“It’s this way. I will ask you to picture me some weeks ago, perfectly peaceful and inoffensive, after dinner at the Drones, smoking a thoughtful cigarette and—”
I broke off. The man wasn’t listening. He was goggling in a rapt sort of way at the end of the bed, from which there had now begun to drip on to the carpet a series of drops.
“Good heavens!”
“—thoughtful cigarette and chatting pleasantly of this and that—”
I broke off again. He had lifted the sheets and was gazing at the corpse of the hot-water bottle.
“Did you do this?” he said in a low, strangled sort of voice.
“Er—yes. As a matter of fact, yes. I was just going to tell you—”
“And your aunt tried to persuade me that you were not insane!”
“I’m not. Absolutely not. If you’ll just let me explain.”
“I will do nothing of the kind.”
“It all began—”
“Silence!”
“Right-ho.”
He did some deep-breathing exercises through the nose.
“My bed is drenched!”
“The way it all began—”