August 7 - 58
Dear Prof G. Savage,
PLEASE READ THIS LETTER FIRST!
I apologise for the lack of prior notice in regards to this communication, although the entire course of events may be entirely encompassed by the following points: The small chest to which this correspondence is attached is locked; I possess the key and it shall follow me to the highlands the moment this letter is concluded; I shall thence undertake a fortnight leave for the well-being of myself, the staff and any unfortunate soul who happens to come into contact with that cursed box; Nobody is to attempt to open it in my absence and it is my forthright recommendation that the box be either destroyed or made inaccessible to human curiosity immediately. I shall cede the key only upon your assurance that you comprehend the situation in absolute.
Perhaps you suspect this opine above my responsibilities, however I assure you that the circumstances call for it. You, perhaps more than most, know my disposition is not comfortable with issuing such demands of my superiors, alongside granting myself leave. I trust this is conviction enough that this issue is not to be taken in any lightness, and the following details of the last two hideous days' events should serve only to heighten this. Hence I present to you the sorry case of the letter of 'I'.
A Return to Marsham
You recall the misfortune in Marsham which led to the discovery of the Shadow of Thorns, and a dent in the pride of Constable Ernest Rutherman, a friend of my family. It seems fortune wishes nought but misery upon the populous of this modest industrial town, as not a month had passed since my visit before Ernest's pleads were reiterated. Yesterday morning, in receipt of brief correspondence scribed by anxious hand, merely reading `Come at once', I upped from my investigation of The Never-Where and hastened to police-station in Marsham. The journey by cab was gilded with rains of the loudest and densest form, as if the sky were weeping at the events to which I were to be subject. Upon my arrival I met with the pale face of Ernest and in quivered tones he spoke of a singular psychological epidemic the town had endured.
It began three days prior when Mr. Pendleton, the post-master of the town's post office, was found by his betrothed suspended from the beams of the office entrance by a make-shift hangman's knot crudely fashioned from the cords in the post-bags. All associates to Pendleton recount his attitude as pleasant in the approaching days, hardly a jovial soul yet to no stretch masochistic. This of itself is morbidly queer, and yet is only amplified by the later discovery of his wife, drowned in the river Kene not a hundred yards from the office. If one had learned nought from our previous endeavours this could, perhaps, be explained away as distress incurred by the discovery of her husband's passing, but such optimism is swept away by the following depressing list of names and ends:
- Brian S. Graham (Police-man), discovered with a cut throat in the entrance to his home,
- Anna Graham (wife of B. Graham), found in a similar state to her spouse, with blade in clenched hand,
- Jonathan W. M. Spratt (Land Owner), leapt from a third-floor window upon concrete pavement,
- Rowena D. Kintobor (Flower-seller), found on the banks of the river Kene, drowned,
- Aaron S. Wilbur-Mendelssohn (Barge-boy), found with multiple self-inflicted knife wounds, predominantly in the chest,
- Daniel G. G. T. Glasscock (Pharmacist), found having ingested a large quantity of indeterminate pharmaceuticals.
These were all presumed suicides, enacted between the fourth and sixth of August, and were, listed in order, inflicted upon the discoverer of the previous suicide; that is B.S. Graham discovered the remains of Miss Pendleton, J. Spratt discovered the remains of Brian and Anna Graham, and so on. It was upon exposure to such a hellish chain that Ernest felt compelled to contact me.
Once the situation had been relayed to me, upon my immediate behest, we made our way to the home of the discoverer of the last victim before any further time could be discarded in discussion, precious a resource as it was. On the way Eustace informed me that the previous departed soul was discovered by James D. Eston, soap-maker who lived in a terrace of houses to the east of the town. Mr. Eston had informed the constabulary of the discovery three hours and thirty minutes before I had arrived and it would take at least ten minutes to arrive at his home. With the speed with which this malaise took hold, I had little hope we could draw a sensible conversation from our man by the time we arrived.
Upon our arrival to the row of terraces it was an hour past midnight, travelling by sparse gaslight to our target. When there our eyes were forfeit to the sight of the flayed and lifeless figure of Eston prostrate in his open entrance, the arteries in his forearms having been made equally receptive with the aid of a kitchen cleaver. The rain had spread his scarlet blood from the step to stain the grass in a sinister cocktail, as if to colour a flag of warning to any who approach.
Upon my instruction nobody was to come into contact with nor examine the corpse until I had deemed it safe, and thereafter nobody was to come into direct contact with myself. I had all confidence that my wits would prepare me for any mental corruption and I could only do my utmost to avoid physical infection. With hesitation I equipped myself with kid gloves, silk kerchief across my face and a falsified air of authority. I approached the door, avoiding the bloodied turf as best I could and examined the body for any untoward items or properties. From his person I procured three peculiar items: the first was an ornate pocket-watch, unusual to find on a man of his standing. The second was a blackened soot-like substance staining the lining of the man's trouser. The third was an envelope, unaddressed with a broken mottled wax seal of emerald green and ruby red on the reverse, impressed with a calligraphic motif of the letter 'I'. Enacting this procurement so as not to come into direct contact with these items I instructed the police-men to retrieve three sealable boxes in which to securely contain and protect them for safe transportation to the university. In time the men returned with three small oak chests and keys, into which I placed the curiosities as carefully as I may know how.
I made my retreat and suggested a medical practitioner from the hospital examine the ever-emptying vessel for signs of foul play. I remained to watch this peculiar ceremony, partly to sate my interest and partly for time to reflect before the first train was to leave for Avon. I am no stranger to death nor to seeing a body without life: Through my work for this university in the continental plains I have encountered the remnants of life on occasions numbering in the hundreds, many dozen by my own rifle. I have been integral in the study of the carcass, inspecting and dissecting the body, my own hands cleaving through that which had, moments ago, frolicked in the wild. These events had hardly numbed my senses toward death, I am by no means a Stoic, if anything they have but illuminated to me the fragility of life. Whilst I may be accepting of it in the wilds, the fact that before me was a man, a human being, who had been struck down by some unknown formless assailant in an industrial civilised setting, unnerved me paranoiacally. That we, having surrounded ourselves with artificial walls and boundaries, may be as exposed as any beast in the wilderness to our demise was a feeling I could not shake from my shoulder.
I began to consider the items I had acquired. By now several neighbours had awoken from their slumber by the murmur of gathering officials and I had been able to ascertain the innocence of two of the pieces: The pocket-watch had been an inheritance from the man's mother several years before and so had been in his possession long before this misery. The soot lining his pockets, I had been assured by a work-fellow of his, was a by-product of the manufacturing process in which Mr. Eston engaged, and so not isolated to this man. The letter, upon description, echoed identical mystery from all and so became immediately suspect. It could barely be a coincidence that such an ill-placed envelope should arise in this latest killing when the first was that of a post-master. I thought back over the tragedies as described to me, noting that it would be simple for the discoverer of a body to find an unusual letter and allow their curiosity to forfeit themselves. Quite what was contained in the envelope was a mystery as I determined it to remain, at least for the present.
Having done all I could I bade my good-days, instructed an officer to escort the medical practitioner to guarantee his safety and ensured Ernest that I should do my utmost to cleanse Marsham of its second sinister shade. I boarded the first train, a fraction concerned of my payload, bound for Avon.
An Attempt & A Subject
At this juncture you may believe my concentration on artefacts too heavy, that some mystery affliction, poison or indeed hidden assassin may be the culprit, and yet I posit my counter-argument for their respective foci: A mystery affliction would most certainly afflict me, the first to encounter and interact with the body, and so any evidence to be obtained there would have been carried with me to the university, albeit fatally; Were the suicides the cause of some deliberate mind-altering poison, I would again be afflicted, otherwise the medical professionals would soon detect such a psychotic in the bodies back in Marsham; Lastly, were it an assassin, I would have no hope in investigating that line without my immediate dispatch.
Nevertheless, should any uncertainties remain for my judgement of the situation a ghastly experiment was soon to rear its head. Upon my departure from Avon East station, I traced my well-worn path toward the department, avoiding as best I may any interaction with the dawn's unwitting pedestrians. Making way I could hear the incessant beating of footsteps to my rear, of speed and ferocity not oft heard in the deliberation of the city. I turned to examine this abhorrent behaviour, to see the concealed face of a maroon-hooded man approaching me with worrying velocity, arms at extent. Before I could react I had been relinquished of my cases and cast to the ground wet, bewildered and disarmed. As soon as my wits allowed, I regained my composure and began to pursue the burgundy assailant.
I confess I knew what little chance I had in chasing and capturing a man with a greater gift from the font of youth than I, but instinct and worry for the safety of the Avon populous propelled me forth. I cursed myself at not having stirred Mr. Brimley nor the Boy at the start of my investigation, for Mr. Brimley would have assuredly kept the cases in his not inconsiderable grasp, else the Boy would have easily given chase. Weaving between the dawn workers and homeless uneducated I ran and skipped, attempting to keep in sight the rapidly diminishing red spot in the distance. Alas after winding through a great many alley and street corner the chase was lost, the deadly cases with it.
Dejectedly I made a start to the police-station to report the crime, in a vain attempt to retrieve the artefacts. Yet on this route forward, fortune bound me to pass an alley, at the end of which sat a red-hooded figure and a small pile of boxes. I could scarcely believe my good fortune, my assailant found, with bounty in tow, in an alley which led to the river embankment. Luck had owed me a favour and payed dividends on this day. I called loudly for a police-man and began to walk toward the man, prepared for a struggle. The man sat leaning against the building beside the embankment railings, head down, arms before him. He made no attempt to move and my suspicions rose: could this be an ambush, a trap perhaps? Yet as I moved closer I saw his hands were trebling, barely clasping the piece of paper he read. I then noticed that each of the boxes were opened, and that the piece of paper he was reading was the contents of the envelope. I kept my distance, fearful of contact and began to don my makeshift safety apparel.
As I began to secure the kerchief around my face, that of the assailant turned to me and beneath that hood I saw the singular most despairing pair of eyes I wish ever to see again. All aggression, all confidence, all hope had been syphoned from this face, drained and fearful. I halted my approach, stunned by the capitulating leer of these longing eyes. All the time shaking, his head turned back to the letter, and as carefully as his disturbed frame would allow he slid the paper back into the envelope, which in turn was placed into the box and closed, as if to protect it from the steadily rising rain. With that the man stood and began to mount the railings between him and the river. Before my wits could piece together what was occurring before me, the man had leapt from the railings into the river below. Breaking from the trance in which those haunting eyes had trapped me I ran to the end of the alley, only to see the man face-down atop the river Avon, the dark maroon cloak and he being swept along by the dirtied algae-green flow.
I had, as recounted, seen bodies of those unfortunate enough to be taken from this world, but never before had I seen anyone take themselves across the boundary. Standing, clutching the cold iron railing, watching a body float face-down through the city's water-way, at once a man then nought but a corpse. These two things struck me: the immediacy with which this despair took grasp of the man, and convinced him to so instantly drown himself, coupled with the care he took in concealing the letter, as if preparing it for the next reader now sure it would be found. When the larger shards of my wits had been assembled, I gathered the boxes and their items, locking them away safely and averting my gaze as I did so, and made my way to the university.
I trust you understand now why these events have shaken me so and the reason the artefact in this box must be considered with utmost seriousness. Whatever may be on that letter - some psychotic drug, hellish arcane imagery or simply a truth so ghastly and unavoidable that no man can live with it's knowledge - it must not be inflicted upon the world more-so that it has. Any study I may give of this letter would be synonymous with discarding my life, and I cannot even bring myself to carry that potential with me any longer. Dr. Keplar shall deliver the note and case to you, and I shall make my leave with the key. I have left a corresponding address should you wish for any more information - alas this letter was necessarily written with haste. I leave you with the assurance that my sanity is intact: I have no desire to take my life nor the life of any other. The responsibility of containing this written menace is yours, I understand this, but I could not subject anybody to the horrors I have seen this day, I trust you comprehend.
You will see me in two weeks. Until then I trust you will take the correct course of action, whatever you deem this to be.
Yours,
Dr. Nicholas P. Henderson.
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