Who Was That Man?

My mate Chris is actively involved in building equipment for the Somerset carnivals. A number of years ago, he received a call from someone who wanted to buy some old carnival cart props. The props – large fake desert cacti, like you see in the Westerns – had been made for a recent event, and the prospective client had seen them in a local newspaper feature.

“We’d like to come down and look at them,” said the caller, “but there’s one condition.”

“What’s that?” asked Chris.

“There’s nobody there except you.”

“Alright,” Chris was puzzled, but agreed. “Can you come down to the carnival shed tonight, around seven?”

“OK, but nobody else, right?”

“I promise,” said Chris.

As Chris tells it, two nondescript blokes walked into the shed that night, but when the third came in after them, “I just couldn’t believe who it was.”

The question is, who was it? Answers in the comments please, first correct one wins a book.