It was, so to speak, an incalculable
chance that my minute spy-hole should come into opposition with the
other. But it did: and it knocked me out of time.”

I had heard some such theory before, and though Hugh put it rather
picturesquely, there was nothing in the least convincing or practical
about it. It might be so, or again it might not. “I hope your ghost was more original than your theory,” said I, in order
to bring him to the point. “Yes, I think it was. You shall judge.”

I put on more coal and poked up the fire. Hugh has got, so I have always
considered, a great talent for telling stories, and that sense of drama
which is so necessary for the narrator. Indeed before now, I have
suggested to him that he should take this up as a profession, sit by the
fountain in Piccadilly Circus, when times are, as usual, bad, and tell
stories to the passers-by in the street, Arabian fashion, for reward. The most part of mankind, I am aware, do not like long stories, but to
the few, among whom I number myself, who really like to listen to
lengthy accounts of experiences, Hugh is an ideal narrator. I do not
care for his theories, or for his similes, but when it comes to facts,
to things that happened, I like him to be lengthy. “Go on, please, and slowly,” I said. “Brevity may be the soul of wit,
but it is the ruin of storytelling. I want to hear when and where and
how it all was, and what you had for lunch and where you had dined and
what----”

Hugh began:

“It was the 24th of June, just eighteen months ago,” he said. “I had let
my flat, you may remember, and came up from the country to stay with you
for a week. We had dined alone here----”

I could not help interrupting. “Did you see the ghost here?” I asked. “In this square little box of a
house in a modern street?”

“I was in the house when I saw it.”

I hugged myself in silence. “We had dined alone here in Graeme Street,” he said, “and after dinner I
went out to some party, and you stopped at home. At dinner your man did
not wait, and when I asked where he was, you told me he was ill, and, I
thought, changed the subject rather abruptly. You gave me your latch-key
when I went out, and on coming back, I found you had gone to bed. There
were, however, several letters for me, which required answers. I wrote
them there and then, and posted them at the pillar-box opposite. So I
suppose it was rather late when I went upstairs. “You had put me in the front room, on the third floor, overlooking the
street, a room which I thought you generally occupied yourself. It was a
very hot night, and though there had been a moon when I started to my
party, on my return the whole sky was cloud-covered, and it both looked
and felt as if we might have a thunderstorm before morning. I was
feeling very sleepy and heavy, and it was not till after I had got into
bed that I noticed by the shadows of the window-frames on the blind that
only one of the windows was open. But it did not seem worth while to get
out of bed in order to open it, though I felt rather airless and
uncomfortable, and I went to sleep. “What time it was when I awoke I do not know, but it was certainly not
yet dawn, and I never remember being conscious of such an extraordinary
stillness as prevailed. There was no sound either of foot-passengers or
wheeled traffic; the music of life appeared to be absolutely mute. But
now instead of being sleepy and heavy, I felt, though I must have slept
an hour or two at most, since it was not yet dawn, perfectly fresh and
wide-awake, and the effort which had seemed not worth making before,
that of getting out of bed and opening the other window, was quite easy
now, and I pulled up the blind, threw it wide open, and leaned out, for
somehow I parched and pined for air. Even outside the oppression was
very noticeable, and though, as you know, I am not easily given to feel
the mental effects of climate, I was aware of an awful creepiness coming
over me. I tried to analyse it away, but without success; the past day
had been pleasant, I looked forward to another pleasant day to-morrow,
and yet I was full of some nameless apprehension. I felt, too,
dreadfully lonely in this stillness before the dawn. “Then I heard suddenly and not very far away the sound of some
approaching vehicle; I could distinguish the tread of two horses walking
at a slow foot’s pace. They were, though yet invisible, coming up the
street, and yet this indication of life did not abate that dreadful
sense of loneliness which I have spoken of. Also in some dim
unformulated way that which was coming seemed to me to have something to
do with the cause of my oppression. “Then the vehicle came into sight. At first I could not distinguish what
it was. Then I saw that the horses were black and had long tails, and
that what they dragged was made of glass, but had a black frame. It was
a hearse. Empty. “It was moving up this side of the street. It stopped at your door. “Then the obvious solution struck me. You had said at dinner that your
man was ill, and you were, I thought, unwilling to speak more about his
illness. No doubt, so I imagined now, he was dead, and for some reason,
perhaps because you did not want me to know anything about it, you were
having the body removed at night. This, I must tell you, passed through
my mind quite instantaneously, and it did not occur to me how unlikely
it really was, before the next thing happened. “I was still leaning out of the window, and I remember also wondering,
yet only momentarily, how odd it was that I saw things--or rather the
one thing I was looking at--so very distinctly. Of course, there was a
moon behind the clouds, but it was curious how every detail of the
hearse and the horses was visible. There was only one man, the driver,
with it, and the street was otherwise absolutely empty. It was at him I
was looking now. I could see every detail of his clothes, but from where
I was, so high above him, I could not see his face. He had on grey
trousers, brown boots, a black coat buttoned all the way up, and a straw
hat. Over his shoulder there was a strap, which seemed to support some
sort of little bag. He looked exactly like--well, from my description
what did he look exactly like?”

“Why--a bus-conductor,” I said instantly. “So I thought, and even while I was thinking this, he looked up at me. He had a rather long thin face, and on his left cheek there was a mole
with a growth of dark hair on it. All this was as distinct as if it had
been noonday, and as if I was within a yard of him. But--so
instantaneous was all that takes so long in the telling--I had not time
to think it strange that the driver of a hearse should be so
unfunereally dressed. “Then he touched his hat to me, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.”

“‘Just room for one inside, sir,’ he said.