“But I knew that it was a lie. You’d no more got stiffs on the brain then, than you have now. You’ve got something, but you’re hiding it.”
“’Ow do you know, Doctor?” Strangwick whimpered.
“D’you remember what you said to me, when Dearlove and Billings were holding you down that evening?”
“About the things in Butcher’s Row?”
“Oh, no! You spun me a lot of stuff about corpses creaking; but you let yourself go in the middle of it—when you pushed that telegram at me. What did you mean, f’rinstance, by asking what advantage it was for you to fight beasts of officers if the dead didn’t rise?”
“Did I say ‘Beasts of Officers’?”
“You did. It’s out of the Burial Service.”
“I suppose, then, I must have heard it. As a matter of fact, I ’ave.” Strangwick shuddered extravagantly.
“Probably. And there’s another thing—that hymn you were shouting till I put you under. It was something about Mercy and Love. ’Remember it?”
“I’ll try,” said the boy obediently, and began to paraphrase, as nearly as possible thus: “‘Whatever a man may say in his heart unto the Lord, yea verily I say unto you—Gawd hath shown man, again and again, marvellous mercy an’—an’ somethin’ or other love.’” He screwed up his eyes and shook.