"Come—come, quick," she cried. "He's on the bed: his face is all blood."
"Yes, yes," he replied, stooping and hastily gathering up the "blue books"—"I'll fling these in the hall; you run on ahead—I'll be right there."
From the doorway he called to his wife,
"Young man murdered next door, Jenny," and from the porch at the end nearest Mrs. Turner's house he leaped into a snow-drift. He floundered out and into the house as his wife appeared upon the porch wringing her hands and moaning.
He bounded up the stairs in the wake of Mrs. Turner and brushed past her into the room of horror.
He brought up stock still and looked about.
"There's the corpse! There; over there on the bed!" the woman wailed, frantically.
He pulled away the piled chairs, and seizing the body rolled it upon its back. Over Catherwood's eyes was bound a strip of cloth and a gag made of a stocking was tied across his mouth. The assistant professor unknotted the gag with trembling fingers and tore away the blindfold and Catherwood blinked up at him owlishly.
"Are you dead?" the assistant professor asked with bated breath.