But it was lacking something. It was not the story I had wanted to write. The story I wanted to write and did the next day involved botched plastic surgery; a stolen statue of the Egyptian Cat Goddess Bast; the false confession of an overexcited woman named Edith; the tragic loss of young Roderick in the bogs; the acquisition of a heretofore unknown pair of Carlotta’s slippers; a man seen entering the rare books section of the main branch of the New York Public Library wearing a maroon fez; an unprecedented huge ransom paid in Antwerp for the return of a pair of Siamese cats; a banana, peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich; bad legal advice; the fact that Scriabin was born on Christmas and died on Easter; some misappropriated funds; the death of young Brett Saunders III during a hazing at a fraternity house in Hamilton, New York; Grandma Moses and the fact that her handwriting deteriorated as her painting improved; gratuitous name-dropping; a brief history of mazes; some tepid pornography; a defaced statue of Kemal Ataturk; an interview with a 13 year old boy prostitute in Marrakech; the disappearance of a cigar store Indian; evidence found in a letter left behind in an abandoned car parked outside the aquarium in Rhodes; a bag left unclaimed in the luggage room at Victoria Station; a mix-up in Milan; Mrs. Hudson and long division.

Both stories have since been lost, as was the story I wrote subsequently about their loss which involved an unfortunate incident in Inverness; a dish of The Priest Fainted ordered and left half uneaten at Hacibaba’s Restaurant in Istanbul; some false impressions; the Yiddish proverb that says if God lived on earth people would break his windows; a gift certificate for $200; an unbiased account of the Coolidge presidency; the long awaited but finally successful delivery of a six foot crate from the archaeological museum in Heraklion; some harmless petting; the Complete Works of an author of your choice; the arrest last August of a German tourist named Bleckstein after a five day manhunt along the US-Mexican border; how to tell the difference between Time and Newsweek; a view of the Golden Horn at sunset from Room 401 of the Pera Palas Hotel; the identity of the person who leaves the bottle of Martell on Poe’s grave each year in celebration of his birthday; an explanation of why pigeons do that thing with their necks; and a brief, tumultuous affair with William The Conqueror.