“The fellow ran off,” said Hewitt.
“Be quiet. John.” said Brown. “Let Moffat tell it.”
“As I said, the street appeared deserted.” Moffat continued, “when suddenly. they all heard the sound of hoofbeats and a rider came galloping at them from out of nowhere. A rider dressed all in black, on a black horse. A rider, gentlemen, who had no head. ”
“No head, you say’?” said Hewitt, frowning. “Balderdash!” “Macintosh does not think that it was balderdash.” said Moffat.
“The man was obviously drunk.” said Hewitt. “He was seeing things.”
“Then all who were with him shared the same delusion.” Moffat said. “They all swore that it was true.”
A crowd had guthered around their table to listen as Moffat went on with the story.
“The rider came galloping straight at them, so they said, as if to run them down. They scattered and the rider galloped past, then reined in and turned his horse and came at them again. Jeb Stiles wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way. he was struck solid by the rider’s horse. I hear it broke his ribs.”
“That’s true!” said someone in the crowd. “His wife told me he couldn’t finish mending my chair because his ribs were broken! She said he’d been struck down in the street by a horseman!”
“Go on, go on!” said someone else. “What happened then?”
“The headless horseman reined in once again and his black stallion reared up.” said Moffat, playing to the crowd. “They heard him laugh. A wild, screeching laughter that echoed through the night! Ransome Howard drew his knife and threw it at the rider. And all who were there said they saw it pass right through him, as if he wasn’t there!”
“He simply missed.” said Hewitt, skeptically. though he too had become caught up in the story.
“Howard never misses!” someone in the crowd said “He’s deadly with that knife of his. I’ve seen him pin a squirrel right to a tree!”
Others who’d seen Howard throw his knife attested to his skill with it.
“So then what happened’?” someone in the crowd said.
“Well,” said Moffat, “they say the headless rider screeched like a soul being torn apart in Hell and came galloping straight at them once again. And an instant before he was upon them, both horse and rider vanished into thin air right before their eyes!”
“Vanished, did you say!”
“Disappeared like smoke.” said Moffat. “A ghost!” said someone in the crowd.
“Since when do ghosts break people’s ribs?” asked Hewitt.
“No, that’s true enough, they don’t,” said Drakov. “And I, for one, do not believe in ghosts.”
“Nor I,” said Hewitt. “It all sounds like some silly schoolboy’s tale to me.”
“Perhaps.” said Drakov. “But then Moffat here said they swore it was all true.”
“And so they did.” said Moffat. “Ben tits said he’d swear it on the Bible.”
“Then how do you account for it?” said Hewitt. “Well, it’s true enough they had been drinking,” Moffat said with a shrug. And think on it, would a manas proud of his knife-throwing as Ransome Howard admit it if he’d missed?”
The people in the crowd around them nodded and murmured among themselves. “But you said they saw the horseman vanish like a ghost!” said someone in the crowd.
“So they said.” admitted Moffat. “For my own part. I cannot attest to the truth or falsity of that, since I was not there myself.”
“Then how do you explain it?” someone said.
“Yes.” said someone else, “one drunken man can have his eyes play tricks on him, but you say they all saw the same thing.”
“Well, so they say,” said Drakov. “But then, gentlemen, consider the alternative.”
“What do you mean?” asked Brown.