Harry Dickson and the Werewolf of Rutherford Grange Read online

  The Werewolf of Rutherford Grange

  A Young Harry Dickson adventure

  and other stories

  by

  G. L. Gick

  A Black Coat Press Book

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Foreword 4

  The Werewolf of Rutherford Grange 7

  Beware the Beasts 136

  Tros Must Be Crazy! 140

  Who Made Me Such A Woman? 143

  Sacrebleu! 157

  Professor Krausse 160

  FRENCH HORROR COLLECTION 187

  Foreword

  Why pulp?

  The question comes into the eyes of my friends; relations; total strangers when they find out what I read most of. Pulp? What’s that? 1930s adventure—oh, you mean that Indiana Jones stuff? Who? Doc Savage? Never heard of him. The Shadow…wasn’t that some ancient radio show? OK, Sam Spade…Bogie, right? That I can understand, but the rest of this stuff…Greg, aren’t you a little old to still be reading what’s basically prose comic books?

  As I write this foreword, in two weeks I will be turning forty-two. F-O-R-T-Y-T-W-O. The answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, if you believe the late Douglas Adams. Unfortunately, Mr. Adams was wrong—I still don’t know how Life, the Universe, and Everything works, and I doubt I’ll be finding out at forty-three, forty-four, or at any higher number. But, yeah, on the face of it, I do seem to be getting a bit long in the tooth to actually be reading this stuff.

  Oh, I’ve been all over the Pulp map; believe me. I’ve strolled the 86th Floor with Doc Savage; slunk through dark alleyways with Jimmie Dale and Lamont Cranston; spilled crimson blood with the Spider; fought vampires with Jules de Grandin. I’ve seen the Maltese Falcon, watched dark R’yleh rise from the deep; found myself trapped in incense-filled dungeons ruled by Fu Manchu. At the movies, I’ve watched Skull Island go beneath the waves. In the funnies, fought alongside Terry and his Pirate-hunters and hunted tigers with the Phantom. I am on intimate terms with Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, and Zorro. Non-pulp-wise, I hang out in Narnia and Oz, Mole Hill and the Hundred Acre Wood; travel with the Doctor in the TARDIS; and still visit Calvin and that tiger pal of his whenever I can.

  So…why? And why pulp, especially?

  The only answer I can really give is…Why Not?

  There’s a problem with living in the Real World, and it is simply that you eventually get used to it. And in doing so, you tend stop noticing things. Things like stars. And squirrels. And strawberry shakes. Not that your eyes don’t register them; of course they do. But you don’t really see them anymore. Not like you did when you were ten, and the world was a great, mysterious map before you.

  I think there’s something disappearing in the world today, and that thing is the Sense of Wonder. It still exists, but it seems to be shrinking with each passing year. As our globe becomes smaller, and our civilizations turn into a generic mass called McWorld; we seem to be losing that sense that the world really is an incredible place; a feeling that anything and everything might happen in it. Back in the early 20th Century, when superhighways weren’t cutting through the Amazon rain forest and you couldn’t find a Burger King in Arabia, that feeling was still there. The world—the universe—was still a big place.

  Nowadays, of course, we know there aren’t any lost cities out there. We know there aren’t any giant apes, or surviving dinosaur islands. We know that we aren’t going to hop the rocket to Ganymede with our Martian pen pal anytime in the next few decades; and indeed, there’s a good question whether we’ll even still be here by the end of this century. And I think it’s hurt us as humans. I think it’s taken something precious away from our psyche—the ability to look at the next hill and ask, “What’s over there?”

  So that’s why I read, and write, pulp. It’s my way of peeking over that hill, even if I know that nothing’s going to be there but a Super Wal-Mart. For a while, at least, I can say: Hey. Somewhere in the world maybe, just maybe, there really is a lost realm of Incas with millions of dollars in gold just lying around. Maybe I really could go to a prehistoric Mars and marry a gorgeous space princess. If not in reality, then at least in the corners of my mind.

  And then, maybe, just maybe, I’ll take another look at that squirrel running up the tree and see, actually see, just what a wonder of Nature it really is. Perhaps not as cool as a living T-Rex, but still an amazing creature in its own way.

  Maybe I’ll start feeling the cool smoothness of that strawberry shake slide down my throat, and actually appreciate the wonder of its taste.

  Maybe I can look at the most mundane aspects of everyday life—and suddenly see the adventure that lies waiting somewhere deep within.

  That’s why I read pulp. That’s why I write it.

  And that’s why I love it.

  Gregory L. Gick

  The Werewolf of Rutherford Grange

  A Young Harry Dickson adventure

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Journal of Harrison Dickson, April 1944

  Looking back, I am glad I never entrusted this tale to paper before now.

  Frankly, I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to forget it. But, after our recent experience against the Germans with that mysterious French Duke and his allies, Tom Wills had issue to take me aside and ask me again whether, after all we’ve encountered over the years, I’ve ever really believed in such a thing as the supernatural.

  I looked at this young man I had once taken under my wing, now with a family and agency of his own, and had to reply I still just didn’t know.

  And it is that not knowing that makes me so uncomfortable.

  My name is Harry Dickson. I am a private detective by trade, although I have considered myself retired for several years now. If I keep my hand in at all, it is for my own amusement or by the request of the Government, as in my recent case mentioned above. Nonetheless I am glad to say I have had some little success in my chosen career, to the extent that the British press once dubbed me “the American Sherlock Holmes.”

  Once I might have been proud of the moniker. But, as the years go by, I find the title more and more noisome. While I was indeed born in America, I have not set foot in the country of my birth in years. I was educated in Britain, live in Britain and, in all ways, view myself as a full citizen of that Sceptered Isle. I enjoy regular tea-times, speak with an Oxford accent (put on, I admit, at first, but now such a part of me I cannot speak “normally” without it), and am far more concerned about my local MP than who the President is. No, British I am and British I will be until the end of my days. To call me American does me a disservice.

  But further, the title is an offense against my mentor. To even begin to consider myself an equal to the Master Detective, who so kindly took an interest in me and guided my early career despite my arrogance and youth, is an affront I would never dare to take. Even S.P.—admittedly an even more dedicated student of the Master than I was, and a man with whom I have never gotten along—would balk at such. I owe the Master nothing less than my training, career, and whatever little fame I may have achieved. I will not tolerate the lowering of his genius so someone as unworthy as I can be placed above him.

  Not that many of my adventures over the years wouldn’t have caused him to raise his eyebrows in disbelief. Professor Flax. Cric-Croc. Gurrhu and the Temple of Iron. Strange cases, with even stranger criminals. But in just about every instance, even when I was fighting self-styled Babylonian “gods,” in the end, I discovered a motive and an explanation that, while perhaps sometimes stretching the boundaries of the laws of science, nevertheless did not break them.

  But then, there was the case, so early
in my career. Just as my mentor had the woman, so I have the case.

  For years, I have kept the incident to the back of my mind. But now, all these years later, I am forced to put it to paper, to try, one last time, to make sense of it all. I doubt I shall. That is why, when this is over, I shall place this manuscript into a safe-deposit box I have rented and promptly try to forget it ever existed. For of all my adventures, this is the one that disturbed me the most. The adventures where I learned that perhaps, just perhaps, there were things in this world hat could not be explained by Rationality alone. The adventure where I met the man who, while never my mentor and perhaps not even my friend, gave me my first glimpse into a world that, despite my best efforts, I still cannot explain.

  It was the summer of 1911. King George V had just ascended the throne. The House of Lords would soon give up its power of veto, making the House of Commons dominant in Parliament. The White Star shipping lines were putting the finishing touches on a new ship called the Titanic, offering a sparkling new future in comfort and speed on the oceans. And in a tiny room in London, a crass youth of 21 named Harry Dickson had just completed his third year at university, and was preparing to go to work.

  Oh, he was an impatient, arrogant youth, this young Dickson. Full of himself and his dreams of the future. True, such could be said of any young person in any era. But this young man particularly thought the world was his for the taking. And why shouldn’t he—I—have? For unlike so many of those other youths, my path was already set. I was going to become a private detective, and a great one. Oh, yes. There was no doubt of it. Like my fellow countryman Sherman, my march was inexorable. Had I not already a dozen cases to my credit? Small cases, true; amateur cases, but each brought to a successful conclusion, and by none other than myself. Had I not met and worked with the Master Detective, who pronounced me “promising” and become my guide into the world of detection? Had I not, through his offices, met several others famed in the same line of work—Triggs, Hewitt, the late Mrs. Dene, that unassuming country priest—and had not each one declared me the same? There could be no veering from the path. Like the Ten Commandments, my future was set in stone. I was going to be a detective.

  But first, this brash, impertinent youth was informed, he would have to pay his dues.

  It seemed my mentor was concerned with me. I was “promising,” yes, but in his view far too tempestuous and impatient to strike out on my own just yet. The art of criminal detection was an exacting one, demanding great sacrifices in time and attention, he said. But I was obviously still under the impression most cases a detective handled were like those his chronicler had so romantically exaggerated in The Strand when nothing, he said, could be further from the truth.

  Detectives had bills to pay just like everyone else, he informed me, and competition was fierce. For every mystery involving red-haired men and orange pips, there were ten cases accepted solely to put bread on the table and a fire in the hearth. Even in the early days before he had made his name, my mentor explained sternly, he had been forced to take whatever he could get to keep the money coming in. Minor matters of blackmail. Dull divorce investigations. Even simply looking into the prospects of a would-be suitor. What I needed, the Master said, was a lesson in the true day-to-day drudgery and ennui most cases actually consisted of. And so he had arranged for me to spend my summer serving an apprenticeship with a Mr. Blake.

  I had felt quite elated, at first. Not about the lecture, which I heard rather than listened to, but rather the fact I was to work with Mr. Blake. He was second only to the Master in fame and talent, and would prove to be one of the kindest and most encouraging of men. Looking back, I find that I did indeed learn much from him. But he had listened to the Master more closely than I, and, as a consequence, my apprenticeship to him was, as my countrymen might say, “dull as watching paint dry.”

  The stipulation of my working with Mr. Blake was simple: at no time was I to be permitted to work directly on a case of any import. I was solely to be used to assist in gathering whatever background research he might need, or to do legwork in whatever small, negligible cases Mr. Blake might have accepted to pass the time in between his major affairs. And so for the past two months I had spent most of my time muddling through dusty old books in the British Museum or engaged in chemical experiments while Blake was off on his own adventures. While he fought a notorious Devil Doctor in Limehouse, I examined mushy fingerprints gathered after a clumsy burglary. While he sloshed through the sewers of Paris searching for the secret hideout of a black-coated conspiracy, I followed a husband through the seedier parts of Soho to see which brothels he frequented. While Blake hung upside-down trying to free himself from a runaway balloon, I spent long hours searching through Burke’s Peerage to discover the supposed birthright of an obscure chimney sweep. I also fed and walked the dog.

  It was incredibly frustrating. One of the most promising (that word again) would-be investigators of the 20th century, and here I was wasting my talents on discovering the potential spousal possibilities of the local butcher instead of being on the scene of master crimes looking for clues. And, although I never said as such, my feelings were obvious to all who worked with me.

  This particular day, however, I was in rather high spirits. It was a pleasant summer morning. The sun was out, the sky a deep sapphire blue, and I decided to forego the expense of a cab in order to walk to work. Mr. Blake had just praised me the other day for some research I had done on the secret meanings of Celtic knot work, which had happily cracked a puzzling case for him. Implicit within his words was the possibility that I should be rewarded for it somehow. My youthful mind filled itself with fantasies of what it might prove to be: a raise? A real case? Dare I say—a partnership? Mature as I liked to think myself, I practically skipped across the pavement at the thought.

  I saw only one thing that disturbed my bonhomie: in a storefront, someone had placed the sign: “Dr. Tin Zen: Spiritualist—Make Contact with Your Loved Ones Beyond the Veil! Prices negotiable.” Beneath was a picture of a fat, balding, middle-aged “Chinese” man—obviously a Caucasian in makeup—hovering with what he evidently thought of as a “mysterious” air over a crystal ball. Rather, as he loomed over the orb, it seemed as though his tonnage was about to topple him right on top of the thing.

  I sighed and shook my head. To begin with, Tin Zen was a ridiculous name. No self-respecting real Chinaman would possess such an alias. But my antipathy stemmed from more than that. I regarded the very premise of Spiritualism with a deep, abiding loathing; as I might a child beater or a dead rat.

  I have never been a religious man. If asked at what altar I primarily worship, I would have answered at only two: those of the Twin Idols of Logic and Reasoning. It was a legacy from my mentor. Everything could be explained if one simply used his rationality, he informed me once; there was no such thing as magic to a true detective. So you may imagine that the very idea that gazing cross-eyed into a crystal ball could somehow call up the spirit of your deceased Uncle Charlie, who would then tell you the secrets of Heaven in such a vague, nondescript way that you were even more puzzled when you went out than when you came, was anathema to me. But what appalled me most was how many otherwise normal, intelligent people believed in it. I had seen them: men and women, smiling indulgently at the thought of life on Mars; laughing aloud at anyone who claimed to see a sea serpent. But then those very same would spend hours clutching each others’ hands in a darkened room looking for the ectoplasmic halo of their dead mother.

  Perhaps I should not have been so biting toward people who simply wanted to see their loved ones again, but there it was. Even had I not been the son of a famed stage magician, I had seen all the tricks mediums used to fake “spirits” performed a hundred times. I knew them to be nothing more than illusions, and in my mind expected the same from everyone else.

  Ah, well. If the foolish and gullible had nothing else better to do with their money, then so be it. I had my own future to consider. With the pr
omise of upcoming reward for my services, nothing was about to destroy my mood this day. After all, I thought, whatever it might be could hardly be duller than my currently duties!

  So you may understand my surprise when I walked in to a chorus of angry voices issuing out of Blake’s private office.

  “Damn it all, Blake, I don’t want one of your wretched men! I want you!”

  “Sir Henry, I already told you—”

  “I don’t care what you told me!”

  I looked inquiringly over at Tinker, Blake’s full-time assistant, sitting at his desk. He waved me to silence, a look of consternation upon his face. From behind the door, I could hear the patient voice of the detective himself:

  “Sir Henry, I’m afraid it’s impossible for me to personally come to your home at this time. I’m already deeply involved in another case, and it looks as though the trail is leading to Geneva. I may have to leave for the continent at any moment. I simply cannot break away. My men are perfectly capable—”

  The first voice, loud and tinged with arrogance: “If I wanted a second-rate constable in charge of this, Blake, I would have hired one. This conference is too important to my fu—to the future of England to trust to inferiors, and I promised the attendees a top man to ensure its safety!”

  A third voice, much younger and quieter, but stiff: “Mr. Blake, perhaps you don’t comprehend the situation here. Security is of great importance to this conference, and—”

  Mr. Blake’s voice again, sounding very patient: “I comprehend the situation perfectly, Mr. Westenra. But as I understand it, your father has already hired agents from eight firms to help provide security. I know these men and they are all quite competent. Surely you do not need—”