“Oh, well,” I said, “let’s have a drink and get to bed. If Harrison
comes in later, you’ll have to do the explaining.”
“Yes,” said Lathom, eagerly. “Good idea. Let’s have a drink.” He
wandered about. “Where the devil’s he put the whiskey?” He flung open a
cupboard door, and groped about, muttering.
At this point a thought occurred to me.
“Would Harrison go out and leave the door unlocked?” I said. “He’s a
careful sort of fellow as a rule.”
“What?” Lathom’s head emerged for a moment from the cupboard. “No—no—I
should think he would lock up.”
“Then he must be about somewhere,” I said. We had been talking almost in
whispers—I suppose with the idea of not disturbing the sleeper, but now
I lost patience.
“Harrison!” I shouted.
“Shut up!” said Lathom. “He must have left the whiskey in the bedroom.”
He picked up the candle and plunged into the inner room.
The shadows parted and flowed in after him as he went, leaving me in
darkness again. His footsteps shuffled to a halt and there was a long
pause. Then he spoke, in a curious, thick voice with a catch in it, like
a gramophone needle going over a crack.
“I say, Munting. Come here a minute. Something’s up.”
The inner room was in a sordid confusion. My hurrying footsteps tripped
over some bedclothes. There were two beds in the room, and Lathom was
standing by the farther of the two. He stepped aside, and his hand shook
so that the candle-flame danced. I thought at first that the man on the
bed had moved, but it was only the dancing candle.
The bed was broken and tilted grotesquely sideways. Harrison was
sprawled over it in a huddle of soiled blankets. His face was twisted
and white and his eyeballs rolled up so that only the whites showed. I
stooped over him and felt for his wrist. It was cold and heavy, and when
I released it it fell back on the bed like dead-weight. I did not like
the look of the nostrils—black caverns, scooped in wax—not flesh,
anyway—and the mouth, twisted unpleasantly upwards from the teeth, with
the pale tongue sticking through.
“My God!” I cried, but softly—and turned to look at Lathom, “the man’s
dead!”
“Dead?” He was looking at me, not at Harrison. “Are you sure?”
“Sure?” I put a finger beneath the fallen jaw, which woodenly resisted
me. “Why, he must have been dead for hours. He’s stiff, man, stiff!”
“So he is, poor old b——” said Lathom.
He began to laugh.
“Stop that,” I said, snatching the candle away from him, and dumping him
roughly down on to the other bed. “Pull yourself together. You want a
drink.”
I found the whiskey with some trouble. It was on the floor, under
Harrison’s bed. He must have grasped at it in his struggles and let it
roll away from him. Fortunately, the cork was in place. There was a
tumbler, too, but I did not touch that. I fetched another from the
living-room (Lathom cried out not to be left in the dark, but I paid no
attention), and poured him out a stiff peg, and made him swallow it
neat. Then I stood over him as he sat and shuddered.
“Sorry, old man,” he said at last. “Silly of me to make an ass of
myself. Bit of a startler, isn’t it? But your face—oh, Lord!—if you
could have seen yourself! It was priceless.”
He began to giggle again.
“Don’t be a fool,” said I. “We’ve got no time for hysterics. Something’s
got to be done.”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “Yes—something must be done. A doctor, or
something. All right, old man. Give me another drink and I’ll be as
right as rain.”
I gave him another small one and took some myself. That seemed to clear
my mind a little.
“How far are we from Manaton?”
“About three miles, I think—or a little over.”
“Well,” I said, “I suppose somebody there will have a telephone, or can
send a messenger. One of us had better get along there as fast as
possible and get on to the police.”
“Police?”
“Yes, of course, you ass. They’ve got to know.”
“But you don’t suppose there’s anything wrong about it?”
“Wrong? Well, there’s a dead man—that’s pretty wrong, I should think.
He must have died of something. Did he have a heart, or fits, or
anything?”
“Not that I know of.”