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Coming up in this episode, it's Thriller Thursday and this week I have a novelette from my collection of Alfred Hitchcock Presents books. This one comes from the book Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories Not for the Nervous, published in 1965. However, the story I am telling tonight, the abominable history of the Man with Copper Fingers, was originally published in 1928 in a collection of stories written by Dorothy L. Sayers called Lord Peter Views the Body, with each story in that anthology centering around the character of Lord Peter Wimsley. I am going to avoid describing the story I am about to relate because it might ruin it for you, so let's just get started. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. The Egotists Club is one of the most genial places in London. It is a place to which you may go when you want to tell that odd dream you had last night, or to announce what a good dentist you have discovered. You can write letters there, if you like, and have the temperament of a Jane Austen, for there is no silence room, and it would be a breach of club manners to appear busy or absorbed when another member addresses you. You must not mention golf or fish, however, and if the Honorable Freddie Arbuthnot's motion is carried at the next committee meeting and opinion so far appears very favourable, you will not be allowed to mention wireless either. As Lord Peter Wimsley said when the matter was mooted the other day in the smoking room, those are things you can talk about anywhere, otherwise the club is not specifically exclusive. Nobody is ineligible, per se, except strong, silent men. Nominees are, however, required to pass certain tests, whose nature is sufficiently indicated by the fact that a certain distinguished explorer came to grief through accepting and smoking a powerful Trichinopoly cigar as an accompaniment to an 1863 port. On the other hand, dear old Sir Roger Bunt, a Coaster millionaire who won the £20,000 ballad offered by the Sunday Shriek and used it to found his immense catering business in the Midlands, was highly commended and unanimously elected after declaring frankly that beer and a pipe were all he really cared for in that way. As Lord Peter said again, nobody minds costness but one must draw the line at cruelty. On this particular evening, mastermen, the Cubist poet, have brought a guest with him, a man named Varden. Varden had started life as a professional athlete, but a strained heart had obliged him to cut short a brilliant career and turn his handsome face a remarkably beautiful body to account in the service of the cinema screen. He had come to London for Los Angeles to stimulate publicity for his new film, Marathon, and turned out to be quite a pleasant, unspoiled person, greatly to the relief of the club, since mastermen's guests were apt to be something of a toss-up. These were only eight men, including Varden, in the brown room that evening. This with its paneled walls, shaded lamps and heavy blue curtains was perhaps the coziest and pleasantest of the small smoking rooms of which the club possessed half a dozen or so. The conversation had begun quite casually by Armstrong's relating a curious little incident which he'd witnessed that afternoon at the temple station, and Bays had gone on to say that that was nothing to the really very odd thing which had happened to him, personally in a thick fog one night in the Houston Road. Mastermen said that the more secluded London Squares teamed with subjects for a writer and instanced his own singular encounter with a weeping woman and a dead monkey, and then Judson took up the tale, and narrated how in a lonely suburb late at night he had come upon the dead body of a woman stretched on the pavement with a knife on her side and a policeman standing motionless nearby. He'd asked if he could do anything, but the policeman had only said, I wouldn't interfere if I was you, sir, she deserved what she got. Judson said he had not been able to get the incident out of his mind, and then Pettifer told them of a queer case in his own medical practice when a totally unknown man had left him to a house in Bloomsbury where there was a woman suffering from strict nine poisoning. This man had helped him in the most intelligent manner all night and when the patient was out of danger had walked straight out of the house and never reappeared. The odd thing being that when he, Pettifer, questioned the woman, she answered a great surprise that she had never seen that man in her life and had taken him to be Pettifer's assistant. �That reminds me,� said Varden, �of something still stranger that happened to me once in New York. I've never been able to make out whether it was a madman or a practical joke, or whether I really had a very narrow shave.� This sounded promising, and the guest was urged to go on with his story. �Well, it really started ages ago,� said the actor. �Seven years,� it must have been, just before America came into the war. I was 25 at the time and had been in the film business a little over two years. There was a man called Eric P. Loader, pretty well known in New York at that period, who would have been a very fine sculptor if he hadn't had more money than was good for him, or so I understood from the people who go in for that kind of thing. He used to exhibit a good deal and had a lot of one-man shows of his stuff to which the high-brow people went. He did a good many bronzes, I believe. �Perhaps you know about him, masterman.� �I've never seen any of his things,� said the poet. �But I remember some photographs in the art of tomorrow. Clever but rather overripe. Didn't he go in for a lot of that crystal-of-fantan stuff? Just a show he could afford to pay for the materials, I suppose.� �Yep, that sounds very like him. Of course, and he did a very slick and very ugly realistic group called Lucina and had the impudence to have it cast in solid gold and stood in his front hall. �Oh, that thing! Yes, simply beastly, I thought it, but then I never could see anything artistic in the idea. �Realism, I suppose you'd call it. I like a picture or a statue to make you feel good, or what's it there for? Still, there was something very attractive about Loader. �How did you come across him? Oh, yes, well, he saw me in that little picture of mine. Apollo comes to New York. Perhaps you remember it. It was my first starring part. About a statue that's brought to life. What are the old gods, you know? And how he gets on in a modern city. Dear old Rubenson produced it. Now there was a man who could put a thing through with consummate artistry. You couldn't find an atom of offense from beginning to end. It was all so tasteful. Though in the first part one didn't have anything to wear except a sort of scarf, taken from the classic statue, you know. �The Belvedere! I dare say, Loader wrote to me and said as a sculptor he was interested in me because I was a good shape and so on, and would I come and pay him a visit to New York when I was free. So I found out about Loader and decided it would be good publicity, and when my contract was up and I had a bit of time to fill in, I went up east and called on him. He was very decent to me and asked me to stay a few weeks with him while I was looking around. He had a magnificent, great house about five miles out of the city, crammed full of pictures and antiques and so on. He was somewhere between 35 and 40, I should think, dark and smooth, and very quick and lively in his movements. He talked very well, seemed to have been everywhere, and have seen everything and not to have any too good an opinion of anybody. You could sit and listen to him for hours. He got anecdotes about everybody, from the Pope to Olphinius E. Groot to the Chicago Ring. The only kind of story I didn't care about hearing from him was the improper sort. Not that I don't enjoy an after-dinner story. No, sir, I wouldn't like you to think I was a prig, but he would tell it with his eye upon you, as if he suspected you of having something to do with it. I don't women do that, and I've seen men do it to women and seen women squirm, but he was the only man that's ever given me that feeling. Still, apart from that, Loader was the most fascinating fellow I've ever known. And, as I say, his house surely was beautiful, and he kept a first-class table. You like to have everything of the best. There was this mistress, Maria Morano. I don't think I've ever seen anything to touch her, and when you work for the screen, you're up to have a pretty exacting standard of female beauty. She was one of those big, slow, beautifully moving creatures, very placid with a slow, wide smile. We don't grow them in the United States. She'd come from the South. They'd been a cabaret dancer, he said, and she didn't contradict him. He was very proud of her, and she seemed to be devoted to him in her own fashion. He show her off in the studio with nothing on but a fig leaf or so, stand her up beside one of the figures he was always doing of her and compare them point by point. It was literally only one-half inch of her, it seemed, that wasn't absolutely perfect from the sculptor's point of view. The second toe of her left foot was shorter than the big toe. He used to correct it, of course, in the statues. She'd listen to it all with a good, natured smile, sort of vaguely flattered, you know? Though I think the poor girl sometimes got tired of being gloated over that way. She'd sometimes hunt me out and confide to me that what she'd always hoped for was to run a restaurant of her own with a cabaret show and a great many cooks with white aprons and lots of polished electric cookers. And then I would marry, she'd say, and have four sons and one daughter. And she told me all the names she had chosen for the family. I thought it was rather pathetic. Loader came in at the end of one of these conversations. He had sort of a grin on, so I daresay he had overheard. I don't suppose he attached much importance to it, which shows that he never really understood the girl. I don't think he ever imagined any woman would chuck up the sort of life he'd accustomed her to. And if he was a bit possessive in his manner, at least he never gave her a rival. For all his talk and his ugly statues, she'd got him, and she knew it. I stayed there, getting on for a month, altogether, having a thundering good time. On two occasions, Loader had an art spasm and shut himself up in his studio to work and wouldn't let anybody in for several days on end. He was rather giving to that sort of stunt, and when it was over, we would have a party and all Loader's friends and hangers on had come to have a look at the work of art. He was doing a figure of some nymph or goddess, I fancy, to be cast in silver, and Maria used to go along and sit for him. Apart from those times, he went about everywhere, and we saw all there was to be seen. It was fairly annoyed, I admit, when it came to an end. War was declared, and I'd made up my mind to join when that happened. My heart put me out of the running for trench service, but I counted on getting some sort of job with perseverance, so I packed up and went off. I wouldn't have believed Loader would have been so genuinely sorry to say goodbye to me. He said over and over again that we'd meet again soon. However, I did get a job with the hospital people, and it was sent over to Europe, and it wasn't until 1920 that I saw Loader again. He'd written to me before, but I'd had two big pictures to make in 1919, and it couldn't be done. However, in 1920, I found myself back in New York, doing publicity for the passion streak. I got a note from Loader, begging me to stay with him, and saying that he wanted me to sit for him. Well, that was advertisement that he'd pay for himself, you know, so I agreed. I'd accepted an engagement to go out with Mr. Films Limited in Jacob Deadman's Bush, the Dwarf Man picture, you know, taken on the spot among the Australian Bushmen. I wired them that I would join them at Sydney the third week in April, and took my bags out to Loader's. Loader greeted me very cordially, though I thought he looked older than when I last saw him. He had certainly grown more nervous in his manner. He was, how shall I describe it, more intense, more real in a way? He brought out his pet cynicism as if he thoroughly meant them, and more and more with that air of getting at you personally. I used to think his disbelief in everything was a kind of artistic pose, but I began to feel I had done him an injustice. He was really unhappy. I could see that quite well, and soon I discovered the reason. As we were driving out in the car, I asked after Maria. She has left me, he said. Well, now you know, that really surprised me. Honestly, I hadn't thought the girl had that much initiative. Why, I said. Has she gone and set up in that restaurant of her own? She wanted so much. Oh, she talked to you about restaurants, did she? Said Loader. I suppose you were one of the men that women tell things to. No, she made a fool of herself. She's gone. I didn't quite know what to say. He was so obviously hurt in his vanity, you know, as well as in his feelings. I muttered the usual things and added that it must be a great loss to his work, as well as in other ways. He said it was. I asked him when it had happened, and whether he had finished the nymph that he was working on before I left. He said, oh yes, he'd finished that and done another, something pretty original which I would like. Well, we got to the house and dined, and Loader told me he was going to Europe shortly, a few days after I left myself, in fact. The nymph stood in the dining room, and a special niche let into the wall. It really was a beautiful thing, not so showy as most of Loader's work and a wonderful likeness of Maria. Loader put me opposite it, so that I could see it during dinner, and really, I could hardly take my eyes off it. He seemed very proud of it, and kept on telling me over and over again how glad he was that I liked it. It struck me that he was falling into a trick of repeating himself. We went into the smoking room after dinner. He'd had it arranged, and the first thing that caught one's eye was a big sati drawn before the fire. It stood about a couple of feet from the ground and consisted of a base made like a Roman couch with cushions and a high-ish back all made of oak with a silver inlay. And on top of this, forming the actual seat one sat on, if you follow me, there was a great silver figure of a nude woman, fully life-sized, lying with her head back and her arms extended along the sides of the couch. A few big, loose cushions made it possible to use the thing as an actual sati, though I must say it never was really comfortable to sit on, respectively. As a stage prop for registering dissipation, it would have been excellent, but to see a loader sprawling over it by his own fireside gave me a kind of shock. He seemed very much attached to it, though. I told you, he said, that it was something original. Well, then I looked more closely at it, and I saw the figure actually was Maria's, though the face was rather sketchily done, if you do understand what I mean. I suppose he thought a bolder treatment more suited to a piece of furniture. But I did begin to think loader was a trifle degenerate when I saw that couch. And in the fortnight that followed, I grew more and more uncomfortable with him. That personal matter of his grew more market every day, and sometimes while I was giving him sittings, he would sit there and tell one of the most beastly things with his eyes fixed on one in the nastiest way, just to see how one would take it. Upon my word, he certainly did me uncommonly well. I began to feel I'd be more at ease among the Bushmen. Well, now I come to the odd thing. Everybody sat up and listened a little more eagerly. More of our story, the abominable history of the man with copper fingers by Dorothy L. Sayers when Weird Darkness Returns. I'm a man of habits. Okay, truth be told, my bride says I'm boring. I like the same stuff, and that's what I stick with. And that includes what I eat. Even for breakfast, I used to opt for a leftover pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers. Did I mention pizza? Anyway, now that I'm trying to lose weight and cut back on the carbs, I've had to make changes for breakfast. Now, instead of a big heavy breakfast, I just grabbed one of my built bars, the best-tasting protein bar on the planet. Built bars satisfy my hunger with up to 19 grams of protein and also satisfy my sugar craving, despite being less than 3 grams of sugar. And at only about 150 calories per bar, if I'm really hungry in the morning, I can grab two of them and still feel good about it. Try replacing your dessert or even a meal like breakfast with a built bar. You won't even know it's not really a candy bar. Visit WeirdDarkness.com slash built and build a box of your own. Use the promo code WeirdDarkness at checkout and get 10% off your entire purchase. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash built promo code WeirdDarkness. It was the evening before I had to leave New York. Went on, Varden. I was sitting, here somebody opened the door of the brown room to be greeted by a warning sign from Bayes. The intruder sank obscurely into a large chair and mixed himself a whiskey with extreme care not to disturb the speaker. I was sitting in the smoking room, continued Varden, waiting for Loader to come in. I had the house to myself, for Loader had given the servants leave to go to some show or lecture or other and he himself was getting his things together for his European trip and had to keep an appointment with his man of business. I must have been very nearly asleep because it was dusk when I came to with a start and saw a young man quite close to me. He wasn't at all like a housebreaker and still less like a ghost. He was, I might almost say, exceptionally ordinary looking. He was dressed in a gray English suit with a fawn overcoat on his arm and his soft hat and stick in his hand. He had sleek, pale hair and one of those rather stupid faces with a long nose and a monocle, I stared at him for I knew the front door was locked but before I could get my wits together he spoke. He had a curious, hesitating husky voice and a strong English accent. He said surprisingly, are you Mr. Varden? You have the advantage of me, I said. He said, please excuse my butting in, I know it looks like bad manners but you'd better clear out of this place very quickly don't you know? What the hell do you mean? I said. He said, I don't mean it in any impotent way but you must realize that Loda's never forgiven you and I'm afraid he means to make you into a hat stand or an electric light fitting or something of that sort. My God, I can tell you I felt queer. It was such a quiet voice and his manners were perfect and yet the words were quite meaningless. I remembered that mad men are supposed to be extra strong and edged towards the bell and then it came over me with rather a chill that I was alone in the house. How did you get here? I asked, putting a bold face on it. I'm afraid I picked the lock. He said, as casually as though he were apologizing for not having a card about him. I couldn't be sure Loda hadn't come back but I do really think you would better get out as quickly as possible. See here, I said. Who are you and what the hell are you driving at? What do you mean about Loda never forgiving me? What? Why? He said, about you will pardon me prancing in on your private affairs, won't you? About Maria Murano. What about her in the devil's name? I cried. What do you know about her anyway? She went off while I was at the war. What's it to do with me? Oh, said the very odd young man. I beg your pardon. Perhaps I have been relying too much on Loda's judgment. Damned foolish. But the possibility of his being mistaken did not occur to me. He fancies you were Maria Murano's lover when you were here last time. Maria's lover? I said. Preposterous. She went off with her man, whoever he was. He must know she didn't go with me. Maria never left the house, said the young man. And if you don't get out of it this moment, I won't answer for your ever leaving either. In God's name, I cried, exasperated. What do you mean? The man turned and threw the blue cushions off the foot of the silver couch. Have you ever examined the toes of this? He asked. Not particularly, I said, more and more astonished. Why should I? Did you ever know Loda make any figure of her, but this with that short toe on the left foot he went on? Well, I did take a look at it then, and saw it wise as he said. The left foot had a short, second toe. So it is, I said. But after all, why not? Why not indeed, said the young man. Wouldn't you like to see why of all the figures Loda made of Maria Murano, this is the only one that has the feet of the living woman? He picked up the poker. Look, he said. With a lot more strength than I should have expected from him, he brought the head of the poker down with a heavy crack on the silver couch. It struck one of the arms of the figure neatly at the elbow joint, smashing a jagged hole in the silver. He wrenched at the arm and brought it away. He was hollow, and as I am alive, I tell you, there was a long, dry arm bone inside it. Barton paused and put away a good mouthful of whiskey. Well, cried several breathless voices. Well, said Barton, I am not ashamed to say I went out of that house like an old buck rabbit that hears the man with the gun. There was a car standing just outside, and the driver opened the door. I tumbled in, and then it came over me, the whole thing might be a trap, and I tumbled out again, and I ran till I reached the trolley cars. But I found my bags at the station next day, duly registered for Vancouver. When I pulled myself together, I did rather wonder what Loader was thinking about my disappearance, but I could no more have gone back into that horrible house than I could have taken poison. I left for Vancouver next morning, and from that day to this, I never saw either of those men again. I am still not the faintest idea who the fair man was or what became of him, but I heard in a roundabout way that Loader was dead in some kind of accident, die fancy. There was a pause. Then, there is a damned good story, Mr. Barton, said Armstrong. He was a dabbler in various kinds of handiwork, and was indeed chiefly responsible for Mr. Arthbenaut's motion to ban wireless. But are you suggesting there was a complete skeleton inside that silver casting? You mean Loader put it into the core of the mold when the casting was done? It would be awful difficult and dangerous. Slightest accident would have to put him at the mercy of his workman, and that statue must have been considerably over life-sized to allow the skeleton being well-covered. Mr. Barton has unintentionally misled you, Armstrong, said a quiet, husky voice suddenly from the shadow behind Barton's chair. The figure was not silver, but electro-plated on a copper base deposited direct on the body. The lady was Sheffield-plated, in fact. I fancy the soft parts of her must have been digested away with pepsin, or some preparation of the kind, after the process was complete. But I can't be positive about that. Hello, whimsy, said Armstrong. Was that you came in just now, and why this confident pronouncement? The effect of whimsy's voice on Barton had been extraordinary. He'd left to his feet and turned the lamp so as to light up whimsy's face. Good evening, Mr. Barton, said Lord Peter, I'm delighted to meet you again, and to apologize for my unceremonious behavior on the occasion of our last encounter. Barton took the proffered hand, but was speechless. Do you mean to say, you mad mystery-monger, that you were Barton's great unknown? Demanded base. Ah, well, he added rudely. We might have guessed it from his vivid description. While since you're here, said Smith Hardington, the morning yell man, I thought you ought to come across with the rest of the story. Was it just a joke? asked Judson. Of course not, interrupted peddifer. Before Lord Peter had time to reply, why should it be? Whimsy's seen enough queer things not to have to waste his time inventing them. That's true enough, said base. Combs of having deductive powers and all that sort of thing, and always sticking one's nose into things that are better not investigated. That's all very well, base, said his lordship. But if I hadn't just mentioned the matter to Mr. Barton, that evening, where would he be? Where? That's exactly what we want to know, demanded Smith Hardington. Come on, Whimsy, no shirking. We must have the tail. And the whole tail, added peddifer. And nothing but the tail, said Armstrong, dexterously whisking away the whiskey bottle and the cigars from under Lord Peter's nose. Get on with it, old son. Not a smoke do you smoke, and not a sup do you sip, till Bird Ellen has said free. The root, said the lordship, plaintively. As a matter of fact, he went on, with a change of tone, it's not really a story I want to get about. It might land to be in a very unpleasant sort of position. Manslaughter, probably, and murder, possibly. Gash, said base. That's all right, said Armstrong. Nobody's going to talk. We can't afford to lose you from the club, you know. Smith Hardington will have to control his passion for copy. That's all. Pledges of discretion, having been given all around, Lord Peter settled himself back and began his tail. The curious case of Eric P. Loda affords one more instance of the strange manner in which some power beyond our puny human wills arranges the affairs of men. Call it providence, call it destiny. Well, call it off, said base. You can leave out that part. Lord Peter groaned and began again. Well, the first thing that made me feel a bit inquisitive about Loda was a casual remark by a man at the immigration office in New York, or I happened to go about that silly affair of Mrs. Bilts. He said, what on earth is Eric Loda going to do in Australia? I should have thought Europe was more in his line. Australia, I said. You're wandering, dear old thing. He told me the other day he was off to Italy in three weeks time. Italy nothing, he said. He was all over our place today, asking about how you got to Sydney, and what were the necessary formalities, and so on. Oh, I said, I suppose he's going by the Pacific route and calling it Sydney on his way, but I wondered why he hadn't said so when I'd met him the day before. He had distinctly talked about sailing for Europe and doing Paris before he went on to Rome. I felt so darned inquisitive that I went and called on Loda two nights later. He seemed quite pleased to see me and was full of his forthcoming trip. I asked him again about his route and he told me quite distinctly he was going via Paris. Well, that was that, and it wasn't really any of my business, and we chatted about other things. He told me that Mr. Varden was coming to stay with him before he went, and that he hoped to get him to pose for a figure before he left. He said he'd never seen a man so perfectly formed. I mean to get him to do it before, he said, but war broke out and he went and joined the army before I had time to start. He was lollying on that beastly couch of his at the time and, happening to look around at him, I caught such a nasty sort of glitter in his eye that it gave me quite a turn. He was stroking the figure over the neck and grinning at it. None of your efforts in Sheffield played, I hope, said I. Well, he said, I thought of making a kind of companion to this, the sleeping athlete, you know, or something of that sort. You'd much better cast it, I said. Why did you put the stuff on so thick? It destroys the fine detail. That annoyed him. He never liked to hear any objection made to that work of art. This was experimental, he said. I mean the next one to be a real masterpiece you'll see. We got to about that point when the butler came in to ask, should he make up a bed for me, as it was such a bad night. We hadn't noticed the weather particularly, though. It had looked a bit threatening when I started from New York. However, we now looked out and saw that it was coming down in sheets and torrents. It wouldn't have mattered, only that I'd only brought a little open racing car and no overcoat, and certainly the prospect of five miles and that downpour wasn't altogether attractive. Loda urged me to stay, and I said I would. I was feeling a bit faggot, so I went to bed right off. Loda said he wanted to do a bit of work in the studio first, and I saw him depart along the corridor. You won't allow me to mention Providence, so I'll only say it was a very remarkable thing that I should have woken up at two in the morning to find myself lying in a pool of water. The man had stuck a hot water bottle into the bed because it hadn't been used just lately, and the beastly thing had gone and unstoppable itself. I lay awake for ten minutes in the deeps of damp misery before I had sufficient strength of mind to investigate. Then I found it was hopeless. Sheets, blankets, mattress, all soaked. I looked at the armchair, and then I had a brilliant idea. I remembered there was a lovely great divan in the studio, with a big skin rug and a pile of cushions. Why not finish the night there? I took the little electric torch which always goes about with me and started off. The studio was empty, so I suppose Loda had finished and trotted off to Roost. The divan was there, all right, with a screen drawn partly across it, so I rolled up myself under the rug and prepared to snooze off. I was just getting beautifully sleepy again when I heard footsteps, not in the passage, but apparently on the other side of the room. I was surprised because I didn't know there was any way out in that direction. I lay low, and presently I saw a streak of light appear from the cupboard where Loda kept his tools and things. The streak widened and Loda emerged, carrying an electric torch. He closed the cupboard door very gently after him, and patted across the studio. He stopped before the easel and uncovered it. I could see him through a crack in the screen. He stood for some minutes, gazing at a sketch on the easel, and then gave one of the nastiest gurgly laughs I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. If I ever seriously thought of announcing my unauthorized presence, I abandoned all idea of it then. Presently he covered the easel again and went out by the door at which I'd come in. I waited till I was sure he had gone, and then, god-up, uncommonly quietly, I may say, I tipped over to the easel to see what the fascinating work of art was. I saw it once, it was the design for the figure of the sleeping athlete, and as I looked at it, I felt sort of a horrid conviction stealing over me. It was an idea which seemed to begin in my stomach and work its way up to the roots of my hair. My family say I'm too inquisitive. I can only say that wild horses wouldn't have kept me from investigating that cupboard. With the feeling that something absolutely vile might hop out at me, I was a bit wrought up, and it was a rotten time of night. I put a heroic hand on the doorknob. To my astonishment, the thing wasn't even locked. It opened at once to show a range of perfectly innocent and ordinary shelves which couldn't possibly have held loader. My blood was up, you know, by this time, so I hunted round for the spring lock which I knew must exist and found it without much difficulty. The back of the cupboard swung noiselessly inwards, and I found myself at the top of a narrow flight of stairs. I had the sense to stop and see that the door could be opened from the inside before I went any further, and I also selected a good stout pestle which I found on the shelves as a weapon in case of accident. Then I closed the door and tipped with elf-like lightness down that jolly old staircase. There was another door at the bottom, but it didn't take me long to fathom the secret of that. Feeling frightfully excited, I threw it boldly open with the pestle ready for action. However, the room seemed to be empty. My torch caught the gleam of something liquid, and then I found the wall switch. I saw a big-ish square room fitted up as a workshop. On the right-hand wall was a big switchboard with a bench beneath it. From the middle of the ceiling hung a great floodlight, illuminating a glass vat fully seven feet long by about three wide. I turned on the floodlight and looked down into the vat. It was filled with a dark brown liquid which I recognized as the usual compound of cyanide and copper sulfate which they use for copper plating. The rods hung over it with their hooks all empty, but there was a packing case, half-opened at one side of the room, and pulling the covering aside, I could see rows of copper anodes, enough of them to put a plating over a quarter of an inch thick on a life-size figure. There was a smaller case still nailed up which from its weight and appearance I guessed to contain the silver for the rest of the process. There was something else I was looking for, and I soon found it, a considerable quantity of prepared graphite and a big jar of varnish. Of course, there was no evidence, really, of anything being on the cross. There was no reason why Loda shouldn't make a plastic cast and Sheffield played it if he had a fancy for that kind of thing, but then I found something that couldn't have come there legitimately. On the bench was an oval slab of copper, about an inch and a half long, Loda's night's work, I guess. It was an electro-type of the American consular seal, the thing they stamp on your passport photo to keep you from hiking it off and substituting the picture of your friend, Mr. Jigs, who would like to get out of the country because he is so popular with Scotland Yard. I sat down on Loda's stool and worked out that pretty little plot in all its details. I could see it all turned on three things. First of all, I must find out if Varden was proposing to make tracks shortly for Australia because if he wasn't, it threw all my beautiful theories out. And secondly, it would help matters greatly if he happened to have dark hair like Loda's, as he has, you see, near enough anyway to fit the description on a passport. I'd only seen him in that Apollo Belvedere thing with a fair wig on, but I knew if I hung about I should see him presently when he came to stay with Loda. And thirdly, of course, I had to discover if Loda was likely to have any grounds for a grudge against Varden. Well, I figured out I'd stay down in that room about as long as was healthy. Loda might come back at any moment, and I didn't forget that a vat full of copper sulfate and cyanide of potassium would be a high dandy means of getting rid of a too inquisitive guest, and I can't say I had any great fancy for figuring as part of Loda's domestic furniture. I've always hated things made in the shape of things, volumes of dickens that turned out to be a biscuit tin and dodges like that, and though I take no overwhelming interest in my own funeral, I should like it to be in good taste. I went so far as to wipe away any finger marks I might have left behind me, and then I went back to the studio and rearranged that divan. I didn't feel Loda would care to think I'd been down there. There was just one other thing I felt inquisitive about. I tiptoed back through the hall and into the smoking room. The silver couch glimmered in the light of the torch. I felt I disliked it fifty times more than ever before. However, I pulled myself together and took a careful look at the feet of the figure. I heard all about that second toe of Maria Morano's. I passed the rest of the night in the armchair after all. What with Mrs. Bilt's job and one thing and another and the enquiries I had to make, I had to put off my interference in Loda's little game till rather late. I found out that Vardan had been staying with Loda a few months before the beautiful Maria Morano had vanished. I'm afraid I was rather stupid about that, Mr. Vardan. I thought perhaps there had been something. Don't apologize, said Vardan with a little laugh. Cinema actors are notoriously immoral. When Weird Darkness returns, I'll continue with the Dorothy L. Sayer's story, The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers. Remember staying up late at night while growing up, watching your local TV station's horror host presenting a terrible B horror movie? Or so bad it's good sci-fi flick from the 1950s? That's what the Monster Channel at WeirdDarkness.tv has to offer, all day every day. You can visit WeirdDarkness.tv and immediately be entertained by a horror host and horrible movie. You can even invite your friends to watch with you and use the chat feature to talk about what you're watching. And our monthly Weirdo Watch Party takes place there as well. Get your frights and funnies 24x7, 365 at WeirdDarkness.tv. Don't apologize, said Vardan with a little laugh. Cinema actors are notoriously immoral. Why rob it in? said whimsy, a trifle hurt. I apologize. Anyway, it came to the same thing as far as Loda was concerned. Then there was one bit of evidence I had to get to be absolutely certain. Electroplating, especially such a titillist job as the one I had in mind, wasn't a job that could be finished in a night. On the other hand, it seemed necessary that Mr. Vardan should be seen alive in New York up to the day he was scheduled to depart. It was also clear that Loda meant to be able to prove that a Mr. Vardan had left New York all right according to plan and had actually arrived in Sydney. Accordingly, a false Mr. Vardan was to depart with Vardan's papers and Vardan's passport furnished with a new photograph duly stamped with the consular stamp and to disappear quietly at Sydney and be re-transformed into Mr. Eric Loda, travelling with a perfectly regular passport of his own. Well then, in that case obviously a cablegram would have to be sent off to Misto Films Limited, warning them to expect Vardan by a later boat than he had arranged. I handed over this part of the job to my man Bunter, who is commonly capable. The devoted fellow shadowed Loda faithfully for getting on for three weeks and at length the very day before Mr. Vardan was due to depart, the cablegram was sent from an office in Broadway, where by a happy providence, once more, they supply extremely hard pencils. By Jove, cried Vardan, I remember now being told something about a cablegram when I got out, but I never connected it with Loda. I thought it was just some stupidity of the Western Electric people. Quite so. Well, as soon as I got that, I popped along to Loda's with a picklock in one pocket and an automatic in the other. The good Bunter went with me and, if I didn't return by a certain time, had orders to telephone for the police, so you see, everything was pretty well covered. Bunter was the chauffeur who was waiting for you, Mr. Vardan, but you turned suspicious. I don't blame you altogether, so all we could do was to forward your luggage along to the train. On the way out, we met the Loda servants en route for New York in a car which showed us that we were on the right track, and also that I was going to have a fairly simple job of it. You've heard all about my interview with Mr. Vardan, I really don't think I could improve upon his account. When I'd seen him and his traps safely off the premises, I made for the studio. It was empty, so I opened the secret door and, as expected, saw a light under the workshop door at the far end of the passage. So Loda was there all the time. Of course he was. I took my little pop gun tight in my fist and opened the door very gently. Loda was standing between the tank and the switchboard, very busy indeed, so busy he didn't hear me come in. His hands were black with graphite, a big heap of which was spread on a sheet on the floor, and he was engaged with a long, springy coil of copper wire running to the output of the transformer. The big packing case had been opened and all the hooks were occupied. Loda, I said. He turned on me with a face like nothing human. Whimsy, he shouted. What the hell are you doing here? I have come, I said, to tell you that I know how the apple gets into the dumpling, and I showed him the automatic. He gave me a great yell and dashed at the switchboard, turning out the light so that I could not see to aim. I heard him leap at me and then there came in the darkness a crash, a splash, and a shriek such as I never heard, not in five years of war and never want to hear again. I groped forward for the switchboard. Of course I turned on everything before I could lay my hand on the light, but I got it at last. A great white glare from the floodlight over the vat. He lay there, still twitching faintly. Cyanide, you see, is about the swiftest and painfullest thing out. Before I could move to do anything, I knew he was dead, poisoned and drowned and dead. The coil of wire that had tripped him had gone into the vat with him. Without thinking, I touched it and got a shock that pretty well staggered me. Then I realized that I must have turned on the current when I was hunting for the light. I looked into the vat again as he fell. His dying hands had clutched at the wire. The coils were tight around his fingers and the current was methodically depositing a film of copper all over his hands which were blackened with the graphite. I had just sensed enough to realize that Loda was dead and that it might be a nasty sort of lookout for me if this thing came out, for I had certainly gone along to threaten him with a pistol. I searched about till I found some solder and an iron. Then I went upstairs and called in Bonta who had done his 10 miles in record time. We went into the smoking room and soldered the arm of that cursed figure into place again, as well as we could, and then we took everything back into the workshop. We cleaned off every fingerprint and removed every trace of our presence. We left the light and the switchboard as they were and returned to New York by an extremely roundabout route. The only thing we brought away with us was the facsimile of the consular seal and that we threw into the river. Loda was found by the butler next morning. We read in the papers how he had fallen into the vat when engaged on some experiments in electroplating. The ghastly fact was commented upon that the dead man's hands were thickly coppered over. They couldn't get it off without irreverent violence so he was buried like that. That's all. Please Armstrong may I have my whiskey and soda now? What happened to the couch, inquired Smith Hardington presently? I bought it at the sale of Loda's things, said Whimsy, and got a hold of a dear old Catholic priest I knew to whom I told the whole story under strict vow of secrecy. He was a very sensible and feeling old bird, so one moonlight night Bonta and I carried the thing out in the car to his own little church some miles out of the city and gave it to Christian Burial in a corner of the graveyard. It seemed the best thing to do. Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. And you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the show's Weirdo's Facebook group on the Contact Social page at WeirdDarkness.com. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell of your own, click on Tell Your Story. Stories on Thriller Thursday episodes are works of fiction, and links to the stories or the authors can be found in the show notes. The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers was written by Dorothy L. Sayers. The story can be found in the anthology Alfred Hitchcock, Stories Not For The Nervous, or the Lord Peter anthology, Lord Peter Views The Body. I have links to both in the show notes. Weird Darkness is a production of Marlar House Productions. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Nehemiah 9 verse 6. You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth, and all that is on it, the seas, and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. And a final thought from Anna G. Taylor. Earth Angels. Some people appear in your life when you need them most. They love you and lift you up, reminding you of the best, even when you're going through the worst. These people are not just friends. They are Earth Angels. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.