Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/89

Rh "It's a pity," I said, thinking of the Colonel's exploits upon that very line, "that we haven't such a thing as a pack of cards!"

While I was speaking I thrust my right hand into the pocket of the light summer overcoat which I was wearing. It lighted upon something whose presence in my pocket I had not been conscious of before. There were several articles, in fact Supposing that I had put some things there and forgotten all about them, I drew one of them out to see what it could be. It was a playing-card. I drew more of them out They were more playing-cards. There was an entire pack. And—could I be dreaming?—it was the pack of cards which had belonged to "Colonel" Francis Farmer!

It was entirely out of the question to suppose that I was mistaken. I had seen them too recently, observed them too attentively, and bore them too well in mind for that. They were altogether unmistakable, with the hand-painted red roses on their backs. But how came they in my pocket? To describe my feelings when I realised that they really were that "haunted" pack is altogether beyond my power. I remembered returning them to a constable; I remembered his replacing them in a glass case; I remembered his turning the key in the lock; and yet

I suppose that there was something in the expression of my countenance which to an onlooker was comical, for I was all at once conscious of the sound of laughter.

"Hallo!" exclaimed my opposite neighbour. "Why—you do appear to have a pack of cards!"