The Curator: Fact or Fiction?
By Thadeus Morticaine
Among them, I found a copy of a sensationalist conspiracy journal entitled The Recluse, a magazine that ran for a single issue in June 1927. It was an exciting rarity, especially when that magazine was never available outside the USA.
Over tea, I gave it my full attention. Straight after an H.P. Lovecraft article entitled Supernatural Horror in Literature was another article called The curator: Fact or Fiction? Noticing that this article referred to an event that happened in Derby, I felt it was interesting enough to attempt to republish it for a new audience, especially since it had entered the public domain. So please, let me present to you, the digitised version of that very same article.
I ask you, who is The Curator? He has been glimpsed occasionally in most major cities across the globe for nigh on 75 years, but most of his sightings have centred around an English town called Derby.
I am Derby born and bred and have regularly heard in local taprooms stories of half seen shadows, dog men, wolf men and of gaunt ethereal men in bilious coats and fedoras. But who is this figure?
Some of the rumours even speculated that he was Jack the Ripper or Spring Heeled Jack and that it was this figure that caused the Staplehurst Disaster that broke Charles Dickens. But, I'd like to tell a story that made The Curator something very personal to me.
Early one morning while finishing an article, I heard a missive clatter through my letterbox. Knowing I would be able to see the deliverer from my study window, I raced to it. I could see only his back. He kept to the shadows, with his dark traveller's coat billowing out behind him and a black slouch hat pulled down firmly to his scalp. Hunched forward and with a nervous gait, I could tell he was consciously keeping himself hidden. But what I found unnerving were the black tendrils of mist exuding from him that dominated the night.
I ripped open the note. Amid the ordered mass of seemingly Hebrew like symbols, I read: 'Find the Faceless Man by R.U. Pickman, the museum archive'.
I was intrigued, a strange man who followed the description of The Curator had just paid me a visit and he had a task for me.
The next day, I met with Dr Langford, the resident Doctor of Theology at the museum. He'd helped my career as a reporter many times while in his capacity here. I knew I could depend on him. I passed him the note and asked for a translation of what I'd taken to be Hebrew while explaining how it had come into my possession. He was pleased to help, but expressed a theory that the text was in fact in Enochian. It would take him three days to translate and in the meantime, I was permitted to peruse the painting mentioned in the note and carry on with other lines of investigation that I saw fit.
On seeing the painting, I could understand why it had been consigned to obscurity. I found it thoroughly repulsive. The male focus of this portrait had a thin, canine face with a greying completion. But most notably, it was the lack of any facial features I found the most disgusting. On a closer look, the background incorporated the same Enochian lettering that surrounded my note. But curiously, the figure owned an awkwardness shared with my shadowy delivery man in the way he held himself.
I reversed the canvas and was rewarded. An artist's note was pasted to the back. It read 'Portrait of The Curator. Finished May 1880. Payment in full, Countess C Karnstein.'
The artist I knew to have dies some years previously, but I'd been presented with another contact, a Countess Karnstein.
I found her with only a little difficulty. Her address was easily accessed in the parish records and on arrival at her Shambles residence, I found it spoke of her financial failures as a spiritualist medium. Sitting with her and another lady whom was introduced to me as her niece over tea, she told me briefly of her past.
She was an exiled Prussian noble who had found her gift as an infant in the 1860s and had moved here as a result of her treatment as a pariah. In Derby, she had been very popular, but had eventually become friends with two men she referred to as the Ersatz. One was a Kashmiri prince who called himself Vikram, and the other was a French businessman, one Francis Varney. They'd paraded as friends and fellow mediums at first and had brought her to the attention of the model in the painting, who she explained, had originally spoken with her through a seance.
The details she gave of her own down fall from that point were sparse from then on and I could not blame her for withholding some of her own shame. But at one point through the tears, she had wailed: "The Ersatz betrayed me!"
As I left, through the moans of high emotion, she blurted out that a Mr M- of Macklin Street could tell me more.
Curious, were there more than one 'Curator'? Was there some fraudulent spiritualism at play aimed at derailing my pursuit of investigating The Curator. I knew that I was being led on a journey. But to what end? I would follow the clues to the end no matter what. It was something I needed to do.
I interviewed Mr M-, a local and veteran of the Great War. He remembered The Curator's visitation well. He had been sixteen in 1885 and had taken an interest in the multinational group of ghost whisperers. It had been the height of the Spiritualist Movement, he reminded me.
He'd witnessed the seance held by Vikram, Karnstein and Varney. He described the only full on manifestation that I've ever become aware of. It was the first and only that he;d known of as well. He;d not thought them possible until that point.
The figure, "'oo 'ad ol the grace ofun 'eron." described Mr M-. "Wut must surpraased me abart 'im wus 'is fizzog. Bar a maw like an 'ound, wer 'is features. in shot, 'e 'ad none."
Mr M- went on to inform me of this strange incident. Once the figure had appeared, a strange voice spoke to him. It seemed to have been projected directly into his mind. Though there were no lips to indicate speak, the source of the voice was definitely the faceless man.
Mr M- was informed that the spirits, as he knew them, needed a token gesture. The dog faced man needed to possess him.
The last thing that Mr M-told me he remembered was Mr Varney and Vikram braying with laughter and the spirit before him transforming into mist and drifting towards him and engulfing him.
The morning after his encounter, Mr M- found himself in a prison cell, not remembering anything between the seance and that moment.
That was the end of my interview. I was motivated to visit the library.
As the library adjoined the museum, I could kill two birds with one stone. I could check in on Dr Landford and his translation as well as look up the newspaper articles for the day of the seance in the archive. I found a copy of the Derby Evening Telegraph for the day after where on the penultimate page, I found what I was looking for.
Late on the night of the seance, a couple had been strolling in Darley Park. Near the high north end entrance, the couple were accosted by a translucent figure huddled within the shadow of a cluster of trees.
The male approached the figure, intending to question the ethereal form about its intent. The incorporeal humanoid reached into the folds of its robe like shroud and pulled out what the man presumed was a pistol.
Feeling threatened, the man swung his fist at the phantom. The spirit dissipated on contact, but this wasn't before the firearm had been flung far off towards the river and down the embankment. This incident had naturally been reported straight away to the police. The supposed firearm had never been found. But after three days, at the same spot that the couple had seen the gun land, lay three dead rats. Whether this was a joint delusion or some supernatural transformation, I'll never know, though I genuinely suspected the later.
I marched across to Dr Langford's office pondering on the seemingly random purpose of the phantom's attack. It'd be easy to presume that the ethereal form was the possessed body of Mr M-, but the logic behind the occurrence completely escaped me. Had one of the couple or the other had dealings with The Curator themselves? I couldn't tell.
Within moments, I picked up a translation of the symbols from Dr Langford's office. It read:
The wise men know that wicked things,
Are written on the sky,
They paint sad oils, they pluck sad strings,
Hearing the heavy black leather wings,
Where the forgotten spirit kings,
Still plot how you shall die.
Within days, any further clue that could lead me to the identity of the individual known as The Curator ran dry. Both the couple involved in the river side incident had died during the war. Both Mr M- and Countess Karnstein had vanished and weren't remembered by any neighbours. I looked for any reference to Vikram or Varney, whether it was in transport manifests or in old hotel check in ledgers, but no reference to them was to be found. I can only conclude that the Curator is a sham and my own experiences of him are but figments of my imagination.
After digitising this article, I was curious myself. I decided to delve into the life of the reporter who wrote the article - a Mr Howard. At the registry office, I found his death certificate. He'd been found dead three days after the article's publication. The cause of death was by a violent vermin attack. He was thirty years old.
Sorry it's taken so long to reply, I find that using my blog is quite sporadic. I'll take a look.
ReplyDelete