Every now and then he would recognise a snippet as belonging to some
suit his father had worn years ago, and then Jim's brain would receive
a shock and would stagger and have to begin its counting all over
again.
The door opened to let Rowcliffe in. And at the sound of the door,
as if a spring had been suddenly released in his spine, Jim Greatorex
shot up and started to his feet.
"Well, Greatorex----"
"Good evening, Dr. Rawcliffe." He came forward awkwardly, hanging his
head as if detected in an act of shame.
There was a silence while the two men turned their backs upon the
bed, determined to ignore what was on it. They stood together by the
window, pretending to stare at things out there in the night; and so
they became aware of the men carrying the coffin.
They could no longer ignore it.
"Wull yo look at 'Im, doctor?"
"Better not----." Rowcliffe would have laid his hand on the young
man's arm, muttering a refusal, but Greatorex had moved to the bed and
drawn back the sheet.
What Gwenda Cartaret had seen was revealed.
The dead man's face, upturned with a slight tilt to the ceiling that
bulged so brutally above it, the stiff dark beard accentuating the
tilt, the eyes, also upturned, white under their unclosing lids, the
nostrils, the half-open mouth preserved their wonder and their terror
before a thing so incredible--that the walls and roof of a man's room
should close round him and suffocate him.
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