I was sufficiently sick to make no
remarks worth recording.
Strickland meditated and helped himself to drinks liberally. The thing under
the cloth made no more signs of life.
"Is it Imray?" I said.
Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment and looked. "It is Imray," he
said, "and his throat is cut from ear to ear."
Then we spoke both together and to ourselves:
"That's why he whispered about the house."
Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A little later her great nose
heaved upon the dining-room door.
She sniffed and was still. The broken and tattered ceiling-cloth hung down
almost to the level of the table, and there was hardly room to move away from
the discovery.
Then Tietjens came in and sat down, her teeth bared and her forepaws planted.
She looked at Strickland.
"It's bad business, old lady," said he. "Men don't go up into the roofs of
their bungalows to die, and they don't fasten up the ceiling-cloth behind 'em.
Let's think it out."
"Let's think it out somewhere else," I said.
"Excellent idea! Turn the lamps out. We'll get into my room."
I did not turn the lamps out. I went into Strickland's room first and allowed
him to make the darkness. Then he followed me, and we lighted tobacco and
thought.
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