Note: This is the beginning of a story-in-progress. In general, it is meant to be a pastiche in the Carr manner but with some tongue in cheek (and perhaps a touch of Michael Innes and Conan Doyle). It is open to all members to add to it. Please go to the Forum and click on "John Dickson Carr Pastiche" near the bottom of the page to make your entry. There are some hints at the end of this 'chapter' describing possible developments in the story -- try to retain them but feel free to embellish. Each entry should be about the same length as this opening section and end with a cliff-hanger that the next contributor can carry on from. It is not necessary to add the filler material, just the Carrian set-pieces, but summary explication of where we are, how, and why should be provided in square brackets. Forum members are requested to vote which entries are to be included in the final product. Please be advised that the story, if it comes to a satisfactory conclusion, will never be sold for publication without agreement from the contributors. (I also have to say, being an unimaginative and lazy person, that I have no idea what the solution to the mystery should be.)
-- Grobius, 23 Jan 2004

Death and the Vanishing Goblin

A detective story featuring Professor Arthur Taliban

On that miserable wet January night, with its howling winds and cracking trees, we all gathered in the 'snug', each with his favorite tipple, and blessed ourselves for our good fortune not be be abroad in such foul weather. A nice fire was blazing, and Magister sat in his assigned armchair by the inglenook. Indeed, it was the only piece of furniture in the place adequate to carry his great bulk. On this evening, only three others dared the storm to visit The Green Dragon -- it would have taken a typhoon to keep us diehard drinkers from our favourite place after the daily grind of our diverse occupations was over for another day. There was only one additional person, a stranger to these parts, who was staying in one of the guest rooms at the inn. His name, as he told us, was Frederic Follen, and he was an antique dealer from Shrewsbury on one of his habitual mid-winter hunting expeditions. The rest of us -- Taliban, Superintendent Thelford, Amos Louth, the village schoolmaster, Bertie Wister, the doctor, and myself (and of course our host, landlord Jerry Ink, who poked his nose in frequently to resupply our glasses, if you will forgive my ineloquent phrase) -- were glad to welcome a new face to our gathering, as Mr Follen showed great talent as an anecdotal speaker and displayed an erudition about his trade that was interesting to us, ever curious as to the details of how others make their living. Isn't it always the case that we find other people's professions, however dull in reality, so much more fascinating than our own?

But you do not want to read of such trivia as was discussed earlier in the evening -- well, it was not trivial for us, but would certainly bore the reader. It was when Mr Louth happened to refer to the famous carved pews of St Dismas Church down the road, that Mr Follen remarked, "Strange that you should mention that. I am in somewhat of a quandary over a recent acquisition, and I should be glad of your opinion." At which point he excused himself to go upstairs and bring down his 'acquisition'.

And what a strange object he revealed to us! It was an oak carving of a goblinesque gargoyle of a late medieval type. As an expert in medieval art, Magister was thrilled. "It is definitely part of a misericord," he said, stroking the object with loving hands. "Obviously not from our church, but of a period with it. May I ask where you obtained it?"

"That I cannot reveal to you. It was bought by me under circumstances of utmost confidentiality. I cannot say more, but that it was fairly gotten. In fact, it will be some time before I can recover what I spent. You can see, however, that it is a genuine piece, say late 15th-Century. Ugly devil, isn't he?"

Having relighted his reeking pipe with many sucking and gurgling noises, Magister grumbled in his usual rude way. "Pah! In these days of punitive taxation -- outright robbery I call it -- many of our neglected stately homes have been forced to divest themselves of such venerable heirlooms. I shan't probe any deeper to discover its provenance, although I can come up with an inspired guess as to where it came from. We will say no more of the lady."

"I mentioned no lady," said Follen. "But you are near enough in your deduction. Sadly to say, others' misfortune is often the making of my own good fortune. If you examine it closely, though, there is something of a mystery. And I gather that sort of thing is in your line of interest. See, here, where it is chipped. Is that a blood stain?"

Thelford quickly reached out and took the carving in his hands. After careful examination he said: "As a policeman I can only say this has definitely been soaked at some point. There is no way to tell whether that is blood or not, and in any case it must be many years old."

"You are wrong, there, Bill," Taliban said. "I noted the stain first off, and I should say it is certainly blood, and but recently dried. And if I am not mistaken, that little white chip embedded there is part of a tooth. Wouldn't you agree, Wister? Mr Follen, I believe it would behoove you to be a little more forthcoming now."

Follen snorted. "That cannot be. I have sworn not to mention where I got my goblin chappie. But I can tell you this, that the carving has been ensconced these past two hundred or so years as a wall decoration until this very afternoon when I removed it myself -- with great difficulty I might add. If it was used as a bludgeon, that was well before our time. What's more, there is a legend behind... -- What's that noise!"

Some clues to development: (1) Gargoyle came from nearby Thornhaven Castle, decaying home of the dowager Mathilde Fairbury (Lady Thornhaven), and her 'ginchy' grand-daughter, Isabel; (2) There is an ancient manuscript describing the provenance and strange history of this article; (3) Next day, Thelford is called in to investigate the discovery of an unknown person found beaten to death in a locked wine cellar in the castle -- the body has been there for nearly a week; (4) There are at least five suspects -- (a) Follen (who knows more than he lets on), (b) a gamekeeper with a passion for Isabel, (c) Isabel's fiance, (d) an itinerant preacher/occultist, and (e) 'an old friend of the family' (Dr Wister, no less); (5) The victim can be anybody you can invent, as long as his presence in the house wasn't a matter of burglary by a tramp; and (6) There MUST be a chase scene or some dramatic confrontation at the end.

But the true culprit can be anybody who plays a role, however obscure, in this story, on condition that clues are fairly provided (don't forget Jerry Ink or the so-far unnamed 'descendants' of Silas Hornsby hinted at below). Further note: the locked-cellar mystery must have a Carrian solution, even if a variation of one of his own is used, and Taliban must be shown to detect the clues. (An example of a clue is the use of the word 'ensconced' both by Follen and Hornsby, as you will see by reading the item below, but this is not a hint, because Follen is only slightly crooked and a red-herring suspect to boot. Let's make that perfectly clear. But that doesn't mean that he can't be the murderer! As a matter of fact, I have no idea who the murderer is.) Final comment: Don't take these caveats too seriously -- you can do anything you want to with this plot.

..................................................................

I can't resist adding this set-piece, which should come around Chapter Five:

The statement of the lawyer

"I, Silas Hornsby, Attorney at Law and Secretary of Affairs to his Lordship the Duke of Thornhaven, do swear and attest to the following, to wit, the antient oaken figure to be referred to herein as Golum, that it was indeed given to his Lordship by one Mathias M'Henery of Linlithgow, Scotland, in honest of the settlement of a gentlemanly indebtedness incurred in that much to be lamented so-named Sport of Kings. Let it be delineated as an object crafted in a Barbarous Age by a person of great Skil but little Enlightenment. It purports to be, and of this I have no reason to doubt, what was nominated in an age of Papistry as a 'misericordium', that is the nether part of a seating object which when hinged into an upright position supported the weakened backside of an aged monk compell'd by the exigentsies of his practice to stand during the interminable folderole of the corrupt and Papistical rendition of the Indulgence, that deluded custom by which the rich man doth purchase, in his vanity, Felicity in the Hereafter, but which in the Reformed Church is now rightly regarded as a foolish hope. Master M'Henery avowed that it originated in the Gothick Chapel of Rosslyn in the land of the Scots, a site renowned for its barbarous beauty as well as for its association with that misguided and evil faction of those Manichees that credited the Great Deceiver Satan himself with conterminousness with the Divine Jehovah. Let it be said that this Golum is indeed, as if posed from the Life, a Daemonic image and Curst in its abominable History in that the marks of Bloody Murther do still show themselves upon its surface, uncleansable and ever fresh. No fewer than sixe persons previous to its present holder, in possession of this idoll came to grief, their very skulls broken and crushed by its Malevolence, albeit by the hands of meere mortals. The Gallows claimed them, thus augmenting the bloody toll to an even dozzen, for this Paradigm of Hell hath no respect of Virtue or Villainy, Innocence or Guilt, but a raw Lust for Lives. Even the child at play, in looking for a staff to knock round a ball-toy, has fallen for his Wiles, as in the dread case of Master Ranald of Doone when he so cruelly put to death his own Sister. It is to be said that Golum doth Creepe into one's hand unbidden to accomplishe his vile Will. That, I avow, is what Esquire M'Henery informed me over his cups. 'Caveat' is the word I presented to His Lordship. Let it be said that he chose to ignore my entreaties, for which I am in much regret and anxiousness, and did ensconce the heathen object Golum upon the wall of the Great Hall, next the portraiture of his great Progenitor the First Duke, who passed on in the latter days of the martyred King Charles, first of that name. I leave this document in the hands of my descendants in Hope and Expectation that a later scion of this Noble House take heed and destroy this Wicked Idoll." -- Signat. Silas Hornsby, esq., Stoke Pidgeon, the First of January in the Yeare 1705, witnessed by messrs. Tampon and Blakely, of this household.

Floor Plan of the West Wing of Thornhaven Castle Key: + -- where the second body was found (the first body was discovered underneath the card room, in the wine cellar) A -- Hiram Archer Maybrough (the Occultist) B -- Lady Thornhaven and Dr Wister C -- Billiard Room: Isabel Fairbury and her fiancé Horatio Pillaugh The family bedrooms are on the upper floors on the west side, reached both by the main staircase and by the spiral stair next to the card room; there is also a mural stair by the library, reached by a 'secret' passage behind fake bookshelves that leads to the postern gate. The Great Hall, where the gargoyle came from, rises two storeys to a beamed roof. Additional bedrooms, parlours, etc. are in the northeast wing, and the kitchen and servants' quarters in the southeast wing; the east wing has square towers at both ends, with the gatehouse in the middle. A largely silted-up moat surrounds the castle except on the northern, garden side. It is no more than a few inches deep, but its bed is glutinous mud. The windows in the outer walls are narrow and protected by iron bars. Also, the postern gate is kept bolted, with a draw-bar in addition, except on good-weather days. Nobody could have entered the castle in this way, even if admitted, without leaving traces. The main gatehouse contains the servants' hall and was occupied at all critical times, with the gamekeeper on the look-out for the invited guest, Mr Follen, who purportedly never turned up.