The narrator was once asked to visit his uncle who was a doctor from India and had settled in England in his old
age. His uncle welcomed him courteously and said that he was the kind of man whom he wished to discuss certain things with. His uncle showed him a long room which had been converted into a laboratory. It contained many bottles containing specimens. He told that it was only a part of the pathological collection as he had lost most of them when his house in Bombay had caught fire. He asked the narrator to spend the night on the settee placed at the end of the room. He slept comfortably but at midnight he was awakened by some sound in the room. He saw a human figure moving stealthily from the direction of the door. He was brown, short and squat, dressed in a dark grey gown from shoulder to feet. He walked slowly looking at the bottles of the specimens. After examining all the bottles he faced the narrator, threw up his hands in gesture of despair and vanished from his sight. The narrator observed that he had only left hand and right one ended in a knobby stump.
In the morning the narrator told his uncle about it. His uncle told him that this man had been haunting him for the past four years. He said that it was the ghost of an Afghani tribal who had sarcornatous swelling of one of the metacarpal joints. He had persuaded him to amputate his hand to save his life. Since he was poor and in no condition to give fee, uncle had asked him for the hand as his fee, as he can add it to his pathological collection. But this Afghan said that he cannot as his body should be reunited after his death to make a perfect dwelling for his sprit. So uncle said that he would preserve it for him. Afghan reminded him that when he’ll die, he’ll be back to fetch his hand. But the hand had been destroyed when there was a fire in uncle’s house in Bombay.
The narrator assured his uncle that he had an idea and will let him know on returning from London. He went to the hospital and demanded for a brown man’s hand. With that he went back and waited for the ghost to arrive at night. The ghost came at its usual time and went towards the brown hand in the bottle, examined it eagerly and then with fury and disappointment threw it on the floor. The narrator thought what went wrong? Then he found it was the left hand that he had brought.
Next morning he went to town and brought the right hand and kept it in the laboratory, but his uncle did not let him sleep in the laboratory that night. At midnight his uncle woke him up and told him that the ghost had arrived at the same hour of night and woke him up violently and then went on his usual round. Then he returned with a big smile showing his white teeth and made three eastern salaams (bow) that is done before final leave taking. Then he raised his hands over his head and this time he had two hands, and then he vanished.
The narrator’s uncle became very happy and gave him a large share of his property and was now able to sleep soundly every night.