I will search the room where you are.”

What else was written but still concealed underneath the planchette I
did not know, for at that moment a current of icy air swept round the
room, and at the door, this time unmistakably, came a loud, peremptory
knock. Hugh sprang to his feet. “Margaret, wake up,” he said, “something is coming!”

The door opened, and there moved in the figure of a man. He stood just
within the door, his head bent forward, and he turned it from side to
side, peering, it would seem, with eyes staring and infinitely sad,
into every corner of the room. “Margaret, Margaret,” cried Hugh again. But Margaret’s eyes were open too; they were fixed on this dreadful
visitor. “Be quiet, Hughie,” she said below her breath, rising as she spoke. The
ghost was now looking directly at her. Once the lips above the thick,
rust-coloured beard moved, but no sound came forth, the mouth only
moved and slavered. He raised his head, and, horror upon horror, I saw
that one side of his neck was laid open in a red, glistening gash....

For how long that pause continued, when we all three stood stiff and
frozen in some deadly inhibition to move or speak, I have no idea: I
suppose that at the utmost it was a dozen seconds. Then the spectre
turned, and went out as it had come. We heard his steps pass along the
parqueted floor; there was the sound of bolts withdrawn from the front
door, and with a crash that shook the house it slammed to. “It’s all over,” said Margaret. “God have mercy on him!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Now the reader may put precisely what construction he pleases on
this visitation from the dead. He need not, indeed, consider it to
have been a visitation from the dead at all, but say that there had
been impressed on the scene, where this murder and suicide happened,
some sort of emotional record, which in certain circumstances could
translate itself into images visible and invisible. Waves of ether,
or what not, may conceivably retain the impress of such scenes; they
may be held, so to speak, in solution, ready to be precipitated. Or he may hold that the spirit of the dead man indeed made itself
manifest, revisiting in some sort of spiritual penance and remorse
the place where his crime was committed. Naturally, no materialist
will entertain such an explanation for an instant, but then there is
no one so obstinately unreasonable as the materialist. Beyond doubt
a dreadful deed was done there, and Margaret’s last utterance is not
inapplicable. Mr. Tilly’s Séance




Mr. Tilly’s Séance


Mr. Tilly had only the briefest moment for reflection, when, as he
slipped and fell on the greasy wood pavement at Hyde Park Corner, which
he was crossing at a smart trot, he saw the huge traction-engine with
its grooved ponderous wheels towering high above him. “Oh, dear! oh, dear!” he said petulantly, “it will certainly crush me
quite flat, and I shan’t be able to be at Mrs. Cumberbatch’s séance! Most provoking! A-ow!”

The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the first half of his
horrid anticipations was thoroughly fulfilled. The heavy wheels passed
over him from head to foot and flattened him completely out. Then the
driver (too late) reversed his engine and passed over him again, and
finally lost his head, whistled loudly and stopped. The policeman on
duty at the corner turned quite faint at the sight of the catastrophe,
but presently recovered sufficiently to hold up the traffic, and ran to
see what on earth could be done. It was all so much “up” with Mr. Tilly
that the only thing possible was to get the hysterical engine-driver
to move clear. Then the ambulance from the hospital was sent for, and
Mr. Tilly’s remains, detached with great difficulty from the road (so
firmly had they been pressed into it), were reverently carried away
into the mortuary....

Mr. Tilly during this had experienced one moment’s excruciating pain,
resembling the severest neuralgia as his head was ground beneath the
wheel, but almost before he realised it, the pain was past, and he
found himself, still rather dazed, floating or standing (he did not
know which) in the middle of the road. There had been no break in
his consciousness; he perfectly recollected slipping, and wondered
how he had managed to save himself. He saw the arrested traffic, the
policeman with white wan face making suggestions to the gibbering
engine-driver, and he received the very puzzling impression that the
traction engine was all mixed up with him. He had a sensation of
red-hot coals and boiling water and rivets all around him, but yet no
feeling of scalding or burning or confinement. He was, on the contrary,
extremely comfortable, and had the most pleasant consciousness of
buoyancy and freedom. Then the engine puffed and the wheels went round,
and immediately, to his immense surprise, he perceived his own crushed
remains, flat as a biscuit, lying on the roadway. He identified them
for certain by his clothes, which he had put on for the first time that
morning, and one patent leather boot which had escaped demolition. “But what on earth has happened?” he said. “Here am I, and yet that
poor pressed flower of arms and legs is me--or rather I--also. And how
terribly upset the driver looks. Why, I do believe that I’ve been run
over! It did hurt for a moment, now I come to think of it.... My good
man, where are you shoving to? Don’t you see me?”

He addressed these two questions to the policeman, who appeared to walk
right through him. But the man took no notice, and calmly came out
on the other side: it was quite evident that he did not see him, or
apprehend him in any way. Mr. Tilly was still feeling rather at sea amid these unusual
occurrences, and there began to steal into his mind a glimpse of the
fact which was so obvious to the crowd which formed an interested but
respectful ring round his body. Men stood with bared heads; women
screamed and looked away and looked back again. “I really believe I’m dead,” said he. “That’s the only hypothesis which
will cover the facts. But I must feel more certain of it before I do
anything. Ah! Here they come with the ambulance to look at me. I must
be terribly hurt, and yet I don’t feel hurt. I should feel hurt surely
if I was hurt. I must be dead.”

Certainly it seemed the only thing for him to be, but he was far from
realising it yet. A lane had been made through the crowd for the
stretcher-bearers, and he found himself wincing when they began to
detach him from the road. “Oh, do take care!” he said. “That’s the sciatic nerve protruding there
surely, isn’t it? A-ow! No, it didn’t hurt after all. My new clothes,
too: I put them on to-day for the first time. What bad luck! Now you’re
holding my leg upside down. Of course all my money comes out of my
trouser pocket.