Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara [97]
Harley, next-door neighbor of deceased. Mr. Harley was an electrical engineer, employed by the Midas Washeries Company, operators of the Midas, Black Run, Horse Cave, and Sadim washeries. Mr. Harley was at home reading, the night of the death of Mr. English. Mrs. Harley had gone to bed early, being exhausted as it was the day after Christmas and with children in the house, the day after Christmas you know how it is. Well, so Mr. Harley was reading a book called N by E, by Rockwell Kent. He happened to remember that because he had met Mr. Kent once while on a visit to New York; he had met him at the Princeton Club. And that was how he happened to remember the name of the book. He was reading it, or rather to be exact studying the pictures in it, when he heard the car start in Mr. English s garage. The time, he should judge, as nearly as he could place it, was roughly about ten-thirty. In the evening. Ten-thirty P.M. He thought nothing of it at the time, as he and Mr. English came and went and while they were always very friendly and polite in a neighborly way, they never were what you would call good friends, as Mr. English traveled with, well, a different crowd from the one Mr. Harley traveled with. He had known Mr. English about four years and saw him on the average about once a day usually. Well, so he went on reading the book and then for some reason that he couldn’t explain, he got some sort of a premonition. It wasn’t a premonition exactly, but more like the feeling you get when you know someone is in the room even before you see the person. That was the feeling he got, and Mr. Harley wanted to be sure to make it clear that he did not believe in spiritualism or anything like that, as he had a scientific education and he did not believe in that kind of bunk. It was all right for some people; they could believe what they liked. But Mr. Harley did not hold with that school of thought, and to prove it, he had an explanation, what might be called a scientific explanation, of why he had that feeling. The explanation was this: he had been sitting there perhaps a half an hour, and something inside him told him something was wrong. In a minute he understood what it was; it was the motor running. All that time the motor had been running in Mr. English s car. You could feel the low vibration of it, hear the distant sound of it. Not loud, the sounds weren t; and the vibrations weren t strong. But out where they had their home you get so you know every little sound, and it was very unusual for a motor to be running that length of time. Mr. Harley debated with himself and finally decided to go take a look and see what was what. He thought perhaps Mr. English was having trouble with his car, and he was going to volunteer his assistance. Well, the moment he stepped out on his front porch he knew there was something amiss. The motor was running, but the garage was dark. He got closer to the garage and he looked in a window the one in the west wall of the garage and all he could see was the car. The dash lights were the only lights in the whole garage that were burning. He thought it best to go tell Mr. English that he had left his motor running and to warn him against staying in the garage any length of time. Mr. Harley of course knew the danger of carbon monoxide and had known one or two cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in his engineering experience. He went up and rang the bell of the English home, then he opened the door and called out, but there was no answer from anyone. Then he ran as fast as he could back to the garage. He opened the big door and the windows so as to create a draft, and then he opened the front door of the car, and there was Mr. English. He was lying sort of slumped down on the seat, half of his body almost off the seat. Mr. Harley had a little trouble, as Mr. English was not a small man, but finally he got him and carried him, fireman-fashion, out of the garage and laid him down on the driveway. He felt Mr. English s heart and there were no beats, and he felt his pulse, and there was no pulse. He tried giving