“Didn’t I tell you,” said Calbot, after a pause, “that there was nothing in the world so strange as coincidences?”
“There is the hobgoblin still unaccounted for,” answered I; “but I have done my part; I leave the rest to you.”
*****
The next day but one came a note from my friend. It ran:
“What did I do at your rooms last night? Was I queer at all? I had intended calling on you that day, to tell you that Edna and I were going to be married April 1st, and to get you for my best man. Did I tell you? Because, if not, I do now. The fact is, you see, I had been reading over some curious old family documents (I think I spoke to you about them), and then I went up to Edna’s and frightened her half to death with telling her ghost stories about the locket I’d given her as a betrothal gift (a queer little thing it is. Did I ever mention it to you?) Well, going home I met young De Quincey, and he proposed—he’s always up to some devilry or other—he proposed doing something which I shall never do again; I was a fool to try it at all, but I had no notion how it would act. I’m afraid I may have annoyed you. I have an idea I upset your ink-bottle, and that I got it into my head that the ghost story I had been telling Edna was true. How was it? I know I felt deathly sick the next morning; I’m not certain whether it was the port-wine I drank, or that confounded hasheesh that I took with young De Quincey. I promised Edna I’d never take any more. Well, you won’t object to being my best man, will you?
“J. C.”
So far from explaining the essential mystery—the Ghostly Rival—this letter of John’s only makes it, to my mind, more inscrutable than ever. Talk about coincidences! For my part, I prefer to believe in ghosts.