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.