"This way, gentlemen," gestured someone standing just inside.

  Gregory was the last one in, right behind the doctor. Compared to the brightly lit corridor, the room was almost dark. Through the window the bare branches of a tree were visible in the fog outside. (...)

"Gentlemen," the Chief Inspector said (...) "I want you to go over every aspect of this case. Since the official record has been my only source of information, I think we should start with a brief summary. Farquart, perhaps you can begin."

(...)

Farquart straightened up in his chair.

"The affair began around the middle of last November, but there may have been some earlier incidents that were ignored at the time. The first report to the police was made three days before Christmas, but an investigation in January showed that these corpse incidents began much earlier. The report was made in the town of Engender, and it was, strictly speaking, semiofficial in character. Plays, the local undertaker, complained to the commander of the district police station, who happens to be his brother-in-law, that someone was moving the bodies around during the night."

"What exactly did this moving consist of?" The Chief Inspector was methodically cleaning his glasses.

"The bodies were left in one position in the evening and found in different positions the following morning. (...) The undertaker isn't completely sure anymore whether the body involved was actually the drowned man's. In fact the whole report is somewhat irregular. Gibson, the Engender police commander, decided not to log any of this. (...) The second report was made in Planting, eight days after the first. Someone moving corpses at night in the cemetery mortuary again. The dead man was a stevedore named Thicker-he died after a long illness that almost bankrupted his family."

Farquart glanced out of the corner of his eye at Gregory, who was shifting around impatiently.

"The funeral was scheduled for the morning. When the family showed up at the mortuary they noticed that the body was lying face downward-that is, the back was facing upward - and that its hands were open, which gave them the impression that Thicker . . . had come back to life. At least that's what the family believed. Before long, rumors about some kind of trance were circulating in the neighborhood; people said that Thicker had only seemed to be dead, then woke up, found himself in a coffin, and died of fright, this time for good.

"The whole story was nonsense," Farquart continued. "A local doctor had certified Thicker's death beyond any shadow of a doubt. But as the rumors spread through the surrounding area, attention was drawn to the fact that people had been talking for some time about so-called moving corpses that changed position during the night."