Was that little shining toy on the table a message from the past? Or was it rather instinct with a present meaning?
He took it up again and looked at it curiously.
Immediately that he did so, the sense of agitation and unrest returned to him with tremendous force.
Megbie was not a superstitious man. But now-a-days we all know so much more about the non-material things of life that only the most ignorant people call a man with a belief in the supernatural, superstitious.
Like many another highly educated man of our time, Megbie knew that there are strange and little-understood forces all round us. When an ex-Prime Minister is a keen investigator into the psychic, when the principal of Birmingham University, a leading scientist, writes constantly in dispute of the mere material aspect of life—the cultured world follows suit.
Megbie held the cigarette-case in his hand. All the electric lights burned steadily. The door was closed and there was not a sound in the flat.
Then, with absolute suddenness, Megbie saw that a man was standing in front of him, at the other side of the fireplace, not three yards away. He was a tall man, clean-shaven, with light close-cropped hair and a rather large face. The eyes were light blue in colour and surrounded by minute puckers and wrinkles. The nose was aquiline, the mouth clean-cut and rather full. The man was dressed in a dark blue overcoat, and the collar and cuffs of the coat were heavily trimmed with astrachan fur.
The room was absolutely still.
Something like a grey mist or curtain descended over Megbie's eyes. It rolled up, like a curtain, and Megbie saw the man with absolute clearness and certainty. He could almost have put out his hand and touched him.
Measured by the mere material standard of time, these events did not take more than a second, perhaps only a part of a second.