Noel Langley – Tales Of Mystery And Revenge

[dem bones]

Noel Langley – Tales Of Mystery And Revenge (Mayflower, 1969: originally Arthur Barker, 1950)

The Fall Of The Fothergays
Serenade For Baboons
Little Miracle
Love’s Labour Done
The Bone Bead Necklace
Saint Wilbur
But A Good Cigar Is A Smoke

Blurb:
“Noel Langley has written the perfect bedside, or lonely trainride, book – for anyone with steely nerves.

The title of the book covers a wide canvas, from the macabre creeping horror of witch-doctors’ curses to the more civilized mystery of the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy.”

The Fall Of The Fothergays: (Woman's Journal, Aug. 1947) Belgravia Square . Sardou Fothergay (Aka Sardou di Ardinablo) - accomplished black magician, family black sheep, blackmailer, etc. - proves the catalyst in spectacular downfall of a Thespian dynasty. Sardot ruthlessly channels his powers to mutilate those who would stand in his way, or that of his asylum-bound nephew, Walmsbury, the finest Shakespearian actor of his generation. It seems nothing can stop the multiple-murderer until the Devil - with some assistance from Phililda 'the mad dipso' Fothergay - claims his own during a truly ghastly performance of the Scottish play in London's West End. "For the love of Christ, ring down! Ring down!"

[dem bones]

The Bone Bead Necklace: Torbal Medwin, 23, a cold, know-it-all Lieutenant in the Queens cavalry, shoots dead a witch-doctor and five unarmed Zulu warriors in cold blood, removing an evil-smelling black necklace from the magic man's neck as a souvenir. He dies raving eight days later, whereupon his effects are sent back to England.

The cursed necklace claims the lives of three generations of male Medwins until we meet the last of the line, Sholto, who while rummaging in the attic, chances upon a trunk containing great-great grandfather's military uniform and battle trinkets. His schoolfriend, Sean O'Fanlin, a psychic, implores Sholto to burn the string of knuckle-bones but, good thing for us, the boy won't hear of it.

[dem bones]

Serenade for Baboons: (Lady Cynthia Asquith [ed.], My Grimmest Nightmare, 1935: Herbert Van Thal, [ed.], Pan Book of Horror Stories, 1959). South Africa, early twentieth century (?). An English doctor, operating a country practice in the Drakensberg Mountains, is incensed at the natives' preference for the "magical" remedies of an ancient bag of bones named M'Pini, the local witch-doctor. The white man has only one patient, Hoareb, a huge, violent bully of a Zulu farmer, who likewise detests M'Pini. When Hoareb beats his wife yet again, she turns to the witch-doctor for revenge. Hadn't read this in an age. It still holds up brilliantly.

Loves Labour Done: Shakespeare refuses to put his name to the latest offering of his ghostwriter, Bacon, and demands he knock out a romantic drama by Saturday.