Dark Detectives
Page 1
PRAISE FOR DARK DETECTIVES
“Dark Detectives: Adventures of the Supernatural Sleuths edited by the redoubtable and apparently tireless Stephen Jones, skillfully offers us a particularly fine sampling of this sort of thing in the form of a kind of two-pronged attack which combines a first-rate anthology of short stories featuring the fearless activities of some of the most heroic and renowned psychic sleuths who ever encountered and dispatched the most horrid (it is impossible to avoid superlatives and still keep the appropriate mood when one’s discussing this fictional arena) supernatural menaces ever faced, and what amounts to a brand-new book by that dashing master of perilous pastiche, Kim Newman.”
Gahan Wilson, REALMS OF FANTASY
“Dark Detectives is more than a themed collection with a spot-on non-fiction piece to kick off with. It is a mixture of reprints and original stories, and they have been arranged (more or less) chronologically … The whole point of Dark Detectives is homage. And Stephen Jones has managed to get the balance right.”
INTERZONE
“The stellar collection includes contributions from Neil Gaiman, William Hope Hodgson, Basil Copper and Clive Barker, as well as a riveting eight-part novella created by Kim Newman especially for this volume.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Once again, master-editor Stephen Jones uses his phenomenal knowledge of the field and inventive intelligence to select classics both old and new … In addition to the fine content, Randy Broecker’s perfectly atmospheric interior illustrations make this publication bliss for any book-lover.”
HORRORONLINE
Also edited by Stephen Jones and available from Titan Books
SHADOWS OVER INNSMOUTH
WEIRD SHADOWS OVER INNSMOUTH
WEIRDER SHADOWS OVER INNSMOUTH
Dark Detectives: An Anthology of Supernatural Mysteries
Print edition ISBN: 9781783291281
E-book edition ISBN: 9781783291298
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First Titan Books edition: March 2015
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Stephen Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Copyright © 1999, 2015 by Stephen Jones
Illustrations © 1999, 2015 by Randy Broecker
Original hardcover edition published 1999 by Fedogan & Bremer
‘Introduction: The Serial Sleuths’ copyright © 1999, 2015 by Stephen Jones.
‘Seven Stars Prologue: In Egypt’s Land’ copyright © 1999 by Kim Newman.
‘Our Lady of Death’ copyright © 1999 by Peter Tremayne.
‘Seven Stars Episode One: The Mummy’s Heart’ copyright © 1999 by Kim Newman.
‘The Horse of the Invisible’ by William Hope Hodgson. Originally published in Carnacki, The Ghost-Finder (1913).
‘Seven Stars Episode Two: The Magician and the Matinee Idol’ copyright © 1999 by Kim Newman.
‘The Adventure of the Crawling Horror’ copyright © 1979, 1999 by Basil Copper. Originally published in slightly different form in The Secret Files of Solar Pons. Reprinted by permission of the Author’s estate.
‘Seven Stars Episode Three: The Trouble With Barrymore’ copyright © 1999 by Kim Newman.
‘Rouse Him Not’ copyright © 1982 by Manly Wade Wellman. Originally published in Kadath Vol. 2, No. 1, July 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
‘De Marigny’s Clock’ copyright © 1971 by Brian Lumley. Originally published in The Caller of the Black. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent.
‘Seven Stars Episode Four: The Biafran Bank Manager’ copyright © 1999 by Kim Newman.
‘Someone is Dead’ copyright © 1974 by R. Chetwynd-Hayes. Originally published in The Elemental. Reprinted by permission of the Author’s estate.
‘Vultures Gather’ copyright © 1999 by Brian Mooney.
‘Lost Souls’ copyright © 1986 by Clive Barker. Originally published in Time Out, No. 800, December 19, 1985–January 1, 1986. Reprinted by permission of the author.
‘Seven Stars Episode Five: Mimsy’ copyright © 1999 by Kim Newman.
‘The Man Who Shot the Man Who Shot The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence’ copyright © 1999 by Jay Russell.
‘Seven Stars Episode Six: The Dog Story’ copyright © 1999 by Kim Newman.
‘Bay Wolf’ copyright © 1998 by Neil Gaiman. Originally published in Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions. Reprinted by permission of the author.
‘Seven Stars Episode Seven: The Duel of Seven Stars’ copyright © 1999 by Kim Newman.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
For
MR. MYCROFT AND MR. MORAN
who published my kind of detective fiction.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Praise for Dark Detectives
Also by Stephen Jones
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Illustration
Introduction
THE SERIAL SLEUTHS
by Stephen Jones
SEVEN STARS PROLOGUE: IN EGYPT’S LAND
by Kim Newman
Sister Fidelma
OUR LADY OF DEATH
by Peter Tremayne
Charles Beauregard
SEVEN STARS EPISODE ONE: THE MUMMY’S HEART
by Kim Newman
Carnacki
THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE
by William Hope Hodgson
Edwin Winthrop and Catriona Kaye
SEVEN STARS EPISODE TWO: THE MAGICIAN AND THE MATINEE IDOL
by Kim Newman
Solar Pons and Dr. Lyndon Parker
THE ADVENTURE OF THE CRAWLING HORROR
by Basil Copper
The Gumshoe
SEVEN STARS EPISODE THREE: THE TROUBLE WITH BARRYMORE
by Kim Newman
John Thunstone
ROUSE HIM NOT
by Manly Wade Wellman
Titus Crow
DE MARIGNY’S CLOCK
by Brian Lumley
Richard Jeperson
SEVEN STARS EPISODE FOUR: THE BIAFRAN BANK MANAGER
by Kim Newman
Francis St. Clare and Frederica Masters
SOMEONE IS DEAD
by R. Chetwynd-Hayes
Reuben Calloway and Roderick Shea
VULTURES GATHER
by Brian Mooney
Harry D’Amour
LOST SOULS
by Clive Barker
Sally Rhodes
SEVEN STARS EPISODE FIVE: MIMSY
by Kim Newman
Marty Burns
THE MAN WHO SHOT THE MAN WHO SHOT THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE
by Jay Russell
Jerome Rhodes
SEVEN STARS EPISODE SIX: THE DOG STORY
by Kim Newman
Lawrence Talbot
BAY WOLF
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by Neil Gaiman
Geneviève Dieudonné
SEVEN STARS EPISODE SEVEN: THE DUEL OF SEVEN STARS
by Kim Newman
Acknowledgements
About the Editor
About the Artist
Also Available from Titan Books
Frontispiece
“Such a beautiful thing”, Pharoah mused, “to contain such curses.”
It was clearly a demon from the Otherworld.
The mummy snatched up the jewel and held it to his breast.
The clungk, clunk—clungk, clunk of mighty hoofs coming down the passage.
Once more this ghastly figure rose from the edge of the marsh.
A lump like a head rose into view.
He gave a sobbing shriek.
Edwin held the jewel up.
Richard Theobald could see the vultures gathering.
The blood that was pooling around it had begun to thicken and grow milky, like melted wax.
She was only recognisable by her distinctive hair.
His fingers were webbed and clawed and, growling he went for my throat.
The sand drifts over her bones.
Endpiece
Introduction
THE SERIAL SLEUTHS
PSYCHIC DETECTIVES. PHANTOM Fighters. Ghostbusters. Call them what you will; for more than 170 years these fictional sleuths have been investigating the strange, the bizarre and the horrific while protecting the world from the forces of darkness and evil.
It is generally accepted that the modern detective story began with Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (1841), in which the author introduced French detective C. Auguste Dupin, who solves a grotesque murder through logical deduction. Poe returned to the character twice more, in ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt’ (1842) and ‘The Purloined Letter’ (1844).
Michael Harrison continued the character’s exploits in a series of seven stories in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in the 1960s. These were eventually collected by August Derleth through his Mycroft & Moran imprint as The Exploits of Chavalier Dupin (1968). An expanded edition that included a further five tales appeared in Britain as Murder in the Rue Royale in 1972.
George Egon Hatvary used Dupin to investigate the death of his creator in the 1997 novel The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe, while a search for the detective himself was the basis of Matthew Pearl’s The Poe Shadow (2006).
The character was also featured in the first two issues of Alan Moore’s acclaimed comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999). In 2013 he was revived by author Reggie Oliver to track down a serial killer at the Paris Exhibition in ‘The Green Hour’ (in Psycho-Mania!), and such contributors as Mike Carey, Joe R. Lansdale, Lisa Tuttle and Stephen Volk for the anthology Beyond Rue Morgue: Further Tales of Edgar Allan Poe’s 1st Detective, edited by Paul Kane and Charles Prepolec.
Although there is no cast known for the 1914 short film version of Murders in the Rue Morgue, and the character does not appear in the 1932, 1954 or 1971 adaptations, George C. Scott played the wily detective in a 1986 TV movie. Edward Woodward portrayed Dupin in a 1968 BBC version of the story, as did Daniel Gélin in a 1973 French TV adaptation.
In the early 1940s, Universal Pictures may have briefly considered a series of films featuring Patric Knowles as detective Dr. Paul Dupin, but only The Mystery of Marie Roget (aka Phantom of Paris, 1942) was ever made. Joseph Cotten starred as a character named Dupin, but turned out to be someone else entirely, in the 1951 movie The Man with a Cloak, based on a story by John Dickson Carr.
It was C. Auguste Dupin’s analytical mind that most influenced Arthur Conan Doyle when he created Sherlock Holmes for ‘A Study in Scarlet’, first published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual of 1887. However, when Dr. John Watson compares Holmes to Dupin in that debut story, the Great Detective flatly dismisses Poe’s character as “a very inferior fellow”.
Within four years the Holmes stories had become incredibly popular as a result of their serialisation in The Strand magazine, and the eccentric consulting detective and his loyal friend and colleague Dr. Watson not only had brushes with the supernatural in the classic novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901–1902) and such later stories as ‘The Adventure of the Creeping Man’ (1923) and ‘The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire’ (1924), but Doyle also created a celebrated formula from which most subsequent psychic sleuths (and their assistants) would be moulded.
On screen, Holmes has of course been portrayed by numerous actors over the years, and many liberties have been taken with the stories, especially when it comes to implications of horror and the supernatural. Some of the more notable instances include The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) and The Scarlet Claw (1944), both with Basil Rathbone; Hammer Films’ The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) with Peter Cushing; A Study in Terror (1965) with John Neville; The Last Vampyre (1993) with Jeremy Brett, and The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire (2002), with Matt Frewer, to name only a few.
One of the earliest short stories featuring a supernatural sleuth appeared in the Christmas 1866 issue of the London Journal: ‘The Ghost Detective’ was written by Mark Lemon, the founder and first editor of the satirical magazine Punch. J. Sheridan Le Fanu created the German “physician of the mind” Dr. Martin Hesselius, an expert on psychic or physical affliction, to introduce the stories in In a Glass Darkly (1872), while M.P. Shiel’s decadent Russian investigator uses logic to solve crimes without leaving his Gothic castle in Prince Zaleski (1895).
The exploits of ghost-hunter Mr. John Bell, the Master of Mysteries, first appeared in Cassell’s Family Magazine during 1897 before being collected the following year in A Master of Mysteries by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace. Although mother and son Kate and Hesketh Prichard began writing their series of stories about Flaxman Low in 1896, they didn’t see print in Pearsons Magazine until two years later, and then under the byline “E. and H. Heron”. “Flaxman Low” was supposedly an alias for a leading psychologist of the day who investigated genuine cases of the supernatural. Twelve stories were published in Pearsons between 1898 and 1899, including ‘The Story of Baelbrow’, in which the occult investigator battles a living mummy. Collected in 1899 simply as Ghosts, these dozen stories were reissued by The Ghost Story Press in 1993 as Flaxman Low, Psychic Detective and Ash-Tree Press in 2003 as The Experiences of Flaxman Low.
Between 1830 and 1837, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine published a series entitled ‘Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician’, in which the anonymous doctor-narrator sometimes encounters physical and psychological maladies that border on the bizarre. When the publisher was forced to go to court to protect his copyright, the uncredited author of this successful series was revealed as Samuel Warren.
Arthur Machen’s Dyson first delved into the supernatural in ‘The Innermost Light’ (1894), before the character turned up in the 1895 story cycle The Three Impostors and again in ‘The Shining Pyramid’ (1925). Although best remembered for The King in Yellow (1895), Robert W. Chambers also created Westrel Keen, who uses scientific principals to locate missing persons, for a series of stories that appeared in The Idler in 1906. They were collected under their generic title the same year as The Tracer of Lost Persons.
In 1908 Algernon Blackwood’s collection John Silence was published and, due to an extensive advertising campaign mounted by the publisher, quickly became a bestseller. Blackwood based the case files of Dr. Silence, Physician Extraordinary, on his own experiences travelling through Europe at the beginning of the 20th century.
These were usually chronicled by Silence’s associate Mr. Hubbard, and among the best-known tales are ‘Ancient Sorceries’, ‘A Psychical Invasion’ and the werewolf story, ‘The Camp of the Dog’. Despite the book’s phenomenal success, Blackwood only published one other John Silence story—‘A Victim of Higher Space’ appeared in the December 1914 edition of The Occult Review, but had been written earlier and omitted from the book because the author didn’t think it was st
rong enough.
‘Ancient Sorceries’ was adapted in 1962 for an episode of the now lost Associated-Rediffusion Television series Tales of Mystery, featuring John Laurie as host Algernon Blackwood.
With ‘The Gateway of the Monster’ in The Idler (January, 1910), William Hope Hodgson introduced readers to Thomas Carnacki, who uses a combination of science and sorcery to overcome the supernatural. The character went on to appear in a further eight stories, including one—‘The Hog’ (Weird Tales, January 1947)—which, it has been speculated, might actually have been written or at least extensively revised by August Derleth. On TV, Donald Pleasence portrayed the character in a 1971 adaptation of ‘The Horse of the Invisible’.
Along the same lines as John Silence, Australian Max Rittenberg’s Dr. Xavier Wycherley, Mental Healer, is another psychic psychologist. A total of eighteen stories were published, beginning with ‘The Man Who Lived Again’ in the February 1911 edition of London Magazine, and a selection was subsequently collected as The Mind-Reader (1913).
Twelve stories by British-born pulp writer Victor Rousseau (Avigdor Rousseau Emanuel) about Greek-born “soul specialist” Dr. Phileas Immanuel originally appeared in Holland’s Magazine between 1913–14, and were finally collected in The Tracer of Egos (2007).
Clearly modelled after Sherlock Holmes, Aylmer Vance is a clairvoyant detective with consulting rooms in London’s Piccadilly and a trusty literary assistant and acolyte named Dexter. Created by Alice and Claude Askew, eight stories appeared in The Weekly Tale-Teller in 1914 and were later collected in Aylmer Vance: Ghost-Seer (1998).
Six stories by Harold Begbie featuring “dreamland” investigator Andrew Latter appeared in the London Magazine in 1904 and were subsequently collected in The Amazing Dreams of Andrew Latter (2002). Slightly more interesting is antique dealer Moris Klaw, the Dream Detective, created by Sax Rohmer (Arthur Sarsfield Ward), whose most famous character—the insidious Oriental mastermind Fu Manchu—is opposed by his own Holmes and Watson team of Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie.