["August Heat" is a 1910 short story by W. F. Harvey, about two men, unknown to each other, whose look at the other's possible future suggests that one of them will be murdered and the other will be the murderer. It is often referred to as a ghost story (it appears in The Folio Society's Book of Ghost Stories, for example, and in Edward Gorey's ghost story collection The Haunted Looking Glass) even though no ghosts are featured.[1]
Synopsis
On a scorching August day, artist James Clarence Withencroft draws a sketch of a criminal in the dock immediately after the judge has given him a sentence. That evening, Withencroft goes for a walk and wanders into the workshop of a stonemason, Charles Atkinson. To his surprise, Atkinson exactly resembles the criminal in the sketch he is carrying in his pocket. Both men are shocked to discover that the model headstone Atkinson has just finished carving bears Withencroft's full name, his date of birth, and that very day as the date of his death.
The two men are unnerved and agree that, for the sake of safety, Withencroft should stay at Atkinson's place until midnight has passed and the date changed. The story ends with Withencroft writing the day's events as Atkinson sharpens some tools: "It is after eleven now. I shall be gone in less than an hour. But the heat is stifling. It is enough to send a man mad."
Adaptations]
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