Tales of Terror and Mystery is a collection of twelve stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, split between horror and mystery. They range from eerie discoveries and strange cases to detective puzzles, showing Conan Doyle's gift for suspense beyond Sherlock Holmes. Listen for atmospheric storytelling and varied, tightly plotted tales.
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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
Tales of Terror and Mystery By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Contents Tales of Terror The Horror of the Heights The Leather Funnel The New Catacomb The Case of Lady Sannox The Terror of Blue John Gap The Brazilian Cat Tales of Mystery The Lost Special The Beetle-Hunter The Man with the Watches The Japanned Box The Black Doctor The Jew's Breastplate
Tales of Terror The Horror of the Heights The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humour, has now been abandoned by all who have examined the matter. The most macabre and imaginative of plotters would hesitate before linking his morbid fancies with the unquestioned and tragic facts which reinforce the statement. Though the assertions contained in it are amazing and even monstrous, it is none the less forcing itself upon the general intelligence that they are true, and that we must readjust our ideas to the new situation. This world of ours appears to be separated by a slight and precarious margin of safety from a most singular and unexpected danger. I will endeavour in this narrative, which reproduces the original document in its necessarily somewhat fragmentary form, to lay before the reader the whole of the facts up to date, prefacing my statement by saying that, if there be any who doubt the narrative of Joyce-Armstrong, there can be no question at all as to the facts concerning Lieutenant Myrtle, R. N., and Mr. Hay Connor, who undoubtedly met their end in the manner described. The Joyce-Armstrong Fragment was found in the field which is called Lower Haycock, lying one mile to the westward of the village of Withyham, upon the Kent and Sussex border. It was on the 15th September last that an agricultural labourer, James Flynn, in the employment of
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