Sir David Suchet

The occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention, and I left him at two in the morning.

I'd offered to stay through the night, but he would not hear of it.

That I, more than once, looked back at the red light as I ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to conceal.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure.

I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact.

But how long might he remain so in his state of mind?

Though in a subordinate position, still he held a most important trust.

And would I, for instance, like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing to execute it with precision?

unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his superiors in the company.

Without first being plain with himself and proposing a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany him, otherwise keeping his secret for the present, to the wisest medical practitioner we could hear of on those parts, and to take his opinion.

A change in his time of duty would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset.

I had appointed to return accordingly.

Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy it.

The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field path near the top of the deep cutting.

I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would then be time to go to my signal man's box.

Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink and mechanically looked down from the point from which I had first seen him.

I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me when close at the mouth of the tunnel I saw the appearance of a man with his left sleeve across his eyes passionately waving his right arm.

The nameless horror that oppressed me

passed in a moment.

For in a moment, I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and that there was a little group of other men standing at a short distance to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made.