Short Fiction M. R. James (good book recommendations TXT) đ
- Author: M. R. James
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âYes, I think he has all the possibilities of a distinguished criminal, has Karswell,â said the host. âI should be sorry for anyone who got into his bad books.â
âIs he the man, or am I mixing him up with someone else?â asked the Secretary (who for some minutes had been wearing the frown of the man who is trying to recollect something). âIs he the man who brought out a History of Witchcraft some time backâ âten years or more?â
âThatâs the man; do you remember the reviews of it?â
âCertainly I do; and whatâs equally to the point, I knew the author of the most incisive of the lot. So did you: you must remember John Harrington; he was at Johnâs in our time.â
âOh, very well indeed, though I donât think I saw or heard anything of him between the time I went down and the day I read the account of the inquest on him.â
âInquest?â said one of the ladies. âWhat has happened to him?â
âWhy, what happened was that he fell out of a tree and broke his neck. But the puzzle was, what could have induced him to get up there. It was a mysterious business, I must say. Here was this manâ ânot an athletic fellow, was he? and with no eccentric twist about him that was ever noticedâ âwalking home along a country road late in the eveningâ âno tramps aboutâ âwell known and liked in the placeâ âand he suddenly begins to run like mad, loses his hat and stick, and finally shins up a treeâ âquite a difficult treeâ âgrowing in the hedgerow: a dead branch gives way, and he comes down with it and breaks his neck, and there heâs found next morning with the most dreadful face of fear on him that could be imagined. It was pretty evident, of course, that he had been chased by something, and people talked of savage dogs, and beasts escaped out of menageries; but there was nothing to be made of that. That was in â89, and I believe his brother Henry (whom I remember as well at Cambridge, but you probably donât) has been trying to get on the track of an explanation ever since. He, of course, insists there was malice in it, but I donât know. Itâs difficult to see how it could have come in.â
After a time the talk reverted to the History of Witchcraft. âDid you ever look into it?â asked the host.
âYes, I did,â said the Secretary. âI went so far as to read it.â
âWas it as bad as it was made out to be?â
âOh, in point of style and form, quite hopeless. It deserved all the pulverizing it got. But, besides that, it was an evil book. The man believed every word of what he was saying, and Iâm very much mistaken if he hadnât tried the greater part of his receipts.â
âWell, I only remember Harringtonâs review of it, and I must say if Iâd been the author it would have quenched my literary ambition for good. I should never have held up my head again.â
âIt hasnât had that effect in the present case. But come, itâs half-past three; I must be off.â
On the way home the Secretaryâs wife said, âI do hope that horrible man wonât find out that Mr. Dunning had anything to do with the rejection of his paper.â âI donât think thereâs much chance of that,â said the Secretary. âDunning wonât mention it himself, for these matters are confidential, and none of us will for the same reason. Karswell wonât know his name, for Dunning hasnât published anything on the same subject yet. The only danger is that Karswell might find out, if he was to ask the British Museum people who was in the habit of consulting alchemical manuscripts: I canât very well tell them not to mention Dunning, can I? It would set them talking at once. Letâs hope it wonât occur to him.â
However, Mr. Karswell was an astute man.
This much is in the way of prologue. On an evening rather later in the same week, Mr. Edward Dunning was returning from the British Museum, where he had been engaged in Research, to the comfortable house in a suburb where he lived alone, tended by two excellent women who had been long with him. There is nothing to be added by way of description of him to what we have heard already. Let us follow him as he takes his sober course homewards.
A train took him to within a mile or two of his house, and an electric tram a stage farther. The line ended at a point some three hundred yards from his front door. He had had enough of reading when he got into the car, and indeed the light was not such as to allow him to do more than study the advertisements on the panes of glass that faced him as he sat. As was not unnatural, the advertisements in this particular line of cars were objects of his frequent contemplation, and, with the possible exception of the brilliant and convincing dialogue between Mr. Lamplough and an eminent K.C. on the subject of Pyretic Saline, none of them afforded much scope to his imagination. I am wrong: there was one at the corner of the car farthest from
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