Franklin P. Scudder arrives

It's been three months since I returned to the Old Country and I am fed up with it. I am bored. I need something to stimulate me, and today my wish was granted.

I was returning home tonight from a local music-hall where I watched a rather silly show of capering women and monkey-faced men. I was fitting my key into my flat door when I noticed a man at my elbow. He asked to speak to me and was pawing at my elbow.

"May I come in for a minute?" he said.

I motioned him and he darted into the hallway then rushed to the back of the flat asking me to bolt the door. He then apologised for taking this liberty and asked for a drink. He drank the whisky off in three gulps.

"Pardon," he said, "I'm a bit rattled tonight. You see, I happen at this moment to be dead."

I was intrigued and allowed him to continue. He gave a life story full of secrecy and conspiracy. He had uncovered a plot to take the country to war and held the secret to preventing it. Unfortunately those perpetrators knew he had the secret and he was now on the run. He wanted to trust me with the infomration (as an insurance policy should anything happen to him.

"On the 15th of June," he continued, "right here in London, I will stop this hellish contrivance."

To put the perpetrators off his trail, he had committed a hideous concoction by 'acquiring' a body from the City morgue whose features matched his own. He had simulated a suicide in his own flat with the body hoping that the authorities would find it and announce it as 'his' death.

I decided he was to be trusted and allowed him to sleep in the spare room. And now as I write this I can hear him snoring. I will lock his door before I retire just in case.