Julian Hawthorne

Mystery and Detective Stories Julian Hawthorne

[...] There are, in this land, ghosts who take the form of fat, cold, pobby corpses, and hide in trees near the roadside till a traveler passes. Then they drop upon his neck and remain. There are also terrible ghosts of women who have died in child-bed. These wander along the pathways at dusk, or hide in the crops near a village, and call seductively. But to answer their call is death in this world and the next. Their feet are turned backward that all sober men may recognize them. There are ghosts of little children who have been thrown into wells. These haunt well curbs and the fringes of jungles, and wail under the stars, or catch women by the wrist and beg to be taken up and carried. These and the corpse ghosts, however, are only vernacular articles and do not attack Sahibs. No native ghost has yet been authentically reported to have frightened an Englishman; but many English ghosts have scared the life out of both white and black. [...] Contains the following stories: Rudyard Kipling: My Own True Ghost Story The Sending of Dana Da In the House of Suddhoo His Wedded Wife Arthur Conan Doyle: A Case of Identity A Scandal in Bohemia The Red-Headed League Egerton Castle: The Baron's Quarry Stanley J. Weyman: The Fowl in the Pot Robert Louis Stevenson: The Pavilion on the Links Wilkie Collins: The Dream Woman? A Mystery in Four Narratives Anonymous: The Lost Duchess The Minor Canon The Pipe The Puzzle The Great Valdez Sapphire