Cold, Lone and Still

‘Of course not. I wouldn’t go without telling you.’

‘That’s all right, then. Are you hating all this?’

‘No, no. I like to see young people happy.’

I slipped out and walked down a long, broad corridor. It was not the way by which we had been taken to what I supposed was the common-room, but the house was a large one and the room had three doors. The corridor was occupied by a bloke near the further end. He was seated behind a small table near a glass-fronted telephone cabinet, reading one newspaper and eating fish and chips out of another.

‘Is there anywhere I can go to have a quiet smoke?’ I asked him. ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache with all the row in there.’

‘Why, yes, sir. Go along a bit further and on your left you’ll find a passage. There’s a switch on the right as you goes in. Oh, Lor’, though! You’ll have to feel your way, I’m afraid, sir. I’d clean forgot. I recollects now as some clever bugger have removed the electric lightbulb. Wanted it for his own room, I suppose. Some of ’em comes in during the vacations to get on with a bit of college work, you see. I better get around to replacing it. But you’ll find your way all right and the door is straight in front of you.’

It dawned on me that he thought my modest desire for a quiet smoke meant that I really needed the Gents, but I decided that at any rate I could stand outside its door and have my puff, so I thanked him and walked on, as he had directed.

That is to say, I began to walk on as he had directed, but in the little passage — dark as the one in Scotland — I stumbled over a body.

They talk of people who feel they are living in a nightmare. That is not a novelist’s exaggerated way of expressing the extreme of discomfort and terror. I can vouch for its literal truth. Before I struck a match to look at what was on the floor of that dark passage, I questioned whether I was not indeed in the throes of a nightmare and I wondered how soon I could wake myself out of it. I could feel every nerve in my body clicking with electric sparks. It must be a nightmare, I thought.

But, of course, it was no nightmare, but a stark and dreadful reality. I rallied with what has become known as the courage of despair, pulled myself together and struck the match. When it scorched my fingers, I dropped it and went back to the man in the broad, well-lit corridor. I don’t know what I looked like, but he stood up, came out from behind his table, took my arm and said in a voice of deep concern, ‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘Yes — no — yes. Look, could you come with me a minute? There’s a — there’s a dead man in that passage.’

‘You sit yourself down in my chair, sir, while I fetches one of the other gentlemen,’ he said.

‘Good Lord! He thinks I’m mad,’ I said aloud.

‘There, there! Just you take it easy,’ he said soothingly. He almost galloped along the corridor towards the room where the party was being held. I put my elbows on the table and held my head in my hands. Coral and Freddie, who were serving the food, came up with loaded trays and stopped in front of me.

‘Hullo, are you all right? Where’s Bull gone?’ asked the youth. I looked up and pointed towards the end of the corridor.

‘You’d better wait here,’ I said. ‘Something has happened.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Coral, putting her tray down on the table, ‘a chance to have a bite ourselves. Been so busy feeding the five thousand that we haven’t had a look in on the bakemeats so far. Have a nosebag yourself. You look as though you could do with it.’

I could no more have done as she suggested than I could have partaken of the contents of a cannibal’s stewpot, but just then the door of the common-room opened and the caretaker came back with Lucius Trickett. The students with the trays picked them up and departed to render service.

‘This is the gentleman, Mr Trickett, sir,’ said the caretaker.

‘Oh, I say, you’re Melrose,’ said Trickett. ‘Awfully glad you could come. Anything up?’ To have attended the party was the last thing I was glad about, but I didn’t say so. He went on: ‘You’re the chap who totes that awfully pretty woman around, aren’t you? You know — Miss Camden, you know. She is probably wondering where you have got to. I say! You do look a bit peculiar. I’ll call a doctor, shall I?’

‘Call the police. There’s a dead man in the passage,’ I said.

They both looked at me with deep concern. Bull took the student aside.

‘I think we had better take a look, just to humour him, sir,’ I heard him say. ‘Hang on a minute. I’ve got an electric torch in my den.’ He went off to get it and Trickett seated himself on the table.

‘Are you sloshed?’ he asked. I shook my head.

‘I wish I were,’ I said. ‘What’s more, I could do with a double brandy right now. This is the second time this has happened to me.’

‘Double vision, old man. All doubles, if you see what I mean.’

Bull came back with a torch and an electric bulb.

‘You’ll taller than me, sir, so won’t need the step-ladder,’ he said, handing Trickett the bulb. ‘I’d have replaced this here before now, but for the bother of fetching the ladder.’ They walked towards the end of the corridor. I got up from my chair and caught up with them, an action which I don’t think either appreciated very much, for Bull said nervously, ‘Now don’t you fret, sir. Just leave everything to us. We’ll soon fix up a light and then you’ll see as everything is all right.’

But, of course, nothing was all right except the calm behaviour of Trickett. The electric light was only about a third of the way down the passage, so, helped by the beam of Bull’s torch, Trickett was able to reach up and fix the bulb before we came to the body. When he saw it he said, ‘Well, well! Yes, Bull, you had certainly better call the police.’ He took me by the sleeve. ‘Come up to my room, Mr Melrose, and I’ll rustle you up a drink. You won’t want to go back to the party.’

We went up some stairs, I remember, and he took me into his study-bedroom. The drink was only vermouth, but it did something for me. I sat in his only chair while he settled himself on the bed and, when I had swallowed