J. S. Fletcher

“ Thinking I sees things when I don't.' 'Stow all that!' says Jim, what's a practical sort o' man. 'You was only mistook' says he. 'I've been in that case more than once,' he says. 'Wherever there's a man, there's another somewheres that's as like him as two peas is like each other; let's go home to dinner,' he says. So we went off to the lodgings, and at first I was sure I'd been mistaken. But later, and now—well, I ain't. That there man was Netherfield Baxter!"
"You feel sure of it?" suggested Scarterfield. ”

“ Now then one morning—as I say, three weeks ago it is, come this Friday—me and my mate, which his name is Jim Shanks, of Hartlepool, and can corrob'rate, as they call it, what I says—we turns into a certain old-fashioned place there is there in Hull, in a bit of an alley off High Street—you'll know Hull, no doubt, you gentlemen?"
"Never been there," replied Scarterfield.
"I have," said I. "I know it well—especially the High Street."
"Then you'll know, guv'nor, that all round about that High Street there's still a lot o' queer old places as ancient as what it is," continued Fish. ”

“ Howsomever, there wasn't nothing partic'lar struck me that morning until it was getting on to dinner-time, and me an Shanks was thinking o' laying a course for our lodgings, where we'd ordered a special bit o' dinner to celebrate our happy meeting, like, when in comes the man I'm a talking about. And if he wasn't Netherfield Baxter, what I'd known ever since he was the heighth o' six-pennorth o' copper, then, says I, a man's eyes and a man's ears isn't to be trusted!"
"Fish!" said Scarterfield, who was listening intently. "It'll be best if you give us a description of this man. ”

“ He paused a moment, and then leant across the table round which the three of us were sitting. "And when did you see him last?" he asked.
Fish, to my surprise, laughed. It was a queer laugh. There was incredulity, uncertainty, a sense of vagueness in it; it suggested that he was puzzled.
"Aye, once?" said he. "That's just it, master. ”

“ Our visitor seemed to pull his mental faculties together. He took another pull at his glass and several at his cigar.
"Well," he said, "t'aint much in my line, that, me not being a scholar, but I can give a general idea, d'ye see, master. A tallish, good-looking chap, as the women 'ud call handsome, sort of rakish fellow, you understand. Dressed very smart. ”