Fianchetto: A Message from Garcia

This is a chapter from the first half of Fianchetto, and it takes place in the city of Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Victor is there to visit the headquarters of AI maker Hortalez et Cie. While there, a would-be assassin breaks in and shoots the place up. Victor is saved by a security guard, Simone Hart. After lying low in Victor's hotel for a day, they venture out when Simone discovers a retired grandmaster, János Márton, is giving a 'simul,' playing multiple players at a local cafe. After winning his game against Márton, the grandmaster invites Victor and Simone for a drink, and relates the story of the last human chess champion before the age of the AI, Anatoly Sherschansky.

A Message from Garcia

            No one else but Victor won, though two players drew Márton. Victor found it very tense playing this way, waiting many minutes between moves. At least his AI games would be timed to the standard rate of forty moves in two hours. 

            It was past 23:00 when the game ended. Victor's brain was boiling with alternate visions of how the game could have gone. He cleared the board, reset positions, and tried to show Simone what would have happened at move twenty-eight, or thirty-seven, or forty-four if Victor had moved differently. His hands flashed over the board so quickly pieces already out of play went flying across the table, into Simone's lap, and on the floor.

            She stopped his furious reconstructions by catching his hands.

            "Stop," she said. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

            "Isn't it clear? Here, if I push the bishop to the d-file--"

            "Stop."

            The silver haired woman came to their table.

            "Pardon me," she said. "Mr. Hart, is it? The maestro would like to invite you for a drink." She held out a hand to Simone. "Mrs. Hart, too, of course."

            Simone accepted for both of them. "We'd be honored, wouldn't we, honey?"

            "Sure, thank you, Ms.--?"

            "Halász, Margo Halász. I am M. Márton's assistant."

            Victor stood. "Lead on."

            "Oh, not here. The maestro favors the bar, 'Die Lupe.'"

            Simone slid out of the booth. She towered over Margo Halász, who couldn't have been much more than 160 cm. tall.

             Márton made his way through the cafe, head down, striding hard. Some of the woodpushers thrust scripters at him, begging for autographs. He brushed them aside with Hungarian phrases Victor was sure weren't kind. Outside, a plump Peugeot waited for him. An elderly man sat behind the wheel, driving.

             Márton ducked inside. Victor stood back to allow Simone in. She feigned amazement.

            "Playing old men is good for your manners," she quipped. He planted a hand on her back and propelled her into the car. Enjoying his gallantry, he waited for Ms. Halász. She stood away from the car.

            "I'm not invited," she said. "The maestro said I was to stay behind."

            Victor cupped a hand to his lips and whispered loudly, "The maestro is a fool." She smiled, but she was plainly unhappy being left out.

             Márton made impatient noises. Victor got in, only to find Simone sitting on the right side of the seat, as far away from their host as she could manage.

            Victor sat between them.  Márton looked annoyed. Simone sported a thin, tense smile.

            "What's this?" asked Victor.

            "I've decided not to break the grandmaster's fingers," Simone said. "At his age, bones don't always heal well."

            He guessed the old goat had been a little too free with his hands. Maybe Victor's win was not the real reason for their invitation.

            "'Die Lupe,'" Márton barked. The driver engaged the motor and drove on.

            "How did you do it?" Márton asked Victor when they were underway.

            "Do what?"

            "Win the game. How did you do it? Did you use some Your/World app?"

            "I outplayed you, that's how."

            "In the Diodati? Pah! Who are you really, and what is your rating?"

            "He's the reincarnation of Bobby Fischer," offered Simone.

            "God preserve us from that! Tell me, Mr. Hart. Who are you?"

            "My name is Victor Leventon. I have no FIDE rating or Elo number."

            The Peugeot hugged the narrow streets along the Rhine. No one spoke for a while.

            "You're the Leventon who is challenging the artificial intelligences?" Márton said slowly. Victor admitted he was. "God and all His saints give you strength!"

            "You approve of the chess champion being human?" said Simone.

            "Chess is a human game. Humans should be masters of it."

            The bar 'Die Lupe' wasn't far from the coffee house. It was another old storefront, all blackened wood and diamond-shaped, frosted panes of glass by the door. The door handle was a heavy brass loop, polished butter-colored for many years by many hands. Márton marched up the low steps and yanked the door open.

            A locals' bar it was, dark and smelling strongly of old beer. No one greeted them as the entered. The bar itself was far to the back, lit by holographic lager signs. A meter wide Your/World screen showed a perpetual football match from somewhere warm and sunny. Most of the visible clientele was closer to Márton's age than to Victor's. As for Simone, she appeared to be the only woman in the place. Her progress across the darkened room drew more than one idle stare.

            "Just like home," she said.

            A round booth awaited the maestro. Apparently Márton was a regular here; his table was ready, and the dispenser at the table half-filled a highball glass with pale liquor as soon as he sat down.

            Victor sat down at right angles to the grandmaster. Simone carefully sited herself by his side, out of Márton's reach. He regarded her seating choice with disdain.

            "My apologies," he said. "I took you for someone more worldly."

            "I'm worldly," Simone replied. "But I don't take shit from anybody." Márton shrugged.

            Victor asked the dispenser for what the maestro was having. He received a hundred cc's of pálinka, Hungarian fruit brandy, in this case apple. Simone sniffed his glass and dialed up vodka.

            "I haven't lived in my homeland for forty years," Márton said. "I keep in touch by drinking pálinka as often as possible."

            "Great idea," Victor said. He tossed half his measure back and blanched at the strength of it. Charles Proteus Steinmetz—the stuff was a hundred proof.

            "Why haven't you been home in forty years?" Simone asked. She held her shot glass neatly between her fingers.

            "I made a vow," the old man said. "If I could not defeat Anatoly Sherschansky, I would never set foot in Hungary again."

            Victor sat up straight. "You knew Sherschansky?" Márton nodded once. He drew another hundred cc's. "What was he like?"

            "Bugfuck crazy, wasn't he?" said Simone.

            "No, no, this is lies. He was a brilliant man, most sensitive and cultured. It was his curse to be—what is the word? Befelé forduló, I do not know in English. The Germans say introvertierte."

            "Introverted?"

            "As you say. The man was so shy he could barely stand to play in public. That is why he first made his mark in Your/World play. He didn't have to face an opponent in flesh."

            "His style is terrifying," Victor confessed.

            "You are right, but replayed games do not begin to convey the, the--" Words in any language failed the old grandmaster. He made a fist and smote the table with it. "The dread his play created. What was it Garcia said? 'Facing Sherschansky is like gripping a knife by the blade.'"

            "Who's Garcia?" Simone wondered.

            "Enrico Garcia, my old friend, a grandmaster from Arequipa," Márton said. "That is Peru."

            They sat, sipping, except the maestro, whose glass was empty already. Simone rolled the shot glass between her palms.

            "I don't quite get it. You say this guy was so introverted, but scared the shit out of everybody he played. How?"

            Victor said, "He threw pieces at his opponents, one after another, exchange after exchange, until he had the minimum force left to checkmate. I've seen some of his games last less than thirty moves! Nothing mattered to him but winning. Theory, position, combinations were a waste of time to Sherschansky. Go for the throat. Go now. Conquer, or don't come back alive."

             Márton filled his glass a third time. "You are correct, young man, but as I said, merely replaying his games does not give you the true flavor of Anatoly Sherschansky. For example, he was unwashed to the point he could be smelled before he entered the room."

            "They called him 'the Rasputin of chess,'" Victor said, smirking.

            "Pah, foolish Your/World chatter. Rasputin was a crude, savvy peasant. Anatoly Sherschansky was tormented into madness."

            Simone didn't know the story. Victor related what he knew about the Russian grandmaster and his doctor, who gave Sherschansky illegal cortisone injections.

            She grimaced. "What for?"

            "I knew Dr. Brandauer, too." Márton declared. "He was Sherschansky's evil genius. Anatoly came to him because he needed treatment for his extreme introvertierte. He had played as far as he could on Your/World. To advance his standing, he had to play in live tournaments, face to face."

             Márton lined up his fourth pálinka. He was downing them faster now.

            "Brandauer was doctor to many athletes and Your/World actors. It was said he could cure shyness and sharpen the memory. Sherschansky was afraid of pszichoaktív drugs—" He waved a hand beside his ear. "Drugs for the brain, yes? Dr. Brandauer told him he could cure Anatoly's shyness and improve his concentration at the same time."

            "With cortisone?" said Victor.

            "Certainement." Maybe it was the brandy, but Márton was starting to mix his languages.

            "Did Sherschansky know what the doctor was giving him?" asked Simone. She had three shot glasses in front of her now.

            "He knew! Did Brandauer lie to him? Nein! Did Brandauer tell him this drug will make him insane? Nein!"

            "More insane," Simone said.

             Márton waved a finger. "Non. Anatoly was troubled, but brilliant. He was not crazy until Brandauer's needle got him."

             A gloomy silence fell over the booth. Victor had just the one pálinka. By now Simone and Márton were matching shots.

            "So . . . " Simone slowed down her speech to regain her precision, "what happened to Brandauer?"

            "Sherschansky killed him. With a table knife. At dinner." Márton raised a glass in salute. Victor wasn't sure if he was toasting the slain doctor or the mad grandmaster.

            "I've always wondered: how do you kill someone with a table knife?" Victor mused.

            Simone said, "Drive it through their eye." Down went another shot.

            Brandauer was killed in St. Petersburg. Sherschansky plead self-defense (he would not plead insanity), but he was convicted. He died in prison in Russia less than three years later. He was twenty-nine.

            "Sad," Simone admitted. "What about the AI?"

            The AI that took Sherschansky's title was MEFISTO, designed and built by Erika Freitag's father, Hermann Freitag. Being a machine, it was not afraid of the Russian's kamikaze style. It methodically hounded the grandmaster, blunting his ferocious attacks and squeezing him to death, like some cybernetic constrictor. Sherschansky, in the throes of cortisone psychosis, publicly compared MEFISTO's play to having his hands nailed to the table, one finger at a time. Despite its eventual victory, MEFISTO suffered irreparable damage to its higher cognitive functions. Victor told them the hulk of the AI was now in the Deutsches Museum, in Munich.

            "I should go there and piss on it!" Márton declared.

            It was late. Simone and Márton were rapidly getting numb with drink. Victor, who had to get up early to catch his flight to the States, suggested calling it a night. He had just one last question for the maestro.

            "You lost your match with Sherschansky; you said that's why you haven't been home to Hungary. But forty years? He's been dead most of that time. Why stick so strongly to a vow made over a dead man?"

            Rheumy-eyed, Márton leaned close to Victor and replied, "We were comrades, but I hated him. He ruined me, ruined my game, do you see? After our match in 2015, I never played competitive chess again. It wasn't just a vow that kept me away from Pécs, my home." He groped for his glass. "It was shame.

            "That's why I needed to know who you are. I've been beating the little pricks around here for years. I do not make sweat for them. You, you played like a surgeon—a cut here, a cut there. Then my prick fell off. I bled to death. I had to know who you were."

            That was enough. Victor induced Simone to get up. She gathered herself against the vodka and stood, and between them they hoisted Márton to his feet. Eyebrow raised, he leered at Simone.

            "You are a woman indeed," he said. "Ach, to be twenty years' younger. Or even ten!"

            "Yeah dad, you're somethin'," she said. "Just keep your hands where I can see them."

            The grandmaster mastered himself. With much affected dignity he walked to the door of Die Lupe unaided. Simone leaned on Victor. He put an arm around her waist.

            "You okay?"

            She grunted. "Do you feel sorry for that dirty old man?"

            "I don't know. Is that me in fifty years?"

            "You might be that dirty, but you won't be so bitter." She pinched his chin gently in one hand and kissed him. "You're going to win."

            Outside, Márton called his driver. The Peugeot soon returned. One foot on the door sill, Márton offered them a lift wherever they were going.

            "No thanks," said Simone with a wave. "We'll walk." She draped an arm over Victor's shoulder. The maestro regarded them with frank jealousy.

            "If I were ten years younger. Maybe only five . . ."

            "Good night, maestro," Victor said. "May I link you? My match with ARAKHNA is coming up next month, and I need a second--"           

            "You don't need me, boy. You'll have that machine like lunch."

            "Your expertise would be invaluable."

            "Eh?" Márton threw up a hand. "We'll see. Talk to Margo about it."

            Unsteadily, he ducked inside the car. Victor waved good-bye. Simone held on tightly to his shoulder. As the car departed, she leaned in and nipped playfully at his ear.

            "Don't do that unless you mean it."

            Her breath was hot and smelled of alcohol. "I always mean it."

                                                                        #

            Attention! Target shift. Target shift. Acknowledge?

            "Priznao. Nova meta u vozilu?"

            Confirmed. Proceed.

            "Potvrda smene cilja."

                                                                        #

            They started on foot for the Maeterlinck. Victor noticed her gait steadied a lot after a block or so. Had she been putting on a drunk act? Who for, him or Márton?

            Victor admitted he did feel sorry for the old man. Simone called him a fool. Why let shame dominate your life so long?

            "Do you ever feel ashamed?" he asked carefully.

            “Nope.”

            "Never?”

            “Never. Shame only sticks if you're caught. Nobody's caught me yet."

            It was past midnight. The streets were empty of traffic and people. They started up a narrow side street leading away from the river. In a dark stretch Victor paused and drew her to him. They kissed.

            "Hey," she said. "You ever do it standing up?"

            He considered, not long. "No."

            "Want to?"

            "What about your rib?"

            "Let me worry about my fucking rib! Whaddya say?"

            He looked up and down the street. "Here?"

            "No, idiot, in the middle of the road." The idea did not appeal. He said so.

            "Suit yourself. I've had six shots of vodka, so I'm more open minded than usual. This is your chance to widen your experience."

            "I thought you were the careful one."

            "Like I said, six shots of vodka."

            He broke her hold and walked on, leading her by the hand. The Maeterlinck was not far away. Simone could walk off some of the booze by the time they got there. Then he could find out how careful she really was.

                                                                        #

             János Márton lived in a small flat on the third floor of a building off the Feldstrasse. It was a quiet location, well kept in the Swiss manner. He couldn't have afforded if he'd moved in today, but having been in residence more than twenty years, his rent was fixed by law.

            His PDL unlocked the door for him. Lights flickered on in the foyer when he entered. His apartment had the characteristic smell of old paper and dust. Being a man of the late twentieth century, Márton still owned many books. He had shelves full of them, along with thousands of back issues of various chess periodicals. Though he owned some two dozen chess sets, the only one he used regularly was a tiny wooden Staunton set given to him by his parents back in Pécs. He was eight years old when he got that set.

            It was set up to replicate a game he'd played in 2012 against Enrico Garcia. After thirty-three moves Márton had a winning position, but Garcia managed to wrest a draw from him. The old grandmaster had been studying this game off and on for a week. He would've found the solution by now, but for the stupid simul he had to play at the Diodati tonight . . . still, the evening had been more interesting than most. That fellow Leventon could at least play the game, and his lady friend, ah! She was tasty, yes. She lacked the warmth of a true Magyar woman, the fire and the comfort, but he could see in her gray eyes much passion. Cold passion, he could tell, but passion nonetheless.

            His throat was raw from the apple brandy. At least he out-drank the young man. He had only one pálinka. The woman matched him shot for shot.

            He sighed. Such a waste.

            In the kitchen, he poured and downed some mineral water. Remembering the simul, he checked to see if the money had been flashed to his account yet. It wasn't there. He'd yell at Margo in the morning to get it done.

            A knock on the door. Really? It was almost one in the morning. Who calls at a time like this? It had better not be one of those limp-prick woodpushers from the cafe, seeking wisdom from the maestro.

            "Igen, igen," Márton called. "I'm coming!"

            At the door he leaned close to the panel and said, "Who is it?"

            "Herr Márton?" said a voice muffled by the door.

            "Yes, who is it?" he demanded.

            "I have an urgent message for you."

            Message? "What message? Who from?"

            "The name on the message is 'Garcia.'"

            Enrico? He still lived in Peru--or did he? In 2055, no one sent written letters or telegrams any more, but Márton remembered when people did. Enrico Garcia was past seventy himself, so maybe he had sent a message.

            He unlocked the door and opened a few centimeters. A dim figure in a bulky jacket stood in the shadowed hallway.

            "Herr Márton?"

            "Yes?"

            The man raised a small handgun. Fixed to the barrel was a slim black silencer. He fired one shot. It struck János Márton in the chest. With a groan, the old man fell back inside the flat.

            Without crossing the threshold, the gunman pushed door open wider and took deliberate aim at the grandmaster. He put one round through Márton's head, then pulled the door shut with a gloved hand. With his own PDL he changed the door's code and locked it. Given the old man's temper and habits, it might be days before his fate was discovered.

            Downstairs, a car waited. The man got in and flashed three letters to his employer: NxB.

Simone has a sore rib from having been shot. She was wearing a bulletproof vest, but the impact might have cracked it. Later, she makes herself Victor's bodyguard during his match with the Russian AI ARAKHNA, which he plays from a rented beach house in Kitty Hawk, N.C.

They Live Above! The Horror of the Heights . . .

 The sixth and last UFO Cautionary Tale I wrote for ParaScope in 1999 was this presentation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's SF/horror short story "The Horror of the Heights," first published in 1913 (and now in the public domain). Here we see a now forgotten theory that UFOs may not be spaceships, but living creatures of the upper atmosphere, or even space. As an early aviation fan I knew this story from way back--I think I first read it in an old Basil Davenport anthology--and in spite of certain technical inaccuracies, the story holds up well, and its imaginative power still shines. Well, it was by Conan Doyle, after all.

As usual, modern comments are added in red.

The Creator of Sherlock Holmes and a Believer in Fairies Offers Us a Fictional UFO Tale -- from 1913. Arthur Conan Doyle (later Sir Arthur) was a man of many parts -- medical student, amateur sleuth, writer, traveler, spiritualist. His fame chiefly rests on the shoulders of his brilliant fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, and to a lesser extent, his damn-the-consequences scientist, Professor Challenger. Had he done nothing else, Doyle's immortality would be assured. Both Holmes and Challenger represent bold archetypal characters upon whom countless lesser imitations have been based. Yet Doyle was more than a gifted storyteller. He was keenly interested in the esoteric, and the last decades of his life were spent delving into the murky world of spiritualism. His reputation as an acute thinker suffered when he endorsed mediums and phenomena later proven to be spurious. His celebrated falling out with the magician Harry Houdini, over alleged messages from Houdini's deceased mother related through Doyle's wife, are typical of this later phase of the author's life. Doyle also stood behind the infamous Cottingly fairy photographs, believing them to be genuine, and offered occult-tinged theories about paranormal happenings of the past, such as the case of the "restless coffins" of Barbados. This background makes the present story all the more interesting. Published in 1913, "The Horror of the Heights" is both a thriller and a science fiction story. In it Doyle describes the last flights of an intrepid British aviator, Joyce-Armstrong, who is attempting to achieve altitude records. The story is plainly set in Doyle's near future; at one point Joyce-Armstrong says that aviation has existed "for twenty years." The Wright brothers first flew in 1903, but practically nothing was publicly known of their work until 1906. hence "Horror of the Heights" can be said to have been set in the mid 1920s. Some of Doyle's technical details are glaringly wrong. He claims his fictive pilot Joyce-Armstrong could ascend to forty-plus thousand feet with only occasional whiffs of oxygen, in an plane with an un-supercharged engine, etc. The fact is, oxygen is required above 10,000 feet, and absolutely vital to survival above 20,000. In a classic UFO story, Air National Guard Captain Thomas Mantell died in 1948 after pursuing a large UFO above 20,000 feet in his F-51 Mustang fighter. (The UFO was later identified as a Navy Skyhook balloon, capable of reaching altitudes of 50,000 feet or more). Doyle may be forgiven for his technical errors in light of the extraordinary plot of his story. Above 30,000 feet, he describes an "aerial jungle" inhabited by gigantic, rarefied creatures. Not all of them are harmless, as you shall read. The remarkable part is how closely Doyle's vision presaged early UFO theories that the unknown objects populating our skies were actually ultra-high altitude (or outer space) animals, lured down to the "depths" of the atmosphere by our noisy warfare and atomic explosions. The space animal theory still exists, though it has never been as popular as the sexy Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. Many famous figures in UFO history have embraced the space animal theory -- Kenneth Arnold, the man whose 1947 report started the modern UFO wave; Countess Wassilko-Serecki, the psychical researcher; Trevor James Constable, whose books They Live in the Sky, and Sky Creatures are essential reading on this subject. While reading Doyle's story, especially the latter half, keep reminding yourself this was published in 1913 -- long before Kenneth Arnold, Star Trek, or The X Files. Consider it only required the richly developed imagination of one man to create it. It's become commonplace to claim that major Hollywood science fiction films and TV shows about aliens are all part of some enormous sub-rosa plot to gradually indoctrinate the world to the coming of extraterrestrials. As an SF writer myself, I find such notions insulting and stupid. Movies and TV shows are the collective effort of writers, directors, actors, and SFX artists. They succeed or fail on their own merits, and they are popular because they're fun to watch and make money for their creators. Can you imagine government-funded entertainment? It would probably come across like those awful old educational films they used to show us in fifth grade about oral hygiene. Does Steven Spielberg need the MJ-12 to give him story ideas? Was Gene Roddenberry in the pay of the MIB? Only fools would think so after reading "The Horror of the Heights." Paul B. Thompson Nebula Editor [Old ParaScope email address deleted. All illustrations by Charles Overbeck.] Which includes the manuscript known as the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humor, has now been abandoned by all who have examined the matter. The most macabre and imaginative of plotters would hesitate before linking his morbid fancies with the unquestioned and tragic facts which reinforce the statement. Though the assertions contained in it are amazing and even monstrous, it is none the less forcing itself upon the general intelligence that they are true, and that we must readjust our ideas to the situation. This world of ours appears to be separated by unexpected danger. I will endeavour in this narrative, which reproduces the original document in its necessarily somewhat fragmentary form, to lay before the reader the whole of the facts up to date, prefacing my statement by saying that, if there be no question at all as to the facts concerning Lieutenant Myrtle, R.N., and Mr. Hay Connor, who undoubtedly met their end in the manner described. The Joyce-Armstrong Fragment was found in the field which is called Lower Haycock, laying one mile to the westward of the village of Withyham, upon the Kent and Sussex Border. It was on the 15th September last that an agricultural labourer, James Flynn, in the employment of Mathew Dodd, farmer, of the Chauntry Farm, Withyham, perceived a briar pipe laying near the footpath which skirts the hedge in Lower Haycock. A few paces farther on he picked up a pair of broken binocular glasses. Finally among some nettles in the ditch, he caught sight of a flat, canvas-backed book, which proved to be a note-book with detachable leaves, some of which had come loose and were fluttering along the base of the hedge. These he collected, but some, including the first, were never recovered, and leave a deplorable hiatus in this all-important statement. The note-book was taken by the labourer to his master, who in turn showed it to Dr. J. H. Atherton, of Hartfield. This gentleman at once recognized the need for an expert examination, and the manuscript was forwarded to the Aero Club in London, where it now lies. The first two pages of the manuscript are missing. There is also one torn away at the end of the narrative, though none of these affect the general coherence of the story. It is conjecture that the missing opening is concerned with the record of Mr. Joyce-Armstrong's qualifications as an aeronaut, which can be gathered from other sources and are admitted to be unsurpassed among the air-pilots of England. For many years he has been looked upon as among the most daring and the most intellectual of flying men, a combination which has enabled him to both invent and test several new devices, including the common gyroscopic attachment which is known by his name. The main body of the manuscript is written neatly in ink, but the last few lines are in pencil and are so ragged as to be hardly legible-exactly, in fact, as they might be expected to appear if they were scribbled off hurriedly from the seat of a moving aeroplane. There are, it may be added, several stains, both on the last page and on the outside cover which have been pronounced by the Home Office experts to be blood-probably human and certainly mammalian. The fact that something closely resembling the organism of malaria was discovered in this blood, and that Joyce-Armstrong is known to have suffered from intermittent fever, is a remarkable example of the new weapon s which modern science has placed in the hands of our detectives. And now a word as to the personality of the author of this epoch-making statement. Joyce-Armstrong, according to the few friends who really knew something of the man, was a poet and a dreamer, as well as a mechanic and an inventor. He was a man of considerable wealth, much of which he had spent in the pursuit of his aeronautical hobby. He had four private aeroplanes in his hangers near Devizes, and is said to have made no fewer than one hundred and seventy ascents in the course of last year. He was a retiring man with dark moods, in which he would avoid the society of his fellows. Captain Dangerfield, who knew him better than anyone, says that there were times when his eccentricity threatened to develop into something more serious. His habit of carrying a shot-gun with him in his aeroplane was one manifestation of it. Another was the morbid effect which the fall of Lieutenant Myrtle had upon his mind. Myrtle who was attempting the height record, fell from an altitude of something over thirty thousand feet. Horrible to narrate, his head was entirely obliterated, though his body and limbs preserved their configuration. At every gathering of airmen, Joyce-Armstrong, according to Dangerfield, would ask, with an enigmatic smile: "And where, pray, is Myrtle's head?" On another occasion after dinner, at the mess of the Flying School on Salisbury Plain, he started a debate as to what will be the most permanent danger which airmen will have to encounter. Having listened to successive opinions as to air-pockets, faulty construction, and over-banking, he ended by shrugging his shoulders and refusing to put forward his own views, though he gave the impression that they differed from any advanced by his companions. It is worth remarking that after his own complete disappearance it was found that his private affairs were arranged with a precision which may show that he had a strong premonition of disaster. With these essential explanations I will now give the narrative exactly as it stands, beginning at page three of the blood-soaked note-book: "Nevertheless, when I dined at Rheims with Coselli and Gustav Raymond I found that neither of them was aware of any particular danger in the higher layers of the atmosphere. I did not actually say what was in my thoughts, but I got so near to it that if they had any corresponding idea the could not have failed to express it. But then they are two empty, vainglorious fellows with no thought beyond seeing their silly names in the newspaper. It is interesting to note that neither of them had ever been much beyond the twenty-thousand-foot level. Of course, men have been higher than this both in balloons and in the ascent of mountains. It must be well above that point that the aeroplane enters the danger zone -- always presuming that my premonitions are correct. "Aeroplaning has been with us now for more than twenty years, and one might well ask: Why should this peril be only revealing itself in our day? The answer is obvious. In the old days of weak engines, when a hundred horse-power Gnome or Green was considered ample for every need, the flights were very restricted. Now that three hundred horse-power is the rule rather than the exception, visits to the upper layers have become easier and more common. Some of us can remember how, in our youth, [French aviator Roland] Garros made a world-wide reputation by attaining nineteen thousand feet, and it was considered a remarkable achievement to fly over the Alps. Our standard now has been immeasurably raised, and there are twenty high flights for one in former years. Many of them have been undertaken with impunity. The thirty-thousand-foot level has been reached time after time with no discomfort beyond cold and asthma. What does this prove? A visitor might descend upon this planet a thousand times and never see a tiger. [emphasis added] Yet tigers exist, and if he chanced to come down into a jungle he might be devoured. There are jungles of the upper air, and there are worse things than tigers which inhabit them. I believe in time they will map these jungles accurately out. Even at the present moment I could name two of them. One of them lies over Pau-Biarritz district of France. [The Wright Brothers European headquarters was at Pau. PBT] Another is just over my head as I write here in my house in Wiltshire. I rather think there is a third in the Homburg-Wiesbaden [Germany] district. "It was the disappearance of the airmen that first set me thinking. Of course, everyone said that they had fallen into the sea, but that did not satisfy me at all. First, there was Verrier in France; his machine was found near Bayonne, but they never got his body. There was the case of Baxter also, who vanished, though his engine and some of the iron fittings were found in a wood in Leichestershire. In that case, Dr. Middleton, of Amesbury, who was watching the flight with a telescope, declares that just before the clouds obscured the view he saw the machine, which was at an enormous height, suddenly rise perpendicularly upwards in a succession of jerks in a manner that he would have thought to be impossible. That was the last seen of Baxter. There was a correspondence in the papers, but it never led to anything. There were several other similar cases, and then there was the death of Hay Connor. What a cackle there was about an unsolved mystery of the air, and what columns in the halfpenny papers, and yet how little was ever done to get to the bottom of the business! He came down in a tremendous vol-plane [a power dive] from an unknown height. He never got off his machine and died in his pilot's seat. Died of what? 'Heart disease,' said the doctors. Rubbish! Hay Connor's heart was as sound as mine is. What did Venables say? Venables was the only man who was at his side when he died. He said that he was shivering and looked like a man who had been badly scared. 'Died of fright,' said Venables, but could not imagine what he was frightened about. Only said one word to Venables, which sounded like 'Monstrous.' They could make nothing of that at the inquest. But I could make something of it. Monsters! That was the last word of poor Harry Hay Connor. And he did die of fright, just as Venables thought. "And then there was Myrtle's head. Do you really believe -- does anybody really believe -- that a man's head could be driven clean into his body by the force of a fall? Well, perhaps it may be possible, but I, for one, have never believed that it was so with Myrtle. And the grease upon his clothes -- 'all slimy with grease,' said somebody at the inquest. Queer that nobody got thinking after that! I did -- but, then, I had been thinking for a good long time. I've made three ascents -- how Dangerfield used to chaff me about my shot-gun -- but I've never been high enough. Now, with this new, light Paul Veroner machine and its one hundred and seventy-five Robur, [a nod to Jules Verne, whose fictional helicopter inventor was named Robur. PBT] I should easily touch the thirty thousand tomorrow. I'll have a shot at the record. Maybe I shall have a shot at something else as well. Of course, it's dangerous. If a fellow wants to avoid danger he had best keep out of flying altogether and subside finally into flannel slippers and a dressing-gown. But I'll visit the air-jungle tomorrow -- and if there's anything there I shall know it. If I return, I'll find myself a bit of a celebrity. If I don't this note-book may explain what I am trying to do, and how I lost my life in doing it. But no drivel about accidents or mysteries, if you please. "I chose my Paul Veroner monoplane for the job. There's nothing like a monoplane when real work is to be done. Beaumont found that out in very early days. For one thing it doesn't mind damp, and the weather looks as if we should be in the clouds all the time. It's a bonny little model and answers my hand like a tender-mouthed horse. The engine is a ten-cylinder rotary Robur working up to one hundred and seventy-five. It has all the modern improvements -- enclosed fuselage, high-curved landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and three speeds, worked by an alteration of the angle of the planes upon the Venetian-blind principle. I took a shot-gun with me and a dozen cartridges willed with buck-shot. You should have seen the face of Perkins, my old mechanic, when I directed him to put them in. I was dressed like an Arctic explorer, with two jerseys under my overalls, thick socks inside my padded boots, a storm-cap with flaps, and my talc goggles. It was stifling outside the hangars, but I was going for the summit of the Himalayas, and had to dress for the part. Perkins knew there was something on and implored me to take him with me. Perhaps I should if I were using the biplane, but a monoplane is a one-man show -- if you want to get the last foot of life out of it. Of course, I took an oxygen bag; the man who goes for the altitude record without one will either be frozen or smother -- or both. "I had a good look at the planes, the rudder-bar, and the elevating lever before I got in. Everything was in order so far as I could see. Then I switched on my engine and found that she was running sweetly. When they let her go she rose almost at once upon the lowest speed. I circled my home field once or twice just to warm her up, and then with a wave to Perkins and the others, I flattened out my planes and put her on her highest. She turned her nose up a little and she began to climb in a great spiral for the cloud-bank above me. It's all-important to rise slowly and adapt yourself to the pressure as you go. "It was a close, warm day for an English September, and there was a hush and heaviness of impending rain. Now and then there came sudden puffs of wind from the south-west -- one of them so gusty and unexpected that it caught me napping and turned me half-round for an instant. I remember the time when gusts and whirls and air-pockets used to be things of danger -- before we learned to put an overmastering power into our engines. Just as I reached the cloud-banks, with the altimeter marking three thousand, down came the rain. My word, how it poured! It drummed upon my wings and lashed against my face, blurring my glasses so that I could hardly see. I got down on to a lower speed, for it was painful to travel against it. As I got higher it became hail, and I had to turn tail to it. One of my cylinders rising steadily with plenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and I heard the full, deep-throated purr -- the ten singing as one. That's where the beauty of our modern silencers comes in. We can at last control our engines by ear. How they squeal and squeak and sob when they are in trouble! All those cries for help were wasted in the old days, when every sound was swallowed up by the monstrous racket of the machine. If only the early aviators could come back to see the beauty and perfection of the mechanism which have been bought at the cost of their lives! "About nine-thirty I was nearing the clouds. Down below me, all blurred and shadowed with rain, lay the vast expanse of Salisbury Plain. Half a dozen flying machines were doing hackwork at the thousand-foot level, looking like little black swallows against the green background. I dare say they were wondering what I was doing up in cloud-land. Suddenly a grey curtain drew across beneath me and the wet folds of vapours were swirling round my face. It was clammily cold and miserable. But I was above the hail-storm, and that was something gained. The cloud was dark and thick as a London fog. In my anxiety to get clear, I cocked her nose up until the automatic alarm-bell rang, and I actually began to slide backwards. My sopped and dripping wings had made me heavier than I thought, but presently I was in lighter cloud, and soon had cleared the first layer. There was a second -- opal-colored and fleecy -- at a great height above my head, a white, unbroken ceiling above, and a dark, unbroken floor below, with the monoplane labouring upwards upon a vast spiral between them. It is small water-birds went past me, flying very fast to the westwards. The quick whir of their wings and their musical cry were cheery to my ear. I fancy that they were teal, but I am a wretched zoologist. Now that we humans have become birds we must really learn to know our brethren by sight. "The wind down beneath me whirled and swayed the broad cloud-pain. Once a great eddy formed in it, a whirlpool of vapour, and through it, as down a funnel, I caught sight of the distant world. A large white biplane was passing at a vast depth beneath me. I fancy it was the morning mail service betwixt Bristol and London. Then the drift swirled inwards again and the great solitude was unbroken. "Just after ten I touched the lower edge of the upper cloud-stratum. It consisted of fine diaphanous vapour drifting swiftly from the westwards. The wind had been steadily rising all this time and it was now blowing a sharp breeze -- twenty-eight an hour by my gauge. Already it was very cold, though my altimeter only marked nine thousand. The engines were working beautifully, and we went droning steadily upwards. The cloud-bank was thicker than I had expected, but at last it thinned out into a golden mist before me, and then in an instant I had shot out from it, and there was an unclouded sky and a brilliant sun above my head -- all blue and gold above, all shining silver below, one vast glimmering plain as far as my eyes could reach. It was a quarter past ten o'clock, and the barograph needle pointed to twelve thousand eight hundred. Up I went and up, my ears concentrated upon the deep purring of my motor, my eyes busy always with the watch, the revolution indicator, the petrol lever, and the oil pump. No wonder aviators are said to be a fearless race. With so many things to think of there is no time to trouble about oneself. About this time I noted how unreliable is the compass when above a certain height from earth. At fifteen thousand feet mine was pointing east and a point south. The sun and the wind gave me my true bearings. "I had hoped to reach an eternal stillness in these high altitudes, but with every thousand feet of ascent the gale grew stronger. My machine groaned and trembled in every joint and rivet as she faced it, and swept away like a sheet of paper when I banked her on the turn, skimming down wind at a greater pace, perhaps, than ever mortal man has moved. [Here Doyle anticipates the jet stream? PBT.] Yet I had always to turn again and tack up in the wind's eye, for it was not merely a height record that I was after. By all my calculations it was above little Wiltshire that my air-jungle lay, and all my labour might be lost if I struck the outer layers at some farther point. "When I reached the nineteen-thousand-foot level, which was about midday, the wind was so severe that I looked with some anxiety to the stays of my wings, expecting momentarily to see them snap or slacken. I even cast loose the parachute behind me, and fastened its hoop into the ring of my leather belt, so as to be ready for the worst. Now was the time when a bit of scamped work by the mechanic is paid for by the life of the aeronaut. But she held together bravely. Every cord and strut was humming and vibrating like so many harp-strings, but it was glorious to see how, for all the beating and the buffeting, she was still the conqueror of Nature and the mistress of the sky. There is surely something divine in man himself that he should rise so superior to the limitations which Creation seemed to impose -- rise, too, by such unselfish, heroic devotion as this air-conquest has shown. Talk of human degeneration! When has such a story as this been written in the annals of our race? "These were the thoughts in my head as I climbed that monstrous, inclined plane with the wind sometimes beating in my face and sometimes whistling behind my ears, while the cloudland beneath me fell away to such a distance that the folds and hummocks of silver had all smoothed out into one flat, shining plain. But suddenly I had a horrible and unprecedented experience. I have known before what it is to be in what our neighbours have called a tourbillion, but never on such a scale as this. That huge, sweeping river of wind of which I have spoken had, as it appears, whirlpools within it which were as monstrous as itself. Without a moment's warning I was dragged suddenly into the heart of one. I spun round for a minute or two with such velocity that I almost lost my senses, and then fell suddenly, left wing foremost, down the vacuum funnel in the centre. I dropped like a stone and lost nearly a thousand feet. It was only my belt that kept me in my seat, and the shock and breathlessness left me hanging half-insensible over the side of the fuselage. But I am always capable of a supreme effort -- it is my one great merit as an aviator. I was conscious that the descent was slower. The whirlpool was a cone rather than a funnel, and I had come to the apex. With a terrific wrench, throwing my weight all to one side, I levelled my planes and brought her head away from the wind. In an instant I had shot out of the eddies and was skimming down the sky. The, shaken but victorious, I turned her nose up and began once more my steady grind on the upward spiral. I took a large sweep to avoid the danger-spot of the whirlpool, and soon I was safely above it. Just after one o'clock I was twenty-one thousand feet above the sea-level. To my great joy I had topped the gale, and with every hundred feet of ascent the air grew stiller. On the other hand, it was very cold, and I was conscious of that peculiar nausea which goes with rarefaction of the air. For the first time I unscrewed the mouth of my oxygen bag and took an occasional whiff of the glorious gas. I could feel it running like a cordial through my veins, and I was exhilarated almost to the point of drunkenness. I shouted and sang as I soared upwards into the cold, still outer world. "It is very clear to me that the insensibility which came upon Glaisher, and in a lesser degree upon Coxwell, when, in 1862, they ascended in a balloon to a height of thirty thousand feet, was due to the extreme speed with which a perpendicular ascent is made. Doing it at an easy gradient and accustoming oneself to the lessened barometric pressure by slow degrees, there are no such dreadful symptoms. At the same great height I found that even without my oxygen inhaler I could breathe without undue distress. It was bitterly cold, however, and my thermometer was at zero, Fahrenheit. At one-thirty I was nearly seven miles above the surface of the earth, and still ascending steadily. I found however, that the rarefied air was giving markedly less support to my planes, and that my angle of ascent had to be considerable lowered in consequence. It was already clear that even with my light weight and strong engine-power there was a point in front of me where I should be held. To make matters worse, one of my sparking-plugs was in trouble again and there was intermittent misfiring in the engine. My heart was heavy with the fear of failure. "It was about that time that I had a most extraordinary experience. Something whizzed past me in a trail of smoke and exploded with a loud, hissing sound, sending forth a cloud of steam. For the instant I could not imagine what had happened. Then I remembered that the earth is for ever being bombarded by meteor stones, and would be hardly inhabitable were they not in nearly every case turned to vapour in the outer layers of the atmosphere. Here is a new danger for the high-altitude man, for two others passed me when I was nearing the forty-thousand-foot mark. I cannot doubt that at the edge of the earth's envelope the risk would be a very real one. "My barograph needle marked forty-one thousand three hundred when I became aware that I could go no farther. Physically, the strain was not as yet greater than I could bear but my machine had reached its limit. The attenuated air gave no firm support to the wings, and the least tilt developed into side-slip, while she seemed sluggish on her controls. Possibly, had the engine been at its best, another thousand feet might have been within our capacity, but it was still misfiring, and two out of the ten cylinders appeared to be out of action. If I had not already reached the zone for which I was searching then I should never see it upon this journey. But was it not possible that I had attained it? Soaring in circles like a monstrous hawk upon the forty-thousand-foot level I let the monoplane guide herself, and with my Mannheim glass I made a careful observation of my surroundings. The heavens were perfectly clear; there was no indication of those dangers which I had imagined. "I have said that I was soaring in circles. It struck me suddenly that I would do well to take a wider sweep and open up a new airtract. If the hunter entered an earth-jungle he would drive through it if he wished to find his game. My reasoning had let me to believe that the air-jungle which I had imagined lay somewhere over Wiltshire. This should be to the south and west of me. I took my bearings from the sun, for the compass was hopeless and no trace of earth was to be seen -- nothing but the distant, silver cloud-plain. However, I got my direction as best I might and kept her head straight to the mark. I reckoned that my petrol supply would not last for more than another hour or so, but I could afford to use it to the last drop, since a single magnificent vol-plane could at any time take me to the earth. "Suddenly I was aware of something new. The air in front of me had lost its crystal clearness. It was full of long, ragged whisps of something which I can only compare to very fine cigarette smoke. It hung about in wreaths and coils, turning and twisting slowly in the sunlight. As the monoplane shot through it, I was aware of a faint taste of oil upon my lips, and there was a greasy scum upon the woodwork of the machine. Some infinitely fine organic matter appeared to be suspended in the atmosphere. There was no life there. It was inchoate and diffuse, extending for many square acres and then fringing off into the void. No, it was not life. But might it not be the remains of life? Above all, might it not be the food of life, of monstrous life, even as the humble grease of the ocean is the food of the mighty whale? The thought was in my mind when my eyes looked upward and I saw the most wonderful vision that ever man has seen. Can I hope to convey it to you even as I saw it myself last Thursday? "Conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in our summer seas, bell-shaped and of enormous size - far larger, I should judge, than the dome of St. Paul's. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. From it there depended two long drooping, green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way. "I had half-turned my monoplane, that I might look after this beautiful creature, when, in a moment, I found myself amidst a perfect fleet of them, of all sizes, but none so large as the first. Some were quite small, but the majority about as big as an average balloon, and with much the same curvature at the top. There was in them a delicacy of texture and colouring which reminded me of the finest Venetian glass. Pale shades of pink and green were the prevailing tints, but all had a lovely iridescence where the sun shimmered through their dainty forms. Some hundreds of them drifted past me, a wonderful fairy squadron of strange unknown argosies of the sky -- creatures whose forms and substance were so attuned to these pure heights that one could not conceive anything so delicate within actual sight or sound of earth. "But soon my attention was drawn to a new phenomenon -- the serpents of the outer air. These were long, thin, fantastic coils of vapour-like material, which turned and twisted with great speed, flying round and round at such a pace that the eyes could hardly follow them. Some of these ghost-like creatures were twenty or thirty feet long, but it was difficult to tell their girth, for their outline was so hazy that it seemed to fade away into the air around them. These air-snakes were of a very light grey or smoke colour, with some darker lines within, which gave the impression of a definite organism. One of them whisked past my very face, and I was conscious of a cold, clammy contact, but their composition was so unsubstantial that I could not connect them with any thought of physical danger, any more than the beautiful bell-like creatures which had preceded them. There was no more solidity in their frames than in the floating spume form a broken wave. "But a more terrible experience was in store for me. Floating downwards from a great height there came a purplish patch of vapour, small as I saw it first, but rapidly enlarging as it approached me, until it appeared to be hundreds of square feet in size. Though fashioned of some transparent, jelly-like substance, it was none the less of much more definite outline and solid consistence than anything which I had seen before. There were more traces, too, of a physical organization, especially two vast, shadowy, circular plates upon either side, which may have been eyes, and a perfectly solid white projection between them which was as curved and cruel as the beak of a vulture. "The whole aspect of this monster was formidable and threatening, and it kept changing its colour from a very light mauve to a dark, angry purple so thick that it cast a shadow as it drifted between my monoplane and the sun. On the upper curve of its huge body there were three great projections which I can only describe as enormous bubbles, and I was convinced as I looked at them that they were charged with some extremely light gas which served to buoy up the misshapen and semi-solid mass in the rarefied air. The creature moved swiftly along, keeping pace easily with the monoplane, and for twenty miles or more it formed my horrible escort, hovering over me like a bird of prey which is waiting to pounce. Its method of progression -- done so swiftly that it was not easy to follow -- was to throw out a long, glutinous streamer in front of it, which in turn seemed to draw forward the rest of the writhing body. So elastic and gelatinous was it that never for two successive minutes was it the same shape, and yet each change made it more threatening and loathsome than the last. "I knew that it meant mischief. Every purple flush of its hideous body told me so. The vague, goggling eyes which were turned always upon me were cold and merciless in their viscid hatred. I dipped the nose of my monoplane downwards to escape it. As I did so, as quick as a flash there shot out a long tentacle from this mass of floating blubber, and it fell as light and sinuous as a whip-lash across the front of my machine. There was a loud hiss as it lay for a moment across the hot engine, and it whisked itself into the air again, while the huge, flat body drew itself together as if in sudden pain. I dipped to a vol-pique, but again a tentacle fell over the monoplane and was shorn off by the propeller as easily as it might have cut through a smoke wreath. A long, gliding, sticky, serpent-like coil came from behind and caught me around the waist, dragging me out of the fuselage. I tore at it, my fingers sinking into the smooth, glue-like surface, and for an instant I disengaged myself, but only to be caught around the boot by another coil, which gave me a jerk that tilted me almost on to my back. "As I fell over I blazed off both barrels of my gun, though, indeed, it was like attacking an elephant with a pea-shooter to imagine that any human weapon could cripple that mighty bulk. And yet I aimed better than I knew, for, with a loud report, one of the great blisters upon the creature's back exploded with the puncture of the buck-shot. It was very clear that my conjecture was right, and that these vast, clear bladders were distended with some lifting gas, for in an instant the huge, cloud-like body turned sideways, writhing desperately to find its balance, while the white beak snapped and gaped in horrible fury. But already I had shot away on the steepest glide that I dared to attempt, my engine still full on, the flying propeller and the force of gravity shooting me downwards like an aerolite. Far behind me I saw a dull, purplish smudge growing swiftly smaller and merging into the blue sky behind it. I was safe out of the deadly jungle of the outer air. "Once out of danger I throttled my engine, for nothing tears a machine to pieces quicker than running on full power from a height. It was a glorious, spiral vol-plane from nearly eight miles of altitude -- first, to the level of the silver cloud-bank, then to that of the storm-cloud beneath it, and finally, in beating rain, to the surface of the earth. I saw the Bristol Channel beneath me as I broke from the clouds, but, having still some petrol in my tank, I got twenty miles inland before I found myself stranded in a field half a mile from the village of Ashcombe. There I got three tins of petrol from a passing motor-car, and at ten minutes past six that evening I alighted gently in my own home meadow at Devizes, after such a journey as no mortal upon earth has ever yet taken and lived to tell the tale. I have seen the beauty and I have seen the horror of the heights -- and greater beauty or greater horror than that is not within the ken of man. "And now it is my plan to go once again before I give my results to the world. My reason for this is that I must surely have something to show by way of proof before I lay such a tale before my fellow-men. It is true that others will soon follow and will confirm what I have said, and yet I should wish to carry conviction from the first. Those lovely iridescent bubbles of the air should not be hard to capture. They drift slowly upon their way, and the swift monoplane could intercept their leisurely course. It is likely enough that they would dissolve in the heavier layers of the atmosphere, and that some small heap of amorphous jelly might be all that I should bring to earth with me. And yet something there would surely be by which I could substantiate my story. Yes, I will go, even if I run a risk by doing so. These purple horrors would not seem to be numerous. It is probable that I shall not see one. If I do I shall dive at once. At the worst there is always the shot-gun and my knowledge of..." Here a page of the manuscript is unfortunately missing. On the next page is written, in large, straggling writing: "Forty-three thousand feet. I shall never see earth again. They are beneath me, three of them. God help me; it is a dreadful death to die!" Such in its entirety is the Joyce-Armstrong Statement. Of the man nothing has since been seen. Pieces of his shattered monoplane have been picked up in the preserves of Mr. Budd-Lushington upon the borders of Kent and Sussex, within a few miles of the spot where the note-book was discovered. If the unfortunate aviator's theory is correct that this air-jungle, as he called it, existed only over the south-west of England, then it would seem that he had fled from it at the full speed of his monoplane, but had been overtaken and devoured by these horrible creatures at some spot in the outer atmosphere above the place where the grim relics were found. The picture of that monoplane skimming down the sky, with the nameless terrors flying as swiftly beneath it and cutting it off always from the earth while they gradually closed in upon their victim, is one upon which a man who valued his sanity would prefer not to dwell. There are many, as I am aware, who still jeer at the facts which I have here set down, but even they must admit that Joyce-Armstrong has disappeared, and I would commend to them his own words: "This note-book may explain what I am trying to do, and how I lost my life in doing it. But no drivel about accidents or mysteries, if you please."

Original Text and Graphics © ParaScope, Inc. 1999   "The Horror of the Heights" originally copyrighted 1913.