ped, irrationally, in the middle
of a field. I heard a heavy noise as of some one clambering off the
train, and a dark, ragged head suddenly put itself into my window.
"Excuse me, sir," said the stoker, "but I think, perhaps--well, perhaps
you ought to know--there's a dead man in this train."

.....

Had I been a true artist, a person of exquisite susceptibilities
and nothing else, I should have been bound, no doubt, to be finally
overwhelmed with this sensational touch, and to have insisted on
getting out and walking. As it was, I regret to say, I expressed myself
politely, but firmly, to the effect that I didn't care particularly if
the train took me to Paddington. But when the train had started with
its unknown burden I did do one thing, and do it quite instinctively,
without stopping to think, or to think more than a flash. I threw
away my cigar. Something that is as old as man and has to do with
all mourning and ceremonial told me to do it. There was something
unnecessarily horrible, it seemed to me, in the idea of there being
only two men in that train, and one of them dead and the other smoking
a cigar. And as the red and gold of the butt end of it faded like a
funeral torch trampled out at some symbolic moment of a procession,
I realised how immortal ritual is. I realised (what is the origin and
essence of all ritual) that in the presence of those sacred riddles
about which we can say nothing it is more decent merely to do something.
And I realised that ritual will always mean throwing away something;
DESTROYING our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.

When the train panted at last into Paddington Station I sprang out of
it with a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier and officials
guarding the rear part of the train; no one was allowed to press towards
it. They were guarding and hiding something; perhaps death in some too
shocking form, perhaps something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up
with human mystery and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of
sanctity; perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough
into the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces.
Nor have I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I
wandered or what frightful thing was my companion in the dark.

IV. The Perfect Game

We have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to
him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernat