Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached
servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of having
seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in him was so
startling, when I touched him, that I fully believe he derived his
impression in some occult manner from me at that instant.
I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and was
glad to take one myself. Of what had preceded that night’s phenomenon, I
told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I was absolutely certain
that I had never seen that face before, except on the one occasion in
Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when beckoning at the door with its
expression when it had stared up at me as I stood at my window, I came to
the conclusion that on the first occasion it had sought to fasten itself
upon my memory, and that on the second occasion it had made sure of being
immediately remembered.
I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty,
difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight I
fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick’s
coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.
This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at the
door between its bearer and my servant. It was a summons to me to serve
upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central Criminal Court at
the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned on such a Jury, as John
Derrick well knew. He believed—I am not certain at this hour whether
with reason or otherwise—that that class of Jurors were customarily
chosen on a lower qualification than mine, and he had at first refused to
accept the summons. The man who served it had taken the matter very
coolly. He had said that my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to
him; there the summons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril,
and not at his.
For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or take
no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias,
influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of that I am as strictly
sure as of every other statement that I make here. Ultimately I decided,
as a break in the monotony of my life, that I would go.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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