The Ponies

Weird Sisters are so pleased to share another poem by Maria Jastrzebska with you today. We must admit, it evokes some rather scary memories of introducing partners to disapproving parents...

The Ponies

My mother scrutinises

everything about you, leaning forward 

to see better 

as if she could not believe

her eyes.

I've brought some photos

of our recent holiday:

amateurish shots

of the New Forest, leaf and fern

just starting to turn bronze,

the two of us wearing warm jackets,

piglets rooting and of course

the ponies.

In all the guide books it tells you:

Remember these are wild ponies.

Never stand between a mare

and her foal.

And you are sitting on a chrome chair

in the new Polish cafe we've all come to,

waiting for pierogi stuffed

with cabbage and wild mushrooms,

under the arty sketches 

of semi-nude women, your chair

between my mother's chair and mine.

   Maria Jastrzębska 

                            From Syrena (Redbeck Press 2004)

The Gleaners

As there is a hint of Autumn in the air, it seems appropriate to post this poem by Maggie Redding. It was inspired by her first sight of the painting Le Rappel des Glaneuses by Jules Breton, which depicts peasant women returning from fields where they have picked and sifted the leavings of grain. This back-breaking labour was allowed only until dusk on the last day of harvest, representing a substantial contribution to the diet of desperately poor families.  

                                                          

                                                            The Gleaners                                                                        

 by Maggie Redding

For the poor, the leftovers, the gleanings.

The rich call, not merely the tune, 

But whole symphonies of greed.

For one day, the stubbled fields are yielded to

Desperate women, broad-faced, broad-shouldered,

Scrabbling for ears of wheat for their winter bread.

Daylight fades. The pace increases.

Only till dusk permission is granted

To gather their meagre harvest.

The uncouth summons of the landlord’s man

Straightens bent backs, releases aching arms.

Women and children move to the gate.

Sharp stalks prickle bare feet.

With sun- and breeze-burned faces,

They carry home, gratefully, their gleanings.

Resigned, wistful glances are cast

Towards the last glimpse of light.

Now let winter and landlord do their worst.

On the 18th July 1817, Jane Austen died, leaving six finished novels as the legacy of her 41 years. The most popular must surely be Pride and Prejudice, which has inspired many a spin-off, from detective stories to steamy romances. Rohase Piercy takes a different tack: she explores the life of that silent, insipid contrast to Miss Eliza Bennett, the object of the heroine's pity and scorn: Anne de Bourgh. We hope you enjoy this extract from Before Elizabeth as our homage to Jane Austen today.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I have inherited little in terms of character, and even less as to looks, from my mother’s side of the family – universally, because even Mama, having searched in vain for my features amongst two centuries of Fitzwilliam family portraits, has herself been forced to acknowledge it. She comforts herself with the reflection that in my plain, pale countenance and unimpressive figure resides the august history of my father’s family, now sadly diminished; the family into which she married with such hopes of conjugal felicity and consequence two years before my birth; the family de Bourgh.

We are of French origin, and my father and grandfather were anxious to maintain the connection at a time when no-one had yet heard the name 'Buonaparte'.  It is my father’s sister, Lady Isabelle, whom I am said most to resemble - indeed I would have been named for her, had not my mother demanded that her own sister’s name take precedence.  Her insistence carried the day and I was baptised Anne Isabel de Bourgh, in the little parish church of Hunsford, shortly after my birth in the year 1791.  My Aunt Isabelle was not present; she had lately married a French cousin possessed of a fine estate on the outskirts of Paris, thus making her the envy of all the young women of Kent. And so I was destined never to set eyes upon her, for in my third year both she and her husband met their deaths by guillotine under Robespierre’s Terror. Like many others they had thought themselves invincible, dismissing the concerns of their English relatives and delaying their departure from France until it was too late. My grandfather outlived his daughter by less than a year, blaming himself to the end for having encouraged the French marriage. 

There is a portrait in the long gallery at Rosings which held a particular fascination for me as a child.  It shows my father as a young boy, bewigged and powdered for the occasion, standing stiffly to attention at my grandfather’s knee, his blue eyes betraying even then that look of mild apprehension which I remember so well.   His sister, my young aunt, stands encircled by her mother’s arm, equally pale and solemn in stiff blue satins with a Cavalier spaniel at her feet. She is the only member of the group whose eye seems to meet that of the beholder, and to my young self it was like looking at my own reflection in the glass, in spite of the uncomfortable satin and powdered ringlets; for it is true - I do resemble her, in almost every feature. And my father, who had loved his sister dearly, doted upon the daughter who favoured her so closely and was as lavish in his indulgence of me as Mama was lavish in her disappointment.  I was their only child, and she had hoped for a son.

It is a question worth asking: why did my parents marry?  Why would a man of Papa’s temperament - given the choice as he undoubtedly was of so many young ladies of fortune - choose Lady Catherine Fitzwilliam, probably the least likely to contribute to his domestic happiness?  Did it really mean so much to him, to secure the daughter of an Earl?  Physically she was quite his opposite, tall and queenly as her bearing still is, with dark eyes and strong features; and as to character - perhaps it was her very air of assurance which attracted him?  Perhaps he believed that with her at his side, the social duties required of his situation would be less taxing to his shy and gentle nature.  One does hear of such matches, and sometimes they are very successful - but not, alas, in my parents’ case.

And my mother?  What could have attracted the Earl of Amberleigh's daughter to a mere baronet, and a quiet and unassuming one at that?  Ah, that is easy!  In those days as in these a noble name did not of itself secure an income, and the Fitzwilliam daughters could not afford to marry without some attention to their future material comfort.  My father was heir not only to a baronetcy, but also to a large, well-managed estate whose revenue was secure.  Careless, at that stage, of what disappointments his character might hold for her upon closer acquaintance, Lady Catherine Fitzwilliam would have needed very little persuasion to look favourably upon Lewis de Bourgh’s proposal.

Old Sir Lewis, so the story goes, was initially uneasy; he was a wise and protective father, and knew his son well.  But it was an eligible match; the Earl of Amberleigh had given his consent; and perhaps it was in my grandfather’s mind that so strong a young woman would bring robust blood into the family, enhancing its health along with its nobility.  The arrangements were duly made, and the wedding invitations dispatched. 

Chief among the guests in my mother’s eyes must surely have been her younger sister, Lady Anne, who had entered the marriage state some seven years earlier.  She had married for love, and her husband, although wealthy and in possession of a fine estate in Derbyshire, was distinguished by no other title than that of Mr.  How Mama must have relished having her restoration to seniority as wife of the future Sir Lewis de Bourgh and mistress of Rosings Park witnessed by Mr and Mrs Darcy of Pemberley, and their six-year-old son and heir!

She was confident, of course, that she also would produce a son in due course. When I arrived she hid her disappointment as best she could, and as the likelihood of my being joined by a brother diminished with each ensuing year she consoled herself by arranging, in her own mind at least, a match between her daughter and her sister’s only son - between myself and my cousin, Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Fitzwilliam Darcy - known in the family circle as William. There, I have done it.  I have forced my pen to write his name.  

The huge shining sky

Weird Sisters are very excited to share a glimpse of Jay Taverner’s forthcoming novel, Liberty – in which Miss Rebecca Wiston sets out on a sea voyage. We can't wait to read more.

(Liberty is the fourth in the ‘Brynsquilver’ series of historical novels (the others are Rebellion, Hearts and Minds and Something Wicked), and is set at the time of the French Revolution.)

PROLOGUE

The Robin, two-masted coasting vessel out of Salem, walloping southwards before a following wind off the Carolinas in the early spring of 1789. The Robin, shabby, worm-eaten and stinking, laden with oak staves for sugar casks and fusty rice to feed slaves in the British colonies. The packet plodded along, more Dobbin than Robin, Rebecca thought: an old nag bound head-down for its stable. But she did not care. She loved the ugly little ship. For her, everything – salt spray and heaving deck, swearing sailors and puking passengers – was insignificant in the face of the huge shining sky and the swooping, thrusting flow of brilliant air. And every day of rolling progress brought her nearer to her new, half-guessed future.

She sat each day on a pile of spars in the steadily strengthening sun, breathing deeply and, with each long breath, letting go of another link that chained her. On the ninth morning, the new warmth seeping into her back through the serviceable grey wool of her winter gown made her wonder for a moment whether she might go barefoot, as the sailors did; she had not felt the world though her toes since she was a wild child running in the summer woods, twenty years ago. 

It had taken some persuasion to make the Captain take her as a passenger. She knew that her appearance had hardly recommended her – a tall, spare woman dressed in Quaker grey, past her youth at eight-and-twenty and, she thought ruefully, with all the marks of an old maid; but she’d fixed him with a steady gaze, and made him listen to her carefully prepared speech about needing a passage to England, and begging information about getting there via Jamaica. Captain Singleton had clearly been unhappy about an unaccompanied woman traveller. It was not entirely unprecedented, of course, for the Friends did quite often go forth alone, to bear witness in distant places; and, by a stroke good fortune, Captain Singleton’s mother and father-in-law were already on board, bound to see their new grandchild in Jamaica. They had agreed, a little reluctantly, to take Rebecca under their protection, and so the problem was solved.

In the event she had seen very little of these other passengers. Since the Robin had sailed, Rebecca had spent every day on deck, mostly gazing out eastwards towards her distant destination; she rarely entered the cabin.  She had watched Salem dwindle out of sight as they sailed out of the harbour and, as they sailed on, she’d watched the sailors at work. They watched her in return, and grinned, and answered when she spoke to them. She’d stood out of the way while they kicked the poxy old tub into shape, and now she strode the length of the deck without so much as holding to the rail. She had stood by the man at the helm for two days, asking questions which he had answered with surprised politeness. Now the sailors tipped their caps, and she smiled, as they passed by.

On the tenth day they left American waters, passing out into the Gulf, the last leg of the trip to Jamaica. The sun grew hotter and, by the time Rebecca went down to her cot in the narrow cabin, the wind seemed to have dropped to a lulling whisper. But when she woke, too early, before light, she could feel a strange shift in the motion of the ship. The other passengers were both sound asleep on the other side of the cabin, their sickly faces pale in the surging sea-light that slapped against the porthole. Rebecca sat up. The everlasting wallow of the ship had changed to a choppy, gut-wrenching rhythm. Rising quickly and wrapping her woollen shawl over her shift, she made her way across to the companion-way, holding on against the unnatural buck and rear of the deck. 

Above, in the midst of the turbulent motion, there was a strained stillness about the crew. She could see three men holding on by the port rail, and the captain at the wheel; all were staring into the east, as if to catch the rising dawn. Rebecca turned her head. The easterly sky was livid, with green-tinged rays of light rising eerily from the coming sun. Singleton caught sight of her at the companion-head, and called out, gesturing for her to go down again – but his voice was lost in the wind, and in the disaster that fell upon them. A screaming, twisting squall swept down on the ship, tossing it madly like a nutshell in a waterfall. As Rebecca clung to the rope at the stair-head, a wall of water wrenched her sideways, completely off her feet. The icy wave knocked all the breath from her body, but she clung on, pressed against the companion housing for what seemed an age, banging helplessly in the wall of water that swept across the deck. The sound of crashing, splintering timber deafened her.

Then the surge of the sea dropped her abruptly and spewed out of the bilges. Men ran by shouting, laid hold of ropes and began working like demons with knives and axes to free the cumbered ship as she thrashed like a terrified horse tied by the head. Tons of broken wood and sail trailed away in the water. The mast, Rebecca realised – the main mast – had gone by the board. She ducked down the stairwell out of the screaming wind, but darkness and enclosure filled her with terror and she scrambled out again, watching as the crew slashed and chopped to clear the rigging, while two men struggled with the wheel. The captain was gazing away from the rising sun now, westwards, and she pulled herself along by the rail to see what he was watching. 

It was land. A rocky coast, green cliffs incredibly near. She had imagined them still out at sea, swept by this twister in mid-ocean; but they were hard by the shore. Her heart leapt. Then, as she turned back to watch the struggle to master the ship, the deck shuddered and rose under her feet, freed from some of the dragging debris. A man screamed. Horrified, she watched him fly by, mouth open and hands clutching, caught by the leg in an escaping mass of rigging that he had cut free. The ship seemed to right itself, pulling upright before the wind, almost as if it answered to the helm; but as she drew a stunned breath, the air exploded into wet chaos again and she was flung aside, up and away as, quite unmistakably, the hull struck a rock.

'However Improbable Podcast' meets 'My Dearest Holmes'

'It is my specific wish and intention that the manuscript contained in this box be left unopened, unread and unpublished until one hundred years have passed since the events described in the first of the two accounts it contains (namely the year 1887).

If this length of time appears in retrospect to have been excessive, I can only apologise to the future generation.  It seems to me now, in this first decade of the new century, that some further decades at least must elapse before these reminiscences can be received with such sympathy and respect as I hope will one day be possible.

The accounts of these cases have never passed through the hands of my literary agent, Dr Conan Doyle, nor do I intend that they ever shall; they are too bound up with events in my personal life which, although they may provide a plausible commentary to much of what must otherwise seem implausible in my published accounts of my dealings with Mr Sherlock Holmes, can never be made public while he or I remain alive.  However, it is my hope that when all those involved have long passed beyond all censure, these accounts may see the light of a happier day than was ever, alas, granted to us.

John H. Watson, M.D., London 1907'

My Dearest Holmes by Rohase Piercy

Picture the scene:  it's 1987, Centenary Year of the publication of  A Study In Scarlet. Jeremy Brett is camping it up as Sherlock on the Granada TV Series here in Britain, the bookshops are full of Holmes memorabilia, shiny new editions, pastiches, scholarly discussions of the 'Holmes Phenomenon' etc … and a young lesbian couple, Rohase Piercy and Charlie Raven, are reading the stories for the very first time and quickly becoming obsessed.  What we are becoming obsessed by, however, is not so much the great detective's extraordinary intellectual powers as the relationship between Holmes and his faithful sidekick Dr Watson.  Why, we wondered were post-Freudian commentaries not brimming over with observation and deduction on this interesting subject?    

This interview with the lovely gals from the However Improbable Podcast brought it all back in vivid detail – the heady excitement of seeing the homoerotic subtext jump off the page, the witty and hilarious (to us) improvisation, the copious amounts of whisky and soda, all resulting in the creative urge to write, both together and individually, the hitherto untold story – and, of course, the media furore that greeted the eventual publication of 'My Dearest Holmes' in 1988, and ensured that Charlie's sister novella, 'A Case Of Domestic Pilfering' lay mouldering in a drawer for nigh-on thirty years.  If you've a spare half-hour or so, have a listen to how it all panned out. Just click the link below. 

https://www.howeverimprobablepodcast.com/listen/book-club-case-file-my-dearest-holmes

Rohase Piercy

I didn't know I looked cross

This week Maggie Redding has given us a little lyric dialogue between young and old. Hope you enjoy it!

P.S. It has to be said that sometimes Weird Sisters in general do look a bit cross, but only when pondering deeply.

Why do old ladies look cross?

‘Why do old ladies look cross, Grandma?

Tell me, why do they always look grim?’

‘I didn’t know, Annabel, that I looked cross.

Is it the lines from my nose to my chin?’

‘You don’t know you look cross, Grandma?

You are old and will die before long.’

‘It isn’t the thought of dying, Annabel,

that’s the cause of the frowns to be strong.

It’s the sadness of living.

The world is all wrong

With hatred and greed

The hungry to feed

It’s been going on for so long.’

‘Is there nothing that’s good in the world?

Is it all helplessness and despair?

Please give me some hope in my life, Grandma.

Don’t tell me it’s beyond repair.

Is there something you’re forgetting?

There’s my generation to ask.

You can leave it to us.

We’ll make no fuss.

But just get on with the task.’

‘I had hoped, Annabel, to leave the world

better than when I was  born.

I feel that I’ve failed, although I have tried.

It turned out to be a false dawn.’

‘I think you see it all wrong, Grandma

Judging’s not really for you?

‘I don’t think it’s for me,

We don’t need to see

and measure the good that we do.’

Maggie Redding

January 2018 

A rather strange sort of doctor

Continuing our popular Dr Watson theme, this week we have an extract from The Compact by Charlie Raven. Harriet Day has come to ask for help on behalf of her friend George - unaware that this Watson has a connection with a certain famous detective, or that a young Occultist by the name of Aleister Crowley also has a strong interest in the case.

Baker Street was broader and more busy than Harriet remembered and, however hard she looked, she could not find number 221B. The houses seemed to end at number 85 and she became quite flustered until she asked a postman who pointed her in the right direction. She approached the respectable-looking townhouse with some trepidation. She was not sure whom she was about to encounter – a medical man, for sure, but exactly what his connection with George was or what he would be able to do for him was not at all clear. 

The door was opened by a sparklingly neat lady who said, in a voice which implied that Harriet might want to come back another day, that Mr Holmes was not currently available. At which Harriet replied that she had come to consult a Dr Watson and added apologetically that she knew nothing of a Mr Holmes. The parlour she was shown into at the top of the stairs was a large, airy room lit by two broad windows. It was however filled with a quite indescribable amount of clutter. Apart from the stacks of documents and the scientific equipment over in the corner, it did not look very like the consulting office of a surgeon. Scanning the assorted weaponry on the wall, she thought that this must be a rather strange sort of doctor.

‘Good afternoon,’ she said as a light-haired gentleman of about forty or forty-five years appeared out of an adjoining room. Not sure how to go about things, she went on, ‘My name is Harriet Day. I hope you will excuse me for calling unannounced.’

The gentleman immediately shook hands and said, ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mrs Day. My name is John Watson.’

‘Dr Watson?’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Please sit down.’ 

Feeling a bit at a loss, and slightly concerned that there was no sign of a nurse or medical orderly in these consulting rooms, Harriet perched on the edge of a hard chair and proceeded, ‘Let me say first of all that I have not come on a medical matter and I don’t want to take up your valuable time. I’m sure you are very busy. I know the medical profession are always busy – my husband used to be.’

Dr Watson chuckled. ‘I may as well confess that I haven’t practised formally as a doctor for some years now. You might know my work in the field of literature? I am the ‘Boswell’ for Mr Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective.’

‘Oh? How interesting. But as a matter of fact, I came not to see a detective, but to see you, doctor, although strangely enough a detective might be the very kind of person who ...’ she trailed off, realising that she was not explaining herself clearly. 

She tried to start again: ‘This is your name on this card, isn’t it?’ She held up the tattered calling card. ‘I was given this by a friend of mine, a young gentleman who is in the most terrible trouble. He spoke of you as someone who might be able to help. So that’s why I have come – on his behalf, although he doesn’t actually know I’m here. And I can’t say where he is either. I mean I don’t know where he is.’ Harriet, feeling that she had made a hash of this speech from beginning to end, gabbled, ‘And before I go further, I want to say that he is innocent of the crime of which he stands accused.’

Dr Watson permitted himself a discreet sigh (how often had he heard that last sentence before?). ‘Please go on,’ he said. ‘Perhaps with a little more information …?’

Harriet said anxiously, ‘I hope you can recollect my friend? I don’t know when you gave him this card or why, but his name is George Arden. He’s an actor. He is not tall, soft spoken, delicate in build, thin in the face - ?’

‘Ah,’ said Dr Watson, shifting in his seat. ‘Yes, I believe I recall the gentleman.’ He immediately decided not to disclose that he already had a pretty solid understanding of the particulars of the case. He decided to wait now and see what she herself revealed about the suspect; but to be fair to her, since she seemed a nice sort of woman, he felt he should give her a warning. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, steepling his fingers as he had seen Holmes do on countless occasions, ‘can we just establish one thing? If the trouble of which you speak involves the police, I am sure I need not remind you that anyone who harbours, aids or abets a wanted suspect is committing a crime.’ 

One look at Harriet’s face told him everything he needed to know. He added more kindly, ‘So, on the understanding that you and I know absolutely nothing of the gentleman’s whereabouts, we can discuss this case in a theoretical sense only, using your prior knowledge of his character.’

‘Thank you, Dr Watson,’ said Harriet. ‘Well, theoretically speaking, what I wanted to ask your – and I suppose Mr Holmes’s - opinion on was this: how might one proceed to clear his name?’ 

‘Tell me, if you can, what the facts of the case are, Mrs Day,’ he said.

Harriet then spoke at some length; but she did not add anything to what Dr Watson already knew. She confirmed George Arden’s difficulty in recalling events, but her assertion that he was incapable of the crime did not appear to be based on any tangible evidence. She stated that she believed that the one witness to the event was lying, but she had no facts to prove this. 

‘The trouble is,’ said Watson after he had heard her out, ‘all you can really do for him is get a good lawyer. The police should do all the investigating and gathering of evidence. And I have to say that it doesn’t help matters that the suspect ran away so precipitously. Is it in character that he should have done so?’

‘He was frightened, doctor. Frightened by the accident, frightened because this man Albert Burroughs immediately began shouting. Or that’s what I imagine must have happened, because of course I haven’t talked to him about it. But he isn’t – well, I won’t say he is a simpleton, not at all – but he is unlettered and poor and timid. My belief is that he fled in panic, like a child would. Yes, that’s the best way to describe him. Not a dunce but a child, an innocent.’ 

 Watson nodded gravely. ‘I recall his manner quite clearly, Mrs Day. But it still looks like an admission of guilt when a person runs away, I have to say. Judges don’t care for childish young men who don’t stand their ground and speak up for the truth. A good lawyer is what he needs.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I might be able to recommend a couple of names, should the time come when he needs a defence drawn up. Quite frankly, Mrs Day, I have very little other advice to give.’

Harriet sat up very straight as if having made a decision and looked Watson straight in the eye. ‘I refuse to sit by and see this happen to him, doctor. And, therefore, I’ve decided. I know your colleague is not here at present but it seems to me an extraordinary, beneficial coincidence that he is a consulting detective and that you work with him. I have a cheque book in my bag here, and I would like to engage his services.’

‘My dear lady,’ said Watson. ‘I am afraid that is quite impossible. He is away – far away, on a case which may engross his attention for weeks. I am very sorry.’

‘But you, doctor, you say you work with him. You write about his cases, you must be familiar with his methods. Oh, please, if you could help, even if only a little bit – help me to find a way of proving that George Arden is innocent?’

‘I am flattered that you ask me, Mrs Day,’ said Watson hastily, for she was looking very crestfallen. ‘But I am emphatically not a consulting detective myself and do not have the gifts of observation and logic possessed by Mr Holmes. I could bring very little to such an investigation.’

‘But you do know something? You have some experience, surely, doctor? And you have met Mr Arden, he trusted you immediately and you know the kind of helpless creature he is. Would you not agree to be retained to undertake an investigation – call it a preliminary investigation, if you like - until Mr Holmes can take over?’ 

Watson shifted in his seat, feeling uncomfortable. He had never dared to usurp his friend’s vocation before. He would certainly not have dared if it had been likely that Sherlock Holmes would walk through that door within the next few days. Moreover, he himself had been implicated in the case – for all he knew, there might be further last writings from the drunken hand of Valentine Cabot being deciphered at this moment. There were very good reasons to refuse to become involved. But here was Mrs Harriet Day, looking charming and flustered – and damn it. ‘Very well,’ he heard himself say. ‘But please do not you go writing cheques and so forth. I will undertake to assist you on the basis that the final say is up to Mr Holmes. If he chooses to take up the case on his return, then that will be upon a business footing. And I can’t predict, Mrs Day, whether he would take the case or indeed what he would charge.’

Harriet Day’s face lit up. ‘You are extremely kind, doctor. I hardly know how to thank you. If we could put this on a business footing, it might be better, but as you say, all that can be left until Mr Holmes returns.’ She added timidly, ‘Is he very expensive, doctor?’

‘He is – unpredictable, Mrs Day, since he enjoys the game for its intellectual stimulation.’

‘The game?’

‘Oh, um, Holmes looks upon it as a pursuit, a fascinating puzzle, you know.’

‘Oh.’ Harriet looked as though she had a comment on the tip of her tongue, but she said nothing more than, ‘Well, I hope this case is an amusing enough game for him – if he comes back. And that his charges are not too unpredictable for my limited means.’

‘Never fear, I find he is usually flexible. He will never overcharge, that’s for sure, unless you were very, very rich.’

Harriet told Dr Watson the details of her own address and everything she felt was relevant about George and Valentine. Then she left, feeling more hopeful and at peace than she had done for some time.

  Watson paced the room a few times, glancing at the note he had made of Albert Burroughs’s name and address. But: Harriet, Harriet Day. Something about her reminded him of the short years of his marriage, his dear lost wife. Perhaps it was her eyes: they were the very same blue. He found himself standing by the mantelpiece, picking up a calling card he had propped against the side of the clock late one night last week. He sighed again. Poor boy with the thin face. Three times he’d been approached about this case. Three times, as his old mother used to say, was the charm. Not without reluctance, he turned the card over to read Aleister Crowley’s address on the back.