"Drag him out," said Gatton huskily; "he may be alive."
But even as we bent to the attempt, both my companion and I were
seized with violent nausea; for the wisps of gray mist which still
floated in the air were nevertheless sufficiently deadly. However, we
succeeded at last in dragging Eric Coverly into the passage. Here it
became necessary to detach the telephone from the death-grip in which
he held it.
I turned my head aside whilst Gatton accomplished this task; then
together we bore Coverly out into the porch. At this point we were
both overcome again by the fumes. Gatton was the first to recover
sufficiently to stoop and examine the victim of this fiendish outrage.
I clutched dizzily at an upright of the porch, and:
"Don't tell me he's dead," I whispered.
But Gatton stood up and nodded sternly.
"He was the last!" he said strangely. "They have triumphed after all."
The man who had driven the car and who now stood in a state of
evident stupefaction looking over the gate, where he had been warned
to remain by the Inspector, came forward on seeing Gatton beckoning to
him.
"Notify the local officer in charge and bring a doctor," said Gatton.
He turned to me. "Which is the nearest?"
Rapidly I gave the man the necessary instructions and he went running
out to the car and soon was speeding away towards the house of a local
physician.
I find it difficult to recapture the peculiar horror of the next few
minutes, during which, half-fearful of entering the cottage, Gatton
and I stood in the little sheltered garden adjoining the porch looking
down at the body of this man who had met his end under my roof, in
circumstances at once dreadful and incomprehensible.
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