At length her suspense was relieved by a loud ringing of the bell. She started up and opened the door, but she had barely crossed the threshold when she suddenly turned back and addressed me.
“That will be Dr. Cropper. Perhaps you had better come out with me and meet him.”
It struck me as an odd suggestion, but I rose without comment and followed her along the passage to the street door, which we reached just as another loud peal of the bell sounded in the house behind us. She flung the door wide open, and a small, spectacled man charged in and seized my hand, which he shook with violent cordiality.
“How do you do, Mr. Morris?” he exclaimed. “So sorry to keep you waiting, but I was unfortunately detained at a consultation.”
Here Mrs. Morris sourly intervened to explain who I was; upon which he shook my hand again, and expressed his joy at making my acquaintance. He also made polite inquiries as to our hostess’ health, which she acknowledged gruffly over her shoulder as she preceded us along the passage, which was now pitch-dark, and where Cropper dropped his hat and trod on it, finally bumping his head against the unseen wall in a frantic effort to recover it.
When we emerged into the dimly lighted hall, I observed the two ladies peering inquisitively out of the drawing-room door. But Mrs. Morris took no notice of them, leading the way directly up the stairs to the room with which I was already familiar. It was poorly illuminated by a single gas-bracket over the fireplace, but the light was enough to show us a coffin resting on three chairs, and beyond it the shadowy figure of a man whom I recognized as Mr. Morris.
We crossed the room to the coffin, which was plainly finished with zinc fastenings, in accordance with the regulations of the cremation authorities, and had let into the top what I first took to be a pane of glass, but which turned out to be a plate of clear celluloid. When we had made our salutations to Mr. Morris, Cropper and I looked in through the celluloid window. The yellow, shrunken face of the dead man, surmounted by the skull cap which he had always worn, looked so little changed that he might still have been in the drowsy, torpid state in which I had been accustomed to see him. He had always looked so like a dead man that the final transition was hardly noticeable.
“I suppose,” said Morris, “you would like to have the coffin-lid taken off?”
“God bless my soul, yes!” exclaimed Cropper. “What are we here for? We shall want him out of the coffin, too.”
“Are you proposing to make a post-mortem?” I asked, observing that Dr. Cropper had brought a good-sized handbag. “It seems hardly necessary, as we both know what he died of.”