The Man with the Lantern

By Benjamin Parsons

It's just before Christmas. Snow is falling outside the windows of Pelham, an isolated country house. Loveable, enthusiastic Luke Brightman disappears without trace from a locked room. His sister-in-law is convinced there's something supernatural at play, but her logical friend Jemima believes she can solve the mystery through deduction. She investigates secret passages, gothic crypts and strange amulets, but can she find the missing Luke? And can she explain the ghostly figure of the man with the lantern? Inspired by locked room mysteries, Christmas ghost stories and the Bedfordshire countryside, this comic mystery is part of the collection Tales from the Old World.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin Parsons
• Release date: Apr 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224365203

Benjamin Parsons

I am a writer and artist from the Westcountry of England now living in London. I write and illustrate stories about love, hate, ambition, revenge, beauty, and the supernatural.

Book preview

The Man with the Lantern

Copyright 2024 Benjamin Parsons. First published in 2016.

Smashwords edition, license notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

* * *

When Jemima Prentiss received an urgent plea to visit an out-of-town friend, she immediately changed her Christmas plans and packed a bag. She was never one to shun the demands of friendship, and poor Jane sounded almost desperate on the phone.

‘Besides,’ Jemima added to herself, ‘I bought her that bottle of thirty-year-old port for her birthday, and I’m determined to make her open it at last.’

Accordingly she set off to the rescue, and arrived at Pelham later that day.

Although a mere hour or so out of London, Pelham was remote and rural, surrounded by stark fields and naked trees, now covered with a thin crust of frozen snow.

Jemima congratulated her decision to come: ‘Where could be better for a cosy pre-Christmas getaway? A lonely old house, no doubt a crackling fire and certainly a glass of fine port to look forward to— London can keep its parties for this year.’

And as if to enhance the mood, a couple of obliging snowflakes began to flutter around her ears as she knocked on the front door.

She quickly changed her satisfied expression to one of sympathetic concern, however, when her friend appeared.

‘Oh, Jemima! Thank goodness you’ve come,’ said Jane under her breath as she hurried her guest inside. ‘Everything will be alright now you’re here.’

Jane Brightman looked harassed and weary, but was perfectly made up and attired. The emergency had never yet occurred that would make her neglect her attentions to beauty, as Jemima knew well enough. For her own part, Jemima couldn’t hope to compare with Jane’s statuesque looks; she was merely little and pretty. But I believe she had one attraction more beautiful, perhaps, than Jane’s perfections— Jemima was clever.

‘Why are you whispering?’ she asked, following Jane into the kitchen.

‘Jim’s having a rest,’ came the mouthed reply, with a nod towards a doorway half-ajar, through which Jemima glimpsed Jane’s husband stretched out in a chair, fast asleep.

‘He works so hard— nobody knows how hard. And now with this crisis on top of everything else, it’s just too much. He’s quite worn out.’ She closed the door softly.

‘But Jane, what is the crisis? You haven’t told me anything.’

‘Oh, it’s terrible— frightening! Luke has disappeared. Yes! Actually vanished!’

Jemima frowned. ‘Are you sure? I only saw him last week.’

Luke was Jim’s brother, and of recent years, a good friend of Jemima’s.

‘Sure? I couldn’t be more so. I’ve looked everywhere— I’m going out of my mind!’

‘He usually comes to stay with you for Christmas, doesn’t he? Didn’t he turn up?’

‘He arrived on Sunday, just as expected— but now he’s gone. Gone, Jemima! Something strange— something sinister has happened to him.’

‘Really. Well— take a breath, and tell me: when