Just what happened, and how it happened, within the minute, led to
conflicting stories on the morrow. First man examined by Major Plume
was Lieutenant Truman of the Infantry, who happened to be officer of
the day. He had been over at Blakely's about midnight, he said; had
found the patient sleeping under the influence of soothing medicine,
and, after a whispered word with Todd, the hospital attendant, had
tiptoed out again, encountering Downs, the lieutenant's striker, in
the darkness on the rear porch. Downs said he was that excited he
couldn't sleep at all, and Mr. Truman had come to the conclusion that
Downs's excitement was due, in large part, to local influences totally
disconnected with the affairs of the early evening. Downs was an
Irishman who loved the "craytur," and had been known to resort to
unconventional methods of getting it. At twelve o'clock, said Mr.
Truman, the striker had obviously been priming. Now Plume's standing
orders were that no liquor should be sold to Downs at the store and
none to other soldiers except in "pony" glasses and for use on the
spot. None could be carried away unconsumed. The only legitimate
spirits, therefore, to which Downs could have access were those in
Blakely's locked closet--spirits hitherto used only in the
preservation of specimens, and though probably not much worse than the
whisky sold at the store, disdainfully referred to by votaries as
"Blakely's bug juice." Mr. Truman, therefore, demanded of Downs the
possession of the lieutenant's keys, and, with aggrieved dignity of
mien, Downs had referred him to the doctor, whose suspicions had been
earlier aroused. Intending to visit his sentries after the change of
guard at 1.30, Truman had thrown himself into a reclining chair in his
little parlor, while Mrs. Truman and the little Trumans slumbered
peacefully aloft. After reading an hour or so the lieutenant fell into
a doze from which he awoke with a start. Mrs. Truman was bending over
him. Mrs. Truman had been aroused by hearing voices in cautious, yet
excited, colloquy in the shadows of Blakely's back porch. She felt
sure that Downs was one and thought from the sound that he must be
intoxicated, so Truman shuffled out to see, and somebody, bending
double in the dusk, scurried away at his approach. He heard rather
than saw. But there was Downs, at least, slinking back into the house,
and him Truman halted and accosted. "Who was that with you?" he asked,
and Downs thickly swore he hadn't seen a soul. But all the while Downs
was clumsily stuffing something into a side pocket, and Truman,
seizing his hand, dragged it forth into the light. It was one of the
hospital six-ounce bottles, bearing a label indicative of glycerine
lotion, but the color of the contained fluid belied the label. A sniff
was sufficient. "Who gave you this whisky?" was the next demand, and
Downs declared 'twas a hospital "messager" that brought it over,
thinking the lieutenant might need it. Truman, filled with wrath, had
dragged Downs into the dimly lighted room to the rear of that in which
lay Lieutenant Blakely, and was there upbraiding and investigating
when startled by the stifled cry that, rising suddenly on the night
from the open mesa just without, had so alarmed so many in the
garrison. Of what had led to it he had then no more idea than the
dead.