He hadn’t time for a proper look, for old Baxter shouted out to him from the bed: ‘Put it down, you fool! Do you want to look through a dead man’s eyes?’ ” —M. R. JAMES, A View from a Hill XI At seven-thirty next morning, refreshed by a shower and clean clothes, Stevens was coming downstairs again when the front-door knocker rapped hesitantly. He stood holding to the banisters, feeling suddenly tongue-tied and averse to answering. If it were Marie, he did not know what to say to her, despite the speeches he had rehearsed throughout the night. The downstairs lights were still on; the living-room was full of stale smoke. He had not gone to bed that night, for the reason that he could not sleep. His head ached a little, and his wits were none of the best: to thrash endlessly through the same thoughts all night is not a good preparation for a meeting, since you never say what you have so carefully planned to say. Even the hallway looked unfamiliar. Dawn had come up strangled in a cold white mist which pressed with a dead stare against the windows.
