I got chills

They're multiplying.

Even by the unnaturally frigid standards of Pity's End, it is bitterly cold. I can scarcely remember a time when I was quite so chilled, though it was possibly on a long distant winter visit to Hawton Mere, Sir Stephen Clarendon's moated manor house in the fen country.

The old house is gone now, of course. The circumstances of its destruction are detailed in Mr Priestley's upcoming novel, The Dead of Winter, as a matter of fact and his small but loyal readership will no doubt read all about it when it is published in October of this year.

Mr Priestley's account is a trifle sensationalised, but as he heard the story from me, I can vouch for its veracity. After all I heard the story from poor Michael Vyner himself.

But the cold deepens. It is almost as though it is gnawing at the very bones of my legs. Oh - it's you Franz. Come out from under there!

How many times must we have this conversation?