"That's exactly the position," he said to himself, "in which one would place the left hand to hold the table steady while one tried to force the drawers open with one's right."
He stood without a movement, but the hand did not appear again; and then he found himself saying in a quiet voice of reassurance:
"Can I help at all?"
The sound of his own words stirred him abruptly to laughter. Common sense reasserted itself; his eyes had played him a trick. Too much tobacco, very likely, was the cause and origin of his romantic vision. But, none the less, he remained standing quite still, with his eyes fixed upon the table's polished lid, for some minutes; and when he went back at last to his chair, from time to time he glanced abruptly from his book, in the hope that he might once more detect the hand upon the table. But he was disappointed.
The next morning he saw the old gardener sweeping the leaves from the front lawn, and he at once and rather eagerly went out to him.
"I think you told me, Hayes, that this house is supposed to be haunted," he said, with a laugh at the supposition.
The gardener took off his hat and scratched his head reflectively.
"Well, they do say, sir, as it is. But I've never seen anything myself, nor can I rightly say that I've ever come across anyone who has. A pack o' nonsense, I call it."
"Very likely, Hayes," said Caston. "And what sort of a person is it who's supposed to walk?"
"An old man in grey stockings," replied the gardener. "That's what I've heard. But what he's supposed to be doing I don't know, sir, any more than I know why there should be so much fuss about his wearing grey stockings. Live men do that, after all."