He did not say much, being a man of few words, but he picked up the loose end of the table-cloth and threw it over the thing on the table.
“It strikes me,” said he, pulling down the lamp, “our friend Imray has come back. Oh! you would, would you?”
There was a movement under the cloth, and a little snake wriggled out, to be back-broken by the butt of the masheer rod. I was sufficiently sick to make no remarks worth recording.
Strickland meditated and helped himself to drinks liberally. The thing under the cloth made no more signs of life.
“Is it Imray?” I said.
Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment and looked. “It is Imray,” he said, “and his throat is cut from ear to ear.”
Then we spoke both together and to ourselves:
“That's why he whispered about the house.”
Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A little later her great nose heaved upon the dining-room door.
She sniffed and was still. The broken and tattered ceiling-cloth hung down almost to the level of the table, and there was hardly room to move away from the discovery.