Pitt and Gillivray excused themselves and found a hansom to take them to the morgue, since Waybourne was obviously not willing to have them accompany him.
The drive was not long. They were quickly out of the fash-ionabJe squares
The morgue was grim: less effort made to be clean than in a hospital-less reason. There was no humanity here except one brown-faced little man with faintly Eastern eyes and curiously light hair. His manner was suitably subdued.
'Yes, sir,' he said to Gillivray, who led the way in. 'I know the boy you mean. The gentleman to see it has not arrived yet.'
There was nothing to do but wait for Waybourne. It turned out to be not thirty minutes but very nearly an hour. If Waybourne was aware of the time elapsed, he gave no sign. His face was still irritated, as though he had been called out on an unnecessary duty, required only because someone had made a foolish error.
12
'Well?' He came in briskly, ignoring the morgue attendant and Gillivray. He faced Pitt with raised eyebrows, hitching the shoulders of his coat into better position. The room was cold. 'What is it you want me to see?'
Gillivray shifted his feet uncomfortably. He had not seen the corpse, nor did he know where it had been found. Oddly, he had not inquired. He regarded the whole task as something he was seconded to because of his superior manners, a task to be fulfilled and forgotten as soon as possible. He preferred the investigation of robbery, particularly robbery from the wealthy and the lesser aristocracy. The quiet, discreet association with such people when he was assisting was a rather pleasing way to advance his career.
Pitt knew what was to come-the inescapable pain, the struggle to explain away the horror, the denial right up to the last, inevitable moment.
'This way, sir. I warn you.' He suddenly regarded Waybourne levelly, as an equal, perhaps even condescendingly; he knew death, he had felt the grief, the anger. But at least he could control his stomach through sheer habit. 'I'm afraid it is not pleasant.'
'Get on with it, man,' Waybourne snapped. 'I have not all day to spend on this. And I presume when
Pitt led the way into the bare white room where the corpse was laid out on a table, and gently removed the covering sheet from the face. There was no point in showing the rest of the body with its great autopsy wounds.
He knew what was coming; the features were too alike: the fair wavy hair, the long soft nose, the full lips.
There was a faint sound from Waybourne. Every vestige of blood vanished from his face. He swayed a little, as though the room were afloat and had shifted under his feet.
Gillivray was too startled to react for an instant, but the morgue attendant had seen it more times than he could recall. It was the worst part of his job. He had a chair ready, and as Wayboume's knees buckled he eased him into it as if it were all one natural movement-not a collapse but a seating.
13
Pitt covered the face.
'I'm sorry, sir,' he said quietly. 'You identify this as the body of your son Arthur Waybourne?'
Waybourne tried to speak but at first his voice would not come. The attendant gave him a glass of water and he took a sip of it.
'Yes,' he said at last. 'Yes, that is my son Arthur.' He grasped the glass and drank some more of it slowly. 'Would you be so good as to tell me where he was discovered and how he died?'
'Of course. He was drowned.'
'Drowned?' Obviously, Waybourne was startled. Perhaps he had never seen a drowned face before and did not recognize the puffy flesh, marble white.
