He would say no more than that “Bill was dead and buried this
three year;” and with that I had to be content. Gradually I came to have
a firm belief that I had indeed been visited by Barksea Bill’s ghost,
and I often told the story to brother officers, and sometimes got well
laughed at. That, however, mattered little to me; I felt sure that any
man who had gone through the same experience would have had the same
beliefs. Of course I got my promotion and was soon afterward married. Things went
well with me, and I was lifted from one step to another. In my secret
mind I was always sure I owed my first rise to the burglar’s ghost, and
I should have continued to think so but for an incident which occurred
just five years after my capture of Light Toed Jim. I had occasion to travel to Sheffield from Westford, and had to change
trains at Leeds. The carriage I stepped into was occupied by a solitary
individual, who turned his face to me as I sat down. Though dressed in
more respectable fashion, I immediately recognized the man who had
visited me so mysteriously at my lodgings. My first feeling was one of
fear, and I daresay my face showed it, for the man laughed. “Hallo, guv’nor,” said he; “I see you knew me as soon as you come in. You owes a deal to me, guv’nor; now, don’t you, eh?”

“Look here, my man,” I said, “I’ve been taking you for a ghost these
five years past. Now just tell me how you got in and out of my room that
night, will you?”

He laughed long and loud at that. “A ghost?” said he. “Well, if that
ain’t a good un! Why, easy enough, guv’nor. I was a-lodging for a day or
two in the same house. It’s easy enough, when you know how, to open a
door very quiet and to slip out, too.”

“But I followed you sharp, and looked for you.”

“Ay, guv’nor; but you looked down, and I had gone up! You should ha’
come up to the attics, and there you’d ha’ found me. So you took me for
a ghost? Well, I’m blowed.”

I told him what Light Toed Jim had said in the cell. “Ay,” said he, “I dessay, guv’nor. You see, ’twas this way--it weren’t
Jim’s fault as I wasn’t dead. He tried to murder me, guv’nor, he did,
and left me a-lying for dead. So I ses to myself when I comes round that
I’d pay him out sooner or later. But after that I quit the profession,
Jim’s nasty conduck havin’ made me sick of it. So I went in for honest
work at my old trade, which was draining and pipe repairing. I was on a
job o’ that sort in Westford, near Miss Singleton’s house, when I see
Light Toed Jim. I had a hidea what he was up to, havin’ heard o’ the
plate, and I watches him one or two nights, and gets a notion ’ow he was
going to work the job. Then, o’ course, you being a officer and close at
hand I splits on him--and that’s all.”

“But you had got the time and details correct?”

“Why, o’ course, guv’nor. I was an old hand--served many years at
Portland, I have, and I knew just how Jim would work it, after seeing
his perlim’nary observations. But a ghost! Ha, ha, ha! Why, guv’nor, you
must ha’ been a very green young officer in them days!”

Perhaps I was. At any rate I learned a lesson from the ci-devant Barksea
Bill--namely, that in searching a house it is always advisable to look
up as well as down. A PHANTOM TOE. I am not a superstitious man, far from it, but despite all my efforts to
the contrary I could not help thinking, directly I had taken a survey of
my chamber, that I should never quit it without going through a strange
adventure. There was something in its immense size, heaviness and gloom
that seemed to annihilate at one blow all my resolute skepticism as
regards supernatural visitations. It appeared to me totally impossible
to go into that room and disbelieve in ghosts. The fact is, I had incautiously partaken at supper of that favorite
Dutch dish, sauerkraut, and I suppose it had disagreed with me and put
strange fancies into my head. Be this as it may I only know that after
parting with my friend for the night I gradually worked myself up into
such a state of fidgetiness that at last I wasn’t sure whether I hadn’t
become a ghost myself. “Supposing,” ruminated I, “supposing the landlord himself should be a
practical robber and should have taken the lock and bolt from off this
door for the purpose of entering here in the dead of the night,
abstracting all my property, and perhaps murdering me! I thought the dog
had a very cutthroat air about him.” Now, I had never had any such idea
until that moment, for my host was a fat (all Dutchmen are fat),
stupid-looking fellow, who I don’t believe had sense enough to
understand what a robbery or murder meant, but somehow or other,
whenever we have anything really to annoy us (and it certainly was not
pleasant to go to bed in a strange place without being able to fasten
one’s door), we are sure to aggravate it by myriads of chimeras of our
own brain. So, on the present occasion, in the midst of a thousand disagreeable
reveries, some of the most wild absurdity, I jumped very gloomily into
bed, having first put out my candle (for total darkness was far
preferable to its flickering, ghostly light, which transformed rather
than revealed objects), and soon fell asleep, perfectly tired out with
my day’s riding. How long I lay asleep I don’t know, but I suddenly awoke from a
disagreeable dream of cutthroats, ghosts and long, winding passages in a
haunted inn. An indescribable feeling, such as I never before
experienced, hung upon me. It seemed as if every nerve in my body had a
hundred spirits tickling it, and this was accompanied by so great a heat
that, inwardly cursing mine host’s sauerkraut and wondering how the
Dutchmen could endure such poison, I was forced to sit up in bed to
cool myself. The whole of the room was profoundly dark, excepting at one
place, where the moonlight, falling through a crevice in the shutters,
threw a straight line of about an inch or so thick upon the
floor--clear, sharp and intensely brilliant against the darkness. I
leave you to conceive my horror when, upon looking at this said line of
light, I saw there a naked human toe--nothing more. For the first instant I thought the vision must be some effect of
moonlight, then that I was only half awake and could not see distinctly. So I rubbed my eyes two or three times and looked again. Still there was
the accursed thing--plain, distinct, immovable--marblelike in its
fixedness and rigidity, but in everything else horribly human. I am not an easily frightened man. No one who has traveled so much and
seen so much and been exposed to so many dangers as I, can be, but there
was something so mysterious and unusual in the appearance of this single
toe that for a short time I could not think what to be at, so I did
nothing but stare at it in a state of utter bewilderment.