of introduction, and raised the lamp to
look more closely at me.

Then I saw her face change. She was looking past me into the room, and I
knew that the lamplight was falling full upon the ghastly thing that lay
upon the floor.

I realized the woman was about to scream, so I seized her by the wrist.
She had disgusting hands, fat and podgy and covered with rings.

"Quiet!" I whispered fiercely in her ear, never relaxing my grip on her
wrist. "You will be quiet and come in here, do you understand?"

She sought to shrink from me, but I held her fast and drew her into the
room.

She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse. She
seemed to have regained her self-possession. The woman was no longer
frightened. I felt instinctively that her fears had been all for
herself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor. When she