Algernon Swafford Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Also by F.R. Jameson

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  A plea from the author

  The Ghostly Shadows series

  Ghostly Shadows Shorts

  Also by F.R. Jameson: The Screen Siren Noir series

  Get a free novel by F.R. Jameson today!

  About the author

  Algernon Swafford:

  Private Investigator

  F.R. Jameson

  Also by F.R. Jameson

  Ghostly Shadows

  Death at the Seaside

  Certain Danger

  Won’t You Come and Save Me, Oh Soldier

  Call of the Mandrake

  Ghostly Shadows Shorts

  Foliage

  The Strange Fate of Lord Bruton

  The Widow Ravens

  Sacrifice at St. Nick’s

  Screen Siren Noir

  Diana Christmas

  Eden St. Michel

  Alice Rackham

  Other Short Stories

  Confined Spaces

  F.R. Jameson’s debut novel, The Wannabes is now available completely for free!

  Click here for your copy!

  To V and E, with love, always…

  One

  Whichever way you raised the knife to slice it, it was clear that this Jacob Ravens chap was a wretch of a human being. Everything I’d heard told me that he was a scoundrel, a cheat, a blackguard, a taker of other men’s wives and much more. All that was unsavoury about Man wrapped into one individual. My client had given me every scrap of information he had and I’d made other enquiries along the way. I’d heard from a number of sources that he was a sodomite: a husband to women, but most definitely a wife to men. Furthermore, there were whispers that he practised the Dark Arts; that he was so far removed from being a Christian man, he actually indulged in satanic rituals. Everything I’d learned about him over the last few weeks while hunting him, told me that he was a roué and an utter rogue. It was going to be my enormous pleasure to deal with him.

  Algernon Swafford, at your service – Private Investigator.

  People always seemed surprised to find that I was English. Once they heard the crisp tones of my accent, they barely stared at the jagged red scar below my left eye, or really noted that I was probably older than their imaginings – with my refined grey hair and wrinkles. (Fifty-eight last birthday, and still healthier and stronger than most rugby playing undergraduates.) No, it was the accent which always threw them. Baffled and discombobulated them that someone who spoke the proper King’s English should be doing my job in my chosen locale.

  I know that in those lurid dime-store novels which have become popular these last few years, the Private Investigator (or P.I.) is generally a grizzled, bordering on dyspeptic, former policeman, with an eye for the ladies, a shabby office and a filthy mouth – if the publisher would only let him use it.

  Well, I’m a private investigator in downtown Los Angeles too. Only I am a well-educated Englishman, who does not use profanity and can afford a spacious, spruce office in the same building as accountants and insurance brokers. I am a great respecter of womankind and would never indulge in vulgar flirtation with my secretary. Not that the stoically formidable Mrs Dennings, a middle-aged widow with two young sons, who lost her husband in the last World War (so not the one I fought in) would have stood for it. A fact which does her credit.

  So in short, I do not fit the stereotype. But I am better than any of the lowlifes who populate those books, better than most of my competitors. It wouldn’t be hyperbole to state that when it comes to what I do, I am the best.

  Something this vulgar horror scribe, Jacob Ravens was about to find out to his cost.

  The client who hired me to hunt down this foul specimen was as sallow-faced and crushed an individual as I had ever met. If put on the spot, I would have said he was a few years younger than me, but – sat the other side of my desk – he could have passed for my broken-hearted father. He walked into my office one humid Tuesday morning with a stoop and a suit which seemed to have grown too big for him. His haircut had been allowed to reach the point of unkempt and he was a couple of day’s shave away from appearing respectable. His handshake was limp and his voice hesitant. He really was an unprepossessing individual, surely only a small extra stumble from being a broken drunk. If he hadn’t come on a personal recommendation, I might have asked him to leave.

  As it was, I listened intently.

  Slowly, stopping more than once to compose himself, he told me his tale of calamity.

  The man had a son and that son had fallen in love with the most charming girl. A wonderful lady who came from a good family in Georgia. Simply beautiful, he told me, all blonde hair and dimples. She had suitors from every corner of the country, but it was his son who won her heart.

  They’d married right after the war and made their home in Pasadena, where they seemed delightfully happy. They were the very picture of wedded bliss. Until, one day, they weren’t. My client couldn’t really say what the cause of the fissure was. Whether, after two years of marriage, it was the fact that they still had no offspring; or whether there was a part of her always more flighty than she first appeared. But after those first two years of love and wonder, she threw it all in and began an affair with Jacob Ravens.

  I’d never heard of the man before that Tuesday morning, but apparently he was a successful author of pulp horror stories. (Not my kind of thing, although I’d have thought much less of him if he wrote wilfully inaccurate detective fiction.) And, like me, a transported Englishman – although I like to think that’s where our similarities ended. How his daughter-in-law and Ravens met, my client didn’t know. However, the two of them soon embarked on a torrid romance – this once lovely girl falling completely under his depraved spell – and they didn’t even have the courtesy to be discreet about it.

  The two of them were disgracefully open in their relations, with no care given to her reputation. (Ravens’s had already long gone.) They allegedly would fornicate in public, doing it in front of an audience at drugged-out parties he threw. Other depraved individuals joined in whenever they wanted. That was distressing enough, but Ravens – so rumour had it – also introduced her to devil worship. The kind of thing which surely only happened in blackened basements in San Francisco or New York City, now brought to the suburbs of Pasadena. Ravens didn’t merely have a dalliance with this lady, he left her without a shred of decency or morality. It was not an exaggeration to say that he utterly ruined her.

  Across the desk from me, the client took an hour or so to tell me all this. There were whole minutes which passed in pained silence as he tried to hold himself together while perhaps thinking of the correct words with which to express his horror.

  The shamelessness she indulged in with Ravens didn’t last long in reality. A few short months after they met, he abandoned her. Disappeared from town without a word. What he left behind was a husk of a woman. An emaciated, drug addicted whore who was forced to turn tricks on the street to get by. Quite understandably, her husband – my client’s son – didn’t want her back. Nor did her family, or anyone else in polite society. Surely filled with regret, she finally took the one course that was open to her – and put a bullet through her brain on a park bench.

  However, her widower – despite everything which had occurred – found himself heartbroken. Even though he was evidently the wronged party, his wounds still gaped. There were no bandages to heal them or ointment to salve them. Seeing the state of him, my client and his wife had been panicked enough to commit him to a clinic to prevent him se
lf-harming. Over time the doctors hoped to treat him so he was his right self again. But as for now, and my client had come straight from the clinic to my office, his son remained unresponsive and virtually catatonic.

  Not long ago, the man sat before me had a son and a daughter-in-law who were madly in love and he himself was filled with joy as he anticipated grandchildren. Today, he had nothing.

  A silence fell between us again. The tremble in his fingers was such that he could barely hold the silk handkerchief that he used to wipe the sweat from his brow and the tears from his eyes. He told me, in grave, pained tones that he wanted me to locate this utter bastard, Ravens. The wolf who had come along and slain everything good in his life.

  “Why?” I asked him, my gaze narrowed. How was knowing this man’s whereabouts going to help his son?

  He answered the question by laying a thousand dollars in unmarked bills on my desk.

  To most, I am merely a private investigator. More charming than most, more erudite than most – but a tool to use to hunt down errant wives and grown daughters who think they can have fun without responsibility. However, those in the know – the crème de la crème, as it were – understand that I am more than that. It is all done subtly, the request is always undertaken without fuss – as otherwise it could leave me exposed to unpleasantness. Algernon Swafford is nothing but careful and, more importantly, Algernon Swafford is owned by no man. But for the right trusted contact, and at the right price, I will not only find an individual, I will kill them for you.

  The man across the desk was paying me to execute the reprehensible Jacob Ravens, and given all I’d heard about the man, I had to say it would be my absolute pleasure.

  Two

  If this Ravens character was trying to hide himself away, he really wasn’t making a good job of it. I found his trail through bad debts, obviously poor decisions and – yes – broken hearts right across California. The same names of women and effeminate men were mentioned again and again, and whereas they themselves did their best to avoid talking to me, there were always friends and family nearby willing to offer their version of the truth. They made it clear through gritted teeth and many curse words what this monster had done to them.

  Eventually I was given a location, a place I was assured I could find him with little effort. Apparently, he was up the coast in Monterey. A small town known for its cannery plant and not much else. I’d never been there myself, but understood it to be a smoky and grubby place. No doubt the kind of hidden-from-the-light spot where Ravens thought he could just lurk in the darkness.

  I was told he had made a temporary home there with a Latina waitress. Truly this Ravens man was insatiable. His own wife – yes, he was married – was by all accounts a particularly attractive English lady. (Although ‘lady’ might be a bit strong, as her morals were somewhat dubious too.) Whatever the state of this marriage, it wasn’t stopping him playing the part of a Don Juan.

  It was three weeks later – a wet Thursday evening – when I drove my Pontiac into Monterey. I didn’t, as yet, have a precise address for Ravens, but I did have the name of the bar he frequented and I made it my first stop. He was such a regular that that’s where his mail and royalty cheques were currently being forwarded. My trusty Remington strapped unobtrusively under my arm, I waited for the moment – all I’d need was a moment – when I got him alone.

  McGinity’s was everything you’d expect from a bar called McGinity’s. It was pitch dark even with the sun not quite fully set and everything had a slightly chipped and worn quality. You had to be careful where you rested your lips on the chipped glasses; every stool at the bar seemed wobbly; while the long wooden counter itself was deeply dented, as if more than one skull had been pounded into it over time. Its fragrance was hoppy in a way which didn’t suggest freshly brewed beer, but instead a thousand tankards emptied onto the floorboards and never properly mopped up.

  The old red-headed bastard who glared at me as I walked in – I was the sole customer at that point – was every inch the truculent Irishman. He’d pretend to be lyrical and poetic when someone else was paying for drinks, but would turn into a knife-wielding thug when he determined events were no longer going his way. My first posting during The Great War had been in Dublin and it had given me a healthy distrust and dislike of all things Paddy. On first glance it was clearly the case that this McGinity fellow wasn’t the man to make me change that view.

  I ordered a bottle of the local beer, not that I expected it to be good, but I was unwilling to trust anything which came from the taps. McGinity served me with a mean eye and scarce a word. Happy to do my bidding for now as he recognised me as a better, but eager to spit in my drink the first opportunity he got. A thousand years of English/Irish relations summarised in one commercial transaction.

  Then I waited. I might not have an actual photograph of Ravens – my client hadn’t possessed one – but I had a good enough description. Besides, in an out of the way berg like Monterey, there was surely only ever going to be two Englishmen in attendance on any given day. And I was one of them.

  I’d find the bugger. Absolutely I would.

  Half an hour I waited as the only patron. McGinity, perhaps feeling a little ashamed of what he’d let the bar come to, suddenly making an effort to polish glasses and mop the counter as if he could convince me he’d only let the place go this afternoon. It was obvious from the glares he sent my way that all that effort was going to cease the very second I exited.

  For now, however, I wasn’t going anywhere. And after half an hour the door was thrown open and in strolled a young, tall man in a fancy tan suit. Obviously you don’t last long in my profession without understanding subtlety, so I hunched over my drink and seemingly paid him no attention whatsoever. I didn’t so much as turn my head. Not that I had any need to, as in this empty bar – with half a dozen vacant stools, deserted tables and more than one booth – this man dropped himself right next to yours truly.

  “The usual, please!” He called to the barman. And then turning to regard me with an appraising eye, smiled and said in the most home county English tones. “You’re a fellow countryman of mine, aren’t you?”

  I had the wretch. Arrogant and entitled, he might be, but I had him!

  Three

  I turned slowly in my chair, as if I had all the stiffness of an old man, as if I hadn’t kept my body taut and spry.

  Still, I tried to smile at him, to make a friend – if only temporarily. “How could you possibly know that?” I asked. “You haven’t heard me speak a word.”

  He beamed at me and bounced his bottom a couple of times on his barstool in excitement. Ever since I was first sent to prep school, I have had a great dislike for enthusiasm. I myself never feel it, all my emotions are tempered – it is the best way to be. But as I’ve got older, I realised that I dislike the quality in others as well. It is one of the reasons why I have never married. Women crave passion and stimulation. My betrothed would look forward to our wedding day, for instance, and such a thing would irritate me to my core.

  The man in front of me positively radiated excitement for the day. With his stupid grin and the eager light in his eyes. Even if I hadn’t come here today to kill him, I would definitely have wanted to.

  I took a long sip and tried to smile, letting him think he’d made a new chum.

  “It’s your bearing,” he told me. “The remarkably straight spine, the impressively balanced shoulders. It transports me to all those drills on the playing fields of my schooldays. You don’t really have men with a bearing like that over this side of the pond. And I’d include the military men in that assessment. They push their chests out rather than holding them high. So as soon as I saw you, I thought there’s a good Englishman. More than that – there’s a good Englishman who was a good soldier.”

  Well, he had me there.

  I nodded once, as if thanking him. His accent was posher than mine, the kind which is only bred by the aristocracy or the finest of public scho
ols. Grinning at me, he sat with legs akimbo and his elbow leant slovenly on the bar, so that the civilian quality to him was impossible to miss. He may have had cadet training as a small boy, but this man had clearly never served in the armed forces, not even in the last war. I bet the whole time bloody Hitler was rampaging across Europe, he sat in an expensive American bar smirking about the fact.

  Professional that I am, I did not let my distaste show.

  “Charmed to meet a fellow countryman in such an out of the way place,” I told him.

  “Likewise,” he said. “In Hollywood you can’t throw a stone without hitting a chap in an ascot who thinks that the English accent alone is enough to make him the next Cary Grant. In Monterey, well, if people do dream of cramming oily fish into small tin cans, I’m sure that Grimsby is still a going concern, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve lived here too long to know anything of the state of Grimsby.”

  “Me too!” he almost cheered. “And when I did live in Blighty, it was unlikely that I’d ever have gone to Grimsby. Maybe if I’d lost a bet or a dare, but otherwise never. I’m guessing it’s the same for you too. We’re both well-educated men of the world, aren’t we?”

  The glass went to my lips again. “Tell me,” I asked. “What’s your name?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Paul Hollingshead.” Then he reached out his hand for me to shake. He may have played the part of a feckless young pup, but his grip was strong.

  As I said, I had no photograph of Jacob Ravens, but my client had provided me with a description and the others whom he’d wronged had confirmed it.

  Ravens was just shy of six feet tall, with unnaturally bright green eyes (that were described to me as reminiscent of a South Seas Island lagoon: not a description I’ve had any first-hand experience of). His hair was dark, wavy and normally brushed forward over his high forehead; his jaw came to a point that was maybe that bit too sharp; while his lips were full enough to almost appear swollen. I was assured that his skin was smooth and there was a youthfulness to him, despite the dissolute life he’d led. It wasn’t a surprise to hear more than one acquaintance of his tell me that Ravens was a particularly handsome man.