Leave Her to Hell

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A woman wanted to see me about a job. Her name, she said, was Faith Salem. She lived, she said, in a certain apartment in a certain apartment building, and she told me the number of the apartment and the floor it was on and the name and the address of the building it was in. She said she wanted me to come there and see her at three o’clock that afternoon the same day she called on the telephone. I went and saw her, and it was three o’clock when I got there.

The door was opened by a maid with a face like half a walnut. You may think it’s impossible for a face to look like half a walnut, and I suppose it is, if you want to be literal. But half a walnut is, nevertheless, all I can think of as a comparison when I think of the face of this maid. She wasn’t young, and she probably wasn’t old. She was, as they say, of an indeterminate age. Her eyes smiled, but not her lips; and she nodded her head three times as if she had checked me swiftly on three salient points and was satisfied on every one. This gave me confidence.

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