Member-only story
The Authentic Eclectic
The Strange Room
Major Dunstan Investigates
Roderick Dunstan was a tall man, six-and-a-half feet, with broad shoulders. His form was gaunt, but not weak, as if some inner fire had burned away any extraneous flesh, leaving only the essential bone and sinew. His hair was black. He had a thin face, with a broad brow, firm jaw and mouth and a predatory blade of a nose. Under thick black brows, the deep-set black eyes seemed at once intense and oddly unfocused. Despite the summer day, he wore a black three-piece suit — a gold watch-chain was hung across the waistcoat, from which depended a seal in the shape of a pentacle. He carried, but did not lean on, a silver-handled ebony cane.
Three other people were gathered there. An elderly woman, sitting firmly upright in an armchair, dressed in the elaborate style of the pre-War era. A slender, blonde girl in her twenties, elegantly fashionable, meeting his eyes frankly, but nonetheless puffing nervously at a cigarette, sat on the couch. Standing by the fireplace was a man, perhaps a little older than the girl, in a light grey suit.
“Doctor Dunstan?” The girl asked. “Or do you prefer Major?”
“Major.” Roderick told her.
“I’m Violet Tredegar.” She told him. “The house is mine. This is my mother, Mary Tredegar.”
