‘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 the contents of the glass, I told him all about my experience in the ruins on Rannoch Moor.
‘Oh, well,’ he said comfortingly, ‘it’s not all that unusual for people to see things before they happen. Time is only relative, after all.’
‘But the chap in Scotland was a real chap. I didn’t see a ghost. I just identified him wrongly, that’s all. The really odd thing — well, this chap in the passage is Carbridge.’
‘Yes. It looks as though he turned up after all.’
‘After all?’
‘Yes. He answered the invitation with tremendous enthusiasm, so I quite expected him to come bouncing along and I was most surprised when he didn’t show up.’
‘Well, he’s shown up now all right.’
‘Yes,’ said Trickett, gloomy for the first time, ‘you’re right there. I don’t know what the warden is going to say. He wasn’t a bit keen to grant me permission to hold the party here out of term-time and, if it hadn’t been a reunion for the Scottish adventure people, he would have turned me down flat. He told me so.’ He looked at me sadly, but without animosity. ‘You couldn’t be a sort of Ancient Mariner, could you?’ he asked.
‘I haven’t killed the albatross or anything or anybody else. I’ve just got myself caught up in something nightmarish,’ I answered; but the reference to the Ancient Mariner brought my previous bad dreams rushing back at me like a flock of vampire bats.
Before I could say any more, Bull knocked on the door to tell us that the police had arrived. Would we please come down? We went down. A policeman was standing by the door behind which the party was held and two others, an inspector and a sergeant, both in uniform, were waiting at the foot of the stairs.
‘Which of you gentlemen found the body?’
‘I did,’ I said.
‘Gentleman was on his way to the bog,’ said Bull helpfully.
‘Well, it looks like a case for the CID,’ said the inspector.
‘Did you think it was a hoax, then?’ asked Trickett sharply.
‘We never know, with students.’ The sergeant took down our names and addresses and the inspector sent us to join the rest of the party. Everybody realised that something was up. All the noise had died down, the orchestra had laid aside their instruments and the only sound except for low-toned conversation was made by the pianist, who was strumming very softly some plaintive tunes such as ‘Swanee River’ and ‘Poor Old Joe’. I suppose he thought modern jazz would be out of place.