“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