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    Unseen—Unfeared and Other Stories: "A man has no right to trifle with the superstitions of ignorant people. Sooner or later, it spells trouble"
    Unseen—Unfeared and Other Stories: "A man has no right to trifle with the superstitions of ignorant people. Sooner or later, it spells trouble"
    Unseen—Unfeared and Other Stories: "A man has no right to trifle with the superstitions of ignorant people. Sooner or later, it spells trouble"
    Ebook69 pages1 hour

    Unseen—Unfeared and Other Stories: "A man has no right to trifle with the superstitions of ignorant people. Sooner or later, it spells trouble"

    By Francis Stevens

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    About this ebook

    A pseudonym of Gertrude Barrows Bennett

    Gertrude Barrows Bennett was born in Minneapolis on 18th September 1884.

    She completed school up to the eighth grade, then switched to night school to study illustration, unfortunately she was never able to achieve a career in this. As a fall-back she began working as a stenographer, a career which she would keep to for the rest of her life.

    But Gertrude had talent, writer’s talent. Her first short story was written when she was 17. Not you would think the usual subjects of curious teenage girls with headstrong ambitions but a science fiction story entitled ‘The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar’. She mailed the finished story to Argosy, one of the most well known of the pulp magazines. The story was published in the March 1904 issue.

    Whilst her career was to be short and not at all prolific she is best remembered for her excellent ideas, many of which were way ahead of their time. By the time of her death in 1948 her pseudonym of ‘Francis Stevens’ could lay claim to being a respected and much admired author of science fiction and dark fantasy short stories and novels.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMiniature Masterpieces
    Release dateJul 5, 2018
    ISBN9781787800755
    Unseen—Unfeared and Other Stories: "A man has no right to trifle with the superstitions of ignorant people. Sooner or later, it spells trouble"

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      Book preview

      Unseen—Unfeared and Other Stories - Francis Stevens

      Unseen—Unfeared & Others by Francis Stevens

      A pseudonym of Gertrude Barrows Bennett

      Gertrude Barrows Bennett was born in Minneapolis on 18th September 1884.

      She completed school up to the eighth grade, then switched to night school to study illustration, unfortunately she was never able to achieve a career in this.  As a fall-back she began working as a stenographer, a career which she would keep to for the rest of her life.

      But Gertrude had talent, writer’s talent.  Her first short story was written when she was 17.  Not you would think the usual subjects of curious teenage girls with headstrong ambitions but a science fiction story entitled ‘The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar’.  She mailed the finished story to Argosy, one of the most well known of the pulp magazines. The story was published in the March 1904 issue.

      Whilst her career was to be short and not at all prolific she is best remembered for her excellent ideas, many of which were way ahead of their time. By the time of her death in 1948 her pseudonym of ‘Francis Stevens’ could lay claim to being a respected and much admired author of science fiction and dark fantasy short stories and novels.

      Index of Contents

      Unseen

      Behind the Curtain

      Elf Trap

      Gertrude Barrows Bennett – A Short Biography

      Gertrude Barrows Bennett – A Concise Bibliography

      UNSEEN

      I

      I had been dining with my ever-interesting friend, Mark Jenkins, at a little Italian restaurant near South Street. It was a chance meeting. Jenkins is too busy, usually, to make dinner engagements. Over our highly seasoned food and sour, thin, red wine, he spoke of little odd incidents and adventures of his profession. Nothing very vital or important, of course. Jenkins is not the sort of detective who first detects and then pours the egotistical and revealing details of achievement in the ears of every acquaintance, however appreciative.

      But when I spoke of something I had seen in the morning papers, he laughed. Poor old 'Doc' Holt! Fascinating old codger, to anyone who really knows him. I've had his friendship for years—since I was first on the city force and saved a young assistant of his from jail on a false charge. And they had to drag him into the poisoning of this young sport, Ralph Peeler!

      Why are you so sure he couldn't have been implicated? I asked.

      But Jenkins only shook his head, with a quiet smile. I have reasons for believing otherwise, was all I could get out of him on that score, But, he added, the only reason he was suspected at all is the superstitious dread of these ignorant people around him. Can't see why he lives in such a place. I know for a fact he doesn't have to. Doc's got money of his own. He's an amateur chemist and dabbler in different sorts of research work, and I suspect he's been guilty of 'showing off.' Result, they all swear he has the evil eye and holds forbidden communion with invisible powers. Smoke?

      Jenkins offered me one of his invariably good cigars, which I accepted, saying thoughtfully: A man has no right to trifle with the superstitions of ignorant people. Sooner or later, it spells trouble.

      Did in his case. They swore up and down that he sold love charms openly and poisons secretly, and that, together with his living so near to—somebody else—got him temporarily suspected. But my tongue's running away with me, as usual!

      As usual, I retorted impatiently, you open up with all the frankness of a Chinese diplomat.

      He beamed upon me engagingly and rose from the table, with a glance at his watch. Sorry to leave you, Blaisdell, but I have to meet Jimmy Brennan in ten minutes.

      He so clearly did not invite my further company that I remained seated for a little while after his departure; then took my own way homeward. Those streets always held for me a certain fascination, particularly at night. They are so unlike the rest of the city, so foreign in appearance, with their little shabby stores, always open until late evening, their unbelievably cheap goods, displayed as much outside the shops as in them, hung on the fronts and laid out on tables by the curb and in the street itself. Tonight, however, neither people nor stores in any sense appealed to me. The mixture of Italians, Jews and a few Negroes, mostly bareheaded, unkempt and generally unhygienic in appearance, struck me as merely revolting. They were all humans, and I, too, was human. Some way I did not like the idea.

      Puzzled a trifle, for I am more inclined to sympathize with poverty than accuse it, I watched the faces that I passed. Never before had I observed how bestial, how brutal were the countenances of the dwellers in this region. I actually shuddered when an old-clothes man, a gray-bearded Hebrew, brushed me as he toiled past with his barrow.

      There was a sense of evil in the air, a warning of things which it is wise for a clean man to shun and keep clear of. The impression became so strong that before I had walked two squares I began to feel physically ill. Then it occurred to me that the one glass of cheap Chianti I had drunk might have something to do with the feeling. Who knew how that stuff had been manufactured, or whether the juice of the grape entered at all into its ill-flavored composition? Yet I doubted if that were the real cause of my discomfort.

      By nature I am rather a sensitive, impressionable sort of chap. In some way tonight this neighborhood, with its sordid sights and smells, had struck me wrong.

      My sense of impending evil was merging into actual fear. This would never do. There is only one way to

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