A small heap of inter-connected detective trivia today, dear listener. We offer the full text of a classic tale of the supernatural related to the Whitechapel murders of 1888, by period author Hume Nisbet (if you just want to read the story, you can always skip down); a note on the literary roots of Sherlock Holmes, via the world’s best-selling crime novel, by Fergus Hume – and an ill-fated Victorian wheelbarrow. Two and a half Humes for the price of one.

Many have discussed the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s consulting detective – both real life characters who might have inspired Doyle, and Holmes’s fictional antecedents. We shall not confuse you with reams of references – others with far better credentials and more time have done so elsewhere. But we do enjoy one particular line of enquiry, which relates to Doyle’s book A Study in Scarlet (1887), where Watson mentions two fictional detectives, and has them soundly dismissed by Holmes:

“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind me of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories.”

Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.”

“Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?”

Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable bungler,” he said, in an angry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid.”

I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window, and stood looking out into the busy street. “This fellow may be very clever,” I said to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”

A number of listeners  may know of Poe and Dupin, but how many know of Gaboriau and Lecoq. Read on…

Fergus Hume

Fond of such Victorian trivia trails, we were browsing the works of Fergus Hume (1859-1932) the other day, and were reminded again of Gaboriau. Ferguson Wright Hume was an Englishman whose family emigrated to Australasia in 1862, and who later became a hugely prolific author. In his early days, having failed to find a publisher, he self-published his detective novel The Mystery of a Hansom Cab in 1886 – the year before A Study in Scarlet was published.

It was a resounding success, first in Australia, then in Britain and the United States – outselling A Study in Scarlet, by the way. It is probably the only one of his many, many works which is still known reasonably well today. Most are utterly forgotten.

In the preface to The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Hume wrote:

I enquired of a leading Melbourne bookseller what style of book he sold most of. He replied that the detective stories of Gaboriau had a large sale; and as, at this time, I had never even heard of this author, I bought all his works—eleven or thereabouts—and read them carefully. The style of these stories attracted me, and I determined to write a book of the same class; containing a mystery, a murder, and a description of low life in Melbourne. This was the origin of the “Cab.”

The French writer, Emile Gaboriau (1832-1873) wrote five novels which included his methodical detective Monsieur Lecoq (Mister Rooster), beginning with L’Affaire Lerouge (1866). Lecoq was also a master of disguise, an area in which Holmes prided himself. In fact, Conan Doyle admitted being influenced, and said of the French writer:

‘Gaboriau had rather attracted me by the neat dovetailing of his plots, and Poe’s masterful detective, M. Dupin, had from boyhood been one of my heroes. But could I bring an addition of my own?’

Gaboriau has been described as the first writer to invent a true procedural detective, a man making careful observation of the crime scene and then attempting logical deductions from his reading of the scene.

Anyway, back in Australia, such was the impact made by The Mystery of a Hansom Cab that it was even parodied, particularly in a novel written by unknown hand in 1888 – The Mystery of a Wheelbarrow, or Gaboriau Gaborooed, an Idealistic Story of a Great and Rising Colony, by ‘W. Humer Ferguson’.

“On the —th day of 18 —(anno domini one thousand eight hundred and a dash), at the hour of twenty minutes to two o’clock in the morning (our contemporaries will, doubtless, be less precise in their chronology), a wheel-barrow was being propelled along Grey Street, St. Kilda, by a biped in a condition of ‘modified sobriety.’ The vehicle was stopped at the police station, where the propellor solicited the favour of being provided with a ‘drop o’ Scosh ‘ot.’ This being politely but firmly refused him, the man cursorily observed that ‘corpses wasn’t particular pleasant articles to (hic) cart about in an adjectived wheel-barrer,’ and requested the pleasure of an introduction to the inspector.

The vehicle in question stands in, naturally, for the hansom cab in Fergus Hume’s original story:

Several hours were pleasantly whiled away in the discussion of the engrossing subject, but Fitzdoodle O’Brier sat moodily cracking nuts, seemingly bent on finding the whole mystery in a nut-shell. The veracious Leo now fetched from the backyard the wheel-barrow kept for the convenience of over-festive habitués of the “Kilted Opossum.”

NB. It’s also tempting to think that the Irish poet and suspect in the book, Fitzdoodle O’Brier, bears some relationship to the widely-published Irish-American author and playwright Fitz James O’Brien (1826-1862), who was noted for his weird and speculative stories.

You can have a look at the parody here – it has its amusing moments:

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks18/1800321h.html

There’s a lot more that could be said about Fergus Hume – he was homosexual, which caused him problems – and his writing, such his novel A Son of Perdition (1912), dedicated to the theosophist Annie Besant. This one is described as an occult romance! However, space forbids for the moment. A number of Hume’s books can be found free on-line, should you wish to pursue him.

We are not done with Humes and Australias, however, because there is another writer worth noting, and one who was also on our radar for their occult or supernatural works…

The Second Hume

(James) Hume Nisbet (1849-1923) was a Scot who similarly left for Australasia, though he was more of a wanderer, and returned to Britain for long periods. In the ghostly tales field, he may be best known for his outback story ‘The Haunted Station.’ Nisbet was familiar with Melbourne, and was touring Australia and New Guinea in the year in which The Mystery of a Hansom Cab was published. Alas we do not know if the two Humes ever met.

Returning to Britain in financial difficulties, he proceed to write a number of novels, adding collections of ghost stories such as The Haunted Station (1894). The piece which follows, ‘The Demon Spell’ is from that book, and was therefore written within five or so years of the Autumn of Terror, when the killer some call Jack the Ripper, murdered and mutilated street-working women in London’s Whitechapel.

‘The Demon Spell’ is thus an early example of fiction reflecting on the events of autumn 1888, and seeking a less mundane explanation than a human murderer. Nisbet employs the same bloody crime and type of victim, the name Polly (reminiscent of ‘Polly’ Nichols), and the same location, Whitechapel. He also features the use of a medium through which the ‘Ripper’ victim speaks – there were a number of claimed events like this at the time.

It’s a strange story, what you might call early weird fiction rather than simple horror, with an ambiguous resolution, but well worth a read.

An audio reading is also available here: https://horrorbabble.bandcamp.com/album/the-demon-spell

The Demon Spell

Hume Nisbet

It was about the time when spiritualism was all the craze in England, and no party was reckoned complete without a spirit-rapping séance being included amongst the other entertainments. One night I had been invited to the house of a friend, who was a great believer in the manifestations from the unseen world, and who had asked for my special edification a well–known trance medium. ‘A pretty as well as heaven-gifted girl, whom you will be sure to like, I know’ he said as he asked me.

I did not believe in the return of spirits, yet, thinking to be amused, consented to attend at the hour appointed. At that time I had just returned from a long sojourn abroad, and was in a very delicate state of health, easily impressed by outward influences, and nervous to a most extraordinary extent.

To the hour appointed I found myself at my friend’s house, and was then introduced to the sitters who had assembled to witness the phenomena. Some were strangers like myself to the rules of the table, others who were adepts took their places at once in the order to which they had in former meetings attended. The trance medium had not yet arrived, and while waiting upon her coming we sat down and opened the seance with a hymn.

We had just furnished(sic) the second verse when the door opened and the medium glided in, and took her place on a vacant set by my side, joining in with the others in the last verse, after which we all sat motionless with our hands resting upon the table, waiting upon the first manifestation from the unseen world.

Now, although I thought all this performance very ridiculous, there was something in the silence and the dim light, for the gas had been turned low down, and the room seemed filled with shadows; something about the fragile figure at my side, with her drooping head, which thrilled me with a curious sense of fear and icy horror such as I had never felt before.

I am not by nature imaginative or inclined to superstition, but, from the moment that young girl had entered the room, I felt as if a hand had been laid upon my heart, a cold iron hand, that was compressing it, and causing it to stop throbbing. My sense of hearing also had grown more acute and sensitive, so that the beating of the watch in my vest pocket sounded like the thumping of a quartz-crushing machine, and the measured breathing of those about me as loud and nerve disturbing as the snorting of a steam engine. Only when I turned to look upon the trance medium did I become soothed; then it seemed as if a cold-air wave had passed through my brain, subduing, for the time-being, those awful sounds.

‘She is possessed,’ whispered my host on the other side of me. ‘Wait, and she will speak presently, and tell us whom we have got beside us.’ As we sat and waited the table moved several times under our hands, while knockings at intervals took place in the table and all round the room, a most weird and blood-curdling, yet ridiculous performance, which made me feel half inclined to run out with fear, and half inclined to sit still and laugh; on the whole, I think, however, that horror had the more complete possession of me.

Presently she raised her head and laid her hand upon mine, beginning to speak in a strange monotonous, far away voice, ‘This is my first visit since I passed from earth-life, and you have called me here.’ I shivered as her hand touched mine, but had not strength to withdraw it from her light, soft grasp. ‘I am what you would call a lost soul; that is, I am in the lowest sphere. Last week I was in the body, but met my death down Whitechapel way. I was what you call an unfortunate, aye, unfortunate enough. Shall I tell you how it happened?’

The medium’s eyes were closed, and whether it was my distorted imagination or not, she appeared to have grown older and decidedly debauched-looking since she sat down, or rather as if a light, filmy mask of degrading and soddened vice had replaced the former delicate features.

No one spoke, and the trance medium continued: ‘I had been out all that day and without any luck or food, so that I was dragging my wearied body along through the slush and mud for it had been wet all day, and I was drenched to the skin, and miserable, ah, ten thousand times more wretched than I am now, for the earth is a far worse hell for such as I than our hell here.

I had importuned several passers by as I went along that night, but none of them spoke to me, for work had been scarce all this winter, and I suppose I did not look so tempting as I have been; only once a man answered me, a dark-faced, middle-sized man, with a soft voice, and much better dressed than my usual companions.

‘He asked me where I was going, and then left me, putting a coin into my hand, for which I thanked him. Being just in time for the last public-house, I hurried up, but on going to the bar and looking at my hand, I found it to be a curious foreign coin, with outlandish figures on it, which the landlord would not take, so I went out again to the dark fog and rain without my drink after all.

‘There was no use going any further that night. I turned up the court where my lodgings were, intending to go home and get a sleep, since I could get no food, when I felt something touch me softly from behind like as if someone had caught hold of my shawl; then I stopped and turned about to see who it was.

‘I was alone, and with no one near me, nothing but fog and the half light from the court lamp. Yet I felt as if something had got hold of me, though I could not see what it was, and that it was gathering about me.

‘I tried to scream out, but could not, as this unseen grasp closed upon my throat and choked me, and then I fell down and for a moment forgot everything.

‘Next moment I woke up, outside my own poor mutilated body, and stood watching the fell work going on–as you see it now.’

Yes I saw it all as the medium ceased speaking, a mangled corpse lying on a muddy pavement, and a demoniac, dark, pock-marked face bending over it, with the lean claws outspread, and the dense fog instead of a body, like the half formed incarnation of muscles.

‘That is what did it, and you will know it again.’ she said, ‘I have come for you to find it.’

‘Is he an Englishman?’ I gasped, as the vision faded away and the room once more became definite.

‘It is neither man nor woman, but it lives as I do, it is with me now and may be with you to-night, still if you will have me instead of it, I can keep it back, only you must wish for me with all your might.’

The seance was now becoming too horrible, and by general consent our host turned up the gas, and then I saw for the first time the medium, now relieved from her evil possession, a beautiful girl of about nineteen, with I think the most glorious brown eyes I had ever before looked into.

‘Do you believe what you have been speaking about?’ I asked her as we were sitting talking together.

‘What was that?’

‘About the murdered woman.’

‘I don’t know anything at all. Only that I have been sitting at the table. I never know what my trances are.’ Was she speaking the truth? Her dark eyes looked truth, so that I could not doubt her. That night when I went to my lodgings I must confess that it was some time before I could make up my mind to go to bed. I was decidedly upset and nervous, and wished that I had never, gone to this spirit meeting, making a mental vow, as I threw off my clothes and hastily got into bed, that it was the last unholy gathering I would ever attend.

For the first time in my life I could not put out the gas, I felt as if the room was filled with ghosts, as if this pair of ghastly spectres, the murderer and his victim, had accompanied me home, and were at that moment disputing the possession of me, so instead, I pulled the bedclothes over my head, it being a cold night, and went that fashion off to sleep.

Twelve o’clock! and the anniversary of the day that Christ was born. Yes, I heard it striking from the street spire and counted the strokes, slowly tolled out, listening to the echoes from other steeples, after this one had ceased, as I lay awake in that gas-lit room, feeling as if I was not alone this Christmas morn. Thus, while I was trying to think what had made me wake so suddenly, I seemed to hear a far off echo cry ‘Come to me.’ At the same time the bedclothes were slowly pulled from the bed, and left in a confused mass on the floor.

‘Is that you, Polly?’ I cried, remembering the spirit seance, and the name by which the spirit had announced herself when she took possession. Three distinct knocks resounded on the bedpost at my ear, the signal for ‘Yes.’

‘Can you speak to me?’

‘Yes,’ an echo rather than a voice replied, while I felt my flesh creeping, yet strove to be brave. ‘Can I see you?’

‘No!’

‘Feel you?’ Instantly the feeling of a light cold hand touched my brow and passed over my face. ‘In God’s name what do you want?’

‘To save the girl I was in tonight. It is after her and will kill her if you do not come quickly.’

In an instant I was out of the bed, and tumbling my clothes on any way, horrified through it all, yet feeling as if Polly were helping me to dress. There was a Kandian dagger on my table which I had brought from Ceylon, an old dagger which I had bought for its antiquity and design, and this I snatched up as I left the room, with that light unseen hand leading me out of the house and along the deserted snow-covered streets. I did not know where the trance medium lived, but I followed where that light grasp led me through the wild, blinding snow-drift, round corners and through short cuts, with my head down and the flakes falling thickly about me, until at last I arrived at a silent square and in front of a house which by some instinct, I knew that I must enter.

Over by the other side of the street I saw a man standing looking up to a dimly-lighted window, but I could not see him very distinctly and I did not pay much attention to him at the time, but rushed instead up the front steps and into the house, that unseen hand still pulling me forward.

How that door opened, or if it did open I could not say, I only know that I got in, as we get into places in a dream, and up the inner stairs, I passed into a bedroom where the light was burning dimly. It was her bedroom, and she was struggling in the thug-like grasp of those same demon claws, and the rest of it drifting away to nothingness. I saw it all at a glance, her half-naked form, with the disarranged bedclothes, as the unformed demon of muscles clutched that delicate throat, and then I was at it like a fury with my Kandian dagger, slashing crossways at those cruel claws and that evil face, while blood streaks followed the course of my knife, making ugly stains, until at last it ceased struggling and disappeared like a horrid nightmare, as the half-strangled girl, now released from that fell grip, woke up the house with her screams, while from her releasing hand dropped a strange coin, which I took possession of.

Thus I left her, feeling that my work was done, going downstairs as I had come up, without impediment or even seemingly, in the slightest degree, attracting the attention of the other inmates of the house, who rushed in their nightdresses towards the bedroom from whence the screams were issuing.

Into the street again, with that coin in one hand and my dagger in the other I rushed, and then I remembered the man whom I had seen looking up at the window. Was he there still? Yes, but on the ground in a confused black mass amongst the white snow as if he had been struck down.

I went over to where he lay and looked at him. Was he dead? Yes. I turned him round and saw that his throat was gashed from ear to ear, and all over his face–the same dark, pallid, pock-marked evil face, and claw-like hands, I saw the dark slashes of my Kandian dagger, while the soft white snow around him was stained with crimson life pools, and as I looked I heard the clock strike one, while from the distance sounded the chant of the coming waits, then I turned and fled blindly into the darkness

END

It is a given, or it is axiomatic, or some such word, that greydogtales doesn’t follow rules well. So asking us for a review or to participate in a promotion is always a risk. Besides, weren’t the Axiomatics villains in Dr Who? We were listening to Jon Pertwee in The Navy Lark radio series only the other day, and… no, enough of that.

Today’s piece is about Alan M Clark and the relaunch of his novel A Parliament of Crows. We shall now behave ourselves, because we said we’d take part in the blog tour for it. Django, put that sandwich down and stand to attention for the nice man…

A Parliament of Crows

First things almost first. We have read this book, and yes, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Although we know Mr Clark quite well, we wouldn’t have bothered to write the rest of this if we were just being polite to a friend. We would have stopped there, shoved in a purchase link, and then told tasteless jokes about H P Lovecraft or Dan Brown to fill in the rest of the space. Instead, we had stuff to say.

Oddly enough, when we finally put A Parliament of Crows down,  the first thing that came to mind was an element of many Inspector Maigret stories (by Georges Simenon). You learn very quickly what the key issue is – the death (and likely murder) of a young woman in three inches of water, under the influence of laudanum. You may well know who did it, and the obvious motive. But like Maigret, although Alan Clark understands the formal aspects of the crime, he wants to know more. What possible set of experiences and mental states might have led to one or more of three ‘respectable’ sisters being involved in this tragedy – and a number of other dubious deaths? And also like Maigret, he burrows deep to satisfy himself – and us.

The book commences in the Edwardian era, with said three sisters, Southern survivors of the American Civil War but now resident in the North, alive and held in custody as a trial progresses. One sister is dutiful and determined; a second is somewhat of a loose cannon, angry and frustrated, whilst the third is letting herself starve to death in her cell. The relationship between these women is the core of the whole book. Although this is a novel, it is directly inspired by a genuine historical case – the three real-life Wardlaw sisters, and the fate of Ocey Snead, a direct relative.

Over a year after Ocey’s death, the El Paso Herald printed a long article on the details of the case. The story included a paragraph captioned “Truth Indeed Strange” which summed up how many must have felt about it: “The history of the famous ‘bath tub’ mystery bears out the old adage that ‘truth is stranger than fiction.’ No more mysterious story was ever revealed within the covers of a novel than what was brought to light by the press and authorities after the finding of Ocey Snead’s body in the bathtub of her home in East Orange, N. J., on November 29, 1909.”

Library of Virginia project

What follows in Clark’s novel is what you might expect if you are familiar with his series on the women killed by the Whitechapel Murderer in 1888. With great ability he delves deep into the lives and psyches of his partly-fictional three sisters, going back to their childhood experiences on the family estate, and then following them forward through the decades. He explores the bonds and frictions between the sisters with a deft hand, leaving you no doubt that you are observing three ‘genuine’ people, not tokens gathered to justify a story. If they are villains, they are conflicted ones, and if they are wicked, that wickedness stems from minds which are dedicated to survival – a dysfunctional family which seeks to function, despite the cost.

As the novel unfolds, each courtroom scene is matched by strands of personal history, skilfully woven together to provide some explanation of how they came to this sorry state. The whole matter is handled sympathetically but without maudlin sentiment, and demonstrates the author’s real talent for getting under the skin of his characters.

Should you think this sounds at all dry, be not deceived. Along the way you will encounter dreadful deeds of murder, fraud, betrayal, lust and… we won’t give it away. You’ll see. Even the passing mention of a single pistol ball, used in a duel long ago, leads to something quite bizarre – and unpleasantly dark. Just as bizarre is the way in which, at times, it is possible to feel a whisper of sympathy for one or more of these three women, and how they were forged into what they became.

In conclusion, we ended up totally invested within only a few paragraphs, and didn’t put it down again until we’d finished the whole thing. An excellent read, well-written – not only a picture of the past, but a fascinating murder-mystery. Recommended.

Details of the actual Wardlaw case can be read on line – this site is quite informative:

http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/fit-to-print/2016/06/03/more-dreadful-than-the-most-gruesome-of-tales-newspaper-coverage-of-the-east-orange-bathtub-mystery/

Here’s a brief interview with Alan Clark, who says a little bit more about the work:

What inspired you to write this book?

A Parliament of Crows is based on the crimes of the Wardlaw sisters of 19th century America. For the story, I changed their name to Mortlow. I was fascinated with the idea of three sisters, prominent female educators in the field of social graces becoming criminals and murderers. I knew that for such prim and proper women of the 19th Century, powerful emotional issues had to be involved in their decisions to commit the crimes. The emotional motivations of characters being at the heart of any good tale, I knew that if I could find an answer to the question,”How did they find their deeds reasonable,” then I’d have a good tale to tell.

Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in A PARLIAMENT OF CROWS?

The story is about the three Mortlow sister, Vertiline, Mary, and Carolee. Vertiline is two years older than the twins, Mary and Carolee. The twins are emotionally volatile. The sisters’ father, Supreme Court Justice of Georgia, Horace Mortlow, just before his death during the American Civil War, gave Vertiline the duty of protecting the unstable twins in his absence. Trying to protect them, often from themselves, Vertiline, also commits crimes. The three form a dangerous triangle.

How did you come up with the names in the story?

I changed the names so that what I did with the characters would not offend any of the Wardlaw descendants. I make it clear that A Parliament of Crows is a work of fiction. That said, it follows much of the Wardlaw sisters’ history. I used the name Mortlow instead of Wardlaw, because the “Mort” as a word or syllable is often associated with death, and the “Low” suggests that to which the sisters sink in order to survive.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

Writing different chapters from the three main characters’ POVs; developing the triangle formed by the sisters and their competing interests. The story covers most of their lives. While they are bound together as family and increasingly dependent on one another in committing their crimes and keeping their secrets, they are at odds over many things. Distrust between the siblings threatens to drive them apart and expose them.

Tell us about your main characters—what makes them tick?

Vertiline feels bound by duty to see her “difficult” sisters through life. The twins, Mary and Carolee enjoy as well as suffer an emotional connection. They cannot read each other’s thoughts, but each can know what is happening emotionally with her twin. Mary is very religious. Assuming a sense that she is one of God’s chosen, she feels exempt from the rules of society, though she puts up a good front. Carolee, basically an atheist, views herself as simply an animal who should take from the world what she wants, as long as she doesn’t have to suffer any consequences. She, too, puts up a good front most of the time. Vertiline tries to keep her sisters in line, and ends up compromising her own sense of right and wrong in the process of protecting them.

How did you come up with the title A Parliament of Crows?

Apparently crows do a weird thing in which they gather in large numbers, say in an open field, and an argument ensues between one or more of the birds. The others seem to watch. When the argument is done, the crows turn on one of the participants, presumably the loser, sometimes maiming, killing, or even cannibalizing the creature. Some who have viewed this phenomenon have likened it to a trial in which the defendant is convicted and punished. The term for that type of gathering is a parliament of crows. With the way the sisters go after each other, with the fact that they nearly always wore black mourning clothes, I thought the title appropriate.

Who designed your book cover?

I did the cover art and layout. I have been a freelance illustrator for 35 years, doing mostly book covers and interior illustrations for books.

If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

Joan Allen would be a great Vertiline and then Catherine Keener, doubling for the twins, would do well for Mary and Carolee.

The Author

You can find out about Alan Clark easily via the links below, so let’s not be boring. It was on the basis of his painstaking approach to interpreting history, and his handling of female characters, that old greydog ended up working with him on a number of projects, most notably 13 Miller’s Court, their interleaved tale of the Whitechapel Murders of 1888. Oh, and he’s from Oregon, you know, where they first grew oregono for putting on pizzas…

Author Links

Website: https://ifdpublishing.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlarmClank

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Rivers-Edge-515944125541875

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alanm.clark

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Alan-M-Clark/e/B001JP86WY

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/207866.Alan_M_Clark

Giveaway

$25 Amazon; Paperback of The Door That Faced West; ebook of the Jack the Ripper Victims Series novel- Of Thimble and Threat; ebook of A Parliament of Crows – 1 winner each

Follow the tour HERE for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!

https://www.silverdaggertours.com/sdsxx-tours/a-parliament-of-crows-book-tour-and-giveaway

A Parliament of Crows was first released in 2013, and is now available again as part of IFD Publishing’s new ‘Horror That Happened’ range.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36443287-a-parliament-of-crows

Purchase in the US

Amazon: amazon us

Purchase in the UK:

Direct from the Publisher:

IFD Publishing: https://ifdpublishing.com/shop?olsPage=products%2Fa-parliament-of-crows-trade-paperback-book

After an August beset by too many other things to do, greydogtales will be back in a few days with all sorts of unrelated oddities. Stay on this frequency, dear listener…

Do you lie awake at night and panic about St Botolph-in-the-Wolds? Do you find yourself one of the many tens of thousands of people today who fear being abducted by feral girl guides high on metal polish and lemonade? Or do you just see a huge night-black, slightly psychotic pony lurking on every street corner, watching you? Worrying, huh?

To make it clear that these are real fears, here is our updated brief guide to St Botolph-in-the-Wolds, in darkest Yorkshire – the village which made Stephen King wet the bed, and caused Guillermo del Torro’s refusal to film in Northern England ever again.

For those new to the subject, St Botolph-in-the-Wolds might be described as a sleepy English Parish set in the rolling countryside of East Yorkshire, far from the hustle and bustle of city life; a village where everyone knows their neighbours, and life is much the same as it was centuries ago.

This would be a stupid description. It may be geographically correct, but life in St Botolph’s is complex, argumentative and filled with new terrors every day. More than one resident dreams of escaping rural existence to find peace in a violent urban crack ghetto, surrounded by burning tyres and daily police raids. People may indeed know their neighbours, but they may not always be sure what those neighbours are.

St Botolph’s is a diverse community, with – as we have suggested – serious doubts even as to the humanity of some inhabitants, though it is particularly hostile to Methodists and very welcoming to Belgians. Skin colour is rather irrelevant; the locals already practice such an inventive range of deeply-entrenched prejudices that they don’t have time for racism.

Members of the Women’s Institute are heavily armed, and the local Girl Guides are seriously dangerous, with a long-term Brasso addiction. St Botolph’s Mixed Infants has its own howitzer, and Mrs Gayamurthi’s All-Nite Wholefood Shop (closes 9pm) provides the most flammable naan in the Western hemisphere, along with her famous Mango’n’Pilchard ice-cream.

Scholars are divided as to what makes St Botolph’s so unusual. There is no doubt that the looming presence of Whateley Wood, north of the village proper, plays its part. Home to the oak, the Western Hemlock and an especially offensive type of briar, the woods contain many remains of early fertility and sacrificial cults. These include obscenely carved altars – where the Womens’ Institute leaves offerings of home-made raspberry jam at key times of the year – and a gleaming black stone from antiquity, whose surface is chill and moist even on the hottest day. This stands alone in a clearing which smells of charred bone, and is marked ‘Pickering 14 miles’. The sheer malevolence of the woods can be seen from the fact that Pickering is not actually 14 miles away. And it’s in the other direction.

Paths through the woods often appear and disappear at random. The unwary traveller may find themselves lost in a ravening gloom, surrounded by nightjacks and tendrilled things – or worse, may end up at Malton bus station. The main section is also inhabited by a large colony of bronchitic whip-poor-wills. Normally typical of the witch-haunted hills of New England, these small, coughing birds are always on the lookout for souls to conduct into the Afterlife.

Or perhaps its origins are to blame. It has been variously claimed that the village started life as:

• A Bronze Age ritual site for the disposal of unwanted otters
• A shrine to Botothqua, Mother of Persistent Slime, worshipped by at least three people in the early Iron Age but somewhat neglected since 557 BCE*
• An open toilet for the Auxiliary Roman Cavalry unit based at Malton
• A failed attempt at creating a refuge for agoraphobic Vikings

*See ‘Mucus and Myth: The Peculiar Deposits on some Northern La Tene Artifacts’, Ichabod James Marsh (BChD), Journal of Unreliable Archaeology, XVI, pp23-48)

There is no single agreed origin for the settlement. Stories of the past, many of them highly dubious, are common currency in St Botolph’s. There is no doubt, though, that in Victorian times the village was genuinely home to Ebediah Crake, the least successful Wolds murderer in history. J Linseed Grant says of him:

“In 1839 he failed to kill an entire family of seven living just outside York, being distracted by ‘a littul kitten what had a poorly paw.’ And in September 1842, Crake helped a frail old lady into a carriage and then secured her luggage to the rear, telling the driver to go gently. His actual instructions, from one Septimus Grange, an itinerant ferret-grinder, had been to garotte her and leave the body in a ditch so that they could share the contents of her purse. Grange was later hanged for interfering with two unrelated goats.”

There are many other fascinating examples of myth and folklore in the area. The tale of mist-shrouded Cooper’s Field, northwest of the village, is always popular during Ramadan:

“Legend had it that a skilled cooper once set up his trade there, relying on the woods to supply timber for his intricately fashioned barrels. Not long after, he died.”

It isn’t much of a legend, to be honest, though there are more worrying ones, such as that of the St Botolph Grinder…

“Last Thursday’s talk at the Church Hall resulted in very few people being hospitalised. It included a rousing presentation on the nature of the St Botolph Grinder, a brutal spirit with adamantine teeth which extracts the bones from local children, but leaves a shilling on their pillow afterwards. Or a tangerine. Local historian Edith Cremble amused the mostly intoxicated audience with her comparison of the Grinder to the Appalachian slaughter-wife, a similar myth common in Western Canada (despite being surprisingly violent, the slaughter-wife has no sense of direction). The talk ended with an open discussion on the role of metal polish in English folklore, and whether or not anyone could remember where the nearest bus stop was.”

LEGENDS OF OLD ST BOTOLPH’S No.64: The Blessing Stones

“Certain curiously shaped stones can be found in the Wolds, and these are said to offer protection against the creatures of evil. When examined closely, a number of the larger stones also have arcane markings and script, such as ‘My other stone’s sedimentary’ and ‘Call 577432 to advertise on this stone’. And it is true that if you throw enough of these warped rocks at the monstrosities of the night, you might at least give them a broken tooth or two before they drag you down.”

St Botolph-in-the-Wolds is also on the edge of the Wold Newton Triangle, an area long know for its strange meteorites, disappearing rivers, early mounds and so forth. So that probably helps. With Grimdyke Moors, Buttersmite Fell, Whateley Wood and a range of stark, haunted crags surrounding the village, Yorkshire temperament must play a part in keeping humanity present in a location for which it is hardly suited. That, and a poor sense of direction.

Despite the fact that the Ordnance Survey have refused to mark St Botolph’s on the official maps, citing public safety concerns, certain authorities such as the military are aware of it. RAF pilots, for example, have strict instructions not to fly over the area, ever since one of the Tornadoes from Staxton Wold came back with more wings than it had when it set out.

Given the above, it is perhaps no surprise that religion plays a large part in local life:

But we must be away, and we should be remiss if we did not mention that famous protective spirit which guards the sanctity of the Parish, occasionally crippling parish members by accident (or when in a bad temper). Born in a barn on what is often referred to as ‘the farm’, the coal-black, slightly psychotic pony known as Mr Bubbles is known to fight the forces of evil far and wide across the Wolds. Unless he is bored, or hungry, at the time. Teamed with his cheerful (and only) friend Sandra, plus occasionally her cousin Mary and his lurcher Bottles, he is the colossus which bestrides the area – but with more legs.

MR BUBBLES AND THE BLACK HEART OF CHAOS

A thrilling weird fiction story by J Linseed Grant

The hunched acolyte flung back its cowl to reveal a face that spoke of the long dead, the sleepless dead who claw their way through worm-mark and rotting coffin-wood to drag air into lifeless lungs. The eyes were blank, glassy, no longer fit to measure the world above; the splayed nostrils ran with foul and discoloured ichor.

“He is the Void, and the Heart of the Void,” it cried, “The Primal Chaos to which we must return. He is the Insanity which even madmen cannot bear!”

Mr Bubbles munched on a mouthful of particularly juicy couch-grass. His backside itched.

“He is…” The acolyte squinted, and one eyeball slithered onto its cheek. “He is the God feared by Gods, the bubbling, insensate core of All!”

“You should get out more,” said the pony, and trod on the acolyte rather firmly.

Later, he found a parsnip, which was nice.

The Journal of J Linseed Grant is explored every few days in jlg’s Facebook entries, usually with dire results, and the occasional Mr Bubbles tale turns up there as well. All posts are public, so you don’t even have to pretend to be a Friend, though if you Follow you might get warned! St Botolph-in-the-Wolds features in many stories on greydogtales (and the odd one elsewhere). If you want a sample, you could try this heartwarming story of a simple village play…

http://greydogtales.com/blog/the-wreck-of-the-natividad/

So farewell for now, and remember – your nightmares are Nature’s way of telling you that you;’re doomed…

To make a change, today a little unpublished fiction from greydog – three short, instructive vignettes concerning Mr Dry, the Deptford Assassin. If you do not know of him, then these three will explain quite a lot…

“Oh, and by the by, have you met Edwin Dry? No? Then you’ve not yet encountered one of the most ghastly characters in modern strange fiction.”

—Matthew M Bartlett, author of Creeping Waves and Gateway to Abomination

1. HAMMERSMITH, IN THE DRY SEASON

The office of James Henry Grange, Superintendent of Police for T Division, is cramped by nature, and the more so for the unwelcome presence of Scotland Yard. Sharp sunlight catches far too many polished buttons, and hurts Grange’s eyes. His visitor is brusque and self-assured.

“There were three murders in your division’s territory this August, superintendent, yet I have seen not a single file which might enlighten me as to your investigations.”

“No, sir. You have not.”

“And why, pray, is that?” The commissioner paces, waiting for incompetence to expose itself.

Grange tugs at his moustache, flexes fingers which ache from hours of writing mundane reports.

“Three murders indeed, sir,” he says. “No connection between the victims, no sighting of any possible perpetrator, no common touch in how they were killed. No logic of family, trade or geography, excepting that they were, as you say, within my division; no shred of evidence or betraying mark at the scenes. A precise death for each, within seconds. Wire, knife and bullet.”

The visitor scowls at this litany of absences. “But you have informants, man!”

“I have. Not a one of them will even pause for coin. They are mute, sir, more like to throw themselves from Marlborough Wharf than speak a certain name…”

The commissioner halts, his last step an awkward shuffle of boot on polished floor.

“You are implying–”

“I am informing you, sir, as to why there are no files to peruse – and why I will not send my men into the darkness only to fail or perish.”

The commissioner swears, a most ungodly oath which would appal his wife. “Then it is…” He will not say the name.

“It appears so,” agrees Grange.

A bead of sweat forms on the senior officer’s newly-shaven upper lip, and he makes for the door, strangely eager to be down his club and discussing his modest portfolio of shares, the weather, anything but Hammersmith.

The two men never speak of this again.

In the August of 1895, Mr Dry passed through Hammersmith. He found the experience lucrative, but unchallenging…

“In his stark and sinister Victorian England, a resourceful heroine must pit her psychic gifts against the dangerous skills of a chilling assassin. Grant has achieved something altogether rare: a genuinely unique take on the Jack the Ripper murders, in which the famous killer is actually upstaged by the author’s original creations.”

—Amanda DeWees, author of A Haunting Reprise and The Last Serenade

2. PASSING TRADE

Martin Gray was seventeen and a half years old, a tall youngster who was blessed with a kind heart and clear skin, the Good Lord’s compensatory gestures- somebelieved- for making Martin the only child of a shiftless father and a drunken mother. As a result of diligence at school, and after repudiation of his family, he had been taken on as a junior assistant by Geo. Smails, Gentleman’s Outfitter (Mr Smails being awash with daughters). The boy had modest ambitions, and a good eye for the breadth of a man’s shoulders, the way in which a particular stride might require adjustment to trouser hems.

The customer before him this morning did not seek adjustments. He required a hat, a bowler hat, which was exactly the same as the one he was currently wearing.

Martin did his best, but his hands shook as he sorted through the neatly labelled hat boxes; his voice quavered as he requested that the man repeat his size (how could he have forgotten that?). And in the end, a suitable bowler in his hands, he said it. He could not help himself.

“I… I did see you. In the alley, that night by the presbytery in Hoxton – and then they said… they wrote in The Courier that Father Groves was dead, slaughtered…”

Mr Edwin Dry, who was neither tall nor young, regarded the assistant. Eyes which might have been faded blue or deepest black seemed to be considering the future of Martin Gray.

“His throat was half sliced through like soft cheese, said the papers,” the boy continued, “And after, all that gossip, and him accused of such things as a man of God could surely not have…”

Martin’s own throat tightened, as if it felt the garotting wire start to bite; his lungs were unable to force out the rest of what he wanted to say, wanted to ask.

“And will these no doubt interesting facts,” asked the most feared assassin in London, perhaps in Europe, “Make it difficult for you to supply me also with five imperial collars, lightly starched?”

“N-no, sir.”

Mr Dry examined the new bowler, and gave a satisfied nod.

“Then all is relatively well in this sorry world,” he said, and brought out his pocket-book, that he might pay for his acquisitions…

Martin Gray married the generously built Georgina Smails, and lived to be seventy eight, with four healthy grandchildren. There is no official record of the birth, life or death of Edwin Dry.

“Mr Edwin Dry, the Deptford Assassin, is one of the most evocative presences in modern dark fiction – precise, relentless, inexorable.”

—Paul St John Mackintosh, author of Blowback

3. MR DRY MAKES A JOKE

He has killed with a seamstress’s needle, and with a Catholic bible; with a rigid finger and with a studded boot. To be owned by, to be fixated on a particular weapon or method, is a sentimentality to which soldiers, murderers and children cling. But he does favour the blade, for its silence and its ready interest in the work…

The moon above Lincoln’s Inn is white and lifeless, a disc cut from an artist’s canvas; it is indifferent to two shadows in a doorway.

“You signed papers, Mr Kempton,” says Mr Dry, stepping lightly forward. “You forged; you bore false witness. Debtor’s gaol and the workhouse awaited those families you served so badly.”

The lawyer presses himself against the locked door, his fingers slick on a handle which will not turn.

“And you… you believe yourself to be justice?” Kempton manages to whine. His jowls are fat lamb and aged port, all atremble above a stiff collar.

Mr Dry reflects on this. “No, I would not say justice. Dear me, no. I am merely what you might term a learned colleague – a prosecutor who prefers to engage out of court.” He smooths a crease in the left sleeve of his jacket, and slips a gleam of steel from the sheath at the small of his back. “Shall you hear my argument now?”

Afterwards, a nightingale can be heard, the distant trill of a creature lost in its own concerns. The dead man does not raise an objection as Mr Dry cleans his blade, his exquisite blade, on robes of office which are no longer required. The Deptford Assassin lets the expensive material slide between his fingers, and finds it adequate.

“It seems that tonight I have taken silk,” he murmurs as he strides away.

Mr Dry was not entirely without humour.

“John Linwood Grant has managed to create one of the most interesting and exciting characters to come along in some time: the enigmatic assassin, Mr. Dry. Possessed of great criminal and murderous ability, Mr. Dry is a power unto himself, moving like an unstoppable force of nature against evil and, sometimes, justice.”

—Sam Gafford, author of Whitechapel and The Dreamer in Fire

Mr Dry, the Deptford Assassin, can be found in The Assassin’s Coin, by John Linwood Grant; the composite novel 13 Miller’s Court by the talented Alan M Clark and the tolerable John Linwood Grant, and in the short story collection A Persistence of Geraniums by John Linwood Grant.

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