“Let’s go and get a drink,” said Waters, “and we’ll tell you all about it. You’d better have a look at this first, Mr. Munting.”
I looked through the instrument. Dead blackness. But if the thing had shown all the colours of the rainbow, I should have been in no state to draw any conclusions from it. I sat stunned while somebody switched on the lights, extinguished the Bunsen burner and locked all the apparatus up again.
Then I found myself straggling after the other two, while they talked about something or the other. I had an idea that I came into it, and presently Waters turned back and thrust his arm into mine.
“What you want,” he said, “is a double Scotch, and no soda.”
I don’t very well remember getting home, but that, I think, was not due to the double Scotch, but to bewilderment of mind. I do remember waking my wife up and blurting out my story in a kind of confused misery, which must have perplexed and alarmed her. And I remember saying that it was quite useless to think of going to bed, because I should never sleep. And I remember waking this morning very late, with the feeling that someone was dead.
I have written all this down. I don’t know whether it is necessary, because, of course, Sir James will be doing something about it by now. But I promised a statement, and here it is.
One other thing has happened. As I was reading it through to see if it was coherent, the telephone rang. My wife answered it. I heard her say:
“Yes?—Yes?—Yes?—who is it speaking, please?—Oh, yes—I’m not sure—I’ll go and see—Will you hold the line a minute?”
She put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, almost in a whisper:
“It’s Mr. Lathom, asking to speak to you.”