“I'm all right in the dialects though,” he said, in Glasgow English, and asked for a cigarette. We sat and talked for half an hour awaiting Graham's arrival, but he never told me who he was.
One night, about midnight, I was aroused by Le Mesurier-Groselin, who was in full fighting kit and had a queer light in his eyes which was new to me, though heaven and the Horse Guards know that I have seen it often enough since.
“Get up—Sawbones!” said Le Mesurier-Groselin. “You'll be wanted at any rate, but now I want you badly. We're just off to smoke the old Khan out, and something has gone wrong with Graham. For God's sake, man, hurry up! It will be a pretty fight, and I would not miss it for worlds.”
I looked at Le Mesurier-Groselin as I hauled on my clothes. He had eight thousand a year, an Elizabethan manor in England, and the certainty of a baronetcy; but the thought of these things never brought to his eyes the light that was there now.
“What is wrong with Graham?”
“I don't know—wish I did. Can't move him. Seems quite stupid or dead drunk,” answered Le Mesurier-Groselin, handing me my belt.
We hurried upstairs to the room occupied by Austin Graham, and there found him lying on the bed with his eyes almost, but not quite, shut.
“Where was he to-night—dining with you at mess?” I asked, raising one heavy lid with my finger.
“No, he dined with the Watsons.”
“When did you last see him?”