Author: greyirish

Lost Tale: “The Return of Luisma Llansal” (1927) by Arthur J. Burks

Historical Racism

This story contains racist historical stereotypes and language.
Reader discretion advised.

First published in The Leatherneck January 1927; variation of “Luisma’s Return” (Weird Tales Jan 1925).

For more details, please see the The Lost Weird Tales of Arthur J. Burks.

※

The Return of Luisma Llansal

by Arthur J. Burks

CHRISTOPHE, who called himself Henri I, Emperor of Northern Haiti, was the greatest monster in all history. He killed for the love of killing. He murdered innocent people who dared to gaze upon his face without permission. To question his orders and commands was to give oneself to the executioner. This black monster of the Haitian hills took whatever pleased him, be it lands, movable property, or women. His word was law, as immutable as that of the Medes and Persians, and his hand was quick to punish.

None knew this better than did General Luisma Llansal, the greatest soldier in the pay of the emperor. Luisma was a little man as to body, but his arms hung below his knees as he walked, like those of a giant anthropoid. His mind was slow to thought and mental pictures came slowly. Even so, he could look into the near future and picture what Christophe would say and do to him when he should return to report failure in the mission which Christophe had assigned him out there in the Haitian wilderness. He had tried with all his power to succeed, as evidenced by his dragging gait as he walked up the streets of Cape Haitien—proof that he was tired to exhaustion. Only the knowledge that his little black sweetheart awaited him at the end of the street kept him on his leaden feet.

The girl’s mother met him at the door of the hut, and he read in her dry eyes and expression of utter hopelessness that something terrible had happened. His lips trembled a bit as he asked for Madeleine.

“Have you not heard then, Luisma?” asked the old woman, hopelessly.

“Have I heard what, old woman?” demanded Luisma. “I have asked for the little sweetheart. Where is she?”

“Alas!” cried the old woman. “Henri has taken her!”

“But Henri! I do not understand. What could he want with the girl?”

“Henri does not explain his actions to common people,” replied the old woman. “I only know that the soldiers from the citadel came for her and that she has gone. Who knows? The queen is very old and very fat. Perhaps Henri craves the freshness of youth.”

“Hush, aged one, do not speak thus of the emperor’s consort! Dost wish to be hurled from the cliff at sunrise?”

“What matters it? As well be hurled tomorrow morning as a week hence. Age does not breed pity in the heart of Christophe, and one is as apt to go as another when it moves the soul of Henri.”

“Hush, the very stones in the street have ears with which to listen for the emperor!”

“So be it, Luisma; I am very old, and I am ready.”

“But,” cried Luisma, “have our friends done nothing to save the beloved mademoiselle from the hands of Christophe? Surely they have known of this!”

“It was told in the market place after you had left for the wilderness, Luisma. They pitied you, knowing that Henri had sent you so that you might not spoil his plans. Though what you could have done no one knows. For whoever stood against the might of the emperor?”

“None has ever done it—and lived,” replied Luisma, “Yet mark what I say, aged one, Luisma will do it and live to tell how he avenged the dishonor of his loved one.”

General Luisma turned about and left the hut. His fatigue was forgotten because of the terrible weight of his great misfortune. He would be avenged. He had promised himself that it should come to pass. Anger flashed from his black eyes as he entered the jungle, en route to the Citadel.

Luisma was admitted because he was a general in the service of the monster. But even the keeper of the gate looked at him with pity in his eyes.

“Where is she, Baron?” questioned Luisma.

“She rests in the arms of his Excellency, on the bench beneath the council tree,” replied the baron hurriedly. He feared Henri more than he pitied Luisma. The emperor had made him a gatekeeper, with the title of baron, just as he had made dukes of black stevedores on the wharves of St. Marc; but the emperor was fickle and he made vacancies in the royal family just for the pleasure it afforded his vanity—while the deposed dukes and barons left their bones to whiten on the rocks a thousand feet below the Citadel. It was best to guard one’s speech.

Luisma hurried away, walking erect and unafraid. The baron gazed after him and shook his head. Already he could hear the death shriek of a general, as he plunged to his death at the foot of the cliff.

Luisma stood erect before his emperor. The latter, half reclining on the stone bench beneath the great tree which still remains as one of the monuments to Christophe, raised himself on his elbow to glance at this man, bravest of his generals. Luisma affected not to notice the dusky mademoiselle who snuggled against the emperor and complacently allowed him to stroke her bare arm with his disengaged hand.

“What is it, Luisma? We give you permission to speak.”

“I have failed, Excellency,” replied Luisma, “as you very well knew that I would. Why did you bother to send me away, when you might have taken my loved one without? Why steal her away by stealth?”

“Steal her away, Luisma? I did not steal her. She came of her own free will, because Henri the emperor desired her. Tell him, child, that the master speaks the truth.”

The black girl, who had held the heart of Luisma in her keeping for many months, looked into the eyes of Luisma as she answered.

“I want none of thee, filthy one!” she replied. “Thou needest a bath, Luisma!”

She said it in a sing-song fashion, as if it were a lesson she had committed to memory.

“Dost see, Luisma?” demanded the emperor. “There is no more to be said, man. Tomorrow you take command of our guard. You will put them through their paces well, for in a few days an envoy comes from Boyer, and it is our wish to impress the fellow with our might. Go!”

Luisma turned and left the royal presence.

Out of sight of Cliristophe, Luisma met the baron who had admitted him to the palace.

“Luisma!” cried the Baron in a husky whisper. “Have you taken leave of your senses, man? Do you not recall that you looked upon the face of Christophe without permission, forfeiting your life?”

“But I am still alive, baron,” replied Luisma bitterly. “I shall continue to live until I am avenged of Christophe!”

“Say on, fool,” replied the baron. “you cannot make your position worse after gazing without permission on the face of the mighty Christophe!”

“So be it, Baron!”

The next day Luisma’s one-time sweetheart was not to be seen. Luisma knew that she was in the palace, a plaything of the monster. Yet he could do nothing. He was slow of thought like all his kind, with the fatalist’s belief that all things are foreordained and that his own time must come in the end. In the meantime he marched and counter-marched the troops of Christophe until they moved at his word of command like a bit of well-oiled machinery. And ever, suggestively near, yawned the edge of the cliff upon which the castle stood. Christophe came daily to watch the drilling of his crack troops.

“That one, the blackest one in the rear rank, Luisma,” the monster would say, with a judicial air, “he does not seem to keep step with his mates, exactly. If he were hurled over the cliff we believe that it would improve the appearance of the guard!”

Luisma would bow at this and tell off two men for the task. The offending one would be led to the edge and pushed over—well over, so that he might not, perchance, have an opportunity to grasp at something and save himself.

With his shriek of terror dying away as he plunged downward like a plummet to land with a crunching sound as his bones became as jelly on the rocks below, ringing in their ears as they commenced to drill again, is it any wonder that those who remained made an even more perfect machine than before? Yet ever the critical Henri found fault with the drilling. The guard had dwindled noticeably when the emperor would finally yawn, opening his thick lips to their widest extent, and leave the narrow parade to find rest in the arms of Luisma ’s sweetheart-that-might-have-been. Luisma was left to wonder why both himself and Christophe still lived.

Two days later came word that Boyer’s ambassador was at the gate of the Citadel. Christophe commanded that the fellow be brought into his presence at once. He received the dignitary beneath the great council tree, where the two great men talked largely of affairs of state.

“We are told, Excellency,” said the envoy at length, “that in all Haiti there is no man who has such authority over his people as does Henri the Emperor.”

“My authority is absolute!” replied Christophe calmly, forgetting for a moment the imperial “we.”

Christophe clapped his hands and an attendant crawled into the royal presence on hands and knees, eyes turned steadfastly toward the stones of the courtyard.

“Tell Luisma Llansal to march on his soldiers!”

The attendant crawled away. The soldiers marched into view and began their well-oiled evolutions at the command of Luisma. It was beautifully done and the envoy clapped his hands by way of applause when Luisma had finished.

“But there are many generals who can cause their men to do this!” cried the envoy. “Your Excellency has not proved yet that his discipline is any stronger than that of Boyer!”

“Luisma,” said the emperor softly, “place yourself at the head of your troops. As I give the commands you will lead in the execution.”

Luisma obeyed, taking his place at the head and standing stiffly at attention.

“Forward, march!”

As one man the entire guard moved forward.

“God in Heaven!” thought Luisma. “Does the fool not see that we are headed directly for the edge of the precipice?”

But, never faltering, Luisma held the step. There came no command to halt or for a column movement to right or left. The edge of the precipice was but a few strides away. Even the envoy turned a dirty green when he read the intention of the emperor. He sprang to his feet.

“Not that, Excellency!” he cried. “Not that! I believe! I believe!”

“You demanded proof, sire,” replied Christophe calmly. “I am giving it!”

Luisma was the first man over. He stepped off into eternity without faltering. There was the awesome sensation of falling. Sickening pain as his legs struck nubs of rock which protruded from the face of the thousand foot cliff. He struck with such force that he was turned over in mid-air. His head struck next, filling his brain with molten fire. His hand struck something then—and held on! The crushed body of the erstwhile general swung there in space, unknowing that it swung, holding on by instinct because the brain could not command. Luisma was a man with great strength in his arms. His other hand, without command, moved up and over, clawing, grasping, holding.

A glimmering of sense came back to the brain of the broken general. His eyes turned downward. He pondered dully as, far below, he caught glimpses of ragged bundles that bounced from rock to rock, shapeless things that had once been peerless soldiers, coming to rest in huddled heaps. He looked up and saw them still stepping over into space, wondering why they, like himself, did not catch on and hold. He saw them strike bits of rock above him, felt warm splashes on his cheeks—but whether the blood was theirs or his own, he could not tell. When the last one had stepped over, fallen, bounced, and finally lay still in a huddled heap far, far below, Luisma began to climb, dragging his useless legs behind him up the face of the precipice. He was glad of the strength in his arms and he had always been sure that his time had not come to die.

Meanwhile, as though nothing had happened out of the ordinary, Henri the Emperor, talked calmly ahead with the trembling envoy. He seemed absolutely unmoved over what he had done. The envoy was shaken to the very core. Such a monster could not be human! He might even forget the dignity of Boyer’s own envoy! That worthy shuddered as he saw himself, in his mind’s eye, a crumpled and bloody heap at the foot of the precipice. Ever and anon his eyes wandered, against their will, to the place where, to a man, the guard of Christophe had stepped off into space.

“Excellency!” he shouted, springing to his feet and pointing a trembling finger. “Look!”

Slowly Christophe swerved his gaze and fixed it intently on the gruesome thing that the envoy had seen. At the precise moment that he looked, a single black hand came into view above the edge of the precipice—clawing fingers clutched here and there for a grasping place. Another hand came up and placed itself beside the first. A straining of muscles and a face such as neither had ever seen came up above the edge. The face, which could not be recognized as such except for the shape, weirdly resembling that of a man, looked more like a smear of blood. Even the hands were smeared with red—and with something else that they had found when, during the upward climb, they had grasped at the protuberances where the heads of the falling soldiers had touched.

Slowly, like a great black serpent with a broken back, the red-visaged apparition slithered up and over the edge. Its ghastly eyes were staring fixedly at the face of the emperor. Atop the precipice at last, the jelly-like creature slithered toward Christophe and the envoy, leaving a snaky red trail in its wake, dragging the crushed legs, dangling red things, behind.

“I have come back, monster,” babbled the thing. “Surely dost know that Luisma could not die unavenged!”

The envoy fled, nor stopped his mad flight until he reached Port an Prince and told his wild tale to Boyer himself. Boyer, knowing that his envoy’s mind had gone, placed him in an asylum, where he spent the rest of his days, happy because he knew that crawling things could never get through the bars to haunt him!

Christophe looked at Luisma as the latter, groveling before the emperor only because he could not rise to his feet, looked up into his face with all his savage hate easily readable in the flashing eyes.

“I have come back, Christophe! Ridiculous puppy that calls himself Henri I, Emperor of the North! I am stronger than you! I have cheated death itself! Even you cannot do that!”

“Baron!” called Christophe softly. “Take this fellow and hurl him over once more. He has disobeyed me! He climbed back instead of falling, as ordered!”

The thing leered up into his master’s face.

“Stay, monster! I shall go back of my own accord. I only came back to tell you that, even though I fall to the rocks this time, I shall yet be avenged for your cruelties!”

Luisma turned, like a snake with a broken back, and slithered to the precipice edge and over—out of sight! Had Henri followed and looked over, that which followed might never have been.

Why, when all his life he had never felt a tremor of fear, did the great emperor suddenly get a fit of the ague and tremble so that his very knees knocked together? He wiped the fine dew from his forehead and wondered. He entered the citadel and tried to forget the whole incident.

This night was the one during which the great Christophe killed himself with a silver bullet, because he believed that no baser metal should touch that brain of his! No one really knows why he did it. Some say it was because he had failed to make himself emperor of all Haiti. Many stories are told. One does not know what to believe.

Only the dishonored sweetheart of Luisma heard the last words of Christophe just before that monster blew out his brains. She was awakened in the dead of night by his wild ravings.

“Go back, Luisma! Go back! Go back to your dead body at the foot of the precipice! How dare you leave splotches of blood on the floor of my bedchamber with your dragging limbs! Turn about so that I may not see those hate-filled eyes of yours!”

There followed the sounds of a scuffle, as if the emperor fought with invisible devils, there in the darkness. The girl cowered beneath her covers, leaving only her widening eyes exposed. In the flash of Christophe’s pistols she saw the thing! She babbled her story the next day, but people thought her demented because she had spent the night in the chamber with the dead emperor—and did not believe her.

There are many stories of the death of Christophe. Many of them are queer. Many are horrible.

Nor are any of them as queer or horrible as that told by the aged idiot who dragged himself about Cape Haitien like a snake with a broken back, begging for pennies, telling his story to all who would listen. They never believed, of course, for people whom Christophe cast over the cliff never came back, they said. When he told them that his name was Luisma Llansal, they only laughed. For he looked not at all like the Luisma they remembered.

He died a few years ago, in Cape Haitien, insisting, even on his deathbed, that his story was true.

※

In The Leatherneck, the tale ends with the notice “Copyright 1925, by Popular Fiction Publishing Co. Reprinted by permission of Weird Tales.,” and is the only such tale to deserve the notice. The first two stories Burks published in Weird Tales were under the pseudonym “Estil Critchie,” this was the first published under his own name. The differences between the two texts are relatively minor; the title changed, and there are some variations in wording and punctuation. For example:

None knew this better than did General Luisma Llansal, the greatest soldier in the pay of the emperor. Luisma was a little man as to body, but his arms hung below his knees as he walked, like those of a giant anthropoid ape. His mind was slow to thought, and mental pictures came slowly. Even so, he could look into the near future and picture what Christophe would say and do to him when he should return to report failure in the mission which Christophe had assigned him out there in the Haitian wilderness. He had tried with all his power to succeed, as evidenced by his dragging gait as he walked up the streets of Cap Haitien—proof that he was tired to exhaustion. Only the knowledge that his little black sweetheart awaited him at the end of the street kept him on his leaden feet.None knew this better than did General Luisma Llansal, the greatest soldier in the pay of the emperor. Luisma was a little man as to body, but his arms hung below his knees as he walked, like those of a giant anthropoid. His mind was slow to thought and mental pictures came slowly. Even so, he could look into the near future and picture what Christophe would say and do to him when he should return to report failure in the mission which Christophe had assigned him out there in the Haitian wilderness. He had tried with all his power to succeed, as evidenced by his dragging gait as he walked up the streets of Cape Haitien—proof that he was tired to exhaustion. Only the knowledge that his little black sweetheart awaited him at the end of the street kept him on his leaden feet.
Weird Tales Jan 1925The Leatherneck Jan 1927

It isn’t clear if the Weird Tales text is closer to Burks’ original, or the Leatherneck text. In Black Medicine, which collected Burks’ early Weird Tales fiction, the story uses the WT title but a text which has features of both—for example, the Black Medicine text and Weird Tales use “Cap Hatien” throughout, which is correct, but also retains “anthropoid ape” in the second paragraph. The difference probably amounts to little more than different editors working on Burks’ original text.

Henri Christophe, President and later King of Haiti, existed; as do the legends of his suicide via a silver bullet; Burks would refer to Christophe and his end in other tales set in Haiti. Burks himself only visited Haiti for a very brief period during the end of his deployment to Hispaniola

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Lost Tale: “The Sniper” (1926) by Arthur J. Burks

Historical Racism

This story contains racist historical stereotypes and language.
Reader discretion advised.

First published in The Leatherneck August 1926.

For more details, please see the Lost Weird Tales of Arthur J. Burks.

※

The Sniper

by Arthur J. Burks

CAPTAIN PETER SMITH, commanding a certain company in a certain Canadian Regiment, had just taken over his allotted section of front line trench. It was no new experience to Smith; but his men were nervously tense because this was their first experience face to face with Fritz. It was the fourth company Smith had commanded, he himself being the only survivor of the last one he had “taken in.” So he tried by personal example and judiciously worded encouragement to keep up the spirits of his new men.

He was talking to them, calming them, when there came an odd crunching sound, as of the breaking of an eggshell; and one of the new men who had lifted his head for a split second to gaze out into No-Man’s-Land, sagged against the firestep and froze there to the immobility of a statue.

Dead instantly, with a neat hole in his forehead, just above the bridge of his nose.

Smith’s words died in his throat. Even he, with his years in the front lines, had not entirely become accustomed to seeing men snuffed out like that. It was so damned final! Just that odd sound, as though an invisible hand had pulled a switch, extinguishing an incandescent.

The men who stood along the trench crouched lower, and here and there Smith noted that the foreheads of some of them were bathed with the perspiration of fear.

“It’s just a damned sniper, men,” he called out, “and by and by we’ll get him!”

But he had said that before.

“Keep your heads down! Use your periscopes!”

The devil of it was that one could not tell whence the shots came. Just a sharp crack! The sound as of an eggshell suddenly broken, and a letter that must be written home to carry its burden of sorrow to waiting and expectant parents.

Smith himself went to one of the periscopes and studied the ground in advance of the trench in which his men crouched. His trained eyes searched every bit of the ground, probed every thicket and standing tree for sign of the hidden marksman. It seemed that, out front, there was not a single place where even a rabbit could have hidden. Methodically he had caused his best riflemen to bombard every possible hiding place.

Invariably, after such bombardment, some man would raise his head above the parapet for a fleeting second, only to fall the next moment with that sinister hole in his forehead. It was as though the unseen marksman derided the whole company, laughing at its puny efforts at retaliation.

Where could he be?

There was one place out there—an aged cemetery; but it had been bathed in a baptism of fire so often by the heavy artillery of either side that it seemed foolish to entertain any idea that the sniper had found a hiding place among its ruins.

Ghastly ruins they were, too. For the “heavies” had torn most of the graves asunder, scattering far and wide the evidence of once gruesome occupancy.

More than once had the eyes of Captain Smith wandered over the wastes of this burying ground. Ever, as he watched, he shuddered at an idea that kept obtruding itself upon his mind.

Could those bullets be the phantom bullets from some vengeful, departed being who had had his rest disturbed by the implements of war? Nonsense! Yet whence had the bullets come? They were real enough, as evidenced the dead scattered throughout the trench in which he stood. There was no gainsaying that phantom bullets do not slay.

Only a man who had spent agonizing hour after agonizing hour with his staring eyes looking into the cold orbs of ever-present death could entertain ideas of the supernatural in this wanton slaying.

Yet Smith shuddered and knew not why.

Crack! Crunch!

Smith knew even before his first sergeant came to him with his report that another soul had sped its earthly casement of clay.

“It’s Corporal Higgins this time, sir,” reported the Sergeant, “wanted to show his men that he wasn’t afraid, I guess. That makes twelve altogether now, Captain.”

Smith faced about, staring, white-lipped into the eyes of his first sergeant.

“Good God, Top!” he cried, “where can that brute be?”

The first sergeant shook his head hopelessly.

“We can’t keep our heads down forever,” continued Smith, “we have an area to manage. If we don’t locate that dashed sniper he’ll wipe out our whole company! He’s been there three days now, and we haven’t seen hide or hair of him—and it seems that the fellow never misses. How does he get to and from his hiding place? We’ve kept a periscope trained on every likely spot and haven’t seen even a wisp of smoke to give us a clue, or a kick-up of dust to indicate the backblast from the muzzle of the devil’s rifle. Does he stay forever in his hiding place? He must get food somehow—must be in communication with his friends. How does he do it? We must either answer that question or quit cold; for we are at the sniper’s mercy.”

“The men are worried, Captain,” said the first sergeant, hesitantly, “and no mistake. The bullets come from that graveyard over there, but still it ain’t possible. There ain’t a hiding place big enough to cover a flea. And there’s one or two chaps in the outfit, sir, ignorant fellows most likely, who are talking around that the things that’s knockin’ us off ain’t human. Of course it ain’t true, but the men are almost ready to believe anything.”

Here a junior sergeant and a trembling private approached the Captain and stood respectfully at attention.

“Sir,” began the sergeant when the Captain nodded permission for him to speak, “we’d like a try at bagging that sniper, Captain. It ain’t no ways reasonable that he ain’t human, and we want to volunteer to turn him up.”

The Captain, loath to lose more of his men, hesitated.

“But, sergeant,” he temporized, “you don’t know where to look for him, and he can see every move we make. It’s plain suicide to let you go!”

“We’re resigned to that, Captain,” replied the sergeant, “if any of his bullets are engraved with our names; but better, say we, that two men commit suicide than that a whole company be murdered in cold blood. It’s a chance that we are prepared to take, although it is my first belief, and intention, that we will be back here safely after we have fulfilled our mission.”

“When do you wish to go?”

“Tonight, before the moon gets too bright.”

“I give you leave to go, sergeant,” said Smith, “and may God be with you both!”

For the remainder of the day the men in this section of trench kept their heads below the level of the parapet’s crest.

Only once did anything out of the ordinary occur during the rest of that fateful day.

Across from the cemetery, after a long period during which no head had shown above the parapet, there came an exultant, derisive laugh, oddly muffled.

Captain Smith shivered anew. The sergeant and the private who had volunteered to assist him were safely sleeping in the depths of a dugout, conserving their energies against the night to come. When that derisive laugh came they could not have heard it.

But both of them moved complainingly as they slept and the sergeant whispered something:

“It ain’t no ways reasonable that he ain’t human!”

The laugh did not come again.

That night, when the light of the moon was hidden behind a bank of sullen black clouds, the sergeant and the private after a whispered goodbye to the Captain and the first sergeant, and a silent handshake all around, crept softly to the top of the parapet and glided, like a pair of serpents, into No-Man’s-Land.

Many hours passed before they came back.

But come back they did, in the darkest hour before dawn.

The Captain was sleeping and they did not waken him, returning instead to their regular posts.

But when Smith came forth from the dugout in the morning, he asked at once for the two volunteers. His orderly looked queerly at the Captain, and his manner was hesitant as he reported the safe return of the two who had gone forth into No-Man’s-Land.

“Send them to me, here,” Smith ordered sharply.

The sergeant, with the private at his back, came at once and stood before the commander. Smith studied them carefully before asking questions. In the eyes of each he read horror such as he had never before read in the eyes of one of his soldiers. Beads of sweat rolled unheeded down the rough cheeks of the two men. Ever and anon they looked furtively away from their Captain, their eyes flashing fearfully in the direction of the graveyard in No-Man’s Land.

“Did you get him, sergeant?” asked the Captain hoarsely.

“Captain,” replied the sergeant, “there will be no more bullets from that particular sniper. But, for the sake of your own peace of mind, don’t ask us what happened in the still watches of last night! Both of us wish to forget the horror of it all—if ever we may. Yet, rest assured, Sir, that whatever we did to him, it was not enough to pay him for the death of twelve of our buddies; that had he had twelve lives to give that would still have been insufficient—for the twelve he killed hadn’t a Chinaman’s chance. On his part, it was cold blooded murder!”

“But I am your Captain, sergeant,” cried Smith, “and I demand that you tell me!”

“Then the Captain must court-martial us for disobedience of orders—for we refuse to tell! Believe me, sir, it is best for us all. He will kill no more of us; let that be sufficient.”

Further than this the two volunteers refused to say anything.

Smith noted, however, that they kept their hands carefully out of sight behind them.

“Let me see your hands, both of you!” he commanded.

Reluctantly the two men thrust forth their hands for inspection.

The hands of each were covered with dried blood, and there were many punctures upon them, whence the blood had come—as though the two, crawling through No-Man’s-Land, had scarred and wounded them while passing through some hidden cactus-bed—or while cutting their way through the wife.

“What did that?” persisted the Captain.

“Rusty wire, sire,” replied the sergeant, with a warning glance at the perspiration-bedewed private.

Abruptly Smith dismissed them, and as they walked away he looked after them thoughtfully. perhaps it were best, he decided, that he did not know all the details. The sergeant had so stated, and he had faith in the sergeant.

That ended the story for the dime being.

Years later, in Lusamitan, Dominican Republic, ex-Captain Smith told me the rest of the story.

“Aboard the boat, enroute to Blighty,” he said, “the sergeant told me something of what had happened in the old cemetery that night. He could afford to tell me then, for we were both being mustered out and the war was over. What he told me filled me with an irresistible desire to return sometime to that particular section to see for myself. I decided, eventually, to come to America, stopping for a time in France-at-peace enroute. I am sorry now that I did—now that it is too late to do anything.”

Ex-Captain Smith heaved a deep sigh, as though reluctant to continue.

“I found the cemetery with little trouble, for every detail of it was etched unforgettably upon my mind. I found the grave which the sergeant had mentioned. It was one of those aged affairs, the like of which is sometimes encountered here in Santo Domingo, where, in place of the usual mound, the family builds a concrete or metal retaining wall above the surface of the ground—with a broad slab covering the area of the grave beneath. The sniper, so the sergeant had told me, had crept to this grave in the darkness before dawn, lifted the great slab and squeezed himself down inside the retaining wall, where there was just room enough for a man to lie comfortably prone. Then he had but to put a bit of stone or wood under the end of the slap to hold it up far enough for his rifle to protrude. Even with the best field glasses we could not have discovered him from our trench. The sergeant and the private, waiting silently in the cemetery, saw the fellow sneak in and crawl into his hiding place—and knew that, when daylight came, he would be ready once more to take his deadly toll of our men. Here he would remain throughout the day, returning to his friends when Darkness settled over No-Man’s-Land.”

Once more the ex-Captain paused.

“I lifted the slab,” he said slowly, “and drew it away. Then, horror seizing me in its grip, I turned hurriedly away and did not look back again. One look had been enough. Within the narrow retaining wall lay a mouldering skeleton, to which clung rotting folds of a grey uniform! Beside the body lay a rusty rifle and the remains of a light pack. What a ghastly revenge!”

Once again he paused.

“For the sergeant and the private,” he continued at last, “had crept up on the sniper and made him prisoner. Then they had thrust him back into that horrible retaining wall—ALIVE—after which they returned the slab to its place. But they had made retribution doubly sure. For wrapped about and about that mouldering skeleton, dolf up on fold, was a veritable maze of rusty barbed wire, which the two volunteers had torn from the fence that had once kept cattle from pasturing in the cemetery.”

※

In The Leatherneck, the tale ends with the notice “Reprinted by permission of WEIRD TALES.” Arthur J. Burks published six “Strange Tales of Santo Domingo” in the pages of Weird Tales, but this is not one of them. Again, probably not quite weird enough for Farnsworth Wright.

Arthur J. Burks did serve during World War I, but he was never sent overseas and never saw combat, and this is really in every respect a Great War tale, with just a bit of a framing device at the end to make it part of the Santo Domingo series.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Lost Tale: “The Guardian of the Malecon” (1926) by Arthur J. Burks

Historical Racism

This story contains racist historical stereotypes.
Reader discretion advised.

This story was first published in The Leatherneck, June 1926. The Malecón de Santo Domingo is the seafront boulevard that runs along the bay.

For more details, please see the Lost Weird Tales of Arthur J. Burks.

※

The Guardian of the Malecon

by Arthur J. Burks

The little sneaky street which leads westward to the Malecon is as dark as Erebus. Narrow, evil smelling—thoroughfare of the poor who spend their days in gazing out to sea, their evenings on the stone sidewalks that were built in the time of Columbus and his brutal governors, and their nights behind the locked doors of huts. The huts themselves are very old, and the paint has scaled off in so many places that most of them have the scarred look of aged lepers who have given up all hope. There are cracks between the twisted boards which let in the rain during the rainy season, and through which, after nightfall, the reddish glow of subdued native lanterns comes out to the traveler who stumbles along the cobblestones. If one pauses to listen one may hear the pitiful wailing of babies who have gone to bed supperless, and the soft crooning of native mothers who try to soothe them. The little street is stifling, seems to weight down upon one, dampening one’s spirits weirdly.

Especially the night of the first moanings of the last hurricane.

The wreck of the U. S. S. Memphis stands solidly at the western extremity of the Malecon, taking its rest upon the point of the stone Gogotha which slew her. Beyond her cage mast, against the lowering, black-clouded heavens, a red moon looks down upon as wild a scene as any ever conceived by a painter. Fine mister, separated from the whitecaps which break against the rampart of cliffs below the Malecon, slips over the roofs of the huts and sinks clammily into the crazy little street. From far Cabo Caucedo, from the southern mouth of Mona Passage, the winds come moaning, singing a requiem to the spirits of the savage coast, whispering eerily at the mouth of the Ozama River.

We are all alone—my horse and I. It is near midnight and we are stumbling into the city to visit our patrols. Following an unaccountable whim of mine, we are taking the way which leads along the deserted Malecon.

We quit the street to enter the broad promenade. The moaning of the wind is louder, almost a continuous shriek. The red moon darts into hiding in a bank of black clouds, while the waves, breaking high over the cage mast of the Memphis, dash themselves to pieces in a furious attack upon the immovable ramparts of stone which is the coast.

We are brought to pause. The horse halts stiff-legged, snorting fearfully. He does not fear the moaning and shrieking of the wind. It is the waves that he fears, and they are breaking over the Malecon itself, deluging the broad promenade, gurgling as they slip back to Sea and lose themselves in the bosom of the Caribbean. But ere we can pass along the Malecon another wave, higher than its predecessor, towers above the Malecon, causing us to retreat fearfully.

But what is that?

A long wailing cry, that is heard even through the shrieking of the wind and the pounding roar of the waves, cutting like a keen edged knife, comes through to us. It is an oddly human cry, yet there is something in it which is not of the earth. The horse pricks up his ears and stares into the wall of spray and water. He paws the cobblestones restlessly, showing me plainly that he wishes to be gone. When I touch him slightly with my spur he refuses to advance, though his eyes stare fixedly into the spray, his nostrils are distended—and a snort that is expressive of fear answers me as plainly as though the brute had spoken.

But as I hesitate the wailing comes against. From a hut behind me bursts a startled ejaculation in Spanish. I turn to look back and the light in this hut goes out, the hut becomes the abode of fearful silence. In the silence between the breaking of two waves the wailing comes again.

Holding my horse with tightened reins I peers into the mist and spray, seeking the spot whence the wailing comes. A great wave, higher than any I have seen—each one has been higher than the last since we paused here—towers above the Malecon for a breathless instant, then tumbles headlong with a ponderous roar. Just as it breaks and tumbles its crest grows white as snow, the flying spume making an eery mane for the monster of the sea. There is something luminous in the spume and in its every light I see the spirit of the monument which loving hands have erected at the very crest of the coral cliffs mid-way of the Malecon. Then the spire vanishes in the bosom of the wave, comes to view after it has passed, letting me see the monument against the night, wetly dripping. At the base of the monument there is a dark shadow which moves—the wind whips soggy garments this way and that.

The wailing comes again!

Then with a muttered prayer—that is half prayer, half curse—I dismount and drop the reins over my horse’s head. With a snort the animal bolts, sweeping back along the narrow alley toward Fort Ozama, whence we came a few moments earlier. Shrugging my shoulders resignedly I turn into the Malecon, hugging the row of houses, my hands extended to seek support should a wave overwhelm me and threaten to bear me back with it to the sea. Once I almost drown when a wave buries me deeply, receding then to leave me dripping and panting, but with my eyes seeking the dripping spire of the monument which should come to view after the wave has returned to the Caribbean.

I make out the spire and run toward it swiftly. Even before I reach its substantial haven I see the shadow that moves, make out the whipping of the soggy garments. The wailing comes again. I reach the great spire and lean against it heavily, measuring its circumference with my arms to insure that I be able to save myself when the waves break again. Besides me, wearily drooping, yet with an expression on her white face which has something ethereal in it, stands a middle-aged Dominican woman. She has been drenched and buffeted by the waves until most of her strength has fled, so that she sags against the monument and her hands retain their grip upon the count of stone more by good fortune than intent. Her hair—she is bareheaded—is wet and hangs over her eyes except when she casts it aside with a flirt of her head. She is blue about the lips from the coldness of the water. She shows her fine white teeth in a wan smile as she notes my presence beside her. But in her eyes there is no recognition, just a weird sort of questioning such as one sees in the eyes of intelligent animals or very young children. Then her eyes turn back toward the surging sea. Now there is expression in them, and her lips move as though she whispered a prayer. The expression is a boundless expression of love! What is it that she sees about the great monster out there to love? What is the weird story behind this wan woman’s presence here on the sadly beleaguered Malecon? What does she expect to come to her out of the sea?

The waves break over us while I cling to the woman to see that she does not go to the sea when the wave returns. I see her eyes lift to the crest of the wave which towers above us, and those eyes are alight with a fearful question—as though within the bosom of the landward-hurtling monster she would find that question’s answer. But the waves break over us and flood the Malecon—and the woman wails that sad cry of hers which first attracted my attention, swerving her gaze, still with the fearful question in her eyes, back to the next wave that dashes toward the Malecon. When the last wave has receded I seize her in my arms, tearing her numbed fingers free of the stone by sheer British force, causing her to wait again in protest, and dash with her in my arms toward the haven of the houses on the north side of the Malecon. A great wave pursues us, but we win out against its fury and gain the heaven of the second street beyond the great promenade. Here we encounter a later traveler, Howard bound perhaps, who looks startled as his eyes fall upon my burden and me. Then, curiosity banishing his fear, he bends to look into the face of the woman I have rescued. Seeing the white face of the woman, who has mercifully fainted, he mutters something to himself—something expressive of fear—crosses himself hurriedly, and darts away, losing himself among the shadows.

Who is the woman in my arms? What can I do with her? Where does she live? When she opens her eyes and I ask her each of these questions in turn she only shakes her head, though I speak her language and know that she understands. Then she points toward the Malecon as I hear another wave break above the rocks with its thunderous roar. When I shake my head in turn she signals for me to release her. I ask her if she is able to find her way home and she smiles upon me sadly—speaking never a word. Then she moves slowly away—among the shadows as did he who crossed himself when he saw her in my arms.

On foot I continued my interrupted duty, visiting my patrols throughout the city. But when I returned to the Fort there was no sleep for me that night. My mind was busy with all sorts of unanswerable questions. Who was the woman? What did she ask of the sea? Why did she take her life in her hands to stand above the ramparted coast to watch the great waves come in?

Off duty next day I turned to the Malecon. The waves no longer leaped the ramparts of coral, though the Malecon and the first row of houses northward were all wet and dripping as though they had emerged during the night from the bottom of the sea. I started out across the angry waste of waters to the southern horizon, and all between the balked waves were churning one another into foam, creating a vast maelstrom in which the strongest small boat could never have survived. I strode across the slippery stones to the stone monument above the sea, marvelling as I did so how I had been Abe to win across those same stones in the darkness of night with a woman in my arms. I reached the monument and stared at the bronze plate in its landward side. On it were Spanish words, of which this is the English translation:

IN MEMORY OF THE MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN WHO LOST THEIR LIVES HERE THE NIGHT OF THE GREAT HURRICANE.

By this time the Malecon was filling with curious Dominicans, come forth to see what the Caribbean had given up during the night—morbid curiosity readable in their bronzed faces. Some of them stare at me questioningly, though none approaches to ask questions. I note that no one crosses the slippery stones to the great stone monument. Shaking my head, believing the answer to the puzzle beyond me, I turn and move back to the Malecon, staring as I return at the faces of the scores of people who line the southern side of the Malecon, leaning on the stone railing as they stare out upon the waves. Just for a fleeting second I fancy I note the white face of her whom, last night, I saved from the bellowing sea. There is the sad smile and the unreadable question—and I catch myself listening for the wail which came to me through the water and flying mist. Then the face disappears and I convince myself that I did not see it after all. Now I am back at the Malecon, looking about me.

The faces of the Dominicans, as a whole, are not friendly; but I scrutinize each one near me, seeking someone who may be able to answer my questions. As though he knows what I wish, an elderly Dominican of the better class, detaching himself from a well dressed group along the railing, strolls in my direction, a half smile of invitation on his face. I smile back at him and go to meet him.

“Tell me about her, senor,” I burst out, “she stood beside that pillar last night when the hurricane was raging, and would have drowned had I not rushed out and brought her back to safety. Why does she wail, and why did she choose light night of all nights to stand beyond the Malecon at the mercy of the waves?”

“It is a long story, Americano,” he replied softly. “she is the guardian of the Malecon, and every night for the last several years she had gone to the Malecon to keep her tryst beside the spire.”

“But why? Why?”

“It was the night of the Great Hurricane,” he continued; “when a small schooner, returning from a fiesta at Bani, was caught and pounced upon by the waves before it could reach the mouth of the Ozama—less than half a mile distant! Aboard that schooner were men, women and children—poor people all. A kind president had secured funds in order that these people might have one day out of their lives to which they could look back with pleasure. I remember when they sailed forth from the Ozama, dressed in holiday attire, happy and carefree as though all had been children—which, in truth, we all are at heart—and a native band was playing on the gently heaving deck. It promised to be an unforgettable holiday; but at that time no one even guessed in what Dread the happening was to be kept alive in the memory of Santo Domingo. The Male one was crowded to watch the boat come in with its happy passengers—WHEN THE HURRICANE BROKE WITHOUT WARNING BEFORE THE SCHOONER COULD READ THE OZAMA! All night we stood in the streets back from the Malecon, praying that the schooner weather the storm. We heard the band playing as the brave musicians strove to keep up the courage of the ill-fated passengers. But the band stopped at last, and we saw that the lights of the schooner were slowly but surely moving landward—now hidden in a trough of the waves, now in plain view at the crest of a monster of the sea. Ever and anon we caught the wailing of those yet left alive aboard her. Then the lights vanished as a terrible wave engulfed the schooner; the wailing died out as disappears a candle flame in a wind—and silence settled over the Malecon save for the shrieking of the waves and the screaming of the wind. There was no way of going to the rescue! It would have been suicide to no avail, senor! One man tried to swim out of the schooner—we found his body next day in the middle of second street north of the Malecon—and with him were the bodies of many others. That monument yonder was erected in memory of one of the saddest pages in Dominican history.”

“But the woman! What of her?”

“All of her family, save her husband, was aboard the schooner. All save one of them returned—the youngest, a girl of twelve, best-beloved of her family—we found their bodies north of the Malecon. But the girl never came back! The sea took her and has never given her up.”

“But the woman’s husband, who you saw was not a board? Why does he permit her to visit the Malecon alone?”

“Her husband, senor,” replied the man, “was the only Dominican who tried to reach the foundering schooner. He failed, as I have told you. Now, there is no one of the family save the wife and mother—who comes nightly to the Malecon to pray that the sea give up her best-beloved. But there is no reason to fear her, senor. She is harmless, though all Santo Domingo knows that she has lost her mind—she does not even grow angry at the men and boys who follow her about, hurling gibes at her for a lunatic. So you can see that there is really no harm in her.”

“Yes,” I replied bitterly, “I can well understand. But do you?”

Many months later, when I stood on the deck of an outbound transport, leaving Santo Domingo behind to drop slowly out of sight below the horizon, I stood at the rail and looked back toward the Malecon. We had left the Ozama at nightfall and already lights had flashed on in the Capital City. A revolving light to guide mariners blinked on and off as it circled in its huge cage above the harbor. Its light flashed for an instant along the coast, causing the spire of the monument to stand out in startling relief as it passed. Just for an instant it was; but in its pathway, coming across the slippery stones from the Malecon, I fancied I could make out the shadowy outlines of a woman who walked slowly, with her great eyes fixed questioningly upon the sea. Then the light passed on and, after a long time, Santo Domingo dropped out of sight beneath the heaving waste.

※

In The Leatherneck, the tale ends with the notice “[Reprinted by permission of WEIRD TALES].” Arthur J. Burks published six “Strange Tales of Santo Domingo” in the pages of Weird Tales, but this is not one of them. Not quite weird enough, perhaps, for Farnsworth Wright.

The Carribean to the south, beyond the Malecon, was a mighty Sapphire mystery encircling the world. […] To the west of the Malecon the wrecked U. S. S. Memphis, often seen now in newsreels, rested solidly upon the stone Golgotha which had crucified her. And when the waves were running in their crests broke into creamy foam over the very top of her cage mast, which had not then been taken down by the salvaging interests.
—Arthur J. Burks, Land of Checkerboard Families (1932) 8-9

The U.S.S. Memphis was real, and wrecked in the harbor of Santo Domingo in 1916. The partially dismantled wreck would still have been visible in the 1920s when Burks was stationed there.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The Lost Weird Tales of Arthur J. Burks

[…] Burks had been a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corp[s]. After leaving the military in 1919 he joined the reserves as a 2nd Lieutenant. […] He returned to active duty in 1921 with the U.S. Marine Corp[s]. After training recruits at Parris Island, S.C., he was sent to the Dominican Republic, where he was involved in intelligence duty and the making of maps for the republic until 1924.

Although he had begun to write in 1920, it wasn’t until he was stationed in the Caribbean, where its people and native voodoo rituals fired his imagination, that he began to sell weird stories to Weird Tales. Many of those tales, often considered his best work in the field, eventually became the foundation for his 1967 Arkham House collection Black Medicine.
—Peter Ruber, Arkham’s Masters of Horror (2000) 251

In 1915, U.S. Marines landed in Port-au-Prince, capital of the Republic of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola; beginning an occupation that would last until 1934. The following year, U.S. Marines would invade and occupy the Dominican Republic, also on Hispaniola, which would last until 1924. The occupation would result in closer contact between the continental U.S. and Caribbean culture, and the local syncretic African diaspora religions of Haitian Vodou and Dominican Vudú strongly captured the public imagination through books like William Seabrook’s The Magic Island (1925), which sparked the zombie craze.

Among the leathernecks serving in the occupation was 2nd Lt. Arthur J. Burks, who had been attempting to launch a writing career for years. Now he took a writing course at the Palmer Institute of Authorship, which helped polish his style and set his feet on the path of a pulp fiction career—one he would so excel at in terms of speed and sales that he soon became one of the star pupils.

With the local color and lore picked up from his time in the Dominican Republic, Burks at last hit on a seam of material that could sell—and a magazine that would lap it up. Weird Tales had begun publication in 1923, and after a reorganization in 1924, it must have seemed a perfect market for Burks’ tales set on Hispaniola. His first published story in the magazine was in 1924, under the pseudonym Estil Critchie, and he soon became a prolific contributor:

Historical Racism

Please be aware that these works were written during a time when racism and racial stereotypes were extremely prevalent in U.S. society; all of the stories include characters who exhibit or embody these prejudices in some way. This was typical of Arthur J. Burks’ early works.

  • “Thus Spake the Prophetess: A Tale of Haiti” (Weird Tales Nov 1924) as by Estil Critchie
  • “Voodoo” (WT Dec 1924) as by Estil Critchie
  • “Luisma’s Return” (WT Jan 1925)
  • “A Broken Lamp-Chimney” (WT Feb 1925) *
  • “Desert of the Dead” (WT Mar 1925) *
  • “Daylight Shadows” (WT Apr 1925) *
  • “The Sorrowful Sisterhood” (WT May 1925) *
  • “The Phantom Chibo” (WT Jun 1925) *
  • “Black Medicine” (WT Aug 1925)
  • “Vale of the Corbies” (WT Nov 1925)
  • “When the Graves Were Opened” (WT Dec 1925)
  • “Something Toothsone” (WT Mar 1926)
  • “The Ghosts of Steamboat Coulee” (WT May 1926)
  • “Asphodel” (WT Jun 1926)
  • “Orbit of Souls” (WT Dec 1926)
  • “Faces” (WT Apr 1927) *
  • “The Invading Horde” (WT Nov 1927)
  • “Bells of Oceana” (WT Dec 1927)

…and so on. Burks recalled his start with Weird Tales:

[…] the time when I sold my first adult story. That was in 1924, and as long as I live I shall never forget the thrill of it, nor the letter which came to me accepting “Too Many Legs,” nor the name which was signed to that letter. Put it in capitals, that name, Mr. Editor, for it was the biggest, most important letter I ever received in all of my days: FARNSWORTH WRIGHT, editor then, and now, of Weird Tales. Weird Tales, and its editor, were having a hard time then, and Farnsworth Wright was very plainly a much overworked man. That was evident in all his letters, yet he still had time, knowing as he did that I was a newcomer, and that he was buying my first yarn, still found time to write me about my story, to ask for more, to offer friendly criticism, and to suggest revisions for stories which for one reason or another did not stick.
—Arthur J. Burks, “Are Editors Human?” (1929) in Pulp Fictioneers (2004) 25

Wright managed to convince Burks to publish a series of short tales—not all of them weird in the traditional sense—as “Strange Tales of Santo Domingo.” These tales are marked with an asterisk in the list above.

Weird Tales Jan 1925

No story under the title “Too Many Legs” was published in the pages of Weird Tales, but then Farnsworth Wright had a habit of editing titles to suit his own tastes. However, there is reason to believe that Burks actually sold more stories to Weird Tales than were published, because of a series that appeared in an oft-overlooked Marine Corps journal called The Leatherneck in 1926 and 1927.

Three of the four Leatherneck tales bear the curious notice at the end: “Reprinted by permission of WEIRD TALES” (or variant thereof), yet only one of them was published in the pages of that pulp: “The Return of Luisma Llansal,” which is a variant of “Luisma’s Return” (WT Jan 1925). All four are also plainly stories of Hispaniola, in the same vein as the tales Burks had published in Weird Tales in 1925, 1926, and 1927.

While we might speculate about the exact behind-the-scenes story, it’s worth remembering that Weird Tales only paid on publication, which could be months or, in extreme cases, years after the story was accepted. So it is quite possible that Burks “sold” a number of stories to Weird Tales, a handful of which went unpublished for a couple of years, and which Burks finally asked Wright for permission to print (or reprint) in Leatherneck. At least, that is one scenario that fits the facts at hand.

The Leatherneck tales have never, as far as I can determine, been collected or reprinted, and they are:

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Lost Tale: “The Kiss of Madagascar” (1924) by Seabury Quinn

Historical Racism

This story contains racist historical stereotypes and language.
Reader discretion advised.

Seabury Grandin Quinn was the most prolific contributor to Weird Tales during its initial run (1923-1954); especially remembered for his occult detective character Jules de Grandin, whose adventures ran to a whopping 93 stories in WT over a period of 25 years. Readers might well ask how Quinn was able to keep things fresh and not repeat himself…and, well, he did. Just not always in obvious ways.

Like Robert E. Howard and other prolific pulpsters, Quinn wasn’t above recycling themes or even cannibalizing entire plots into new stories as the situation required it. While folks who only read his stories in Weird Tales will pick up on the structural similarities between the de Grandin tales—which are structured a bit like a murder mystery, starting out with a victim or inciting incident and ending with an expository explanation and the villain dead or in custody—to really see how much Quinn borrowed from himself, you have to look at what he wrote outside Weird Tales.

One such series was the Washington Nights’ Entertainment, a series of 24 detective/mystery stories starring his character Major Sturdevant that ran in Detective Tales and Real Detective Tales, and reprinted in various newspapers. Many of the Sturdevant tales have a weird element, and Quinn borrowed from several of them heavily for later de Grandin stories; in particular, “The Kiss of Madagascar” (Sturdevant, Real Detective Tales Dec 1924) became the basis for “The Black Orchid” (de Grandin, Weird Tales Aug 1935).

“The Kiss of Madagascar” was reprinted in various newspapers (such as the Muncie Evening Press, 7 Mar 1929 (12)), and also appeared under the title “The Blood Thief” in Detective Book Magazine (Sep 1931). However, like the other Sturdevant tales, it has never been collected and remains obscure.

※

The Kiss of Madagascar

by Seabury Quinn

“Hey, somebody lend me twenty-five bucks?” Bailey, who represented the Post-Intelligencer at Washington, peered through the Record’s office door, glancing hopefully from Williams, the Record’s correspondent, to Loomis, of the Clarion-Call.

“Kind o’ original in your needs, ain’t you?” Loomis asked. “Most of us don’t need more than ten, or fifteen bucks, anyhow.”

“Aw, fellers,” Bailey pleaded, “don’t throw me down; I need this dough, I tell you. Gotta get my sweetie some flowers. She’s goin’ to a doings up at the Highlands tomorrow, and I want to knock her dead with an orchid corsage. I’ll pay you back when my check comes next week, honest—”

“Orchid,” Loomis cut in again. “Gosh, he’d actually give her orchids.”

“Hey, what’s biting on you?” Bailing asked angrily. “You talk as if I was fixin’ to present the dam with a lovers’ knot of rattlesnakes, or something.”

“You might as well, according to my way of thinking,” Loomis returned. “Listen: Do you remember when the French Madagascar Commercial Mission was over here last year?”

“Yes,” Bailey agreed sulkily, “I remember, all right. But what’s that got to do with your disliking orchids?”

“Everything,” Loomis answered. “When that aggregation hit Washington last year they looked like a constellation of bright stars of hope to me. I’d slipped up on important matters three times hand-running, and it looked as if I’d soon be hunting a Government clerkship when the Frenchmen came along.

“‘Here’s where I get in solid,’ I dolt myself. ‘I’ll just run up and cop off a red-hot story and square myself with the old man.’

“Did I? I did not. The Frenchies were occupying the Bushnell residence, in Sheridan Circle, and they’d had time to dig in by the time I rang the front doorbell. A tenth-assistant secretary, who smelled like a ladies’ hairdressing emporium, gave me a supercilious look anda sheet of mimeographed legal cap. ‘Zat ees all ze Commeesion haff for pooblication,’ he said, and nodded to the doorkeeper to give me the gate.

I started down Massachusetts Avenue toward DuPont Circle, when someone hit me a crack on the shoulder.

“‘Hello, Frank,’ my assailant said, ‘what’s the trouble? You look as if you were taking a guilt conscience out for an airing.’

“It was Major Sturdevant, of the Secret Service, and he’d been responsible for my scoring more beats than all the luck I’d have since coming to Washington.

“‘No: it’s the job,’ I said. ‘Those Frenchmen back there gave me a raw deal.’

✾

“‘WELL, well. I reckon I can give you a lift. I know La Peruse, the director of the Commission, slightly—was on my way to see him when I bumped into you. I’ll take you back with me.’

“‘Next time you want ten or a dozen guys murdered, call on me, Major.” I asked as we mounted the Bushnell steps and Sturdevant rang the bell.

“‘Ze Commeessionaire, he air not to see ze journaleests,’ the overgrown porter announced.

“Sturdevant thrust his card foward, adding the oral explanation. ‘Service de Surete.’

“‘Oh, mais oi, M’sieur, certainment,’ the porter agreed, his hostility evaporating before Sturdevant’s announcement.

“We rode up two floors in the automatic electric elevator, and entered a large parlor on the third floor which seemed to combine the duties of lounging room and office.

“‘Ah, Monsieur Sturdevant,’ a big, blond man greeted as we followed the porter through the tapestry lambrequins at the door.

“The Major shook hands cordially and presented me to the Frenchman. He was well over six feet tall and proportionately broad, with the prominent nose and cheekbones that bespoke Basque ancestry and the fair skin and light eyes that told of descent from the Northmen who overran Brittany in the days before Hastings.

“‘Mister Loomis,’ he acknowledged Sturdevant’s introduction in excellent English. ‘I had not thought to give anything but a formal statement to the press at this time; but I make an exception of you. Here are some memoranda you may find of interest. Copy what you wish and announce your dispatches as coming from the Commission.’

“I thanked him and dug into the papers, getting enough live stuff to fill two columns comfortably.

✾

“STURDEVANT and La Peruse talked of adventures in far places as I worked, and it was not till the library clock struck midnight that I realized how long we had been there.

“‘But, gentlemen, you will surely remain the night, certainly,’ La Peruse insisted as we rose to go. ‘It is past twelve, and the snow is deep. I can make you most comfortable.’

“I looked out the window and saw he was correct. Both Sturdevant and I hastened to accept the invitation.

“‘Queer chap, La Peruse,’ the Major told me as he snapped off the light. ‘He could have retired twenty years ago, if he’d wished, but colonial administration seems a sort of passion with him. Africa, Polynesia, Madagascar—wherever the French have possessions, he’s given the best years of his life and a lot of his own money to carrying on their work. This commissionership he holds now is only an honorary position: he doesn’t get a cent out of it. Why— Good Lord! What’s that?”

“We leaped out of bed and rushed into the darkened hall as a second blood-chilling cry echoed through the house.

“‘Down there!’ Sturdevant shouted, running headlong toward a room at the turn of the corridor. In a moment we were at the door.

“‘La Peruse!’ he called. ‘La Peruse, what’s wrong; are you ill?”

“We pressed our ears to the wood, waiting a reply, but no word came from the bedroom. Only a gurgling noise, like water escaping through a drain, or a man fighting desperately for breath. Then we burst open the door.

✾

“FEELING his way along the wall, Sturdevant located the electric switch and snapped on the light. La Peruse lay on his bed, the covers kicked to the floor, his hands flexed in a rigidity lie that of death, fingers digging into the yielding mattress. His pajama jacket was open at the neck, and on the white skin of his throat, below the line of tan, was a ruby disc where warm blood welled up from a tiny wound. His eyes were wide open, staring, and on his sunburned face was such a look of mortal terror as it seldom seen outside the phantasies of nightmare.

“‘La Peruse,’ the Major called, hurrying to the bedside and laying a hand over the Frenchman’s heart.

“His warm touch seemed to revive the stricken man. He rose unsteadily on his elbow, staring at us in pathetic bewilderment. ‘Where is it?’ he asked in a shaking voice. ‘Did you see it, Sturdevant, mon ami?’

“‘See what?’ Sturdevant asked. ‘What hurt you, La Peruse?’

“The other passed a trembling hand across his forehead. ‘The vampire,’ he answered with a shudder. ‘The demon un-dead, Major. It was here. I tell you, sitting on my breast, sucking the life-blood from my veins—’ he crossed himself awkwardly. ‘I saw it, flicking like a flame of hell-fire over me——”

“‘Rats!’ Sturdevant interrupted. ‘My dear fellow, you’ve had a bad dream. A vampire! You’ll be seeing old Mother Hubbard and her dog, next!’

“The Frenchman smiled wanly. ‘So?’ he said. ‘Look,’ he touched the wound at his throat and held his blood-stained fingertips up for inspection. ‘Is this blood or not blood, my friend? And if it be blood, how comes it there? You, yourself, can testify my door was locked; there is no other entrance to the room. Yet when you broke in what did you find, hein? If it were no vampire, then, pour l’amour de Dieu, what was it?”

✾

“SERVANTS and attaches of the Commission, in varying stages of dishabille, were crowding into the room. La Peruse waved them away and turned to Sturdevant.

“‘My friend,’ he said, ‘I am afraid. And my fear is the greater because I know not what it is I fear. How long I slept before It came I cannot tell, but I remember waking with a feeling of suffocation—no pain, but weakness and utter impotence—to see a red, fiery thing waving like a flame above me and to smell the odor of a charnel house. At first I knew not where I was, but realization came slowly. The thing that seemed to burn above me I cannot describe, for the darkness of the room and its very nearness obscured my vision. How long I lay wondering I have no idea; but suddenly I became aware of a feeling like a pulling at my throat. Then I knew: The thing was sucking my blood.

“‘Rubbish!’ Sturdevant replied. ‘I don’t doubt you think you saw this thing, but you couldn’t have. No one ever saw a vampire, or anything like one, outside a book or a bad dream.’

“‘You do not know the things I have seen, my friend,’ the other returned. ‘Here in what we call civilization we have forgotten the ancient things of nature, so we say they do not exist. But the people who live in the silent places have not forgotten, they remember, and they know. Listen, my friend:

“‘The revolt of Hova in 1898, which led ultimately to the exile of Queen Ranavalona, was not particularly anti-European. The Malagasy government had long employed English and French army officers and engineers, and found Europeans quite tolerable. But there is no question the Hova were violently opposed to Christianity. Travelers say the Hova had no definite religion of their own. That is not so. They worshiped a goddess known as “The Fragrant One,” whose manifestation was said to be a man-eating tree.’

“‘I was in Gallieni’s army of pacification when we put down the rebellion. One day word came by a convert Andevo that Hova insurrectionists had captured a missionary priest. We hurried inland to the rescue, and arrived to find the mission a smoldering ruin. Two days forced marching brought us to the Hova camp fires’ ashes, still warm. Another day our scouts surprised the war party dancing about something white on the ground. One volley of musketry sent them into the jungle, and when we charged their camp we found a skull and several bones in the center of their dancing circle.’

“‘Cannibalism?’ Sturdevant asked.

“‘Non, non,’ La Peruse denied. “The skull and bones were clean, clean as though scraped with sandpaper: there was no evidence of fire upon them, but something more we found: their surfaces had been eaten away—how do you say? eroded?—as though by acid.’

✾

“‘H’M,’ Sturdevant commented. ‘Whose skull was it?’

“‘The skull was that of a white man, and in the front of the mouth was a gold tooth—what you call a crown—the priest had set in by an American dentist in Paris. Our guide, the convert, recognized it at once, for that golden tooth had been the marvel of the mission settlement.’

“‘Still, I don’t see any evidence of your man-eating tree,’ Sturdevant objected. ‘The Hova might have used an acid substance to pickle their victim’s skeleton. Such things are no uncommon among barbarous peoples.’

“‘Yes, yes, you are right to be skeptical,’ the Frenchman admitted, ‘but wait. The guide told us the Hova made sacrifices to “The Fragrant One” by placing the victim (preferably a Christian) in the tree’s branches. It is supposed to be a sort of vegetable octopus, with tentacles to catch and hold its prey. When the tree had eaten the offering, the bones were collected and kept as souvenirs by the devotees.

“‘Now I, myself, had always scouted these stories: but when I saw the murdered priest’s skeleton I reconsidered. Do you know the Benus [sic] flytrap?”

“‘You mean the insect-catching plant of Carolina?’ Sturdevant asked.

“‘Yes,’ La Peruse answered, ‘the same. That plant, as you know, has a flower so delicately sensitive that the slightest touch by an insect closes the petals like the leaves of a book. Once imprisoned, the unfortunate insect is slowly dissolved by a powerful acidulous liquid excreted by the plant. As you would say, he is digested.

“‘Now consider: in tropical lands the flora of the temperate zone attains much greater size. If American and south Europe produce “flytrap” plants large enough to digest the humble bee, why should not a tropic island like Madagascar develop a tree large enough and fierce enough to devour a man? Eh?’

“‘H’m, possibly,’ Sturdevent tugged at his beard, ‘you may be right. At any rate, we’re still in the dark regarding the cause of your wound. It’s nearly morning; lie down and try to sleep. I’ll stay with you the rest of the night.’

“I left them together and crawled back in my own bed, but did precious little sleeping. The echo of the Frenchman’s ghastly cry and the sight of his still, horror-drawn face stayed with me till daylight.

✾

“WE had a Continental breakfast—coffee and rolls—in our bedroom, and I turned my overcoat collar up against the storm as I plunged my way toward Connecticut Avenue. La Peruse begged Sturdevant to stay with him so piteously that the Major consented to remain an hour or so.

“I knocked the information I’d gotten into shape and sent it off to the home office. The job was moderately safe for while longer, anyhow.

“I hadn’t been in the office fifteen minutes next morning when a call came from Sturdevant. ‘Hello, Loomis,’ he said, ‘there’s something dam’ queer going on up here.’

“‘What’s the trouble?’

“‘I don’t know: that’s where the difficulty comes in. La Peruse is worse. I stayed her again last night, and ran in to see how he was getting on about every half hour till five o’clock this morning. Everything seemed O. K., and I’d turned in for a couple of hours’ sleep when he gave another one of those war whoops, and when I got to his room he was lying just as we found him yesterday morning. I had more trouble in bringing him to this time, and he’s so weak from loss of blood we’ve had a physician up to look him over.’

✾

“I REPORTED at the Bushnell House about seven that evening, and Sturdevant took me to La Peruse’s room at once. The Frenchman was like a wraith of his former self. Violet half-moons under his eyes, a waxen pallor beneath his sunburn and a queer, pinched look about the nostrils testified eloquently to sudden and overwhelming weakness. The hand he extended unsteadily in greeting was as thin and bloodless as a fever patient’s.

“‘Now, Frank,’ the major said, ‘I want you to act as relief guard tonight. I’ll sit with La Peruse while you sleep; then you take your turn at sentry-go.’

‘We sat talking till I began to feel drowsy, and the Major took up his vigil by the sick man’s bed.

“He shook me awake shortly after two o’clock, and I slumped down in an easy chair beside the night light, a copy of the Clarion-Call in my hand.

“‘Do you wish coffee, sir?’ someone asked in a strong English accent. I looked up and saw a small and exceedingly black man with regular features and wire-straight hair, standing in the doorway, a tray containing a coffee pot and cup in his hands.

“‘Yes, thank you,’ I answered. ‘Pour it black, please.’

“‘Very good, sir,’ he replied, filling my cup. I swallowed a mouthful of the steaming black beverage and turned back to my paper.

“The old man had a riproaring editorial in that issue, lambasting the tar out of the administration about the coal strike, but, somehow, the words seemed to have lost their punch as I sipped my coffee. Presently the lines of type began to run together before my eyes. I nodded, shook my head to clear my vision, and—

✾

“LOOMIS, Loomis, wake up. Give me a hand here!”

“‘Eh, wha—what?’ I asked stupidly, half-rising from my chair, then sinking down again as the room commenced whirling like a Coney Island carousel.

“Gradually I began to see thing. Sturdevant, his white hair and beard bristling with anger and excitement, bent about La Peruse. La Peruse lay half out of the bed, head downward, eyes staring glassily, the bandage on his throat displaced, and a thin trickle of blood oozing from his reopened wound.

“‘Good Lord!’ I exclaimed, bracing myself against the arms of my chair. ‘What’s happened, Major?’

“‘La Peruse has been murdered while you sat there snoring.’

“‘But I wasn’t asleep,’ I protested. ‘I felt a little queer after I drank that coffee, but—’

“‘Eh? What’s that?” he asked sharply. ‘You drank coffee? Where? When? Who gave it to you?”

“‘Why, the boy!’ I answered.

“‘H’m,’ the Major lifted La Peruse to the bed, and glared at me. ‘Go find that servant and have someone ‘phone the doctor. There’s still a flutter in this poor chap’s pulse. No thanks to you, though.’

“I roused a secretary and asked him to call a physician, then inquired my way to the servants’ quarters. Three minutes’ search sufficed to find the man who served me, peacefully sleeping.

“I brought him, still in his pajamas, to Sturdevant.

“‘Did you serve coffee to this gentleman?’ the Major asked, eyeing him sternly.

“‘Yes, sir,’ the black man answered. ‘I thought some black coffee might help him stay awake.’

“‘H’m,’ Sturdevant looked him over from head to feet. ‘Pretty bold, doping him right under my eyes, aren’t you?’

“‘Doping him?’ the man’s assumption of horrified incredulity was masterly. ‘You surely don’t think that, sir.’

“He turned to me. ‘How much coffee did you drink, sir?’ he asked.

“‘Not more than half a cup,’ I answered.

“‘Ah,’ his insolence was superb as he stretched out his hand, lifted the cup, and drained it at a single gulp.

“He looked at Sturdevant. ‘If the coffee is drugged, sir,’ he announced, ‘it surely should act on me.’

“‘H’m, all right; you may go.’

“‘Thank you, very much, sir,’ the other replied, as he bowed his way from the room.

“The physician came bustling in. ‘What’s all this?’ he asked testily, making a hasty examination of this patient.

“‘Why, the man’s almost dead from exhaustion. Every indication of severe hemorrhage. Where’s the blood?’

“Sturdevant shrugged in annoyance. ‘We know no more about it than you do, doctor,’ he replied.

“‘Then you’re dam’ ignorant,’ the physician blurted. ‘There’ll have to be an immediate transfusion of blood if we’re going to save this man’s life.’

“Hurried telephone calls to the doctor’s office for paraphernalia, an examination of half a dozen of the Commission’s personnel for a suitable blood count, and the big porter was chosen to supply the vital fluid.

“When morning came La Peruse was resting easily, his body refreshed with new blood.

“‘We saved him this time,’ the doctor said as he struggled into his ulster, ‘but I’ll not answer for the consequences if he has another hemorrhage. See that he’s watched every moment.’

“‘He’ll be watched, all right, doctor, you may depend on it,’ Sturdevant assured him.

“As I was leaving he whispered, ‘Come up again tonight, Loomis. We’ll find out what’s what this evening, or know the reason why.’

✾

“LA PERUSE was slightly improved, though still very weak, when I arrived at the Bushnell house about eleven o’clock that evening.

“‘Hello, Frank,’ Sturdevant greeted as I was divesting myself of hat, muffler and overcoat.

“He led me to the room assigned us, shut the door carefully and lighted one of his long, black cheroots. ‘Been doing some visiting and exploring today,’ he announced. ‘Had quite a conference with Professor Stockton, of the Smithsonian Institute. He’s the foremost authority on tropical flora in the country.’

“‘What’s the idea?’ I asked. ‘Did you want to check up on La Peruse’s theory of the man-eating tree?’

“‘Partly,’ he replied. ‘Stocktown says La Peruse may not be far wrong. He gave me a lot of interesting data on Madagascar, too.’

“‘Shall I take the first trick?’ I asked as we walked toward La Peruse’s room.

“‘Not much; we’ll handle this business together,’ he answered. ‘I can’t risk having you sleep at the switch a second time.’

“We tiptoed across the room, and I was about to take a chair when the Major put out his hand, giving me a slight push. ‘Under the day bed, Loomis,’ he ordered.

“‘What?’ I whispered incredulously.

“‘Get under the day bed there,’ he repeated. ‘You’re going to be the silent partner in our little game tonight, and the invisible one, too. Crawl under that couch and keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. Go on.’

“I slipped to the floor beneath the couch.

“THE Major pressed the bell communicating with the servants’ rooms. In a few moments the little black man who had waited on me the previous night entered. ‘You rang, sir?’ he asked.

“‘Yes,’ Sturdevant replied without looking up from his book. ‘Bring me some coffee at midnight, please.’

“‘Very good, sir.’

“The time crawled by like a frostbitten snake. The servant entered with the coffee, set the tray on the table and stood waiting Sturdevant’s orders.

“‘That’s all, thank you,’ the major said as he resumed his chair and picked up the cup. He took a swallow of the drink, then resumed his reading. Five, ten, fifteen minutes ticked off on my wrist watch, nothing happened. Then the room’s quiet was disturbed by a low guttural sound. I looked at Sturdevant in fascinated horror. His head had fallen on his chest, the book had dropped from his head. He was asleep—snoring.

✾

“I WRIGGLED a few inches on the floor, intent on crawling from under the couch and waking him, then froze where I lay.

“Stepping softly as a panther, the colored servant came into the room, followed by another. The second one carried a tray with coffee pot and cups, the first bore a bundle of some sort carefully between his outstretched hands.

“Pausing beside the Major a moment, they smiled at each other, then placed another cup exactly like that from which Sturdevant had drunk on the table, pouring an mount of coffee equal to that he had left into the substituted cup. Quietly the fellow with the coffee turned and walked quickly down the hall.

“The trick by which I’d been drugged the night before, and which had enabled the suspected black to demonstrate his innocence and my dereliction of duty, was so simple as to be childish, yet Sturdevant and I had been fooled by it.

“I lave where I was, watching the man’s movements.

“Quickly he leaned over the sleeping Frenchman, unfastening the bandage at his throat with a deftness the most experienced pickpocket might envy. A moment more and he produced a jar of oil, touched the sleeping man’s wound with the unguent, then, with a tiny scalpel, removed the softened scab.

“I saw a spot of blood form and grow larger as the wound was opened, and fixed my muscles for a spring when his next move struck me stone-still with mystification.

“Something like a ball of coarse moss, doubled upon itself like a giant, sleeping spider, dangled from a thread as the man drew his hand from the bundle he carried. I saw him swing the thing through the air several times, slowly t first, then faster and faster, till it whirled round his head like a wheel of light. Carefully he slackened the swinging thing’s speed, finally dangling it at arm’s length from him above La Peruse. The rapid motion through the air had opened the thing he held till its parts were fully displayed.

“Leaning forward, he dropped the knot of moss upon the Frenchman’s open wound.

“My eyes almost started from my head in horror. While I watched, the thing upon the sleeper’s throat began to live, putting out tiny tendrils like the fronds of an asparagus fern, but red as rusted iron in color. Like a living animal, the thing’s leaves waved and swayed in the air. Gradually, like a toy balloon slowly inflated, a great, tri-petaled, blood-red flower began unfolding.

“La Peruse moaned and stirred uneasily in his sleep.

“‘AT him, Loomis!’ With a bound Sturdevant was out of his chair. He leaped across the room, hands outstretched to seize the black.

“With a snarl of bestial ferocity, the little man dodged, hurling himself toward the door.

“I squirmed from my hiding place and leaped in his path, driving my fist at the point of his jaw.

“He fought like a wildcat. Shorter than I by almost a foot and under-weighing me by at least forty pounds, he was all I could handle, and more.

“‘Ah! Got him!’ Sturdevant dropped on the follow’s shoulders, seized his elbows in an iron grip and pressed them into his sides.

“‘Now, you little hellion,’ he rasped, ‘take that accursed thing off La Peruse and see you don’t leave any roots in his wound.’

“‘Ha! You think to make me?’ the other answered with a snarl. ‘You cannot. Your friend will die. You may kill me, cut me in pieces, if you like, but the cursed Frenchman dies. I’ll make no move to save him from his judgment.’

“‘No?’ Sturdevant replied, seizing the man’s left wrist in his right hand and slowly forcing it upward in a hammer-lock. ‘No? We’ll see about that.’

“Perspiration glistened on the fellow’s forehead, his eyes started in their sockets like a frog’s, his mouth drew taut with agony as Sturdevant slowly increased his pressure.

“Step by step the Major forced his captive toward the bed. At last the other dropped to his knees beside La Peruse. ‘Let me go,’ he begged. ‘Let me go, you white beast, and I’ll take “the Kiss” from him.’

“The captive reached out, seized the waving, red thing at the Frenchman’s throat, and lifted it carefully from his wound. Like an inflated bladder pricked with a pin, the infernal plant began wilting as its terrible nourishment was cut off.

“‘Now we’ll gather in the other one,’ Sturdevant announced as he snapped a pair of handcuffs over the prisoner’s wrists.

“The other black was lying in bed, apparently sound asleep, when we reached his room; but it required our combined efforts to subdue and shackle him when he leaped up as we entered the door.

✾

“‘HOW’D you dope it all out, Major’ I asked when La Peruse, rebandaged and soothed with a strong sedative, had fallen asleep once more.

“He bit the end from a cigar as he replied: ‘Just adding a few facts together, Loomis. A knowledge of Madagascar, plus a knowledge of the West Indies, plus a little thought—and there you are.’

“‘Take Madagascar, for instance. We know the difficulties the French had subduing the place and every effort the natives made to get back autonomy.

“‘When Gallieni and his forces defeated the Hova in 1896 they overthrew one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Ranavalona III had come to the throne by the simple expedient of murdering her predecessor with slow poison. The island’s inhabitants consisted of three classes, Andriana, or nobility, the Hova freemen, and the Andevo, or slaves. But actually there were no freemen but the Andriana. They had a custom called fanampoona which meant simply forced labor. The government would notify a man he was “honored” by being selected to work for it, and work he had to, without compensation.

“‘The natural result was the impoverishment of the people and the enrichment of the nobility. The French changed all this. They freed the slaves, forbade fanampoona, and made the nobles go to work. You can imagine how popular such a policy was with the ruling classes.

“‘La Peruse was one of the leaders in perfecting the new order of things, and he’s had more attempts made on his life than any man in the island, I suppose.

“‘A little conference with our historical experts and a talk with the French embassy revealed the existence of a well-developed, though unsuccessful, organization among descendants of Malagsy nobility to assassinate the directors of the colonial administration and restore the old regime.

✾

“NOW, when I talked with Professor Stockton yesterday he not only agreed La Peruse’s theory concerning the man-eating tree might be correct: but he told me something that furnished a definite working hypothesis for the cause of La Peruse’s illness. It seems there is a beautiful orchid of the epiphyte variety known as Angraecum, which grows on the west coast of Madagascar. But the natives whisper strange stories of a vampire plant, a sort of vegetable leech, which infests the interior. Stockton searched for the thing for months, but never found anything like it. Everywhere he heard of “the Kiss,” as they call it—a red, terrible plant that fastened on travelers as they slept and sucked their lives away, but no specimens could be found. He finally abandoned the hunt and decided the strange orchid was only a native myth. However, when he mentioned it, I saw where such a thing—provided it actually existed—could easily account for La Peruse’s strange sickness.

“‘The next question was: ‘Who is the logical suspect?’ The natives of Madagascar aren’t negroes in the generally accepted sense, though their skins are black when they happen to be pure-bloods, unmixed with Malay, Chinese or Hindu stock. These small, straight-haired regular featured black boys we captured tonight didn’t look like ordinary negroes, nor did they talk like them.

“‘The fact that you went to sleep after drinking his coffee was even a stronger clue, and the insolent manner in which he alibied himself only served to make my suspicions stronger.

“‘I took the precaution to search his room today, and got into every box he had, excepted on. That was iron and fastened with two Yale locks. If it hadn’t been for two things I’d have thought he had ordinary valuables in it; but I found a box of gold coin in his bureau drawer secured by an ordinary lock, and in another drawer I found a dagger about ten inches long with a waved, razor-edged blade—a Malay kris.

“‘NOW what would a servant have more valuable than a box of gold? If the man were an ordinary servant, as he assumed to be, there was no explanation for his possession of so much gold; but if he were the agent of a conspiracy, well supplied with ready cash from the conspiracy’s war chest, it was simply enough. Also, if he were a West Indian, as he claimed, why should he have a Malay kris concealed among his clothes?

“‘That’s the way I figured it, and I staged our little party last night on those assumptions. I knew he’d hardly try the drugged coffee again unless I gave him an opening, so I pretended to trust him, and everything worked out exactly as I’d figured. Pretending to drink his coffee was one of the hardest things. My shirt from is still sticky where I poured the villainous stuff down my collar.

“‘What are you going to do with “the Kiss”? I asked.

“‘Give it to Stockton,’ Sturdevant answered with a grin. ‘He spent six months looking for a specimen in its native habitat, and now I’ve got him one right here in Washington.'”

✾

LOOMIS drew a deep breath and stared hard at Bailey. “Now you see why I can’t abide the sight or thought of an orchid,” he explained. “Do you wonder I was horrified when you said you wanted to give your girl some of the awful things? Why, they’re all first cousins to ‘The Kiss of Madagascar.'”

“Gosh,” Bailey commented, “lend me ten dollars, will you? That’ll just pay for the violets.”

※

In 1874, journalist Edmund Spencer wrote an article about a man-eating tree in Madagascar, an idea that has inspired a number of pulp authors for decades thereafter; readers might compare the tree as described by Quinn and “The Plant-Thing” (1925) by R. G. Macready, or check out Plant Monsters in Weird Tales from Dark Corners Quarterly for more examples.

The mythology of “the Fragrant One,” however, was unique to Quinn, and something shared by both “The Kiss of Madagascar” and its weird counterpart, “The Black Orchid.”

“‘The revolt of Hova in 1898, which led ultimately to the exile of Queen Ranavalona, was not particularly anti-European. The Malagasy government had long employed English and French army officers and engineers, and found Europeans quite tolerable. But there is no question the Hova were violently opposed to Christianity. Travelers say the Hova had no definite religion of their own. That is not so. They worshiped a goddess known as “The Fragrant One,” whose manifestation was said to be a man-eating tree.’

[…]

“NOW, when I talked with Professor Stockton yesterday he not only agreed La Peruse’s theory concerning the man-eating tree might be correct: but he told me something that furnished a definite working hypothesis for the cause of La Peruse’s illness. It seems there is a beautiful orchid of the epiphyte variety known as Angraecum, which grows on the west coast of Madagascar. But the natives whisper strange stories of a vampire plant, a sort of vegetable leech, which infests the interior. Stockton searched for the thing for months, but never found anything like it. Everywhere he heard of “the Kiss,” as they call it—a red, terrible plant that fastened on travelers as they slept and sucked their lives away, but no specimens could be found. He finally abandoned the hunt and decided the strange orchid was only a native myth. However, when he mentioned it, I saw where such a thing—provided it actually existed—could easily account for La Peruse’s strange sickness.		“I was there with Gallieni in 1895, serving as sous-lieutenant of chasseurs, later as commandant of a detail of native guides. It was while serving with my detachment that I met Mamba. She was the daughter of an Andriana, or noble, family, distantly related to Ranavalona, the native queen just deposed by the French. Her skin was black as a minorca’s wing, with a blue, almost iridescent sheen; her features were small and delicate, her body as beautiful as anything ever chiseled out of marble in the Peridean age. She had tremendous influence not only with the Hova, or middle-class natives, but with the Andriana as well; for she was reputedly a witch and priestess of ‘the Fragrant One’, and a word from her would bring any native, noble or commoner, from miles around crawling on his belly to lick her tiny, coal-black feet, or send him charging down upon French infantry, though he knew sure death awaited from our chassepots and Gatling guns.

[…]

“You will recall Monsieur Sorensen referred to his native wife as Mamba, and called her a priestess of ‘the Fragrant One’? Very good. Mamba, my friends, is a native term for a terrible, strange black orchid said to infest the jungles of inland Madagascar. It is supposed to be a kind of vampire plant, or vegetable leech, and if it be placed upon an open wound it blossoms in the likeness of a human figure and nourishes itself upon the blood of its unfortunate host till he or she is dead. According to the stories I was told in Madagascar, the habitat of this strange plant is strictly guarded by the priesthood which serves ‘the Fragrant One,’ which is the native name for the more or less mythical man-eating tree of which such dreadful tales are told.
Real Detective Tales Dec 1924Weird Tales Aug 1935

“The Black Orchid,” though it shares much with “The Kiss of Madagascar”—including the essential plot, a colonialist-friendly approach to French colonial history, some racial stereotyping, and a grasp of the French language which which can charitably be described as workmanlike—is not simply a redressing of a Sturdevant story in de Grandin’s clothes. Quinn took the opportunity in revisiting this idea to expand on the mythology, and “The Fragrant One” stands out as one of those odd bits of fakelore that mark Quinn as a mythmaker, much as his peers H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith were, albeit in a much more limited fashion.

Muncie Evening Press, 7 Mar 1929 (12)

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Lost Tale: “Something from Beyond” (1941) by Paul Dennis LaVond

In 1941, Robert A. W. Lowndes became editor of a science-fiction pulp magazine titled Future, which had been merged with another magazine titled Science Fiction Quarterly, and over the next few years would go by such titles as Future Combined with Science Fiction, Future Fiction, Future Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Stories over the next few years. Future, under whatever title, contained a great deal of work by Lowndes and his friends, sometimes under their own names and sometimes under pseudonyms, often joint pseudonyms for collaborations. One such pseudonym was Paul Dennis LaVond.

Lowndes had been a minor correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft, and like several of HPL’s friends, had carved out his own corner of the Mythos, starting with “The Abyss” (Stirring Science Stories Feb 1941), which introduced a new eldritch tome: The Song of Yste. Lowndes would revisit and expand this personal Mythos in stories like “The Mantle of Graag” as by Paul Dennis LaVond (The Unique Magazine Oct 1941), “The Long Wall” as by Wilfred Owen Morley (Stirring Science Stories Mar 1942), “The Leapers” as by Carol Grey (Future Fantasy and Science Fiction Dec 1942), and the poem “Nyaghoggua” (Phantasmagoria 1939 / Famous Fantastic Mysteries Apr 1941). All of these stories were reprinted, sometimes in revised form and under slightly different titles, in later years…except one.

“Something from Beyond” (Future Dec 1941) by Paul Dennis LaVond is a story in the Song of Yste cycle that somehow fell through the cracks. Lowndes never republished or revised it; nor did Robert M. Price, who was studiously collecting early Mythos fiction in Crypt of Cthulhu and various anthologies like The Necronomicon: Selected Stories and Essays Concerning the Blasphemous Tome of the Mad Arab (1996, Chaosium) and Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos (1992, Fredogan & Bremer / 2002, Del Rey). Other authors associated with Paul Dennis LaVond include C. M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl, and Dirk Wylie; Mike Ashley in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines (1985) credits “Something from Beyond” to Lowndes, Pohl, and Wylie (279). Perhaps that was why Lowndes never reprinted it.

※

Something from Beyond

by Paul Dennis LaVond

Foreword

WALLACE GREY was born in 2009, some thirty years after Harley Graeme made his first moon flight, in Norwich, and was schooled in Laurie Hall nearby, later attending Norwich University.

Although not nationally known, Norwich University has a fine, solid reputation for turning out acute, liberally-minded men, men who are neither too idealistic to adjust themselves to the harsh practicalities, nor yet too cut and dried to see beyond their noses. There are compulsory courses in subjects the mere mention of which would bring ridicule in other schools; they teach the occult and delve into what is known as Black Magic. Yet never do they permit their students thus to lose their grip on a world which denies and derides these things. The purpose of these courses is to instil into the student a love of truth and the unknown; they seek to make them like those sturdy scholars of a distant past who were willing to search through innumerable haystacks of falsehood for the needle of truth therein. Norwich men have always been the last to snort and cry “impossible” when the unknown occurs.

Shortly after graduating, Grey turned to anthropology for his vocation, but found the recognized authorities in the field to be grey-headed dodderers with a distaste for unorthodox views. In a fit of despair, he joined the Space Patrol, then popularly thought to be a glorified suicide club, nothing more. After a few months, his state of mind improved; but instead of buying his way out, as easily he could have done, he set about forging ahead in the Patrol. He was the first commissioned officer to rise from the ranks and there is no doubt but that he would have gone far, made a name both for himself and for the Patrol had not his career abruptly been terminated.

Grey was found dead, along with two other members of the crew, in the Patrol ship he commanded. The circumstances of his death were unusual inasmuch as the bodies of the three men were frozen, although the ship was quite warm. These bodies could not be thawed, yet gained heat rapidly upon arrival at Earth until the temperature was almost that of living men. An investigation brought no light upon the incident; there remains only Wallace Grey’s journal, extracts from which we give below.

From the Journal of Wallace Grey

“WHATEVER our scientists may say about the lifelessness of space, I cannot help believing that the void is indeed a harbor of life, even though it may not resemble the life we know. Perhaps such life is so alien that the very word itself cannot be applied, so different that by no stretch could the most plastic imagination conceive it. Yet, we have this word, and it signifies anything which possesses consciousness of being; to that we add growth, power of ingestion, reproduction, motion, and thought. Perhaps there are vortices of pure thought here in space. . . . But there is something out here which we cannot see, hear, taste, touch or smell. Yet we do sense its presence; we know it is here.

“It…. I cannot call the thing by any term more definite than ‘it’…. is watching us, or, should I say, it is aware of us; it may not possess what we know as sight. It is aware of us and has been following us for the last few days…. perhaps longer: we cannot tell how long it may have been hovering over us before we became aware of it. Perhaps a considerable length of time in its presence is necessary before any suggestion of its being can permeate us; Awareness has come, but not through the customary channels of perception. I wonder, though: is it conscious of us?…. Are trees conscious of the birds and animals that nest therein, of the little boys that climb them, of the men who come at last to hew them down?…. No, trees are still strange to men, even though men have known and dealt with trees as far back as our racial memories go. Even yet we do not know whether or not the tree has a consciousness of being, an awareness of other life-forms about it…. Imagination, psychological delusion, wishes that father thought…. we cannot be certain about anything; our greatest positivism can only be relative. Yet, I say that I can feel that this is a living, malevolent entity; but how do I know it is not my own emotions telling me this, my emotions which color my every act no matter how diligently I try to whitewash? It is only natural that we distrust what we do not know: all that we know is full of danger, pain, disaster, and death for us. We cannot trust ourselves: how, then, can the unknown bring other than apprehension to us?….

“I think that I am aware of this…. phenomenon…. more than Orloff or Jac; yet Orloff has been acting queerly for a number of days. He always was more than a little absent-minded; now he seems completely dazed. Ever since he and Jac repaired the blast-tube, Orloff has been…. different. He speaks very little, and, when he does, it is almost with an effort, as if he did not know the language he was trying to use. His voice, too, seems to have changed and the inflection is weird. I can see that Jac is puzzled; he asked me a few hours ago whether I thought Orloff might be developing some form of space-dementia. That is possible. I have tried to speak to Orloff several times, to see if he is in pain or feeling sick; he evades me and does not seem to understand what I am saying. There is, however, no fault to be found with his work; he does, true, perform his duties a trifle more slowly than before, but his efficiency has increased noticeably. He was always somewhat timid at the controls, fearful lest he make a blunder which would be disastrous to us all; now he handles them with confidence, does so well that I need not oversee him. He spends nearly all of his spare time staring out the portholes into space, although he does not appear to be watching anything. His eyes, I have noticed, are somewhat glazed as he stands there and, after he has finally turned away, his movements, for a few seconds, are incongruously stiff and awkward. Can there be any relationship between Orloff’s eccentricity and it? I must look into the Song of Yste again…. How out of place that ancient book seems aboard this ship, on the dark side of Luna, some quarter-million miles from Earth. Did those olden probers into the unknown, I wonder, ever dream of the day when men would leave the Earth physically?…. Yet, there is a vast amount of truth in this volume! I am told, by friends, that it was once declared pernicious, blasphemous, accursed, and to be destroyed on sight. A few copies were handed secretly from generation to generation lest they be discovered and burnt. (I wonder sometimes just how grandfather obtained it. Did he find it in a tomb, as he claimed, or was it obtained by other methods?)”

Later:

“Something has happened to my copy of the Song of Yste. I am positive that it was packed among other, more orthodox, volumes when we left Earth; yet it is not there now. I am sure Jac would not be rummaging around my things; even if he were, what possible Interest could a book like that hold for him. And Orloff…. but how could the lock on my chest be tampered with without traces being left? Moreover, of what value could a copy of this book be to other than myself? It is in cipher, most ingenious cipher. It took grandfather ten years to work it out, and another five to prepare the volume I now possess. But the mere possession of the key would be of little value, for even then one uninitiate could not read it. Each page holds a different variation of the cipher, the clue to which lies in the little sketch heading the page. Grandfather told me before he died. I mention this to point out the difficulty of reading a volume like my special copy of the Song of Yste and to draw attention to the high improbability that two people on the same ship, two members of the Space Patrol, further, would have the required abilities. Yet, Orloff’s condition leaves him open to grave suspicion.”

Later:

“Orloff has taken a change for the worse. He is unconscious now: Jac found him lying on the floor when he went below to see why Orloff did not respond to his signals. For a moment, he appeared to revive; his eyes opened yet I would swear that it was not Orloff who looked at us. He is lying on the couch in the next room; Jac and I are sharing his duties. I took advantage of the emergency to search Orloff’s room. Of course, it is within my authority to demand search at any time but I had been reluctant to use my power in this case as I was not sure that perhaps the blame was not mine. But the search proved my initial suspicions to be correct; it was in his room, and he had been reading it. Found figures on a sheet of paper in his desk which prove conclusively that he knew the cipher, was computing the variations for specific pages. When I am free, I shall determine just what he was reading; perhaps it will shed some light upon this gruesome state of affairs.”

Later:

“We are functioning under automatic controls, such as they are…. I have been reading that portion of the Song of Yste which seemed to be of so much interest to Orloff; it is damnable. Now I know what it is which has come out of space to dog our heels; I know why we feel so cold and the reason for Orloff’s curious condition…. We are completely helpless…. If I seem a bit reluctant to state what I know, it is because of the stark, objective closeness of the thing which stuns me. It is one thing to delve into the unknown and learn of hideous and alien secrets with which the cosmos is filled. That is one thing, I say, and it is a thing more than many minds can endure. But to face the actuality of these things is another matter. To those not afraid of thought, the Song of Yste is not so utterly horrible…. bizarre, grotesque…. words, words, words, but what can they mean, what can they mean when the reader has nothing in his own experience to approximate them?…. Imagination always paints a fascinating picture, albeit how gruesome, attaching glamor to the unknown and alien…. but the reality… Ia, Nyagghogua! Shub-Niggurath! Nyarlathotep! Nyartathotep!…. Nyagghogua, dissolver of space…. K’halkru!….

“Orloff’s condition is unchanged. He is still in a coma, apparently. But there are no wounds, no concussion, fractures or symptoms of shock. Jac does not suspect his true condition… but I know…. I know!”

“This is my last entry. It has come out of space…. for us. A short time ago I heard the call…. within. Weird piping sound ending in a piercing shriek. We…. felt it rather than heard it. Jac did not know what it was…. I tried to explain something natural….

“Orloff has arisen…. at the call. He stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at us, and, in his eyes a blackness, a vast shape of inconceivable power, malevolent power, that glared out at us. We are rooted to our seats…. though I cannot see what manner of resistance we could make were we free. I suppose it prefers us alive…. though could I reach the wall, none of us would go to it alive.

“We both feel very cold, although the instruments show that the temperature has not dropped a single degree. The cold comes from…. within. Orloff is moving slowly toward the space-lock; I sit here frozen to my seat, writing furiously…. Must try to put down what I read in that accursed book last night….

“‘Let not the hearts of men dwell too pleasantly upon escape from this earth to worlds of strangeness and glamor beyond the veil of night for without lies horror and madness and that which no human tongue or pen can describe. Vaster by far than the might and malevolence of those demons that plague and befoul the earth is that which comes out of space to feast upon the souls of men; yet, indeed, it is but a lesser manifestation of the evil which dwells beyond the stars. This out of space may be known by the coldness it brings, a coldness which no fire can abate, and by its unholy piping by which it summons its victims to sacrifice. For of old is it known to send itself into the living bodies of certain creatures so that they appear bewitched and know not themselves, shunning the day and the radiance of the sun which is hateful to it. Many and multiform are the prodigies it performs, for it may enter a city and blast all within into frozen corpses, yet, when these are discovered, there will have been no sign either of cold or of its point of entrance. Many and multiform are the prodigies it performs for its own amusement and contempt for men. And the crowning foulness of all….’

“I may write no more. The space lock is opening…. Orloff…”

“ENTRY in the log of the Space- Liner Majestic, Earth-Mars voyage EM 206: (From File .0078, Derelicts, Report of, for the year 2027, Record Rooms, Interplanetary Transit Building, N’York, Terra.)

“December 9, 2027. Discovered derelict space-patrol cruiser. #SP-070 R3, reported missing August 24, 2027, drifting in and parallel to Band 5. Found bodies of three men in cabin. Two in their official places; a third lying on the floor in such a position as to assume he had been placed there after death. Although ship was entirely warm and instruments showed no variation in room temperature, the corpses were frozen. Ship’s log, found in cabin, was dated August 5, 2027, no entries after that date being found. Journal of Commanding Officer, Wallace Grey, Lieutenant, Space-Patrol, hereby forwarded without comment. Lt. Grey was found, pen in hand, in the act of making entries in aforementioned journal.’’

The End

※

“Something from Beyond” is pure Lovecraftian pastiche, albeit in an uncommon space opera setting, which gives it the feel of a very stripped-down prototype of Event Horizon. Aside from the direct mentions to Lovecraft’s Mythos, the mention of Khalk’ru is a nod toward A. Merritt’s Dwellers in the Mirage (1932), where Khalk’ru is an extradimensional kraken worshipped by a cult in Alaska—sometimes seen as Merritt’s nod toward Lovecraft. Whether Lowndes intended any connection between Wallace Grey and Carol Grey (or simply liked the name) is unknown.

The original publication of “Something from Beyond” can be read on the Internet Archive.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Deeper Cut: Who is Clara in Lovecraft’s Letters?

In the letters of H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow compiled by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz in O Fortunate Floridian! an individual named “Clara” is mentioned five times:

I see by the paper that your friend Clara has just lost a brother—not the one in Providence, but another dwelling in Mass.
—H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 26 September 1935, OFF 296

My aunt vows she is going to shew Clara your binding of the “Shunned House” . . . . . Which reminds me that both Loveman & Brobst have seen this job & praised it to the skies.
—H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 21 October 1935, OFF 299

My aunt ran into your friend Clara the other day, & they talked considerably about you. Clara is very anxious to see your job on The Shunned House, & I think my aunt will show her the book very shortly.
—H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 25 October 1935, OFF 303

Meanwhile my aunt & Clara Buffner send you their best regards—the former having an intention of writing you ere long.
—H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 30 November 1936, OFF 377-378

Here’s something about Aunt Clara (who always enquires admiringly about you) which you can keep for Yoh-Vombis.
—H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, 27 January 1937, OFF 397

Taken together, the overall impression is that Clara is a friend or associate of Lovecraft’s surviving aunt Annie E. P. Gamwell, that she was a resident of Providence c.1935 with a brother in the city, and that she had some interest in Barlow’s job of binding a set of sheets for Lovecraft’s The Shunned House. This book had been printed by W. Paul Cook in 1928, but never bound or widely distributed during Lovecraft’s lifetime. Barlow and Lovecraft prevailed on Cook to send the sheets to Barlow in De Land, Florida, which eventually happened. While in Washington, D.C. in early 1935, Barlow had bound the sheets in full leather, hand-tooled with raised bands, which was presented to his friend when Lovecraft had visited De Land in June (Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 618; Lovecraft’s Library 106).

The only difficulty with these letters is the identity of Clara Buffner, who does not appear in any census or city directory for Providence in the 1930s. However, a close reading of a scan of the original letter shows that Clara’s last name is not Buffner but Buffum—an easy misreading, given Lovecraft’s sometimes cramped handwriting—and this makes a great deal more sense.

MSS John Hay Library

Clara Buffum was born 24 January 1873 to Joshua and Clara Maria Southwick Buffum in New York City. Census data and gravestones sketch a life: In the 1900 census she is listed as a secretary in the household of John C. Brown in Manhattan, which included nine servants. Joshua Buffum died in Providence on 10 July 1906. By the time of the 1910 census, Clara was living with her mother, aunt (Annie K. Southwick), and brothers Harrison (b. 7 March 1866) and Frederick (b. 20 July 1871) in Providence, Rhode Island and working as an artist at “book building.” Around 1915, brother Harrison (“Buff”) became a parole patient at Brattleboro Retreat in Vermont; his death certificate says he suffered from dementia praecox. Clara M. Buffum died on 3 January 1921. Another brother, Albert (b. 17 Sep 1870), was in business in Blackinton, Massachusetts, where he died on 4 August 1935—this would be the brother in Massachusetts Lovecraft mentioned in his first letter (OFF 296), with the other brother being Frederick. Harrison would die in Vermont on 13 September 1935. Clara Buffum passed away on 6 July 1938, and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, where she had lived most of her life.

Photo copyright 2026 Donovan Loucks

What the raw data doesn’t mention is that Clara Buffum was a skilled bookbinder that traveled to the United Kingdom to expand her skills, operated her own private business in a studio in Providence, consulted with universities, lectured, exhibited her work at the Rhode Island School of Design, and in 1935 published a book: Hand-Bound Books: A Guide for Amateur Bookbinders, in a limited edition of 500 copies. Her preface to that work declares:

It was my good fortune to learn the arts of book-binding and gilding from two men who belonged to the old type of craftsman. They were thorough, conscientious, and skilful [sic] workmen who never lowered their standards. My first teacher was Mr. F. P. Hathaway, for twenty years binder at the Boston Athenaeum, and later in charge of the bindery at the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, R. I. The teacher who instructed me in the art of decorative tooling and lettering with gold leaf was Mr. Charles McLeish of London, who was at one time connected with the famous Doves Bindery of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson at Hammersmith. It seems advisable to record the knowledge gained from them, to which has been added over twenty years’ experience in my own bindery in Providence.

Clara Buffum’s obituary expanded on this a little more:

Miss Buffum, who made a wide circle of friends during her residence here, was long recognied as one of the leading master craftsmen in the art of fine bookbinding in the East. She maintianed for many years a studio in Providence, where she bound many famous and valuable books, including a first edition fo Chaucer and the original Bible of John Bunyon, author of Pilgrim’s Progress. […] Miss Buffum studied under the leading masters of her craft in this country and in London. Every year for a long period, she exhibited with the Guild of Bookworkers of New York and also held occasional exhibitions at the Rhode Island School of Design where she taught bookbinding.

Other articles in newspapers and journals give evidence of Buffum’s lectures to various groups in Providence, including the New England Historic Genealogical Society (“Miss Buffum Talks Here of Bookbinding”). Given how active Annie Gamwell was in Providence society, including the Providence Art Club and attending public lectures and art exhibitions, it seems likely that was how Annie and Clara met—and probably continued to meet periodically, hence the latter occasional references in Lovecraft’s letters of 1936 and 1937. The article that Lovecraft mentions to Barlow in the 27 Jan 1937 letter is probably this article that ran in the Providence Sunday Journal 10 Jan 1937 (46):

It would be speculation at this point to try to sketch out any more of the relationships Clara had with Annie Gamwell, H. P. Lovecraft, and R. H. Barlow, but the confirmation of the few facts of her identity with the specific points in Lovecraft’s letters connects several dots. Barlow and Buffum’s shared interest in bookbinding, and the shared connection of Annie and Clara through Providence’s social circles, forged the brief connection accounted for in Lovecraft’s letters to Barlow.

Additional Reading

“Albert J. Buffum Succumbs To Sudden Heart Weakness” (5 August 1935). North Adams Transcript. Page 3. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-north-adams-transcript-albert-j-buf/128473557/

“Funeral Services for Miss Buffum” (11 July 1938). North Adams Transcript. Page 3. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-north-adams-transcript-clara-buffum/129506445/

“Harrison Buffum” (14 September 1935). The Burlington Free Press. Page 2. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-burlington-free-press-obituary-for-h/129511598/

“Miss Buffum Talks Here of Bookbinding” (13 November 1930). The Boston Globe. Page 25. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-miss-buffum-talks-here/128476580/

Dave Goudsward has also written about Clara Buffum, H. P. Lovecraft, and R. H. Barlow in Adventurous Liberation: H. P. Lovecraft in Florida.

Thanks and appreciation to Donovan Loucks for his help.

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Hormone Therapy & Sexism: H. O. Dickinson’s “The Sex Serum” (1935) by Lor Gislason

When I read older stories, I try to have a bit of leeway for the general attitudes and goings-on of the times. What my grandfather felt and thought about is completely different from what I do in 2026. 

I’d like to think we’ve grown a bit since “The Sex Serum” was published in 1935—it’s almost cartoonish in its gender stereotypes. The concept is something I think many queer people would agree is pretty sick, and I would like that to exist right now, thank you. 

The story begins with a note that “It is the first time that this subject has been used in science fiction.” I find this hard to believe; more likely, it was the first time American fans of the genre had seen it. 

Our narrator explains they have knowledge of a crime involving the disappearance of a professor and his daughter, with the fiancé, a man named Gilmour, the only witness. The corpse of an older woman and a young wounded man were at the scene. It’s baffled police and investigators for ages!

Gilmour goes to visit Jeanette, who he loves deeply but has a great distaste for her father, Professor Neville. He describes him as “stone-mad” and possessive of his daughter, but at the same time laments how awful it is that she was born a girl. His plan is to badger the man once again for Jeanette’s hand in marriage, using his poverty as a woe-is-me. I already hate him.

When he arrives, the professor says alright, I’ll hear you out. But first… “I must give you a brief idea of the workings of the sex machine.” Incredible opener. He goes into great detail about how embryos develop sexual characteristics and has discovered the secret “switch”, isolating it into a so-called Seventh Serum. After injection, and a few days time, you’re magically Trans-formed (my own pun, sorry) into the opposite sex. Don’t think about the mechanics too hard because we won’t be seeing any cool body horror. He does mention it happens “without pain or consciousness,” so that’s nice, I suppose.

You can probably guess who Neville has tested this Serum on—Jeanette. 

Gilmour deals with this as well as one would expect. His emotional outburst is described as “sobbing like a child,” and he collapses on the floor, among other things. It’s interesting that when Jean—who is all regards, still the same person—caresses Gilmour’s face, it’s disgusting. How can a man show such tenderness to another of the same sex? When I was in high school, the trend was to follow a vulnerable moment with “no homo,” so everyone knew, “Well, I can do this, but don’t ever mistake that for being gay.” 

The idea of being with another man is treated as an impossibility. Of course, to Gilmour, this is just something that would never work. As a man, Jean is not the person he loved anymore. He says that she’s dead, that “She had been swallowed in frightful inaccessible nothingness!” It’s no different from parents who describe their children as deceased when they’ve just…come out as trans. It feels selfish; to only understand the issue with how it affects yourself and not the person going through it.

Jean, for his part, seems pretty chill about the whole ordeal. He’s “enraptured with the novelty and the possibilities of his new life”. Masculinity has awoken an interest in science, in following his father’s work and exploring the world. It’s so close to having a nice message about coming out being a freeing experience—only to be ruined when the story describes what would happen in the other direction.

Gilmour flipflops from rage to sorrow and decides to give Professor Neville a taste of his own serum, locking him in a room during the process. I really wish we got any suggestion of what’s happening, even if it’s only in Gilmour’s imagination. He just stomps around the house for a few days until the transformation is complete. How boring!

This is where my biggest issues lie: While masculinity is applauded, with how charming and bright-eyed and wonderful it can be, there are no positive words used for femininity at all. Neville’s a “mannish old woman”, she spits and wails like a cat and has zero interest in science anymore. She whines about wanting to go out and look at roses instead. It’s a double whammy of the “man in a dress” trope and “old women are disgusting” rolled into one.

Realizing there’s no saving his lover, Gilmour beats Neville to death and throws a microscope at Jean before fleeing. A final note reveals Jean as the one recounting this tale, and that he is happily married with two children. So there’s that at least? 

Admittedly, I found the story less interesting than an article inserted halfway through: “Manhood for Girl Dwarf Sought in Surgical Test.” The extremely dehumanising language—she’s a creature, not a girl that they hope can be turned into a normal being. Intersex individuals have been treated horribly throughout history, and here is a perfect example.

I wanted to know more about Clara. Who was she? Were there any records of her besides this?

After searching her name and some keywords, it turns out that not two months ago, a forum user had the same thought. “I really want to believe this person found some peace and contentment in their life,” they wrote. There are few records about her besides another article reflecting on the surgery. I have no doubts that her life was difficult, and I’m sickened by the way Clara was treated like an experiment and would have been better off dead. People are not projects to be tinkered with. 

We have no way of knowing how she really felt. But there’s a bit of solace. A potential obituary reads “Clara W. Schreckengost died at age 69 in 1985 in Niagara Falls, unmarried, survived by several of her siblings.” I hope she was surrounded by love. I hope there was joy in her life, that she found happiness. We all deserve that.

The Patriot Ledge 28 Aug 1934 (2)
Daily American Republic, 11 Sep 1934 (10)
Brookville American 23 Aug 1934 (1)

“The Sex Serum” by H. O. Dickinson can be read for free at the Internet Archive.

Lor Gislason (they/he) is a sentient pile of worms from Vancouver Island, Canada, known for their goopy gross body horror. Find them at lormaggot.ca

Copyright 2026 Lor Gislason.

Ultimately and Irrevocably Tragic: Robert Aickman’s “Choice of Weapons” (1964) by Stina Patton

“I was wondering about my eyes; one of my eyes—the left—saw everything golden and yellow and orange, and the other eye saw shades of blue and grey and green; perhaps one eye was for daylight and the other was for night. If everyone in the world saw different colors from different eyes there might be a great many new colors still to be invented.
—Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

The power of Aickman’s stories, to me, lies in their VIBE: how does one analyze that? I can relay the known facts, characters, plot points (and assume that these facts, as relayed, are reliable)—this does little to explain the atmosphere you find yourself in, upon reading this story. Without reading his specific words, phrasing, etc—without ingesting how the words are arranged—it’s a bit akin to me explaining a particularly disturbing dream I had: I can relay the pertinent details, but the mood and feel are impossible to convey.

It is the accumulation of myriad things and personal symbols, arranged just so, that provides the unique distress of our dreams, and they seem rather nonsensical as a whole, or incredibly banal when relayed. This is what I am reminded of when I delve into this story. I can read you the lyrics of a song- without the music, it is an incomplete encapsulation. To try to fully analyze or interpret Aickman does his Art and Words a tremendous disservice because it is fundamentally the MYSTERY that contains the magic of his storytelling.

Many readers may be frustrated by the ambiguity inherent in his stories, or baffled by their cryptic nature; others may find them to contain exactly what they were looking for, scratching an itch that they hadn’t even known they had.

As a queer woman, I am instinctively drawn to such ambiguity. Unless we are lucky enough to be surrounded by other queer people, we usually live our lives in—and surrounded by—a constant, perpetual state of ambiguity. We still exist on the outskirts and fringes of society, and whether we’re trying to interpret another’s romantic affections (or interest), their intentions, our human rights, or whether our queerness is embraced or even acknowledged, we are usually unable to take anything for granted or as a given.

My perspective has a queer lens, but this also applies universally. Aickman’s stories reflect the ambiguity, uncertainty, and peculiarity of Life in all its glory. They take the utter weirdness of Reality and skew it just enough to say something profound about what we can interpret from “the left unspoken,” the truly unknowable; the cracks in the spaces of things.

Most horror, especially cosmic horror, relies on its implications; I feel that Aickman’s horror is very much of a cosmic nature, but deviates from the definition as we ascribe it traditionally. Aickman, according to Ramsey Campbell, was not a fan of Lovecraft OR horror. He preferred the term “strange stories.” They certainly are strange, but many are also definitely horror. (They are also simultaneously comforting to me in a way, because of this peculiar ambiguity, but that’s another essay.)

The horror of an Aickman story does not lie in the implications because by definition, implications are implied by undisputed facts, concrete knowledge we assume within the confined reality of a story. Yet in the nightmare logic of an Aickman story, everything is called into question because much of what comes across as “peculiar” are typically things and situations we would think of as mundane, benign, ordinary, on their own—it is how and where these things are placed within the confines of his stories, and their accumulation, that allows the uncanny feel to increase. The true “why” remains undetermined. The abject horror I feel inherent in most of Aickman’s stories is in the immense possibilities and implications of the implications themselves: ALL bets are off. If most horror shows us pieces of the shadowy Things hiding in the shadows, Aickman’s shows us that those shadows have cracks of their own where other Things hide.

Coming to the end of an Aickman story is to amass a giant jigsaw puzzle, realizing as you snap the last piece into place that there are actually still several fundamental pieces missing, and that it is only with the addition of these pieces that it is possible to comprehend exactly what it is that the puzzle is of. Aickman may have had the pieces, but he’s not sharing.

I feel a summary of the story is helpful:

In “Choice of Weapons” the prickly, stuffy, dissatisfied, somewhat unsympathetic Malcolm is dining with his hapless fiancée Ann when he becomes suddenly, intensely enamored with a woman sitting by herself. He flees his date, follows the woman, and sees a man in fancy dress leaving a house he thinks may be hers. A concerned doctor, Dr. Bermuda, hypnotizes him to determine the address (telling him “the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it”) and also provides her name.

He visits her and discovers Dorabelle is a peculiar woman with peculiar thoughts living in a peculiar house. She is quite possibly unbalanced, erratic, and may be having hallucinations. It also appears, although she claims she is poor and the house is in a state of disrepair, that the house is stuffed with money—until her butler makes off with it and never returns. 

After several visits, Dorabelle tells him she is in love with another man—the fancy-dressed man he saw previously. She confides that this man appeared to her one day in her mirror after her reflection disappeared; they will be married. After a disastrous encounter where Malcolm attempts to kiss her and she responds with fury, he is surprised when Dr. Bermuda arrives at the house with his son and takes him home. There, he is informed that after being “prescribed” to by the sympathetic Dr. Bermuda, Ann has overdosed on pills.

Malcolm goes to sleep, dreams of Dorabelle, then awakens to discover a note that reads, ‘I want you’ with no signature. He assumes it’s from her and races to her house, where he is accosted by the man in fancy dress who accuses him of stealing Dorabelle’s money and challenges him to a duel: “There are rapiers behind the clock. Or pistols in my bedroom.” Malcolm chooses the swords—they duel. He throws a candlestick in the man’s face while piercing him with his weapon, then falls unconscious. When he awakes, Dr. Bermuda is there and leads him to Dorabelle, who is gravely wounded; he realizes that Dorabelle was the fancy-dressed man. She proclaims her love, they kiss, and she dies. The police arrive; Dr. Bermuda is again sympathetic, telling Malcolm that although modern science has failed to cure him, he will not leave him to suffer consequences from the law. He instructs his son to look behind the mirror in the bedroom and bring them what he finds, at which point the story ends.

I share this summary to relay the salient points of this story for anyone unfamiliar, but it does not begin to convey the myriad ways in which this story meanders and weaves in and out of itself and defies an easy explanation. Almost everything of import that happens can be read in different ways, and even insignificant details are odd. The things Aickman does not explain feel as important as what he does. The entire thing is an enigma wrapped inside a riddle of near inscrutability. Going for a logical explanation of the whole sends you into unfathomable possibilities and interpretations. No one is a reliable narrator, including the Reality of the story.

Ultimately, the doctor can be seen as being a benevolent helper or a malevolent manipulator. His hypnosis and specific advice help fuel Malcolm’s trajectory when his obsession would have likely petered out on its own. He may have innocently prescribed the fiancée sleeping pills; he may have hypnotized and/or manipulated her; he may have murdered her due to an unknown motivation, then used his medical credentials to cover it up. It also appears that he may have been the one responsible for writing the anonymous note that Malcolm finds by his bedside. Is he orchestrating all these deaths for his own selfish reasons? What is the something that the doctor asks his son to fetch from behind the mirror—the pistols? Is he going to kill Mlacolm or convince him to kill himself? Was it all an elaborate plan to steal Dorabelle’s money—the money the butler already made off with?

The meaning of the title “Choice of Weapons” literally refers to the rapiers and pistols, and the story implies that no matter which Malcolm chose, one of these weapons would be responsible for his undoing, even upon winning the duel. Yet another interpretation is: will science or emotion win out? Will rationality, or delusions? These choices also determine his and Dorabelle’s outcome.

What was Dorabelle’s motivation for dressing up as a man? To make Malcolm jealous? Did she even impersonate a man? For there is a supernatural interpretation one can make: that in this world, there really IS a man living inside her mirror, either existing already or conjured up by Dorabelle’s desire/longing, and that he took possession of her body during the duel, only to be banished back to his realm once he is grievously injured.

The only things I can say with certainty about “Choice of Weapons” are that in this story, unrequited or unproclaimed love ultimately brings ruin to the two main characters, with one of them causing the death of the other and also having a hand in the death of his fiancée. Even if Malcolm was manipulated, it’s of note how easily he was influenced when in a vulnerable state, and it illustrates how subjective our reality is when perception and perspective are colored by our own desires. The other lesson it proffers is that it is not wise to put all of your faith in a doctor (or anyone in authority) and assume that they’re working in your best interests.

It’s interesting to note that in most of the accounts I’ve read about him, Aickman himself could be described similarly to Malcolm: prickly, stuffy, discontented. This story ultimately speaks to the dangers of obsession and jealousy, which may have been his ultimate intention; Aickman may have been purging personal demons. It may or may not be relevant that he knew firsthand of being madly in love and then rejected: he was deeply wounded/offended when his affair with the writer Elizabeth Jane Howard ended and she chose instead to marry another. It’s a theme that comes up in more than one of his stories.

A strong sense of alienation frequently infuses his work, and his characters are often outsiders. Even when not sympathetic, they retain an inherent sadness and dissatisfaction within the reality of the worlds they inhabit, and this is something that resonates deeply with me, particularly in this story. I often feel a bit sad about, or pity, his characters and the frustrations they must feel navigating a world that often seems unfamiliar or unwelcoming to them. It may be my queerness or my neuro-divergence but I feel a kinship with and empathy for these two main characters who find themselves adrift, lost, as they make their way through their lives. Both the man and Dorabelle are each looking for someone who accepts and loves them—each of them thinks they find it—but neither is ready to accept the reality of their surroundings and situations, and the results for both are ultimately and irrevocably tragic.

This story provides ample puzzling material for analysis and attempting to determine meaning. I don’t presume to have any “right” answers- I don’t think there ARE any. That’s the joy for me of an Aickman story, and each time I read this, or any of his stories, I have new and different thoughts and opinions about what they may mean. He remains a unique, memorable storyteller of a very particular type of magic: one that sometimes leads me to believe that he may have been seeing the REAL world all around us, but that WE only have the right kind of eyes some of the time.

Stina Patton is an artist, writer, reviewer, and lover of the strange, surreal, and unsettling. She currently resides in Hell where she is kept sane by her many, many books and not as many cats. Find her creepy (and not-so-creepy) Art at stinasdemons.bigcartel.com/ and see her thoughts on life and Horror on Bluesky @stinasdemons.com

Copyright 2026 Stina Patton.

“Roberta” (1962) by Margaret St. Clair: Transition and the Weird by Catherine Lundoff

Writer Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995) was often described as a writer ahead of her time, as well as one whose work was, in Ramsey Campbell’s words “startlingly original.” Her work is often characterized as ‘weird fiction,’ as that term has evolved, with her characters finding the weird and disturbing in the relatively ordinary. During the course of her career,  she authored eight published novels and over one hundred published short stories, several of which were adapted for television.

Of that body of work, “Roberta” (Galaxy, October 1962) was the last of her published short stories. After this, she turned her full attention to writing novels. This story is not included in any of the collections of her work and can only be read in copies of the original magazine. “Roberta” is a science fiction story set in a future where interstellar travel exists via starliner (details unspecified). There is a man from another planet, seemingly humanoid, as well as two other male human characters in a setting that suggests Earth in the late 1950s. Gender reassignment/alignment surgery for transsexual people is possible and effective, but illegal, for reasons that are also not explained within the scope of this tale. 

The titular Roberta is a trans woman who has had this illegal operation in order to transition. My research suggests that this story is one of the earliest depictions of male-to-female medical transition in science fiction, possibly the earliest. Ursula Le Guin’s ground-breaking Left Hand of Darkness (1969), which includes a main character who transitions from male characteristics to female ones as part of an alien reproductive cycle, is still seven years away.

For historical context, Christine Jorgensen, probably the best known trans woman of her time in the U.S., returned from Europe after gender reassignment surgery in Denmark and was front page news in December of 1952, a decade before “Roberta” appeared in Galaxy and seventeen years before the Stonewall Riots. Trans people had no legal standing or protections in the United States or elsewhere, and gender reassignment/reaffirming surgery was rare and hard to access, perforce limiting it to a tiny minority. But enough of that minority, like Jorgensen in the U.S., would have been visible to St. Clair so that she would, based on this story, have been aware that medical transition was possible and to have read something of the mechanics involved.

As I read “Roberta,” it’s not entirely clear to me how St. Clair wanted her readers to interpret it. Roberta has a very fraught relationship with Robert, her pre-transition self, coming to view him as her nemesis over the course of the story. But he also refers to them as “married” at one point and sometimes behaves more as a confidant than a foe. The story’s conflicts, however, hinge on her efforts to get rid of him, thus fulfilling her dream of being “Roberta,” free of a judgmental and undermining male alter ego.

The scene is set entirely in an apartment that Roberta thinks of as hers; she claims to have no memory of her life before the operation, though she thinks she “used to be happier.” There are two other characters that we get to meet (the receptionist/door person appears only on screen). Rodvorello Diag is the Vegan who financed Roberta’s operation, and Clement Thomas is the human who performed the operation. Diag visits Roberta’s apartment first and gives her a starliner ticket for a (nonoptional) trip to the Vegan homeworld. He announces that he has come to add her to his collection of “imitation things,” that being the deal that Robert reached with him in order to get his financial assistance.

Roberta murders Diag with a sliver gun and stuffs his body in a trunk in her room. She then treats her right hand (the one firing the gun) as if it is separate from the rest of her and can be punished by slapping it. Clement Thomas arrives during this scene and attempts to blackmail her about her operation. Roberta shoots him as well and adds him to the trunk. Robert then appears in the cloud, as she pictures him, near the ceiling, to admonish her.

Since Roberta has no memory of anything before the operation, she doesn’t recognize Diag or Thomas. Instead, she conflates them into aspects of Robert, while recognizing that it is Robert who she really wants to destroy. By the end of the story, she has committed two murders, attempted suicide, and is well on her way to planning more murders because each death makes Robert “go away” for a time. She displays a childlike understanding of the potential consequences for these actions, ignoring Robert’s dire warnings about needing to flee from the apartment and the two bodies in the trunk. It’s also not completely clear that Robert didn’t anticipate something like this happening—he puts an illegal sliver gun in her bag for her to find. Is it intended for self-defense? To prevent herself from being whisked off to Vega? Either or both seem possible.

How is the reader meant to feel about Roberta as a character after all this? It’s hard to say. On the one hand, Diag and Thomas are insulting, hurtful, and aggressive toward her, calling into question whether or not she can ever be a “real” woman from their perspective. Robert is more subtle about it, but he leans down from his perch in the clouds to remind her that her voice and movements are “too aggressive” and that it “spoils the illusion.” He also makes the comment that her hormone injection helps her to be “what she is trying to be,” along with similar comments that undermine her self-confidence. 

So this could be read as justification for Roberta’s actions if you are inclined to read the story that way. Roberta accepts Diag and Thomas as guests in her apartment, where she wants to remain, untroubled and dancing around in her pretty pink dress. And both he and Thomas betray that hospitality. Robert can certainly be seen as betraying her as well, in everything from not warning her about what to expect after the operation to undermining her afterwards. That is, if you accept Roberta’s belief that Robert is an entity separate from her.

One thing that stood out sharply to me, reading this as an out queer cis (not trans) woman in 2026, is Roberta’s total and complete isolation. She does not seem to have a family or a job or friends of any kind, just the receptionist on the intercom when visitors arrive and three male characters who do not have her best interests at heart. The illegality of her status only adds to that profound loneliness: she cannot trust the men who helped her to become herself, nor can she trust her own perceptions of the small world that she inhabits.

But she is still willing to kill to protect herself because she perceives the threats against her as leading to her erasure, in one form or the other. There is no sense of how Robert thought life would go for Roberta after transitioning. Perhaps, living in a “collection” on Vega seemed like a reasonable alternative to living on an Earth where Roberta would be treated like a freak and under constant threat of imprisonment in the bargain.

It’s tempting to project contemporary attitudes back in time and assume that St. Clair, a cis woman who was presumably heterosexual based on her biography, had negative attitudes toward trans women. Her biographical details include a marriage to writer Eric St. Clair that was deliberately childless (not an easy thing to achieve given both the mores of the time and the absence of reliable birth control), embracing Wicca and, occasionally, nudism, as well as a number of unusual jobs. It is safe to say that she was unconventional and might have sympathized with Roberta to some degree as another unconventional woman under threat from forces that want her to be something else.

And yet, there is a comment about Roberta’s Adam’s apple displaying when she looks up, as well as the last line of this  story: ‘“I’ll kill you yet,” Roberta said, between his teeth.’ Up to this point, St. Clair always uses “she” to refer to Roberta so why change here? In fact, Roberta gets no positive reinforcement for her transition throughout this story, relying on her own belief that she is now as she wants herself to be. But Roberta is also clearly unstable and an unreliable narrator. 

My takeaway from all of this is that St. Clair most likely thought that a trans woman could never be a “real” woman, a regrettably common opinion. “Roberta” reads as a story about a mind at war with itself, in which Roberta is unstable and dangerous because she has convinced herself to act as if she has achieved something that is impossible. The weird elements are entirely in Roberta’s head, shaped by her derangement rather than by external or supernatural forces.

That said, “Roberta” is a fascinating historical artifact: a first in a genre with many firsts. I am somewhat surprised to have not seen it cited in sources on the history of queer sf and f, such as Garber and Paleo’s Uranian Worlds. I suspect that is due to the story not being included in the various collections of St. Clair work and consequently not as visible. I think it is certainly worth including going forward as a heretofore unrecognized first in the field.

“Roberta” by Margaret St. Clair may be read for free at the Internet Archive.

Catherine started writing professionally in 1996 while in law school. She sold the first story she ever wrote and quit law school a week later; she has not looked back since. In addition to writing and editing, Catherine is also the publisher at Queen of Swords Press. Most recently, she is the winner of a 2025 Alice B. Award and a finalist for the 2024 Innovative Voices Award from the Independent Book Publisher’s Association. To find out more about Catherine, please visit her blog, like her Facebook Author Page or follow her on Mastodon.

Copyright 2026 Catherine Lundoff.