Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

Teeth on monsters were fine with Ernest; teeth like Sellwood’s would give him nightmares.

“A job well done,” said the Reverend. “Let us look further. More infernal things may have sprung up.”

Brother Fose leered at Violet and patted her on the head, which made her flinch. Brother Fessel looked stern disapproval at this familiarity. They followed Sellwood, swinging hammers, scouting for something to break to bits. Dick had an idea they’d rather be pounding on something that squealed and bled than something so long dead it had turned to stone.

Violet wasn’t crying. But she was hating.

More than before, Dick was convinced Sellwood was behind some vile endeavor. He had the look of a smuggler, or a spy.

Richard Riddle, Boy Detective, would bring the villain to book.

II

QRS NDPS JA QRS DGGJHBQS DHHBRBFDQJM

Uncle Davey had let Dick set up the office of the Richard Riddle Detective Agency in a small room under the eaves. A gable window led to a small balcony that looked like a ship’s crow’s-nest. Seaview Chase was a large, complicated house on Black Ven, a jagged rise above Lyme Bay, an ideal vantage point for surveying the town and the sea.

Dick had installed his equipment—a microscope, boxes and folders, reference books, his collection of clues and trophies. Violet had donated some small fossils and her hammers and trowels. Ernest wanted space on the wall for the head of their first murderer: he had an idea that when a murderer was hanged, the police gave the head as a souvenir to the detective who caught him.

The evening after the fossil-smashing incident, Dick sat in the office and opened a new file and wrote Qrs Ndps ja qrs Dggjhbqs Dhhbrbfdqjm on a fresh sheet of paper. It was the RRDA. Special Cipher for The Case of the Ammonite Annihilator.

After breakfast the next day, the follow-up investigation began. Dick went into the airy studio on the first floor and asked Uncle Davey what he knew about Sellwood.

“Grim-visage?” said Uncle Davey, pulling a face. “Dresses as if it were fifty years ago? Of him, I know, to be frank, not much. He once called with a presentation copy of some verminous volume, printed at his own expense. I think he wanted me to find a proper publisher. Put on a scary smile to ingratiate. Maeve didn’t like him. He hasn’t been back. Book’s around somewhere, probably. Must chuck it one day. It’ll be in one of those piles.”

He stabbed a paintbrush towards the stacks which grew against one wall and went back to painting—a ship at sea, only there were eyes in the sea if you looked close enough, and faces in the clouds and the folds of sail-cloth. Uncle Davey liked hiding things.

When Violet and Ernest arrived, they set to searching book-piles.

It took a long time. Violet kept getting interested in irrelevant findings. Mostly titles about pixies and fairies and curses.

Sellwood’s book had migrated to near the bottom of an especially towering pile. Extracting it brought about a bad tumble that alerted Aunt Maeve, who rushed in assuming the whole of Black Ven was giving way and the house would soon be crashing into Lyme Bay. Uncle Davey cheerfully kicked the spill of volumes into a corner and said he’d sort them out one day, then noticed a wave suitable for hiding an eye in and forgot about the children. Aunt Maeve went off to get warm milk with drops of something from Cook.

In the office, the detectives pored over their find for clues.

“Omphalos Diabolicus, or: The Hoax of ‘Pre-History’,” intoned Dick, “by the Reverend Daniel Sturdevant Sellwood, published 1897, Orris Press, Dorset.” Uncle Davey said he paid for the printing, so I deduce that he is the sole proprietor of this phantom publisher. Ah-hah, the pages have not been cut after the first chapter, so I further deduce that it must be deadly dull stuff.”

He tossed the book to Violet, who got to work with a long knife, slitting the leaves as if they were the author’s throat. Then she flicked through pages, pausing only to report relevant facts. One of her talents was gutting books, discovering the few useful pages like a prospector panning gold dust out of river-dirt.