Investigation #0010 · Closed file
The Kingsbury Tally: Dead Letters
The Kingsbury postmistress reports the same letter returned to her office every October for fifty-five years. Neighbours say it has been building for a day or more — since 9 October.
- Where
- Kingsbury Post Office, Kingsbury Mills
- Opened
- Sunday, 10 October 1926, 00:30
- Closed
- Friday, 15 October 1926
- Investigators
- Isaac Mercer, Dr. Margaret Holloway, Nathan Callaghan
- Line of inquiry
- The Kingsbury Tally
- Outcome
- Escaped.
Afterwards: The Burned Mill is quiet, for now; Mercer cannot let it go; Nathan has become more careful.
Findings
- A resident reports a voice counting at night.
- The count only ever goes down.
- A tin box of teeth, labelled by year. It is cold, and stays cold in the hand.
- A brass button from a uniform no regiment wore. Nobody at the site admits to having seen it before.
- A Sanitarium patient admitted in its first year counted in the same order, from the same number.
- The count is lower each time, across forty years of reports.
- Nobody can say what it is counting down to. Everyone who hears it guesses the same thing.
The record
Saturday, 9 October 1926
- Before the report: A local rumour about Kingsbury Post Office is doing the rounds again, decades old.
Sunday, 10 October 1926
- Initial report received. The Kingsbury postmistress reports the same letter returned to her office every October for fifty-five years. Neighbours say it has been building for a day or more — since 9 October.
- A new development in an older matter: The Kingsbury Tally: One Loom Too Many, closed 25 September (unresolved).
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan take up the investigation.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan arrive at Kingsbury Post Office.
- Search of the cellar.
- Investigators report a smell of damp plaster.
- Dust sheets over the furniture noted in the attic.
- Margin note: a figure at the corner, quite still. Did not approach. Not seen to leave.
- Clue recorded: “The Dead Letter”.
- Finding: A resident reports a voice counting at night.
- Investigators leave Kingsbury Post Office.
Monday, 11 October 1926
- Mercer arrives 28 minutes late.
- Nathan arrives 13 minutes late.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan arrive at Kingsbury Post Office.
- Statement taken from Mrs. Ellen Hargreaves (a clerk).
- Statement taken from a lodger on the second floor.
- Accounts conflict. Mrs. Ellen Hargreaves (a clerk) heard a man's voice. A lodger on the second floor heard a child.
- Mercer and Nathan disagree about the cause: Mercer suspects rats, old pipes and imagination; Nathan, something in the ground.
- Finding: The count only ever goes down.
- Investigators leave Kingsbury Post Office.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan arrive at Arkham Police Department.
- Items held by the police are laid out for examination.
- Object examined: a tin box of teeth, labelled by year. It is cold, and stays cold in the hand.
- Object examined: a brass button from a uniform no regiment wore. Nobody at the site admits to having seen it before.
- Finding: A Sanitarium patient admitted in its first year counted in the same order, from the same number.
- Investigators leave Arkham Police Department.
Tuesday, 12 October 1926
- Mercer arrives 28 minutes late.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan arrive at Arkham Public Library.
- The public library's bound newspapers consulted.
- Investigators report a smell of floor polish.
- Finding: The public library's bound newspapers — The count is lower each time, across forty years of reports.
- Working theory: rats, old pipes and imagination.
- Investigators leave Arkham Public Library.
- Mercer arrives 12 minutes late.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan meet at The Blind Heron.
- Evidence compared: “The count is lower each time, across forty years of reports” set against “A resident reports a voice counting at night”.
- Mercer and Nathan disagree about the cause: Mercer suspects rats, old pipes and imagination; Nathan, something in the ground.
- Mercer proposes rats, old pipes and imagination; Nathan objects that nobody could have got in.
- No agreement is reached.
- The meeting breaks up.
Wednesday, 13 October 1926
- Mercer arrives 27 minutes late.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan arrive at Kingsbury Post Office.
- The markings have spread.
- Investigators report a smell of ozone, as if lightning had struck indoors.
- A shadow on the stair with nothing to cast it noted in the kitchen.
- Finding: Nobody can say what it is counting down to. Everyone who hears it guesses the same thing.
- Investigators leave Kingsbury Post Office.
- Holloway reports a cold sweat.
- Mercer arrives 22 minutes late.
- Nathan arrives 23 minutes late.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan arrive at St. Michael's, Kingsbury.
- Inquiry extends to St. Michael's, Kingsbury.
- Investigators move to the vestry.
- Investigators report a smell of old blood, though we found none.
- Investigators note marks under the wallpaper like writing.
- Clue recorded: “The Muster Roll of 1871”.
- No further findings.
- Investigators leave St. Michael's, Kingsbury.
Thursday, 14 October 1926
- Mercer arrives 13 minutes late.
- Nathan arrives 16 minutes late.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan arrive at Old Hill Burying Ground.
- Acting on Mercer's theory — rats, old pipes and imagination — investigators visit Old Hill Burying Ground.
- Investigators report a smell of candle wax.
- Nothing here connects to the case.
- Investigators leave Old Hill Burying Ground.
- Mercer arrives 30 minutes late.
- Nathan arrives 17 minutes late.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan arrive at Kingsbury Weir.
- The same face in photographs a century apart noted in the boathouse.
- Strong smell of old blood, though we found none noted.
- Clue recorded: “The Lock-keeper's Log”.
- No further findings.
- Investigators leave Kingsbury Weir.
- Holloway complains of trouble concentrating.
- Note: somebody standing where there is nothing to stand on. Probably the light.
- Mercer arrives 31 minutes late.
- Nathan arrives 28 minutes late.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan arrive at The Burned Mill.
- Strong smell of a smell like the inside of the earth — old beyond old noted.
- A bystander noted beyond the cordon. Nobody present knew who it was.
- Investigators note the same face in photographs a century apart.
- In the Burned Mill the time clock ticks, once, and a card slides home into a slot that rusted shut before any of them were born.
- Nathan turns back.
- Outcome: Escaped.
Friday, 15 October 1926
- Mercer arrives 22 minutes late.
- Mercer, Holloway & Nathan meet at Kellerman's Lunch Room.
- The team agree the file: escaped.
- Nathan and Holloway still do not agree on what it was.
- The file is put away.
- Afterwards: The Burned Mill is quiet, for now; Mercer cannot let it go; Nathan has become more careful.
Moments from this file
Connected files
The morning after it was reported, the Arkham Gazette led with “NEW TURN IN OLD KINGSBURY WOOLLEN MILL BUSINESS”.