Shalaby and Fecklace Spend the Night in an Unnatural Manor

By Chantelle Messier

Shalaby W. Shalaby, Victorian private detective, regards it as his civic duty to investigate the grave mystery of the counterfeited ladies' hats. His companion, Byron Fecklace, inventor of the Gatling sword, does not consider the matter nearly so pressing--but he is beginning to find his own mounting debts a trifle inconvenient. With the help of a dime novel and a dumb waiter, let us hope they can vanquish...

Counterfeiters!
A hail of gunfire!
Tailor's bills!
Austro-Hungarians?

And above all, the terrifying Teutonic spectre that awaits them in the UNNATURAL MANOR.

This Shalaby and Fecklace mystery adventure is part of a series of humorous steampunk / Victorian supernatural detective stories by Chantelle Messier.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chantelle Messier
• Release date: Apr 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476263465

Chantelle Messier

Chantelle Messier is an avid researcher and reader of Victorian society and cultural oddities. Currently an instructor of writing at Roger Williams University, she has published in a number of genres including poetry, non-fiction, science fiction, and steampunk.Look for her work online at her blog, Lair of the Semanticore, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Her stories are featured in two print anthologies: The Obverse Book of Detectives (Obverse Books, 2013); and Tales of the Great Detectives (City of the Saved #4) (Obverse Books, 2014).

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Shalaby and Fecklace Spend the Night in an Unnatural Manor

A short story by Chantelle Messier

Published by Chantelle Messier at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Chantelle Messier

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Part I: Haberdashed

The breakfast room door opened and an immense stack of hats walked in, escorted by the maid. I looked up from my book. Such a mountain of hats was unlikely to conceal any person inquiring about investment in my Gatling sword, but one can hope.

It’s Mr. Shalaby, sir, Miss Hirsch announced.

That’s all right, Hirsch, don’t be too hard on yourself about it. These things can’t be helped.

The hats uttered a sniff of annoyance. They cascaded onto the table and one rolled to a stop in front of me, displacing my book and dangling a delicate ostrich feather into my breakfast plate.

I picked it out. Morning, old chap.

Afternoon, Shalaby harrumphed, dusting himself off and removing his own battered brown top hat. He tapped a cold-reddened hand on the table. Do you know what these are, Fecklace?

"Fish croquettes in remoulade sauce. And I prefer them sans plumage, if you don’t mind." I flicked one of the intruders off of the table and Shalaby snatched it up.

They are ladies’ straw derby hats, he boomed, as I expect you would recognize if you looked up from that penny dreadful.

I think it’s very hard that a man should be pegged as an expert on ladies’ clothing simply because he happens to have dressed in a burlesque dancer’s costume once.

Twice.

Or twice. I put down my coffee and peered over the pages of Ned Kelly! The Ironclad Australian Bushranger, an alternative to pondering the unanswerable sheaf of tailors’ bills my wife had set down for my edification this morning. "What, may I ask, is so special about these hats as to merit