Haggopian and Other Stories

Do you wish me to send a copy of the manuscript at Annex ‘A’—as requested of Mrs. White by Krug—to the Secretary of the North-East Coal-Board?

Inspector I. L. Ianson,

Yorkshire County Constabulary,

Radcar,Yorks.

Dear Sgt. Miller,

In answer to your note of the 7th. Take no further action on the Krug case. As you suggest, I have had the man posted as missing, believed a suicide. As for his document; well, the man was either mentally unbalanced or a monumental hoaxer; possibly a combination of both. Regardless of the fact that certain things in his story are matters of indisputable fact, the majority of the thing appears to be the product of a diseased mind.

Meanwhile, I await your progress-report on that other case. I refer to the baby found in the church pews at Eely-on-the-Moor last June. How are you going about tracing the mother?

What Dark God?

According to August Derleth he had “a thing about trains,” which was one of the reasons he gave for paying me the fee of (wow!) thirty-five dollars for “What Dark God?”—which I seem to remember accepting in Arkham House books. (A nice move on my part, as I’ve stated elsewhere.) But I would have been happy with the payment anyway, mainly because the story was written in 1968, in the first few months of my newfound “skill” as an author. So in fact I was absolutely thrilled to be getting paid anything at all! The only drawback: Derleth could not guarantee a publication date and didn’t even have a title for the anthology in which the story would appear. But the man wasn’t well; three years later he was dead; “What Dark God?” had to wait until 1975 before seeing print in editor Jerry Page’s anthology, Nameless Places. Well, at least it was an Arkham House book.

“…Summanus—whatever power he may be…”

Ovid’s

Fasti

The Tuscan Rituals? Now where had I heard of such a book or books before? Certainly very rare… Copy in the British Museum? Perhaps! Then what on earth were these fellows doing with a copy? And such a strange bunch of blokes at that.

Only a few minutes earlier I had boarded the train at Bengham. It was quite crowded for a night train and the boozy, garrulous, and vociferous “Jock” who had boarded it directly in front of me had been much upset by the fact that all the compartments seemed to be fully occupied.

“Och, they bleddy British trains,” he had drunkenly grumbled, “either a’wiz emp’y or a’wiz fool. No orgynization whatsayever—ye no agree, ye sassenach?” He had elbowed me in the ribs as we swayed together down the dim corridor.

“Er, yes,” I had answered. “Quite so!”

Neither of us carried cases and as we stumbled along, searching for vacant seats in the gloomy compartments, Jock suddenly stopped short.

“Noo what in hell’s this—will ye look here? A compartment wi’ the bleddy blinds doon: Prob’ly a young laddie an’ lassie in there wi’ six emp’y seats. Privacy be damned. Ah’m no standin’ oot here while there’s a seat in there…”

The door had proved to be locked—on the inside—but that had not deterred the “bonnie Scot” for a moment. He had banged insistently upon the wooden frame of the door until it was carefully, tentatively opened a few inches; then he had stuck his foot in the gap and put his shoulder to the frame, forcing the door fully open.

“No, no…” The scrawny, pale, pinstripe-jacketed man who stood blocking the entrance protested. “You can’t come in—this compartment is reserved…”

“Is that so, noo? Well, if ye’ll kindly show me the reserved notice,” Jock had paused to tap significantly upon the naked glass of the door with a belligerent fingernail, “Ah’ll bother ye no more—meanwhile, though, if ye’ll hold ye’re blether, Ah’d appreciate a bleddy seat…”

“No, no…” The scrawny man had started to protest again, only to be quickly cut off by a terse command from behind him:

“Let them in…”