A tractor gave birth at a farm up near Gravelly Pond today. It was the strangest birth I’d ever seen, as the tractor insisted on taking no medication for the pain. Both mother and the new-born son are doing well. The tractor is single, and refused to name the father, but between you and I, Dear Listeners, the child bore a strong resemblance to Farmer Jose Souza from down the lane, once one can see past the front grille. 

These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.

My close companion, Dr Miles Showpony, D.D.S., recently snuck to my house, all in a dither. For those that may not recall, he succumbed to the charms of the incredibly beautiful ladies of the night that patrol the areas around the docks. He now fears that these women, if women is indeed what they are, may desire to pluck his pelvic bone from his body as a form of additional payment.

His fears are not as ludicrous as one might think. For quite some time now there have been rumours that these women are using the pelvic bones of men to create a sort of invisible temple, or perhaps a pyramid. Whom do these ladies pray to? Nobody seems to know. How high must this temple be before it comes to fruition? Who can say?

He has tried to flee Arkham, only to find himself transported back here in much the same way I have found myself mysteriously transported to that hell-pit, Delaware, on more than one occasion. Unfortunately, his automobile was not transported back with him, and is probably lying in a ditch somewhere between here and the Canadian border.

Miles came to me about a week ago, unshaven, his hair wild, practically begging me to find a cure for his woes. But there is no sort of modern medicine that can remove the mark of vengeful women from the soul of a man, even a man as upright as my distinguished friend, Miles Showpony.

Miles did have one idea – he asked if I would go and speak to the women by the waters and see if some kind of deal can be made. He said he would happily pay them more if only he got to keep all of his bones. He knows I have a fine relationship with the women, as I have inquired into their health on more than one occasion. 

I had to chuckle, and I asked Miles, my primo amigo, if the... session with one of the ladies had truly been worth all of this aggravation. He said, with vehemence, that it absolutely had been, and that the encounter had been one of the highlights of his life. Perhaps the highlight. He exclaimed that the woman was able to do things to him that activated pleasurable nerve endings that he hadn’t even known existed.

Perhaps I, uh... perhaps I ought to bring Miss Commonprance with me when I go. To keep me focused on the hand-job... I mean, on the job at hand!

Testing... testing... Blast it! How does one erase entries from these confounded cylinders?!

A police detective came by my office and asked if I had any patients suffering from syphilis. I said I couldn’t readily give out such information as it would violate doctor-patient confidentiality. I then asked why the detective needed such information. Did it perhaps have something to do with a case he was working on?

The detective shrugged and said no. He just finds syphilis really really funny.


Now this is too much! The Town Council has simply gone too far this time! We have had some absurd by-laws enacted in the past, but listen to this pamphlet full of nonsense I just found pushed through my mail slot.

As of the Monday following the distribution of these pamphlets, all citizens of Arkham may no longer wear religious symbols associated with any of the major world religions while outside of the home. The Council assures the people of Arkham that it is in their own best interests, as insurance rates are skyrocketing due to people’s crucifixes, stars of David, or Islamic crescents bursting into flames whenever people enter the vicinity of Town Hall. They don’t mention it, but of course everybody knows they mean the real Town Hall, not the one shown in our postcards. 

I’m not a Constitutional expert, but surely this must violate one’s rights. What’s a little unholy fire searing one’s flesh compared to a country where one can’t express one’s religious beliefs in the manner they see fit?


I do some occasional volunteer work at the Arkham Orphanage, which of course includes check-ups on the little tykes. I used to enjoy the visit, as most of the children were curious about how I work as a doctor and what my instruments do and what some of my strangest cases looked like.

However, my visits have become a bit disconcerting as of late. In the past year or so, all of the children have started to blur into one. I don’t only mean that they lack distinct personalities, although that is true. But what I mean in particular is that all of them, be they boy or girl, look nearly identical.

All of the recent additions to the orphanage are about five years old, have white-blonde hair, and grey-blue eyes. Every single one of them.

Furthermore, nobody knows where the children came from. They just appear on the orphanage’s front steps in the morning, with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

On my most recent visit, I allowed one of the boys to try out my stethoscope, letting him listen to my heart. He seemed quite delighted, and smiles spread across the faces of every single one of the boys and girls who share those strikingly similar features.

Finishing with his play, he looked up and asked me if I ever feel lonely. I replied that I was around people that I cared for all the time, so that it was a very rare occasion indeed when I felt bereft of companionship.

The boy replied that he wondered what being alone felt like, because he was never alone. Never. Even when he was by himself. At which utterance, all of the tow-headed children in the room began nodding their heads in unison.


I’ve just finished typing up my latest medical paper, bound for publication. Have you ever come home at the end of the day, utterly spent, and wondered if you should choose wine for its soothing flavours or a cocaine supplement to put some pep back in your step? Well now there’s no need to choose! My paper, “Cocaine With Wine Is Utterly Divine!” will be quite the eye-opener in the medical community!

You will perhaps recall that some months ago, a group of ragtag veterans entered town for purposes known only to themselves. I usually avoid veterans, not out of disrespect, but because I am myself a veteran of the Great War, and I do not wish to rehash those times.

I had, to be quite honest, forgotten all about them, and they had fallen off the horizon for me. But that imminent Arkham citizen and my very good friend Miles Showpony, D.D.S., was called in for a consultation at Arkham Sanitarium of all places, to consult on these very same men. 

He was unable to find any evidence of anything resembling modern dental work in the mouth of a single one of these men. 

Miles was informed by a psychiatrist that the men were of very great interest to the staff. For one thing, their clothing was not just old, it was ancient. The psychiatrist said they identified the style as coming from some time during the medieval period.

Furthermore, the men spoke a foreign language. Or so it was thought. But it actually seems that they were speaking English! Yes, English! But not the English you and I know today. Rather, this was the language spoke about the British Isles at a time before Chaucer wrote his famous Tales of Canterbury. 

As you can imagine, everyone is quite baffled. 

My question is, why was everyone so sure that these men were veterans?

I have met the happiest man in town. The gentleman, one Atlas P. Arlo (the P stands for “Prince”) is Arkham’s street sweeper, the gentleman tasked with keeping Arkham’s roads and avenues clear of horse manure.

You laugh, but a mere one hundred years ago, urban centres were in a very real danger of being overwhelmed by the stuff. I remember reading a report about the city of New York where, before the automobile, manure piles would fill empty lots as high as third-story apartment windows.

The smell and sight weren’t the only concerns, oh no, disease was an often sad result of such poor hygienic practices. Cholera, yellow fever, typhoid, smallpox... those mounds were a virtual cornucopia of health concerns!

Then along came the street sweepers! Those heroes! Those saviours of urban-bound mankind! Lower-class but enterprising gents started clearing pathways for pedestrians to cross roads, and in so doing, laid the foundations of what would eventually become the Department of Sanitation.

Yes, street sweepers were the true unsung protectors of cities! Of course, these days, horses have largely been replaced by automobiles. Why, I’ve only ever seen one or two horses actually inside the town limits of Arkham since I’ve moved here. And one of those horses was a bile-yellow with smoke rising off its back and its calls resembled the screams of lines of men engaged in horrifying melee combat with no hope of surrender so one has no choice but to press forward through mounds of blood and limbs all in the hopes of achieving some landmark that one cannot hope to see through the tears in one’s own eyes.

All of which is to say that our local sweeper, the aforementioned Atlas P. Arlo, doesn’t have a lot to do.

And yet, he seems incredibly happy. I passed by him two days ago, pulling his cart behind him, whistling a happy tune, doffing his white safari helmet to all and sundry, and tipping a wink to the youngsters he met along the way.

Having experienced limited happiness myself the past few months, I felt compelled to stop Mister Arlo and ask him how he managed to keep such a happy song in his heart, despite the fact that his job was clearly in its last days.

“Diversification, sir!” he replied with a laugh, and went along his way.

As he passed, I could not help but notice that his covered cart seemed very heavy, and that he had to put some muscle into it to move the thing along. Which begs the question, if he has run out of manure to pick up, then what is he filling his cart with? And why did it keep calling out, “Help me”?

So, Dear Listeners, how are you doing these days? Are you setting yourselves up to have a fine winter? Are you preserving peaches and putting the sealed jars in your pantry or cellar? Perhaps you’re curing meats that will keep you fed during the long winter months. Are you deliriously happy despite the fact that your job is fading into history, and if so, what secret practices have you taken up to keep a smile fixed on your face?

I expect you’re wondering about the state of Miss Weetamoo. I must admit, I have been reluctant to record anything about her on these phonographic cylinders, for fear of it getting out and it being revealed that she was the mysterious woman that has been assaulting the warring bootlegging gangs. If such news did get out, I am sure the gangs’ vengeance would be swift, and perhaps not targeted at Miss Weetamoo alone, but also her family, friends, and the man helping her recover her health.

She is in my cellar. After her collapse in my kitchen I was able to stabilize her. At which point I started to carry her to one of the guest bedrooms in my house. However, she insisted that this placed me in danger, since I quite often have people over for emergency consultations when my office is closed. It is true that sometimes visitors in such a state will have to use the water closet, which is located upstairs next to the bedrooms, and they might happen to open the wrong door and see my ex-housekeeper in one of my beds. At the very least, this could cause a scandal and ruin my reputation. At the very worst, it would get back to the bootleggers and then I’d have my house shot full of bullet-holes.

So I set up a cot and a table and a lamp in my cellar at Miss Weetamoo’s insistence. The cellar is some cause for concern, as I didn’t always have a cellar, not until my house took one of its strange trips and came back one day with the cellar in tow. I have no way of being sure that the house won’t decide to do away with the cellar at a whim. I suppose we’ll all just have to cross our fingers.

Now to Miss Weetamoo herself. She had received a bullet wound with an entry in her lower right back and a larger exit out her mid-line front just below her sternum.  
I was desperately worried that there was injury done to her internal organs. However, it seemed that Lady Luck favoured Miss Weetamoo in this regard; her internals seem untouched. The entry and exit wounds were problematic enough though, and I am no surgeon. It took all of my old battlefield medical expertise to keep her alive while I patched her up, a situation made all the more dicey by the fact that I had no access to fresh blood in my home.

Honestly, I’m not sure how she’s still alive. But she is. And as bossy as ever. She came into my house, bleeding to death, fainting from pain, with absolutely no explanations. Not three days later, lying weak and pale in the cot, she began giving me orders about eating better because I looked like death warmed over.

The woman is absolutely infuriating. Even a grievous wound can’t dull the sharp side of her tongue.

I will endeavour to keep you all updated on Miss Weetamoo’s condition. And her story. If I don’t end up strangling her first.


Overnight For Observation was created by Daniel Fox. Daniel is the author of the historical noir thriller novel “Front Page Fatale”.