Strange Stories

Homer Featherstonhaugh (pronounced Fan-shaw) stood in the cathedral praying to God that his lunch wouldn’t repeat on him. A minor royal had been beaten to death with a bust of St Thomas Becket. There was blood everywhere, and any chance of the fellow lying in state so mourners could see him at rest had been dashed across the cobblestones, alongside his coltish good looks. ‘He’d just come down from Ascot’ said Chief Inspector Worthing of Scotland Yard. ‘Not a particularly religious chap, either, so what he was doing here is a mystery in itself.’ ‘I only left him a few minutes!’ declared Sally O’Connor, the dead man’s PA, a good Irish girl who’d just about stubbed out her accent, though it still snuck through when she was excited. ‘I can’t think why he wanted to come to this place. Normally, Lord Wallace has to be bullied by his mother to attend church on Christmas Day. But we were heading home in a Hackney carriage when he saw the spire over the rooftops and said that he needed to go th...

They called her the Queen of Crime, did the readers and writers of The Times of London, 1922, not because she competed in those pages for the attentions of such railway bookstore doyennes as have characterised our culture section of late, but because she'd walked into Farringdon's (a jeweller's) and almost walked out with a cache of diamonds worth the cost of a small island. Dressed in widow's weeds, a black veil, and a pair of pointed heels, her dress was inclined to suggest, in such a place, a woman disposing of her late husband's love gifts, so as to more happily enter a long retirement from gay society. The Queen attracted a young salesgirl and on the pretence of showcasing her wares, lured her behind a curtain. At which point out came the pistol, only the poor girl's shrill shriek - before the devilish dame forced a leather-gloved hand over her victim's mouth - enough to alert the floor that something was amiss. Alas, it was a good ten minutes - during ...