Most obviously, he wasn’t deceased because the newly-dead had no need of large theatrical beards. Or, if they did, they had no need to pull such beards down to reveal their faces as they came to haunt the living. Or, if such a revelation was part of the haunting, they had no call to grin quite so happily before releasing the ridiculous growth so that it sprang back slightly askew, under one ear. And, anyway, in the next moment, Reg Buller was all-too-abundantly flesh-and-blood as he removed the equally-ridiculous trilby from his head, and then unhooked the beard, finally adding his voluminous Sherlock Holmes cape to them on the chair beside the door. ‘That’s better!’ Reg Buller nodded to Jenny, and then advanced on Ian, larger and cruder than life, and took his glass from his hand, momentarily holding it up. ‘And that’s even better! Untouched by human lips—?’ He drank noisily. ‘Gnat’s piss! But, like the bishop said to the actress, “my need is greater than thine!”’ He finished off the beer, and returned the glass to Ian with exaggerated courtesy.
