The Most Frightful Nonsense
A businessman finds a perfect 1933 Porterly Majestic in an antique shop for 200 pounds, and everyone he writes to with it that day is dead by Halloween night.
Now then, dear reader, I hope you are sitting somewhere warm and comforting as you read this. As I write it - with my most marvellous new pen - I am sitting somewhere warm, but comfort seems a fairly remote possibility this Halloween night. But I musn't hint of too much just yet, dear reader; I must keep the tone light, engage interest, get you on my side.
Very well, then. This morning was an unusual one for me. Quite often on these autumn mornings the old boiler just cannot compete with the bracing wind, and I awake with icicle feet, unable even to imagine throwing back the bedclothes to commence the day. Today, though, the North wind was for once behaving itself and it was my alarm clock which roused me, rather than the morning's icy darts. Consequently, I had a few minutes to kill before my first appointment of the day.
I hadn't met Lord Hartford before, although my firm had acted as his country agents for many years. Just recently, we had made a few mistakes and before milord decided to place his affairs in another firm's hands, I had resolved to cement the relationship personally. I rarely visit clients personally, claiming that the demands of running such a busy firm do not allow me the luxury of getting out of the office too often, but the truth is the firm pretty much runs itself these days. In all honesty, I just don't like meeting people. It is not so much shyness, but more that I am so easily bored. I have admiration for people who can engage others in conversation, who can look interested in what they have to say for minutes on end. I employ a number of people with this skill, but require that they do not practice it on me.
In any case, when I have some minutes to spare outside the office and happen to be driving past an antique shop, I tend to stop and venture within. Today's shop was unremarkable, and I was preparing to leave unobtrusively when I happened to see the pen. Lying almost casually amid a display of watches atop an ancient writing desk, the familiar lines of an early Porterly fountain pen seemed almost to call to me. I picked it up, enchanted as ever by the beauty of an old pen. At home and at the office I keep only fountain pens and none younger than me. I have quite an impressive collection, but it was clear to me that this Porterly was something very special indeed. The single cap band marked it out as belonging to the first year's production. In 1933, a Porterly Majestic like this would have cost around six pounds, putting it beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest in a decade not renowned for affluence. Nowadays, this specimen would fetch thousands in such a perfect condition, and yet the small, white paper label proclaimed this exquisite specimen to be for sale for the minor matter of 200 Pounds.
When I called on Lord Hartford, it was with the Porterly in my pocket, filled with the black ink I keep in my car. He proved to be a quite charming man, in that way peculiar to the aristocracy, and our conversation was not quite the trial I had been anticipating. It helped, of course, that I was able to point to much increased revenues in the last quarter, and when I took out the Porterly to sign the cheque I was about to hand to him, he seemed more interested in the pen than the cheque. I told him of my interest in pens and a little about the Porterly company. At the end of my call, the peer assured me of his intention to continue patronising my firm.
Thus reassured, I drove back to the office, penning some notes to my accountant and to my assistant about the following day's end of quarter reconciliations. After a dull afternoon reviewing performance of the overseas properties, I left for home.
The evening paper provided my first shock, reporting the death of a prominent peer at his country seat. It seemed that Lord Hartford's servant had found him dead in the summerhouse, perhaps an hour or so after I had left his home. Cause of death was not stated in the paper, but no doubt the police would be in touch at some point should they wish to know more about my visit to him. It was therefore with no great surprise some hours later that, answering the door this Halloween evening, I was greeted not by children in masks but by a member of the local constabulary. I invited him in and started to talk about my visit earlier today to Lord Hartford, but his confusion soon became obvious. I shut up and let him speak. It turned out he had been visiting me to advise me of the death this evening of two of my employees. It seems that my accountant and my assistant had been working late in the office, when ... well, exactly what had happened seemed to be something of a mystery, but for no evident reason that can be ascertained, the two of them simply died. It seems to be have been quite a peaceful end, with none of the "rictus of horror" so favoured by sensational writers.
For a long time after the policeman's departure, all I could think of was the pen I had bought this morning. The three people to whom I had written something using the pen had all died in manners which awaited explanation. Increasingly desperate, I tried and failed to link the three in some other way, to conceive of how their deaths might not be related to my newest pen find.
So, dear reader, I conceived of an experiment. It is nearly complete now. You see, I have written to someone else, letting the lines flow from this stately fountain pen, just to see if the pen really does carry an odd curse. It is probably nonsense, of course, but I couldn't really risk the life of a friend, an acquaintance, even. So, I do hope, dear reader, that this tale finds you in comfortable circumstances and I earnestly hope that those circumstances continue to be comfortable for you. If they don't...well, no doubt I will read of the tragedy in my paper, and then we shall know.
As I say, I am sure it really is the most frightful nonsense.