The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

As I’ve said, the dreams didn’t begin until shortly after my visit with you last December. Don’t get me wrong, Dr. Thackerey [sic]. I’m still grateful for having been allowed to view your collection and photograph the key. But I’m beginning to think I’m paying an awful price for that opportunity. Yes, I know how that must sound to a man of science such as yourself. By divulging my situation, I more than half-suspect I might find myself described in some future edition of your medical guide. But I don’t know who else I would tell this to. Friends or family? No, they all think me odd enough already. They would dismiss it all, and ridicule me in the bargain. A psychiatrist? A priest? I can’t abide the former, and, despite my Catholicism, have always been unable to open up to the latter.

That leaves just you, Doctor. I suppose it’s like they say, and no good deed goes unpunished.

Please don’t feel obligated to read what follows. Just because I had to write it down and send it to you doesn’t mean you have to subject yourself to these grotesque, absurd ramblings. But I implore you again, please, please destroy the key (as I have destroyed the pictures I took). If I am certain of anything at all (and I doubt that more each day), I’m certain that the destruction of that thing will stop the nightmares, just as I believe my lifting it from its box, and daring to hold it, triggered them. And I suspect, too, there’s something greater than my sanity at stake. How can I convince you that what you’re harboring beneath your roof is more virulent than any disease? Burn it, Doctor. Melt the damned key to slag, and scatter the ashes of that mummified claw to the four winds.

The dream always begins with me looking out to . . .

Excerpt from “The Monkey’s Paw Redux,” Jones, Z . L . I. Skeptical Inquirer, vol. 30, no. 3 (May/June 2006):

. . . that has yet to be addressed by any of these investigators is the inconsistent nature of the second digit, even though it is obvious from the most cursory glance at photographs of the “Castleblakeney hand.” On the thumb, and digits three, four, and five, the nails curve downward, exhibiting the normal condition for primates (and, for that matter, the ungues of all tetrapods). Yet, on the second digit, the nail displays a feat of anatomical gymnastics and curves upwards. Three possible explanations for this irregularity come to mind: (1) sloppiness on the part of the hoaxer; (2) a simple and intentional signal that the hand is indeed a hoax; (3) an attempt by the perpetrator of the hoax to make the hand/key contrivance seem even more bizarre.

For the moment, I’ll focus on the second option, though it is probably the least likely of the three. I’ll assume, for the sake of argument, that the hoaxer is an educated individual who would be well aware of the faux pas presented by the upturned nail. I will even go so far as to consider the possibility that it was his or her intent to embed in this intentional mistake some hidden meaning. Pause to consider the significance of the index finger in Western art and culture. For example, in Leonardo da Vinci’s St. John the Baptist (c. 1513–1516), the right hand of the subject is raised, pointing heavenward, the index finger extended. In Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam (c. 1511), it is the index finger of the creator’s right hand (digitus paternae dexterae) that is shown delivering the spark of life to the index finger of Adam’s left hand. Comparable instances from Christian iconography are too numerous to list, though it is worth noting an altarpiece in the basilica of . . .

Excerpt from a letter found among the correspondence of the late Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead, from M. Camille Dussubieux (n˚50, Rue Lepic, Paris) to Lambshead, dated January 23, 1954):

. . . only tell you what little I know of this odious thing, though surely there must be far less repellent subjects upon which you could fixate. It is a mummified hand, as small as a child’s, gripping a bronze key. The fingers bear long talons, and the hand is so shriveled the bones show through. Both the hand and key are mottled with rot and verdigris, with a scab of long ages hidden away in darkness and damp. As for its provenance, I have heard a story told that it was discovered by Howard Carter in the spring of 1903, during his initial excavations at the entrance of the tomb of Thutmose I and his daughter Hatshepsut, though the key is clearly not of ancient Egyptian origin. I have also heard a claim that the hand is the remains of an homunculus created by John Dee, for Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and also that it came to France from China, and even that it was found in an Irish peat bog. I see no reason to give credence to any one of the tales; they seem equally outlandish.