[1] Parkins, the protagonist, is a young "Professor of Ontography" at Cambridge University, who when the story opens is about to embark on a golfing holiday at the town of Burnstow (a fictionalized version of Felixstowe, Suffolk), on the east coast of England.

At dinner in his College, an archaeological colleague asks him to investigate the grounds of a ruined Templar preceptory near the Globe, with a view to its suitability for a dig.

On his first day at Burnstow, after a round of golf with Colonel Wilson, another guest at the Globe, Parkins proceeds to find and examine the site of the preceptory.

As he returns to the inn along the desolate beach, he notes that "the shape of a rather indistinct personage" in the distance appears to be making great efforts to catch up with him, but to no avail.

After the man collapses to the ground in exhaustion, Parkins sees the cause of his flight, "a figure in pale, fluttering draperies, ill-defined", moving in a strange manner and with incredible speed.

Returning to the inn, Parkins and Wilson encounter a terrified boy running from it, who explains he has just seen a strange, white figure waving at him from the window of one of the rooms.

Arriving just in time, Colonel Wilson kicks the door to his room open; before he reaches the window, the apparition tumbles to the floor, a heap of bed-clothes, while Parkins collapses in a faint.