Great Scott, no wonder Stannard hadn't become restless! Martin, blinking hard at the luminous dial of his watch, saw that the time was only half-past twelve. It should have been two o'clock, at least But he held the watch to his ear, and it was ticking.
Swung round once too often in the emotional bowl, exhausted, Martin sat down heavily on the paper-bale. His head felt very heavy. The light of the lamp began to grow yellow (somebody using it too long before?), and he hastily replaced the battery with a spare one.
With heavy movements he groped along the wall, found a nail there, shifted along the bale, and hung the lamp sideways so that its beam should shine past his shoulder. He groped down again for the Stevenson he had found in the library at Fleet House.
Begin with the first story, yes. Title-page, table of contents, foreword, so! Begin with the fine scene of the snowflakes sifting over mediaeval Paris. Begin…
The type blurred before his eyes. He had a hazy consciousness that the book was there, the light was there, and he was there; but not for long. His head and shoulders lolled back against the wall Martin Drake, with the lines of tiredness drawn slantwise under his eyes, was asleep.
What woke him he did not know at the time, or for nearly twenty-four hours afterwards.
But it was a noise. It made him start up, nerves twitching; it made him jump to his feet, miry-eyed, and peer round until he realized where he was. His first impression, possibly created by a dream, was that the alarm-bell on the roof was ringing.
"If you hear the alarm-bell in the night," someone had said, "it will mean we are in serious trouble."
But a bell would have gone on ringing. Besides, a deeper memory suggested, this had been something like a crash: not very loud, yet loud enough to jolt thin sleep. Martin's head remained mazy. By concentration on his wrist-watch, he saw the hour was two o'clock. Then Stannard flashed through his mind. Yanking the lamp off the wall, he hurried to the iron door and played the beam inside.
"Stannard!" he yelled.