Professor Challenger by Charles Prepolec

Author:Charles Prepolec
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy / Adventure Anthology
Publisher: Hades Publications Inc
Published: 2015-07-22T23:49:07+00:00

PROFESSOR CHALLENGER & THE CRIMSON WONDER

by Guy Adams & James Goss

12th May 1914

Jessie Challenger

The Briars

Rotherfield

My dearest Edward

I do hope things are going well for you with your London Explorers. What a treat it must be for London knowing that the very cleverest minds in the entire Empire are all gathered together in one small room. I just pray there isn’t an accident with the gaslight— if you were all wiped out, who would do Britain’s thinking for her?

I miss you terribly, of course. The pleasing news is that, here in the country, things continue much as usual. Florrie — that’s the new cook — has been persuaded to stay (a woman of some education, she was able to decipher the Latin tag you’d carved into her omelet). Austin remains with us. He is nursing wounded pride and yet another black eye— Dearest, far be it for me to tell you how to treat your chauffeur, but if I can prevail upon you to strop striking him, that would be a small slice of heaven. I know the fellow is surly, but he says that, if you had simply warned him the case contained glass slides, he would have carried it with greater care. He also points out proudly that he managed not to drop it, despite the tattoo of fisticuffs beating upon his skull. I have mollified him, and forestalled his departure by assuring him that, the next time you punch him, he is most definitely entitled to hit back. Do you know, I think if I allowed all the servants the liberty of striking you, I would be saved their annual bonus and a fair few holidays?

If you could only be a little more polite towards them we would eat better, there would be less dust in your laboratory, and Austin would avoid potholes in the road. I say nothing of my own comfort in all of this, of course, as it is you I am thinking of, and your status. In short, you would live in the manner to which a national hero should be accustomed.

Anyway, with the temporary restoration of the status quo, you’ll be displeased to hear I was able to receive some of the ladyfolk of the neighborhood. They have been pressing their claims to call on us with some alacrity since the affair of the Poison Belt. There is a general feeling (which I know you cannot be aware of) that the world owes you its life after the lifting of the deadly ether. While I know that there is no basis in this, the fact that you prophesied the calamity, means that many assume that you were involved in the world’s revival from its deadly slumber.

Knowing that an afternoon of being feted and cooed over by chittering ladyfolk is your idea of a new circle of hell, I arranged for them to call on me this afternoon, when you were safely on your train to London. “Ladies,” I informed them once they were

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