There was no one in the bungalow except Crispin: and Crispin was dead.
George put an unsteady hand on the door-latch, lifted it and pushed upon the door. He braced himself and peered into the room. Then breath whistled between his clenched teeth, and blackness dropped like a curtain before his eyes.
He clung to the doorpost and waited. Evil-tasting bile rose in his mouth; he wanted to be sick.
Except for the furniture, the room was empty. George’s heart began slowly to pump blood back to his brain. It was some minutes before he could move again. Then he stepped into the room and stared with unbelieving eyes at the carpet where Crispin had fallen. There was no sign of murder in the room. Fearfully, George looked for the red mess on the wall. That was not there either. Was he going out of his mind? Had all the fantasies of violence that he had created in the past brought him to this? Were Sydney, Cora, Crispin and all the other nightmare people mere figments of a deranged imagination? Was it possible that the murder had happened only in his mind? He looked wildly round the room, and then he stiffened.
On the sideboard lay the whip.
There was no question about it. It was there, leather and whalebone, and the little white price ticket on the handle.
He edged forward and picked it up. He stood for several minutes gazing at it, aware that it was the symbol of his sanity.
Then, in the hush of the lonely room, above the drone of the bees and the rustle of the hollyhocks against the window, he heard voices.
Still grasping the whip, he stepped to the door and listened. A man was speaking some way off in the garden behind the bungalow.
Moving silently, in blind panic, George slipped out of the house, crossed the path and sank down on his knees under the overhanging hedge. He found a dry ditch that ran along the side of the garden, and cautiously lowered himself into it. He adjusted the leaves of the hedge so that they formed a screen over him.