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Sirs? Before we risk trying to move him.”
And so both of the young men stood still while ropes were tied beneath their armpits and
crossed behind their backs, forming a sort of harness. Trevor wandered over to the well and looked
down, only to see the startling visage of Hubert Morass lying flat atop a virtual bed of moss and
tangled vines. Flat on his back in his white linen suit, with his florid face upturned to the sky, he was
without question the most peaceful corpse Trevor had ever beheld. He looked, in fact, like a character
from a child’s story book, some friendly troll or gnome of the forest, caught napping in a leafy bower.
It was a scene of such tranquility that it was easy to forget that just below Morass’s resting place lay
dozens more bodies.
“Would you like a drink before you descend?” Trevor said quietly to Tom.
“You’re not offering me his beer, I’m hoping,” Tom said, and his laugh was just a little
too loud, which for the first time betrayed his nerves. “For that dreadful sludge was most likely the
vehicle of his death. Or at least whatever was in it drugged the man enough to make him easy prey.”
“No I’m not suggesting you drink up the evidence,” Trevor said, for the large tin jug had
been set aside as part of the investigation. “But I wager that someone here has a flask if you need to
steady your nerves.”
Tom shook his head, so resolutely that Trevor wondered if Rayley had been right about
his blithe charge of alcoholism. Trevor glanced toward Rayley to see if he had made note of the
exchange, but Rayley was preoccupied in checking the knots in Davy’s harness and did not return his
glance. It would be a delicate business, dangling two men into a well of such legendary depth… even
without factoring in what this particular well held and the fact the whole bloody place seemed
cursed. Trevor was only glad that Emma and Geraldine were not here to witness the process. After
Morass’s body had been discovered, the women, the injured, the servants, and the older men had been
dispatched back to Bombay. Michael Everlee, although young and relatively able-bodied, had
elected to depart with the ladies. Two pony carts and five men remained behind to complete the task
of retrieving Morass’s body from the well.
“Nothing about today was a picnic, was it?” Tom said, and with that game little joke,
they began. The two men were slowly lowered down the well, clutching their evidence cases to their
chests and kicking the vines loose as they descended. Morass appeared to have broken through
several layers of greenery in his fall, but the well was still choked with vegetation, which the boys
dispatched as best they could. When they at last reached the point where Morass lay, Rayley called
for a halt and Seal and Trevor stopped lowering.
“Work fast,” Rayley called down the well. There were no trees or walls nearby to help
anchor the rope so the men up top were going to have to simply hold on while the two down below
gathered their evidence.
“Don’t worry,” came Tom’s tense reply. “We shall.”
He untied his medical kit from the end of his rope while Davy was likewise freeing his
examination kit from his own. Tom checked Morass’s face for the foam and spittle which so often
indicate poison, but found none, and a quick inventory of the man’s limbs revealed no broken bones.
In fact, there was no evidence of blood or bruising anywhere. It would appear that Morass had sat
down on the edge of the well wall and simply toppled backward. His fall had been a relatively
gentle one, the vegetation first slowing and the ultimately halting his progress. At this depth, Tom
thought, looking up, any cry for help would have doubtlessly been heard, and to test his theory he
called up to the men above. They responded readily, and even when Rayley ventured further away,
almost halfway down the hill, he could still hear Tom’s cries.