Introductory Note by E.G. Deadworry

On last St Spasmus's day Miss D. Awdrey-Gore was found dead at the age of 97. Just before dawn a nameless poacher came upon her body in a disused fountain on the estate of Lord Ravelflap; she was seated bolt upright on a gilt ballroom chair, oneo f a set of seventeen then on display at Suthick & Upster's Auction Rooms in Market Footling; her left hand clutched a painted tin lily of cottage manufacture, inside of which was rolled up a Cad's Relish label of a design superseded in 1947; something illegible was penciled on the back. That she had been murdered was obvious, though as yet the cause of death has not been determined.

One Moment she was sitting there; the next, she'd vanished into air.
~ The Ipsaid, can. VI

It will be remembered that Miss Awdrey-Gore was one of the most prolific (vide our Two-Shilling Reprint Library) and celebrated writers of detective stories at the time of her unexpected disappearance on St Spasmus's eve in 1927. On various occaisions since then, she has been reported (among a number of other possibilities) in a private lunatic asylum, living in Taormina dressed as a man, married to a Salubrian nobleman in Slobgut, or alternately, a garage mechanic in Idle-on-Sea, in religious retreat on the slopes of Kanchenjuga. But always falsely: her whereabouts for the past forty-four years remain unknown.

Several days after her reappearance, in a nearby surbubrban villa an oiled-silk packet came to light beneath the false bottom of an elephant's foot umbrella stand. Done up with mauve string and indigo blue sealing wax, it was addressed to my late grandfather, G.E. Deadworry, then (in 1927) head of Deadworry and Silt, her publishers. The packet's contence in their entirety - though certain things are patently missing - are reproduced on the following pages...