Amongst those who came up was the local doctor, who knelt down and made a short examination. “Must be heart. I believe he had a weakness there, poor Cyril!” Mr. Baxter helped to carry the body back to the Dormy House; his burden was Cyril’s left leg, a disgusting dangling thing. The memory of his dream came back to him, and his nerves shook. He tried to find reassurance by telling himself that such premonitions were common enough, however inexplicable. It was decided at an informal meeting that the links should be closed the next day out of respect for the dead, but that the foursomes should be held on the Thursday. “A very typically British compromise,” thought Mr. Baxter. “Will an inquest be necessary?” he asked the doctor. “I think not; it’s clearly a case of heart.” “Did you notice his eyes?” asked the secretary. The doctor gave him a quick glance. “I did,” he replied, “but these attacks are often very painful. But did _you_ notice that appalling stink coming from the wood?” “Yes,” said the secretary shortly. “Well, I should find out the cause, it can’t be healthy.” “I will to-morrow,” said Mr. Baxter. The next day he spent in his office, and never before had a sense of the futility of his occupation so swept over him. This shifting of pieces of india-rubber from one spot to another! Oh, that a man should have to spend his few and gloriously potential days fussing about such banality! Perhaps he was only pitying himself. He went back to his card-marking. He felt utterly weary when he went to bed, and fell immediately asleep. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” there came that terrible tolling. He _must_ wake! He must not hear what was to come. “Sacred to the memory of Sybil Grant, who screamed twice in Blood Wood,” and once again came that foul and wicked laughter. He awoke sweating and unnerved. He got up and mixed himself the strongest whisky and soda of his temperate existence. “Sybil Grant! Sybil Grant!” Thank God, he knew no one of that name! He tried to read, till light came. He went down to the club house after breakfast, and met the doctor. “Hullo,” said the latter, “you’re not looking very fit! What’s the matter?” “Oh, just a rotten night,” said the secretary. “By the way, I sent the green-keeper to find out about that smell, but he couldn’t discover any cause for it; and, as a matter of fact, says he couldn’t smell anything.” “Well, he’s a lucky man,” said the doctor. “It was the most loathsome reek I’ve encountered, and I’ve met a few!” After the foursomes had started, everyone desperately light-hearted and pathetically determined to allow no echo of the horror of a few hours before to disturb the atmosphere of laboured cheerfulness, Mr. Baxter felt he must be alone. He wandered off to the long No Man’s Land between the dunes and the sea, a famous haunt of sea birds; the sand showed everywhere the delicate tracings of their soft little feet.