“Good night,” we all called back, and went to our various homes.  If she had, eh?  If she had?  That is what I kept thinking.

No. 4

THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE

I had that afternoon received an invitation from Carnacki.  When I reached his place I found him sitting alone.  As I came into the room he rose with a perceptibly stiff movement and extended his left hand.  His face seemed to be badly scarred and bruised and his right hand was bandaged.  He shook hands and offered me his paper, which I refused.  Then he passed me a handful of photographs and returned to his reading.

Now, that is just Carnacki.  Not a word had come from him and not a question from me.  He would tell us all about it later.  I spent about half an hour looking at the photographs which were chiefly “snaps” (some by flashlight) of an extraordinarily pretty girl; though in some of the photographs it was wonderful that her prettiness was so evident for so frightened and startled was her expression that it was difficult not to believe that she had been photographed in the presence of some imminent and overwhelming danger.

The bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or portion of the head or dress included in the photograph.  All of these had evidently been taken with some definite aim that did not have for its first purpose the picturing of the girl, but obviously of her surroundings and they made me very curious, as you can imagine.

Near the bottom of the pile, however, I came upon something definitely extraordinary.  It was a photograph of the girl standing abrupt and clear in the great blaze of a flashlight, as was plain to be seen.  Her face was turned a little upward as if she had been frightened suddenly by some noise.  Directly above her, as though half-formed and coming down out of the shadows, was the shape of a single enormous hoof.

I examined this photograph for a long time without understanding it more than that it had probably to do with some queer case in which Carnacki was interested.  When Jessop, Arkright and Taylor came in Carnacki quietly held out his hand for the photographs which I returned in the same spirit and afterward we all went in to dinner.  When we had spent a quiet hour at the table we pulled our chairs ’round and made ourselves snug and Carnacki began: 

“I’ve been North,” he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs at his pipe.  “Up to Hisgins of East Lancashire.  It has been a pretty strange business all ’round, as I fancy you chaps will think, when I have finished.  I knew before I went, something about the ‘horse story,’ as I have heard it called; but I never thought of it coming my way, somehow.  Also I know now that I never considered it seriously—­in spite of my rule always to keep an open mind.  Funny creatures, we humans!