"What's all this talk about things being buried?" he demanded morosely.
"Listening, were you?" said I, taking small pains to keep the contempt out of my voice.
He threw himself down on the sand and sat with his arms resting on his knees and his hands locked together.
"I'm in hell, Preble," he muttered. Then he unclasped his hands and held one of them up. "Look at that."
Dark as it was I could see the upheld hand shaking like a leaf in the wind.
"What is the matter with you?" I asked.
"You know well enough; I'm over the edge. Van Dyck's killing me by inches. He wants to kill me."
"Liquor, you mean?"
His answer was a groan. "I haven't had one good drink in three days—not enough to make one good drink. It's got me, Preble. I didn't know. I've always had it when I wanted it. If you've got a heart in you, you'll show me where he's hiding the stuff. I'll go mad if you don't."
I wanted to tell him that it would be small loss to the rest of us if he should, but I didn't. As a person who is strictly the architect of his own misery, a drink maniac may command little commiseration, but his sufferings are none the less real, for all that. Sitting there on the sands, with the fires of the drunkard's Gehenna burning inside of him, Ingerson was a pitiable object. Still, remembering some of the brutal things that had been charged up to his account, and not less the cold-blooded bargain he was seeking to drive with Holly Barclay, I didn't waste much sympathy upon him.