Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/113

Rh "A joke!"

I stared at him. Could he be joking?

"Yes, a practical joke, my boy."

"A practical joke!" I fancy that I was the colour of a boiled beetroot "Perhaps, Mr. Burchell, you will explain what you mean by a practical joke."

"Why, we three were outside the door when the bobby was showing you the things at the Yard, and we heard him pitch the yam about Francis Farmer and his cards, and how they were haunted, and all the rest of it, so we thought we'd have a game with you."

"A game with me? Still I fail to understand."

"I'm a clerk at the Yard, you know."

"Excuse me, but I do not know that you're a clerk at the Yard."

"Well, I am—in the Criminal Investigation Department. Of course they know me, and directly you went out I walked in as bold as brass and collared the cards." I remembered that someone had gone in as we came out. "I arranged that Bateman—this is Bateman"—he jerked his thumb towards the Mephistophelian stranger; that individual raised his hat, possibly to acknowledge the introduction—"should shadow you. He was to play the ghost. We had heard you tell the bobby that you were going down to Brighton by the 2.30 from Victoria, so we agreed that we would all go down together—this happening to be an afternoon on which the exigencies of the public service were not too pressing. We found you at the station, standing outside the carriage door. As I brushed past you on one side I slipped forty-seven cards into one pocket