SOME BIBELOTS AND BAUBLES

by James Lincoln Warren

Here, completely free, are some nuggets of advice for aspiring short story writers of crime fiction. These are all little things, but then again, a fatal bullet is a little thing, too. Yeah, I know that free advice is worth exactly what one pays for it, to wit, nothing at all, so I appeal to you as a reader rather than as a writer, letting you know what will stop me dead in my tracks.

Don’t let your research show.

Sometimes the most fun I have in writing a story is doing research for it. I’ll always find much more than I need, and being of a somewhat curious nature, by which I mean inquisitive rather than eccentric, although, come to think of it, the latter sense is pretty accurate, too—anyway, being of a somewhat curious nature, I am frequently deeply fascinated by what I find, and feel the strong temptation to share all my new-found and riveting knowledge with my audience. But I restrain myself. Usually.

It’s a cardinal rule of writing short stories that only those things essential to the tale should be told. What makes this particularly true of research is that research is like a brassiere.

What?

Well, its purpose is to give support to the story, but you don’t want the straps showing. When it’s really standing up on the job, it’s invisible. Otherwise, it’s distracting as hell.

Gratuitous sex and violence are, well, gratuitous.

Now, I’m not saying that a story should never have any sex or violence in it, but I promise you that explicit violence in a story won’t affect you as strongly as real violence will, and explicit sex in a story is never as much fun as the real thing, although the author is very likely to lie about how it is. But a good short story doesn’t have room for anything gratuitous.

You, see, what’s interesting about visceral experiences in story-telling isn’t the effect on the reader, but rather the effect on the characters—and it’s the characters that really affect the reader. And did I mention that only those things essential to the tale should be told?

Gratuitous exposition and description are also gratuitous, don’t ye know, although they’re less controversial, I suppose, because they are BORING, which is rarely the case with sex and violence. But on another tack, when something is present only to titillate, we usually call that pornography.

If you use a thesaurus to find a synonym, look up the synonym in the dictionary before you use it.

The sad truth is that synonyms are rarely 100% interchangeable. I recently read a story where the author used the word consanguinity in lieu of relationship to describe the confluence of a number of factors in determining an outcome. This is a misusage.

Consanguinity is a type of relationship, but in its technical sense it means a relationship by blood—the relationship between you and your relatives. Metaphorically, then, it means a relationship by way of descent from a common origin, the relationship between things that share similar characteristics, rather than the relationship of things that interact. You and your cousin may be friends, but being cousins and being friends are two different kinds of relationship—only the former is consanguineal. The author could have use marriage as a metaphor to describe different factors working together and gotten away with it, but in the context used, consanguinity made no sense.

Likewise, for example, with using parting to mean leaving—one person can just get up and leave, but for that person to part, he has to part with something else: you can’t say, “My love, I must part.” It has to be, “My love, we must part.”

Not only is it not necessary to have a twist ending, usually it’s a bad idea.

A story should stand on its own merits. The most frequent problem with twist endings is that the vast majority of the time, the reader can see it coming. He will be thinking, “Surely the ending won’t be that obvious, will it?” and then be pissed off that he wasted his time slogging through the whole story to get there when it is.

Unless you are Jeffery Deaver, O. Henry, John M. Floyd, Rob Lopresti, or a few others I can think of, you should not attempt this at home without professional supervision. Most really good short stories don’t have surprise endings. Name me one Sherlock Holmes story that does.

Stories about the commission of a crime, instead of how it is solved, are generally dull, no matter how interesting you found writing them.

It’s a lot easier to commit a crime than to solve one. By extension, it’s a lot easier to write about committing a crime than writing about solving one. Taking the easy way out just means you didn’t work very hard at it, and that usually shows. (I make an exception of capers, which are engaging because the crime must be so fiendishly clever.)

Now don’t get me wrong: there are all kinds of good straight crime stories out there, especially if you are James M. Cain or Lawrence Block, but most such stories are crap. And the worst of them are usually revenge stories—revenge as a motive is mostly BORING, because it is obsessively monotonous. Every good revenge story I can think of actually hangs its hat on some other quality of the story than its protagonist’s motive.

And last but not least . . .

Don’t ever begin your story with, “It was a dark and stormy night …”

It is not clever, even if it’s supposed to be funny. Nothing you can write after it is going to save your story. It is categorically not possible to write a good story that begins with that phrase unless you are Snoopy, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, or Madeleine L’Engle, and none of you is. Neither am I, of course.

Clichés at any time are bad, but to use one to introduce yourself to your reader is like having eye-watering B.O. when you meet someone for your first date. No matter how charming, witty, brilliant, and beautiful you are the rest of the evening, there is nothing that can rescue you from that devastating first impression.

Look, I don’t care if your story actually begins with a dark and stormy night or not, but if it does, make your point another way. Say, “Lightning flashed, limning the horizon against the black sky,” if you want. Or maybe, “The rain pelted the roof, and looked like it would keep coming until morning.” Anything but those deadly seven words. Please.

The AWARENESS

by Leigh Lundin

I received a surprise gift, Crimes by Moonlight, the latest MWA anthology edited by Charlaine Harris. This volume is unusual in that each story combines traditional mystery with the paranormal.

Terrie Moran

I flipped through its contents looking for authors I might know. James knows more writers than the word count of this article, but I recognized pitifully few. The first name that leaped out at me was …

Terrie Farley Moran

That’s right, my tease-mate over at Women of Mystery, plunked in the middle of the book. I turned there first.

Another surprise: Terrie isn’t so much an author as an artist. She doesn’t write– she paints with words. She sketches and shades and sometimes sculpts. Characters emerge in bas-relief. Single sentences become miniature portraits and landscapes.

‘Banshee’ –Olivia

Terrie’s story, ‘The Awareness’, is unusual in another regard. Rather than recycle vampires and werewolves, she cast a banshee as her heroine. The female fairies of the hills, the keening bean-sídhe, sing at the death of those of their clan. Terrie’s immortal, living in New York City, realizes the object of her lament was murdered. She sets about to solve– and avenge– the murder.

The Awareness is a satisfying story, not the least because of Terrie’s artistry and attention to mythological detail. Terrie’s selection is all the more impressive because she was up against 240 or so tough competitors.

This is where I need to make full disclosure: I not only submitted a story to the anthology, but I critiqued four others that were so good, I was surprised they didn’t make it. The selection committee made difficult decisions and I didn’t envy them.

I next took up Mark Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane’s story, ‘Grave Matters’, an unusual Mike Hammer Frankensteinisch horror story. Following on my list is Toni Kelner’s ‘Taking the Long View’, after which I’ll read the stories from the beginning.

Crimes by Moonlight is a hit and I can assure fretting readers of traditional mysteries (like me) that Crimes by Moonlight does not fall back on deus ex machina. Realism and ratiocination trump the psychic aspects.

Get the book: The first three stories I devoured are all winners. Like me, you’ll enjoy Terrie Farley Moran’s ‘The Awareness’.

You Heard It Here First!

This just in: Women of Mystery will be giving away FIVE copies of Crimes by Moonlight by the end of the month, making the announcement this Friday, 16 April, the day after Uncle Sam sucks the blood out of you. Watch for it!

DREAMING OF MONEY

by John M. Floyd

For me, one of life’s pleasures is discovering a piece of fiction that has been around awhile but that I somehow never noticed. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s usually been as a result of the columns and comments posted at this blog. Several dozen stories and novels and movies and authors that I heard of here have gone into my little notebook, and little by little I’m finding and enjoying them.

One of those that I did not find out about here is a movie called The Spanish Prisoner, written and directed by David Mamet in 1997 and starring Campbell Scott, Steve Martin, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay, and Ben Gazzara. For some reason it didn’t make many waves when it came out, and the first I heard of it was from a business colleague years afterward. Since then I’ve watched it many times.

What did I like about it?

Well, for one thing, it’s one of those delicious mysteries that plant a lot of seemingly useless information early and then dish up more twists and turns than any half-dozen other stories put together. Besides that, it features a number of outstanding performances from actors that (except for Martin and Gazzara) were relatively unknown at the time.

But maybe the best thing about it is the pacing, driven mostly by Mamet’s on-target dialogue and direction. Even though there’s none of the action that mystery/crime fans are so used to seeing — not a single shot is fired, and the film’s only murder occurs offscreen — the suspense builds steadily and effectively from start to finish. We all know how hard it is to make a viewer or reader feel the fear and frustration of a lead character in trouble, but Mamet accomplishes that. And, as in all good stories, everyone’s motivation is clearly defined. It can even be summed up, in a line by one of the characters: “We must never forget that we are human, and as humans we dream, and when we dream we dream of money.”

All this is reinforced by Carter Burwell’s haunting score, which does a great job of enhancing the tension and anticipation. Even the title is suitably mysterious (and I love that kind of thing): “The Spanish Prisoner” refers to an ancient confidence game, a fact revealed to the main character by an FBI agent just before one of the story’s biggest turning points.

Questions

The only thing about the film that was a little irritating to me was the lead character himself, played by Scott. I didn’t like him much — his mannerisms, etc. — but that wasn’t enough to keep me from liking this movie. I thought Pidgeon (David Mamet’s wife in real life) was wonderful, Gazzara and Ricky Jay were both excellent as always, and Steve Martin was surprisingly believable in his role as both a rich playboy and a sleazy con-man. NOTE: I have observed many times that, for some strange reason, comedians and musicians seem to make good dramatic actors. Why is that?

Did anyone else see this movie, by the way? Did any of you like it? Did anyone discover it late, the way I did?

The script’s the thing

A few months ago I did a column on Glengarry Glen Ross, another wonderful film written by Mamet, and I’m intrigued by the fact that two such vastly different stories were written by the same person. There are similarities, yes, but not many. The common denominator is just good writing. (By the way, I must take back an observation I made earlier: one shot is fired — but the supposedly deadly bullet turns out to be a tranquilizer dart. That’s typical of the surprises you’ll find in this film.)

So that’s my pitch, this week. If you’re ever in the mood for an intelligent, rollercoaster-ride suspense movie, bop on down to Blockbuster and pick up The Spanish Prisoner. And here’s a challenge, from one mystery lover to another . . .

As you watch it, try to figure out the ending. Just try.

OH SNAP!

by Steven Steinbock

Continuing on last week’s column about words, as well as Rob’s slinky column from Wednesday, I have a few more words about words to share with you. The first one defies logic. My thirteen year-old has been using it relentlessly and I only recently learned that its usage goes beyond him and his circle of friends. The offending word is snap. He uses it as an alternative for “shit” or “crap.” I’m not sure I get it.

Obscenities are usually the last refuge (or in this case, refuse) of people who can’t think of anything smarter to say. Words like this, as well as other “shit” substitutes like sugar and sherbet, are just slightly more polite excuses for not having anything better to say.

Then I learn that in Great Britain snap has nearly the opposite meaning. Deriving from the card game “Snap,” when Brits use this slang, it essentially means “me too.”

For more on snap, here’s an interesting article.

Meh!

In contrast to snap, I find the term meh to be oddly satisfying and appropriate to its usage. Popularized by its usage in a 1994 episode of “The Simpsons,” this interjection indicates an expression of mediocrity, apathy, and boredom. If I ask my older son how his day was, he might respond, “Meh,” and shrug his shoulders. Meh is much more polite (and positive in a glass-half-full sense) than “it sucks” while being more honest than a weak-hearted “fine.” Meh has echoes of “eh” as well as “mediocre.” It also sounds something like a cow mooing and a person yawning.

I’m grateful that my life is interesting enough that I haven’t had a situation where I’ve needed to use Meh, but it’s still nice to know it’s there.

More wordiness next week when I explore Laconic, Languid and Feckless, and show how Ninny and Nincompoop are etymologically unrelated. See you in a snap.

WALKING THE WALK

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

If you ever want to see a writer who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk, make sure you meet Deborah LeBlanc. A few years ago, I ran into her at a writer’s conference. She laughingly referred to me as the Energizer bunny that weekend, but that was like the pot calling the kettle black. No one is more energized than Deborah LeBlanc, current president of the Southwest branch of the Mystery Writers of America. Deborah, a Louisiana native, also serves as president of the Horror Writers of America. She doesn’t just write her books and sit back waiting for the royalties. She travels across the country stopping at practically every town and she doesn’t leave without sharing a message: We must get American kids to read!

Literacy Inc.’s mission is to fight the growing rate of illiteracy in America’s teens. The tools we use to accomplish that mission are motivational speeches, free books, and the opportunity to win a college education and other prizes. It is our goal to merge excitement with reading by using concrete, valuable incentives that will encourage high school students to take that crucial first step towards developing a more literate society — reading a book, cover to cover.

Deborah’s ideas aren’t new, which in itself is scary; why haven’t we as a nation tried harder? Yes, many of us have taught our children the values of reading by reading to them, letting them catch us reading and actually going into bookstores and libraries as a family outing. But if our own children are grown – and before we have the grandkids to teach – shouldn’t we reach out to those children who haven’t been as fortunate?

Deborah mentions the bookstore coffee shops are full of teenagers, but they’re sipping lattes and hanging with their friends. Occasionally, they have a laptop and are busily typing away. Pass by and see if it is social network that holds their attention. Cell phones seem to be attached to their hands, but what about the Nook or the Kindle or an iPad with a downloaded book? (I love the way technology is sneaking in the addiction to reading.) While you’re being nosy, check out the adults doing the same thing. I can safely bet, the majority are following the teens lead. Maybe some of our non-reading friends could be swayed to join our reading group. Chances are they’ll bring along someone else who’s interested. This could get interesting. Reading could become a craze!

So what can we do? Take a clue from Literacy Inc. and sponsor a writing contest at the local schools. Donate a prize if you can. If there isn’t one, start one. English teachers could be the flame to your spark of interest. Give a child a book to own. And yes, let them continue to see us read and don’t forget to discuss books with the younger generation. I dare you to ask a teenager what the big deal is about vampires these days. They may talk about the movies first, but look at it as an opening to bring up the books devoted to vampires long before Twilight became the rage.

As far as I’m concerned, sneak in a few mysteries while you’re at it. Once we get them hooked, they’ll be back. Oh gee, now I’m sounding like a tobacco company.

Sliding my soap box back to the corner, I realize I can’t help getting excited. Deborah always leaves me feeling energized about writing, reading and sharing. I hope it’s contagious.

THINK SLINK

by Rob Lopresti

Not long after the Oscars Awards I heard someone refer to a woman’s outfit as slinky. That got me thinking about that word: what exactly does it mean, anyway?

I went to my favorite source for such information: the Oxford English Dictionary, where the word is listed as a proper noun (the toy) and as an adjective. Here are the definitions for the adjective:

Of a woman, esp. from the manner of her dress: sinuous, slender, gliding; of a garment: close-fitting, as if moulded to the figure. In extended use (with varying degrees of approval): stealthy, dextrous, furtive.

Frankly, I think the Oxford dons were nodding when they wrote this one. Usually they make it clear which meaning is the oldest, but here they don’t even take a shot at it. Also: dextrous? It’s a variation of dexterous, of course, but why would they choose that over the more common spelling, which even the OED lists in first place? Then there is the lack of any reference toslink. One who sneaks is sneaky. So what is one who slinks?

But back to slinky. Is there a logical progression from one meaning to another? How about: furtive leads to mysterious, which brings us to alluring which gives us close-fitting. Or if you prefer, dexterous to sinuous to close-fitting. Hmm. Maybe the Oxford scholars had a reason to be puzzled.

But what really bugged me was the OED’s choice of quotations. Here’s the oldest one they came up with, from Lady’s Home Journal:

Even now I seem to see in memory a slinky, slant-eyed person with long, slender finger nails, who wears green.

So, what do you think? Is the presumably Asian woman being described as sinuous or stealthy? But more troublesome, this quotation is from 1921.

Seriously? The logomeisters at Oxford couldn’t come up with any references older than that? Clearly it was time to let a librarian loose on the trail.

Making a slink

I have discussed Making of America before. It is a two-headed reference tool, produced by Cornell University and the University of Michigan and you have to search both sites to cover all the thousands of old books and journal articles they have available, for free.

I immediately ran into one of the problems with this type of system. Computers are reading the texts, not people, and computers are not perfect at understanding old fonts. So some of the pages that came up didn’t have the word slinky at all – but they did have shaky.

Which is not to say I didn’t beat the Oxford professors. I found an article in Harper’s,from 1855 with the title “Sketches in the East Indies – Pulo Pantang.” The author of this little masterpiece is unknown, and having read a sample of his work, I am not yearning to make his further acquaintance. In discussing how “precious ugly” the Malaysian women are he notes that “Their figures, however, are good; but it is hard to be graceful in those slinky robes…” So clearly the word meant some type of clothing, presumably tight, seventy years before the OED’s reference.

I found an earlier use of the word, in a Canadian comic novel,The sayings and doings of Samuel Slick, esq., also known as The Clockmaker. It was written between 1837 and 1840 by Thomas Chandler Haliburton. The narrator describes a “tall, limber-timbered, slinky-lookin’ man with the blue cloak and two long cords a-hangin’ from it…” I do like limber-timbered, don’t you? But clearly this is the furtive meaning, and the only early use I could find to refer to a man.

The inevitable Google

I then went to the font of all human knowledge, also known as Google, in this case to Google Books. It pulled up a lot of computer-misreadings – my favorite was somehow misreading think as slinky. But Google Books came up with a second use of the word in Haliburton’s Clockmaker and this one was a surprise. The narrator refers to a wet horse as “all slinky-slimy.”

So what meaning do we have here? Close-fitting, referring to the horse’s fur this time? Or something else?

But wait! There’s more. Google Books also gives us A History of North Country Words, written by John Trotter Brockett in 1829. He says that in the north part of Britain the word slinky or slonkymeant lank, lean.

And this led to a book with the sparkling title Poems on Various Subjects, published in 1818. The author William Muir, was a Scotsman, and his poem“The Live Lobster,” feels like a lesser effort by his friend Robert Burns. I sympathize with his distaste for the loathsome crustacean as a source of food. But if you are thinking this is going to be a reference to slinky as slimy, you’re doomed to disappointment. Here’s the relevant stanza.

As lang’s I can get milk and meal,
Or now an’ then a slinky veal,
Or Hawkie’s humps, or Hawkie’s heel.
Like some poor webster,
I’ll never fash myself a-weel about a lobster.”

Leaving aside the question of Hawkie’s Humps, scrumptious as they sound, I’d say that Muir meant lean, wouldn’t you?

Slinking to a conclusion

So what have we learned, besides the fact that etymology is a great time-sucker? Ignoring the Scottish/Northern detour, we can agree that by 1840 slinky already had the meanings of tight-fitting and furtive. Which makes me think that maybe it really started with the meaning slippery. What do you think?

One final thought, tangential even to this disconnected mess. I tried to look up our lobsterphobic poet William Muir and there isn’t much on the web about him. He died even younger than Bobby Burns, who wrote a lovely little elegy for him. It ends:

If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
if there is none, he made the best of this.

Which demonstrates that we should all arrange to have a great poet write our obituary.

To celebrate my latest sale to AHMM, a ghost story/mystery called “Ten Thousand Cold Nights”, this week and next I present my favorite ghost story of all time. Naturally, it involves a despicable crime.

Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) was a renowned classical scholar who served as Provost (i.e., Master) of King’s College, Oxford, and Eton, but he is best remembered for his chilling tales of the supernatural.

“The Mezzotint” first appeared in James’ collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, published in 1904.

—JLW

THE MEZZOTINT
Part I

by M. R. James

Some time ago I believe I had the pleasure of telling you the story of an adventure which happened to a friend of mine by the name of Dennistoun, during his pursuit of objects of art for the museum at Cambridge.

He did not publish his experiences very widely upon his return to England; but they could not fail to become known to a good many of his friends, and among others to the gentleman who at that time presided over an art museum at another University. It was to be expected that the story should make a considerable impression on the mind of a man whose vocation lay in lines similar to Dennistoun’s, and that he should be eager to catch at any explanation of the matter which tended to make it seem improbable that he should ever be called upon to deal with so agitating an emergency. It was, indeed, somewhat consoling to him to reflect that he was not expected to acquire ancient MSS. for his institution; that was the business of the Shelburnian Library. The authorities of that institution might, if they pleased, ransack obscure corners of the Continent for such matters. He was glad to be obliged at the moment to confine his attention to enlarging the already unsurpassed collection of English topographical drawings and engravings possessed by his museum. Yet, as it turned out, even a department so homely and familiar as this may have its dark corners, and to one of these Mr. Williams was unexpectedly introduced.

Those who have taken even the most limited interest in the acquisition of topographical pictures are aware that there is one London dealer whose aid is indispensable to their researches. Mr. J. W. Britnell publishes at short intervals very admirable catalogues of a large and constantly changing stock of engravings, plans, and old sketches of mansions, churches, and towns in England and Wales. These catalogues were, of course, the ABC of his subject to Mr. Williams: but as his museum already contained an enormous accumulation of topographical pictures, he was a regular, rather than a copious, buyer; and he rather looked to Mr. Britnell to fill up gaps in the rank and file of his collection than to supply him with rarities.

Now, in February of last year there appeared upon Mr. Williams’s desk at the museum a catalogue from Mr. Britnell’s emporium, and accompanying it was a typewritten communication from the dealer himself. This latter ran as follows:

Dear Sir,

We beg to call your attention to No. 978 in our accompanying catalogue, which we shall be glad to send on approval.

Yours faithfully,
J. W. Britnell.

To turn to No. 978 in the accompanying catalogue was with Mr.. Williams (as he observed to himself) the work of a moment, and in the place indicated he found the following entry:

978.— Unknown. Interesting mezzotint: View of a manor-house, early part of the century. 15 by 10 inches; black frame. £2 2s.

It was not specially exciting, and the price seemed high. However, as for Britnell, who knew his business and his customer, seemed to set store by it, Mr. Williams wrote a postcard asking for the article to be sent on approval, along with some other engravings and sketches which appeared in the same catalogue. And so he passed without much excitement of anticipation to the ordinary labours of the day.

A parcel of any kind always arrives a day later than you expect it, and that of Mr. Britnell proved, as I believe the right phrase goes, no exception to the rule. It was delivered at the museum by the afternoon post of Saturday, after Mr. Williams had left his work, and it was accordingly brought round to his rooms in college by the attendant, in order that he might not have to wait over Sunday before looking through it and returning such of the contents as he did not propose to keep. And here he found it when he came in to tea, with a friend.

The only item with which I am concerned was the rather large, black-framed mezzotint of which I have already quoted the short description given in Mr. Britnell’s catalogue. Some more details of it will have to be given, though I cannot hope to put before you the look of the picture as clearly as it is present to my own eye. Very nearly the exact duplicate of it may be seen in a good many old inn parlours, or in the passages of undisturbed country mansions at the present moment. It was a rather indifferent mezzotint, and an indifferent mezzotint is, perhaps, the worst form of engraving known. It presented a full-face view of a not very large manor-house of the last century, with three rows of plain sashed windows with rusticated masonry about them, a parapet with balls or vases at the angles, and a small portico in the centre. On either side were trees, and in front a considerable expanse of lawn. The legend A. W. F. sculpsit was engraved on the narrow margin; and there was no further inscription. The whole thing gave the impression that it was the work of an amateur. What in the world Mr. Britnell could mean by affixing the price of £2 2s. to such an object was more than Mr. Williams could imagine. He turned it over with a good deal of contempt; upon the back was a paper label, the left-hand half of which had been torn off. All that remained were the ends of two lines of writing; the first had the letters —ngley Hall; the second, —ssex.

It would, perhaps, be just worth while to identify the place represented, which he could easily do with the help of a gazetteer, and then he would send it back to Mr. Britnell, with some remarks reflecting upon the judgement of that gentleman.

He lighted the candles, for it was now dark, made the tea, and supplied the friend with whom he had been playing golf (for I believe the authorities of the University I write of indulge in that pursuit by way of relaxation); and tea was taken to the accompaniment of a discussion which golfing persons can imagine for themselves, but which the conscientious writer has no right to inflict upon any non-golfing persons.

The conclusion arrived at was that certain strokes might have been better, and that in certain emergencies neither player had experienced that amount of luck which a human being has a right to expect. It was how that the friend—let us call him Professor Binks—took up the framed engraving and said:

‘What’s this place, Williams?’

‘Just what I am going to try to find out,’ said Williams, going to the shelf for a gazetteer.

‘Look at the back. Somethingley Hall, either in Sussex or Essex. Half the name’s gone, you see. You don’t happen to know it, I suppose?’

‘It’s from that man Britnell, I suppose, isn’t it?’ said Binks.

‘Is it for the museum?’

‘Well, I think I should buy it if the price was five shillings,’ said Williams; ‘but for some unearthly reason he wants two guineas for it. I can’t conceive why. It’s a wretched engraving, and there aren’t even any figures to give it life.’

‘It’s not worth two guineas, I should think,’ said Binks; ‘but I don’t think it’s so badly done. The moonlight seems rather good to me; and I should have thought there were figures, or at least a figure, just on the edge in front.’

‘Let’s look,’ said Williams.

‘Well, it’s true the light is rather cleverly given. Where’s your figure? Oh, yes! Just the head, in the very front of the picture.’

And indeed there was—hardly more than a black blot on the extreme edge of the engraving—the head of a man or woman, a good deal muffled up, the back turned to the spectator, and looking towards the house.

Williams had not noticed it before.

‘Still,’ he said, ‘though it’s a cleverer thing than I thought, I can’t spend two guineas of museum money on a picture of a place I don’t know.’

Professor Binks had his work to do, and soon went; and very nearly up to Hall time Williams was engaged in a vain attempt to identify the subject of his picture.

‘If the vowel before the ng had only been left, it would have been easy enough,’ he thought; ‘but as it is, the name may be anything from Guestingley to Langley, and there are many more names ending like this than I thought; and this rotten book has no index of terminations.’

Hall in Mr. Williams’s college was at seven. It need not be dwelt upon; the less so as he met there colleagues who had been playing golf during the afternoon, and words with which we have no concern were freely bandied across the table—merely golfing words, I would hasten to explain.

I suppose an hour or more to have been spent in what is called common-room after dinner. Later in the evening some few retired to Williams’s rooms, and I have little doubt that whist was played and tobacco smoked. During a lull in these operations Williams picked up t the mezzotint from the table without looking at it, and handed it to a person mildly interested in art, telling him where it had come from, and the other particulars which we already know.

The gentleman took it carelessly, looked at it, then said, in a tone of some interest: ‘It’s really a very good piece of work, Williams; it has quite a feeling of the romantic period. The light is admirably managed, it seems to me, and the figure, though it’s rather too grotesque, is somehow very impressive.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Williams, who was just then busy giving whisky and soda to others of the company, and was unable to come across the room to look at the view again.

It was by this time rather late in the evening, and the visitors were on the move. After they went Williams was obliged to write a letter or two and clear up some odd bits of work. At last, some time past midnight, he was disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after lighting his bedroom candle. The picture lay face upwards on the table where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor, and he declares now if he had been left in the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. But, as that did not happen, he was able to put down the light on the table and take a good look at the picture. It was indubitable—rankly impossible, no doubt, but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five o’clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the back.

I do not know what is the ideal course to pursue in a situation of this kind, I can only tell you what Mr. Williams did. He took the picture by one corner and carried it across the passage to a second set of rooms which he possessed. There he locked it up in a drawer, sported the doors of both sets of rooms, and retired to bed; but first he wrote out and signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had undergone since it had come into his possession.

Sleep visited him rather late; but it was consoling to reflect that the behaviour of the picture did not depend upon his own unsupported testimony. Evidently the man who had looked at it the night before had seen something of the same kind as he had, otherwise he might have been tempted to think that something gravely wrong was happening either to his eyes or his mind. This possibility being fortunately precluded, two matters awaited him on the morrow. He must take stock of the picture very carefully, and call in a witness for the purpose, and he must make a determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was represented. He would therefore ask his neighbour Nisbet to breakfast with him, and he would subsequently spend a morning over the gazetteer.

Nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about 9.20. His host was not quite dressed, I am sorry to say, even at this late hour. During breakfast nothing was said about the mezzotint by Williams, save that he had a picture on which he wished for Nisbet’s opinion. But those who are familiar with University life can picture for themselves the wide and delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two Fellows of Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning breakfast. Hardly a topic was left unchallenged, from golf to lawn-tennis. Yet I am bound to say that Williams was rather distraught; for his interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which was now reposing, face downwards, in the drawer in the room opposite.

The morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for which he looked. With very considerable—almost tremulous—excitement he ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture—still face downwards—ran back, and put it into Nisbet’s hands.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see in that picture. Describe it, if you don’t mind, rather minutely. I’ll tell you why afterwards.’

‘Well,’ said Nisbet, ‘I have here a view of a country-house—English, I presume—by moonlight.’

‘Moonlight? You’re sure of that?’

‘Certainly. The moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for details, and there are clouds in the sky.’

‘All right. Go on. I’ll swear,’ added Williams in an aside, ‘there was no moon when I saw it first.’

‘Well, there’s not much more to be said,’ Nisbet continued. ‘The house has one—two—three rows of windows, five in each row, except at the bottom, where there’s a porch instead of the middle one, and—’

‘But what about figures?’ said Williams, with marked interest.

‘There aren’t any,’ said Nisbet;

‘but—’

‘What! No figure on the grass in front?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘You’ll swear to that?’

‘Certainly I will. But there’s just one other thing.’

‘What?’

‘Why, one of the windows on the ground-floor—left of the door—is open.’

‘Is it really so? My goodness! he must have got in,’ said Williams, with great excitement; and he hurried to the back of the sofa on which Nisbet was sitting, and, catching the picture from him, verified the matter for himself.

It was quite true. There was no figure, and there was the open window. Williams, after a moment of speechless surprise, went to the writing-table and scribbled for a short time. Then he brought two papers to Nisbet, and asked him first to sign one—it was his own description of the picture, which you have just heard—and then to read the other which was Williams’s statement written the night before.