Sunday 28 July 2013

The Savage Letters: The Shadow Of Thorns



Dear Prof. G. Savage,

It is not often I have the good fortune to contact you without prior engagement, but it seems that perhaps the misfortune of Dr. Prendergast's assets was not limited to my team's oversight. The spread of artefacts and curios may have wider area of effect than we anticipated. Perhaps the ruffians who had perished in the Cold Lamp incident are to blame in picking the goods. Perhaps those who preceded our visit were the relinquishers. Regardless of origin I believe this is a significant, hazardous breach and something must be done to stem the tide of misfortune spreading from Madistone House. As ever I shall do my best to detail the incident and hope you consider my findings satisfactory.



The Marsham Murders


A recent spate of murders in Marsham, a small industrial town a dozen miles or so to the west of the city of Avon, came to my attention within a week of the previous assignment. Constable Ernest Rutherman, a friend to my late father and head of the constabulary patrol in Marsham, approached me in my professional capacity as biology associate to investigate the curious manner in which these victims had met their end. In the many years I had known Ernest he struck a proper and professional image with me, one of efficiency and forethought. At the time he approached me in my offices at the college my lamp had been burning for some time since sun-fall and I was by no means expecting visitors. Upon the opening of my study door I was somewhat startled at both the unexpectedness and unfamiliarity of the form within the frame. He had abandoned his rigid professionalism in reluctance to a haze of mental exhaustion. I confess the dim light and his altered demeanour disguised from me his identity until he spoke.

"Nicholas, are you well?" He spoke with distraction, his focus sweeping ever-slowly down.

"Ah, Ernest!" I called in happiness, standing to greet him. I noted the confusion in his eyes and restlessness of his hands. "Are you not at all well? What brings you here at this time?"

"I did stop by your home but, of course…" he trailed off, staring at a slip of paper in his hand. An uncomfortable silence lingered before I interrupted the man's aposiopesis.

"Ernest, what is the matter? Do you need my assistance in some-thing?" I was at this juncture beginning to gain concern. I could interpret his actions as exhaustion through work or through emotion, and I hesitated to guess which.

"It is… That is I would like your help on a matter, a grave matter."

"By all means," I clasped his arm in reassurance, "whatever I can do."

"You see, on my patrol we have discovered a number of bodies. At least six since last Thursday, and… well, my men and I are damned if we know what to make of them." A concern grew in his voice. In my company he was prone to profess pride in his patrol and the not inconsiderable part he takes in keeping the neighbourhood he knows well safe from harm. Six murders in under a week is absolutely out of the ordinary and I could understand his want for guidance.

"Well, perhaps I could help Ernest. Although I might suggest a medical practitioner above myself for the circumstances. Unless of course the bodies are those of wild plains beasts that is." I laughed nervously in anticipation of lightening the atmosphere, yet the darkness remained.

"We have called in dozens of medical men through the week and every man jack of them has been stumped. The circumstances are beyond curious and they… I recall you enjoy curiosities." Confessing to me that the entirety of his force and a number of private medical practitioners had no way of interpreting the victims' state upon discovery, he thought the circumstances so exotic that perhaps an academic may be better suited to its interpretation. Never one to pass up both the pleas of a family friend and the chance to study the exotic I veritably leapt at the chance. I suspect he did not hold out much hope for my investigation though, as his demeanour hardly changed during the gathering of my goods and papers, including the notebook of Dr. Prendergast, nor during the travel there. A little banter on family matters was hardly effective in relieving the situation, and the time spent waking was all too long in silence before we arrived at St. Reppenberg's hospital in the north of Marsham, greeting the sunrise as we did so.

Ernest guided me through the halls of the hospital, an abandoned church reformed following the previous war to rehabilitate invalided soldiers. I had heard of the place before this day: a central hub for extreme medical incidents, a place for man to linger in life when the collected knowledge of medicine cannot aid. The passages induced a minor claustrophobia in me, their new decoration having shrunk the capacity, and yet they seemed to tail off into infinity. The building was either ill-designed for intuitive travel or it was far larger within than it seemed without. Along our way we passed a multitude of sealed doors bearing viewing ports each beaming images at me of their unfortunate inhabitants, subliminal in their swiftness but no less acute. The brief pictures of amputation, infection and starved frames interspersed with faces bearing severe anger, fear and insanity had entered my mind and, I shan't withhold, haunted me for many a night since. Those who weren't waking, straining with the rising sun possessed expressions of pained exhaustion from a tortured night's sleeplessness. Whilst passing these rooms and their ghastly inhabitants I feared what horror would await me if this were considered mundane.

Ernest ushered me into an unlit chamber, the echoes of his steps betraying the room's spaciousness. He travelled the circumference lighting candles on his way, each one revealing more of the six inhabitants within lain upon wooden benches and covered with hessian sheeting. I knew nothing of either their state in life or transition into death, besides a mystery they each shared, yet I was anticipant and excited to see what the cloth was to bear.

Without ceremony Ernest pulled the weave from each subject in turn to reveal their naked forms, one-by-one. As each was revealed my curiosity was satiated in a way I was not to anticipate. Three observations were remarkable in each case.

First of all there was no blood. At initial glance, and indeed after thorough inspection, there was no sign of cut nor blood-letting, no bruising, no indication of bone fractures or anything of the sort. Ernest informed me that one victim had suffered a broken rib although not caused by blunt-force impact. Whatever method this murderer may adopt it is not one of brutish aggression.

The second point of note was that each of the subjects had blackening as if of ink at the edges of the lips, beneath the finger-nails and, in one case, beneath the toe-nails. My first reaction was that perhaps this was caused by some sort of poison or contagion but rarely if ever had I encountered a contagion to be so precise, contained and consistent in its external markings. My thoughts guided me to some liquid-borne poison, as of yet unknown to me, that may explain the lip staining, but the fingernails still remained a mystery. Unfortunately Ernest also confided that only one doctor invited gave a potential cause of death - that of suffocation - and each were in agreement that no detectable poison was present in the body.

The third, and perhaps most remarkable, point of note were soft uniform indentations covering the bodies of the victims, each approximately two inches in diameter, one inch apart. Ernest informed me that the bodies were arranged from left to right in the order they were found, a fact evident in the depth of the indentations. These pits in the flesh were deeper in the fresher victims - approximately half of an inch - but given the time frame of a week since the first murder, had remained deep well beyond the time the elasticity of the flesh would have been rid of them.

Beyond these three points all seemed normal. There was no connection between the victims, they ranged from adolescent to grandparent, male and female, wealthy or otherwise. This was clearly beyond any familiarity to me and my limited exposure to human deaths and their processes. Whilst I had no indication of progression I remained intrigued and, in combination of this and my reluctance to further deprecate Ernest's disposition, I agreed to investigate further.

"This is certainly interesting, Ernest. I can't say as I have encountered anything quite like it before, though I suppose that is all the more incentive to study it. I do not promise that I will be of any immediate help but I shall try my very best."

"I thought as much," he said slouching at a bench, uncharacteristically focusing on the negative, "although I'm grateful for your help. You are welcome to talk to my men and the townsfolk. Many of them gather in the hall on Charing Street now-a-days."

Deciding that not much else was to be gained from further studying the bodies without the interpretation of a medical professional, I enquired as to the townsfolk. Ernest recalled that one Miss Abigail Fletcher had observed some strange movement three days prior to the last murder, but did not see, or would not confess to seeing, the man behind it. He also confided as to the town's, and his own, suspicions toward a local salesman by the name of John Greenwich who, over the past week had been seen skulking throughout the town late into the night. I thus endeavoured to talk to these central figures to garner any information I might.


Uncovering The Shadow


A quick sprint through the developing summer rain to the town hall saw me entering a well-lit wooden hall with a great many men and women gathered in its centre conversing and bickering. Clearly the local disturbance hadn't gone unnoticed and the populous was decidedly uneasy. A brief discussion with one of the local constabulary revealed that the town had been told to congregate in the hall when possible until the murderer had been apprehended. The logic, I suppose, being that he was unlikely to strike in a crowd. This tactic offered little consolation to the men and women of the town however, as the unease was rife in the air. The police-man indicated to me Miss Abigail Fletcher in a small circle of women all discussing, at great volume, their suspicions on the identity of the murderer. I approached with mounting sympathy for my ears.

"Excuse me, Miss Fletcher?" I asked within rivalling volume. She turned to face me, perhaps in solemnity, her clothes shuffling against one another in their hardly pristine condition. "Would you permit me to ask a few questions?". She nodded her head again and I gestured away from the gathering to a bench at the side of the hall. Here I was able to speak in reasonable volume to the poor girl who seemed that she was here for the safety rather than the gossip.

"Are you with the police, mister?" she asked, her face bowed looking up at me with striking blue eyes.

"Not directly: I'm from Avon University, the college of West Merton." She seemed perhaps relieved at this answer, a reaction I did not consider particularly relevant, but intriguing. "I am a friend of Constable Rutherman, and he has requested that I help with the investigation. I understand you saw something on Thursday evening that may have been suspicious."

"Oh yes sir," she replied with insistency, "though no-one here takes my word, of course. Says I was just imagining things, afraid of what's been going on." She had clearly been rattled by the encounter as her speech began to accelerate.

"Could you describe, in as great a detail as you can, what you saw and what you heard Miss Fletcher? I would be most grateful."

"I can, sir. I was on the Mill Road, opposite the soap factories where my husband wo… worked."

"Oh!" I was taken aback slightly, "Oh, my apologies Miss Fletcher, I was not aware. Was your husband one of…"

"Yes sir," she interrupted, "and I was waiting for him opposite the factory that night." She seemed determined to press on, perhaps best choosing to avoid thought on the subject. However fragile she may have seemed she possessed a definite resilience. "You see, I work in the shop on the corner of Mill Road, sir, the same as the factory, and I made a habit of meeting him when his shift was up. It was about half past six in the evening and I was waiting outside when an almighty clang came from the sheds at the front of the factory. It nearly made me jump out of my skin, sir, it did. I jumped back into the alley between the houses and the grocer's opposite for fear of being hit by a blast. We had one a few years back, you see, and I was told to hide if you heard such a thing."

"And you believe this loud noise may be connected to the murders?"

"Maybe sir, but that's not what got to me that night. You see, while I was in the alley I saw a shadow go along the floor of the path I'd just been standing on. Well, that's when I got nervous, you see, what with the murders and what-have-you, so I didn't want to see whose shadow it was. I started to run back into the alley and behind the grocers, but as I turned the corner I went right into a stack of old boxes and veg and they went crashing to the floor, tumbling all over the place. I turned and saw the shadow I saw on the pavement following me down the alley and started to run behind the grocers. I was screaming like a looney as I was running, it had me all frightened and I didn't know what to do. I got to the end of the grocer's and turned to run back out to the road. It's then I saw it sir, out of the corner of my eye I saw this great spiny thing running at me, shiny like oil and about two feet high from the ground."

"Spines? You mean like a porcupine perhaps?"

"No, no, I've seen hedgehogs and such, but these were right thick spikes like so big at the bottom", she held her hands out, thumbs and fingertips meeting, the gap between forming a quite substantial circle. "And all spiky and shiny, it was weird and frightening. Anyway, I saw that and ran screaming as fast as I could to the main road. Afraid to look behind I ran straight out into the path and jumped underneath the grocers' stand. I held my mouth shut so as I didn't scream the whole thing down and a few minutes later I looked about to see if it was there, but it wasn't. I stayed there for a minute or two anyway, but when I got out it had gone and I had no idea where it was."

"I suppose that was down to the quick thinking on your part, Miss Fletcher." I tried my best to comfort her in her agitated state.

"Thank you sir. After that I ran home as fast as I could and sat down to calm my nerves. That's what I saw anyway. Do you believe me? I did see it, sir, great big spiky thing it was."

"I rule nothing out Miss Fletcher until I know better. I've seen more bizarre creatures than you describe, I have no reason to distrust your word."

"Oh, thank you sir. Please, go find that thing and show it what for. I'm sick of waiting in here until it's safe to go out." It was clear this was not the sole incentive for her to implore me of this. Hiding my excitement, and yet apprehension, for the potential discovery of yet another exotic creature, I maintained a reassuring demeanour and bid her a good day. I remained in the hall for some hours talking to local residents but gained little information. Gossip on the victims, kind words for their family, distrust of a local marketeer and a nearby family of foreign origin. This was the vaguest of information that one could acquire from any close-knit community and so I decided to search for the suspicious salesman Greenwich. The police-man in the hall indicated that the man was not in the crowd, but had rather chosen to hide himself in his home for the past few days. He had occasionally been seen at night prowling the alleyways, a fact which only served to feed the suspicions, but he remained at his home during the day. He provided the man's address and I made my way through the town to his home.

By chance the path I had chosen passed through Mill Road and so by the soap factory Miss Fletcher had described. I took the opportunity to investigate the area as best I could. A brief enquiry with the factory foreman told me that the great clash heard by the young lady was in fact the giving way of a pulley inside and subsequent drop of its payload onto the factory floor. The sound, it seemed, was not caused by the suspicious creature.

What was perhaps more baffling were the results of my investigation at the grocer's: during my field studies I had become adept at tracking the indentations made by travelling animals and so I attempted to apply these skills to the mud-path behind the grocer's. What was interesting was that besides small-soled running imprints - those of Miss Fletcher I assume - and a variety of prints in and around the back entrance of the grocer's, nothing else was to be seen. No more footprints extended beyond the door and certainly not to the end of the alley where Miss Fletcher claimed she saw the beast. At first it seemed her story laid on shaky ground, but by chance I spied a muddied lettuce beside the opposing wall which verified her claim. This was perhaps knocked over in her rush to escape, and subsequently abandoned by the grocer, but my attention was drawn to a slight black staining between the leaves, not dissimilar to the staining on the lips and fingernails of the victims. Peeling the leaves further back revealed significant staining to the core of the vegetable. It seems that whatever this creature was it was there on that night, ink and all, but left no tracks. I know of no creature that crawls upon it's underside like a snake and is resplendent with black oily spines. Nevertheless I took the lettuce from the ground hoping it may reveal more information as to the mystery staining.

I made a start from the alley back to the street when a great crash emanated from the factory opposite. Startled I dropped the lettuce upon the ground. When I had recovered my sensed my first thought was that the factory should invest in better quality pulley systems, but I was soon distracted by the way in which the lettuce fell. It may seem insignificant when written, but I profess I felt the lettuce tug itself from my hand at the time of the crash rather than me simply relinquishing it. The crash was in no way loud enough to cause any kind of shock force to push it from my hand, and indeed it fell in the opposite direction that it would have, toward the factory. This was only a minute effect but the sensitivity of the hand can pick up greater detail than the eyes at such a distance.

It was at this point I formed a tenuous connection between the queer movement of the inked lettuce and the way in which the creature chased Miss Fletcher in her story. At each juncture in the story a loud noise had guided the creature: the factory clang to attract it to her initially, the crash of the boxes to guide it along the correct alley, her screams to guide it the rest of the way. I recall her telling me how she held her mouth when hidden and was left alone thereafter. I had developed a theory that whatever this creature was responded to sound and that the ink it left behind bore similar properties. I recall having heard of such a substance before but was unsure as to where. Continuing along the path I scoured my memories of my time abroad, my studies at the university, my experiences in museums and talking to other academics, none of which drew recollection. Eventually I recalled my time at Dr Prendergast's laboratory and the myriad of glass phials littering the surfaces. Perhaps there was something there which would stir my memory.

I sat down on the damp curb-side, pulled from my pocket the journal of Dr. Prendergast, sheltered it from the light rain and began to search. It was not long before I discovered a brief entry on a chemical she described as 'The Shadow of Thorns', a black inky material which responds to noise by approaching it. Little mention was made as to the substance, in particular nothing of its origin. Never-the-less this fit the circumstance perfectly, even if it did not explain the bizarre creature Miss Fletcher had seen, nor the curious indentations on the corpses. The indentations would match the diameter of the spikes indicated by Miss Fletcher, though the distinct lack of puncture marks suggests otherwise. Never-the-less this hypothesis provided to me a method of apprehending the beast.

I turned tail and ran back towards the hospital. Within I found Ernest in the entrance room staring forlornly into the distance. I skipped toward him, an excited grin on my face.

"Ernest, my friend! I believe I have made a breakthrough!" His face glowed slightly with the news, a shroud of exhaustion still masking the light. It took a while for what I had said to take effect.

"Oh. Oh! Oh, my good man, excellent. Do tell!" He stood and approached me with mounting enthusiasm.

"The murderer may not necessarily be a man and, by lucky chance, it may have something to do with a recent study of mine with the University."

"Hold on son," he looked puzzled, "when you say it may not be a man, what do you mean?"

"It's difficult to explain and I'm not entirely certain of it myself, but whatever it may be I am sure I have a way to track it down." I could sense an apprehension, and sought validity. "Do you trust me enough to at least try my method? It would be inexpensive and completely safe."

"Well… It is highly unusual, but I have little else to follow. I trust in you for now. Tell me, what is this plan?"

I proceeded to outline my plan to him: We were to gather the entire town's population in the hall for an evening's distraction - an entertainment show, religious gathering or a speech, anything to gather them all in one place and keep them as silent as possible. Just in case the creature approached we were to post a look-out at the door. We were then to patrol the streets with a small band of men, deliberately causing a nuisance by clanging pans and rattling all sort of metal implements. It was my hope that this will draw the sound-sensitive creature out, with the view of in some way trapping the beast in a large bell jar borrowed from the hospital. Ernest seemed unsure as to my tactics, but it seemed an inexpensive plan in both resources and time and so agreed to organise it. With that I told him to deservedly rest up for the night and issue the orders to a select few of his men.

That evening we met at the hospital and, following a prescribed route through the town that I had prepared beforehand - the men armed with kettles, pans and cutlery, I with the jar and Ernest with the map - led our private marching band.

A good hour passed, and a good few cats were disturbed, causing this din before one of the men spied movement in an alley. I told the men to stop at the alley entrance, I laid the jar upon the ground with the opening pointed toward the alley and took charge of a pan. I ordered the men to continue with their racket but retain their distance from the alley. Within seconds an inky black form began to emerge, at first shimmering and amorphous, then as it approached its surface began to peak and vibrate with reflective hemispherical nodes writhing about the surface. By the time it had come into the light of the streetlamp its form was almost entirely coated in metallic-looking spikes glimmering and pulsating as it glided at a brisk pace along the pavement. The men seemed alarmed at this bizarre approaching sight, so I ordered them to stop the noise and stand in total silence. Sure enough the instant we stopped the spiky silhouette melted back into a pebble-like inky mass, approximately three feet in length, and remained motionless. It seems that the bizarre inky chemical of Dr. Prendergast's journal did not belong to some exotic creature but was in fact itself mistaken for an exotic creature. Its bizarre chemical properties had distracted me to believe it to be fauna, and I confess I was slightly disappointed. I began to tap softly on my pan suspended behind the bell jar, and as its surface began to bulge and protrude it obligingly followed the sound into the trap. When fully inside - although only just - we slipped a base upon the jar and sealed it within, requiring significant force to turn it upon its base.

Before we could congratulate ourselves and before I could explain this strange form to the bemused men, a voice called out behind us, causing the jar and its contents to vibrate and writhe. Turning around we saw a man rushing towards us, a look of panic smeared upon his face. Ernest stood up, recognising the man and holding him back from my position.

"Master Greenwich! Stand back! You should be in the hall with the rest of the town!" It seemed this was the salesman to whom the town directed their suspicions.

"Please, sir! Please don't hurt him!" He cried out, gesturing towards the now pulsating serrated form in the jar. I was concerned the jar might break under the pressure. I gestured to Ernest to keep his voice down. He ignored me.

"Do you mean that?" Ernest bellowed, "That monstrosity, that which has killed six people this week!?"

"He doesn't mean to, he just got out! He's just scared!" The constables held him back despite his determination.

"I'm sorry Mr. Greenwich" I felt compelled to interrupt, in a more subdued tone, "but could you please explain your connection to this?"

"He doesn't… He…" the man began to trail off, staring at the ground dejected. "I bought him a couple of weeks ago from a man in Avon. I bought him for my own, a pet. The man said he caught it on the continent, he said it was harmless."

"I'm sorry Mr. Greenwich, but this isn't an animal. Whoever sold it to you was lying: this is just a fluid, a chemical which is technically property of my University."

"No! No!" he wailed, "He's mine, I've been trying to catch him at night! He, he responds to my voice when I call him."

"It responds to any type of sound sir, not just your voice." The man began to relinquish his struggle. "This was never your companion, but neither was it malicious. It simply responds to noise and nothing more. I'm sorry sir, but you have been deceived." The man sighed heavily and was duly taken from the scene by several police-men. I briefly thanked Ernest for allowing me to investigate, who responded with his thanks for my help and we parted ways, having procured the help of a police-man to carry the not unsubstantial mass of the liquid to the train station.

A few days later in my lodgings I received a letter from Ernest with some depressing news. Unfortunately the town was in need of some sort of sacrificial lamb. Six murders cannot be explained away and they would not believe the murders were the cause of a stray fluid even if they could be told. I was informed that Mr. Greenwich is currently on trial in the Marsham courthouse, the very act of trying to catch the 'murderer' being used as the convincing evidence for his arrest. I shall appear in his defence in two days time, but with your restrictions upon the information of Dr. Prendergast's assets it is unlikely I will have much influence. I simply pray reason will prevail for the man and the jury will see he could not have been himself capable.


The Study: The Shadow Of Thorns


Back at the university, jar in tow, I began my study with Dr. Keplar of this strange chemical. Besides its reaction to sound little information could be garnered from the late doctor's notes, and the studies of a physicist and biologist may not be as thorough as you may wish on such a bizarre chemical. However we lay out a fairly detailed description of the properties of the Shadow of Thorns, dubbed 'Thornium', as best we can.

The liquid measures at roughly seven pints in volume, an approximate measurement as the liquid writhes to any sound in the area making precise observations impossible. Similar to the effect of ripples on the surface of water we surmise that the vibrations of sound ripple across the incredibly sensitive surface of the liquid with little resistance. We believe that these ripples resonate along and around the surface, working with and fighting against one another to form incredible peaks on the exposed upper surface and rapid vibrations on the compressed under-surface, leading to the appearance of writhing spikes and the movement toward the source of sound. The louder the sound the more ferocious these reactions become, although the spikes are not in themselves dangerous and can be pressed down safely with relatively little force.

Similar in appearance to mercury or iron filings in water, thornium is metallic with a dark reflective surface and fairly impressive surface tension which allows it to move along the ground without leaving residue, unlike water. For this reason discrete samples are difficult to obtain but can be prised from the main mass with various sharp implements such as pliers or garden shears. As with mercury on aluminium it reacts well to capillary action and can be absorbed with ease through porous surfaces, such as the base of the lettuce found by the grocer's. Otherwise the properties of this liquid are unremarkable: it is not flammable, it conducts heat fairly well and is quite substantially dense, again similar to mercury.

As for the 'murders' in Marsham it is my belief that the victims were ones of circumstance rather than malice. Some initiating sound must have led the Thornium mass toward the victim presumably with it's spikes flaring. Faced with such a abominable and frightening sight, and taken by surprise, I fear the victims will have howled or screamed in fright unable to move. This sudden surge of sound caused the Thornium mass to rush toward the victim, knocking them down with its great mass before heading to the source of the sound: the face. It was there it effectively 'fed' off of the screams of its victim and suffocated them by enveloping their head. This would explain the staining by the lips and under the fingernails - an attempt to prise the Thornium from their face, one assumes - the mysterious cause of death, and the cracking of a rib, almost certainly caused by the slow pressure maintained on the chest of one victim. The only reason Miss Fletcher escaped the same fate was the fortune of the factory clash on the opposite side of the street. It was this which gave her the necessary time to put some distance between the Thornium and herself. By the time one is a certain distance away from the Thornium it is not difficult to make your escape as the noise sensitivity drops off exponentially. Conversely it was the exponential rise, alongside the silent movement of the Thornium, which took the remaining victims by surprise, unable to react in time.

The uniform indentations on the body we believe were caused by the Thornium's spikes pressing upon the flesh as it crawled over the soft body. They could not provide enough force to puncture the skin, but were enough to form an indentation. Dr. Keplar and myself are unsure as to why these indentations remained so long after death, but we surmise that either there exists a chemical property of which we are unsure in its reaction to flesh, or having remained on the body for some time its potent conduction of heat was enough to effectively 'freeze' the body in place. Perhaps it may have been a combination of the two. We suggest careful study by a resident chemist be in order.

The chemical, all associated measurements and studies have been sent to you in the usual fashion, alongside the detailed drawings of Master Sandringham. I confess I had no expectation that this favour to a family friend would have led me back to the affairs of Dr. Prendergast, but, as I professed before, It seems the issue is having an area of effect far wider than we may have presumed. Any goods not seized by us during our visit appear to be making their way into the hands of thieves and black-marketeers. I suspect this may not be the last we hear of the curios of Madistone house, and as such I shall keep my ear to the proverbial grape-vine for any extraordinary happenings in the area.

Yours,
Dr. Nicholas P. Henderson.

No comments:

Post a Comment