"I don't have to explain this hunting stuff. You've read it Sir George Fleet even if he did act like a comic-paper colonel, really was a sport First-class horseman and A-l shot He hunted except when he had (don't I know it?) the rheumatic pains in his side. On November 4th, about two o'clock in the afternoon, he was sitting in his study reading The Field when the gardener came to see him. This gardener said the Ascombe Hunt was 'drawing,' whatever that means, a big wood called Black Hanger."
H.M. sat up with ghoulish thoughtfulness.
"I say, Masters. Did you ever see me on a horse?"
"I daresay," the Chief Inspector said with heavy sarcasm, "you were one of the greatest horsemen in England too?"
"Well.. now!" said H.M., with a deprecatory wave of his hand. "I wouldn't like to say that, no. But I had a steeplechaser, named Whoozler, who could take fences like the cow jumpin' over the moon. Besides, it’d fit in — burn me if it wouldn't! — with a former existence where…" Masters stiffened.
"So help me," he swore, and pointed at H.M., "if I hear one more word about your reincarnation, just one more word, then back I go to tell the A.C. I'm through. I tell you straight: it gives me the creeps."
H.M. pondered. He peered round carefully, to make sure both doors were closed.
"Y’see, Masters, I'm not just sure I believe it myself, exactly."
"Ah!"
"But some of those books sound awful plausible, son." H.M. shook his head. "And it stirs you up, sort of (wouldn't it anybody?) to imagine… I say, Masters: couldn't you see me as a Cavalier poet?"