“Don’t!” Strangwick squealed. “I can’t stand it! There’s nothing on earth creaks like they do! And—and when it thaws we—we’ve got to slap ’em back with a spa-ade! ’Remember those Frenchmen’s little boots under the duck-boards?... What’ll I do? What’ll I do about it?”
Some one knocked at the door, to know if all were well.
“Oh, quite, thanks!” said Keede over his shoulder. “But I shall need this room awhile. Draw the curtains, please.”
We heard the rings of the hangings that drape the passage from Lodge to Banquet Room click along their poles, and what sound there had been, of feet and voices, was shut off.
Strangwick, retching impotently, complained of the frozen dead who creak in the frost.
“He’s playing up still,” Keede whispered. “That’s not his real trouble—any more than ’twas last time.”
“But surely,” I replied, “men get those things on the brain pretty badly. ’Remember in October——”
“This chap hasn’t, though. I wonder what’s really helling him. What are you thinking of?” said Keede peremptorily.
“French End an’ Butcher’s Row,” Strangwick muttered.
“Yes, there were a few there. But, suppose we face Bogey instead of giving him best every time.” Keede turned towards me with a hint in his eye that I was to play up to his leads.