Hell! Said the Duchess

By Michael Nelson

A female killer stalks the streets of London, sleeping with young men before slashing their throats and mutilating their bodies. The crimes have baffled the police and enraged Londoners, who demand the murderer’s arrest. Mary, Duchess of Dove, a gentle young widow who is beloved by all who know her, seems an unlikely suspect, but the clues all point to her. The police have a variety of theories — perhaps the Duchess has been hypnotized or drugged, maybe she has an evil double, or could it be a Communist plot to discredit the peerage? Inspector Basil Icelin is determined to solve the mystery, but the true explanation is far more shocking and terrifying than anyone could ever imagine. 

Michael Arlen (1895-1956) became a rich and world-famous celebrity after the publication of his bestseller The Green Hat in 1924. Hell! said the Duchess (1934) is a delightfully bizarre book, telling a “bedtime story” in a light, humorous style that contrasts oddly with its gruesome and horrific subject matter. This first-ever reprinting of what Karl Edward Wagner has called the best supernatural horror novel ever written includes an introduction by Mark Valentine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valancourt Books
• Release date: Nov 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781939140524

Michael Nelson

Michael Nelson is a former small-town physician, living in a small community among the deep hills and valleys of Southwestern Wisconsin. Retired now, he indulges in his many hobbies. Woodworking, and travel to various parts of the country but most of all; writing. Always being open to new things has kept him youthful and vital as he tries to keep up with his young daughter, Isabelle. In his first 3 novels, Michael (Deeze) Nelson detailed his life from the projects of inner-city Chicago, the Vietnam War, and the struggle to rise above the emotional and psychological burdens of those experiences. Drawing upon their adventures together, in this most recent endeavor, he and his daughter, Isabelle have taken a lighter approach to exciting adventure and magic.

Book preview

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CHAPTER ONE

When the writer permits himself the familiarity of calling her Mary Dove it is not from any disrespect to a lady of rank, nor with any pretensions to the intimate condescension of a lady of fashion. It is written so merely because he finds it a pleasant thing to set down the name: Mary Dove.

Now when the familiar history of our times comes to be written it will be the more readable for the inclusion of this quiet and gracious lady. Since she was so very quiet and lived so privately, it was by repute that her generation was enamoured of her, and there never was a person who was better spoken of in all the counties of England.

But it would be doing the lady an injustice to say merely that her loveliness was a trea­sured ornament of English life, both of the town and in the country, and it must be emphasised that she was admired not only for her slender beauty. For she was gifted with qualities of the mind and heart which endeared her to young and old alike, and her kindness was incorruptible by any prejudice whatsoever.

Thus she was much loved by all who knew her. While even the spiteful, who are always with us, could not but acknowledge that the Duchess of Dove would have been a knock-out in any station of life.

That is why the story of the misfortunes that beset her, unspeakably horrible though they were, must serve to adorn her reputa­tion and exalt her memory.

John Charles Almeric Wingless St. Cloud Bull, 3rd Duke of Dove and Oldham, 4th Marquess of Rockneil, 9th Earl of Locroy, 4th Viscount Aberlaw, and 22nd Baron Pest of Cheadle, ensign in His Majesty’s Brigade of Guards, was killed in a motor accident eight months after his marriage. The poor lad’s death was made the more tragic by its indirect cause. He was on King’s Guard within the ancient pile of St. James’s Palace, and enjoying one of the excellent dinners provided for officers en­gaged on that august duty, when he was warned by telephone that his wife was enduring the agonies of premature labour pains. It was no doubt from driving alto­gether too fast through the tempting dark­ness of the Great North Road towards Dove Park that he collided with a lorry not far from Kettering and was instantly killed. He need not have hurried so. Or, had he been instructed in the pleasures of reading, he could have taken the train. For the yearly increase in motoring fatalities can be due to nothing so much as a distaste for reading, for which a railway carriage, whether made of wood or of steel, provides ample facili­ties. Indigestion had caused the young Duke’s alarm, and the stricken young widow was delivered of a healthy son at the due