He dropped the book from his hand, and in doing so happened to glance behind him.
The green baize door was slowly opening.
For a moment Fletcher sat where he was, rigid, with every nerve on a stretch. All the stories he had ever heard of vampires and devils gathered round him. The next his common sense and courage rose to his aid, and he stood up, not without an effort, and faced round. He clapped his hand to his pocket, but he was unarmed.
For want of a better weapon he seized the poker and waited. The door was opening in little jerks, not smoothly; then a hand came round the corner, a hand wrapped in a bandage, or some white fabric, and clutched the door. Then, very slowly, a face appeared, a vacant dead-looking face, surrounded by a mass of white hair streaked with yellow.
Without a word or sound there came into the room, an old bent man. Fletcher waited; man or ghost, here was no formidable antagonist.
Suddenly light dawned on him, and he could almost have laughed.
“Why of course,” he said, “I suppose you are Giles?”
The old man remained rooted to his place by the door, and then in a high piping voice, said, “Giles I be, and who be you?”
“I suppose I ought to tell you, I am a friend of Brown the constable, and I am waiting for him.”
It was most awkward, as he had wished to remain unknown in his true character, but the old man looked nearly an idiot.