I believe it was Oscar Wilde who once said, “Be yourself; everyone else is taken.” Easy for him to say. He didn’t just see his doppelganger robbing an elderly couple on Armitage Street. 

These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.


I’m being asked to keep something under wraps by the Arkham Police Department. They had a fellow in their cells at their headquarters, awaiting transfer to prison. This fellow was on a hunger strike, refusing to eat, protesting that he should be allowed to publicly urinate wherever he wanted, because we all do it and what’s the big deal anyway?

He died overnight in the cell. Before you get in an uproar, I assure you it wasn’t because of anything the police did to him. Even though he was on a hunger strike, it was just his first night, and the authorities assure me he was not force-fed. I can vouch for this because I performed his autopsy, late into the witching hour, in the basement of the hospital.

He was a slim gent, but at the time of his death his belly was excessively bloated. His body had not yet had time to blow up because of gases, so we were all quite curious how such a skinny fellow, who had skipped out on dinner, had managed to become so distended over a span of perhaps five hours, at which point his body was found in the cell.

My first thoughts leaned towards poisoning of some kind, or perhaps an extreme allergic reaction. However, when I opened up his stomach I found a hamburger and french fries, a hint of strawberry ice cream, a human hand complete with a ring on one finger, sawdust, a picture of President Coolidge complete with brass frame, a selection of mah-jongg pieces, all face down, a pamphlet on how to cheat at poker, a thick lock of long silky auburn hair, and what turned out to be more salt than one man needed on a single meal.

The hamburger and french fries were chewed, and the salt was mostly dissolved. But the rest of the items were whole. 

Naturally, the police detective and I were quite surprised at the contents of the man’s stomach. He clearly couldn’t have swallowed some of the larger objects. How did they get there? Did he place them there himself? Was he trying to hide them from somebody? The police are as baffled as I am.

Oh, I did find the cause of death. Heart failure. Consuming that much salt really isn’t very good for you at all.


You’re probably anxious to know what was on those strange parchments Miss Weetamoo and I took from the log cabin in the woods. Well, Miss Weetamoo really did all the taking, I was more a witness than a participant.

You’re not alone. Miss Weetamoo and I are just as anxious to unravel the meaning behind the strange text. There are seven parchments in all, all seemingly quite old, written in different examples of penmanship. The language is unknown, and we have spent quite a few hours in the library with examples copied into one of my notebooks, trying to match it with examples of languages we can find on texts on the subject. No luck.

Each parchment is also dotted here and there with sketches, none of them particularly well done, of... Well, of things I’d rather not describe, in case there are any ladies listening to this recording. Some of the drawings are purely technical, looking like alchemical instructions, but others are hideously violent or of a Bacchanalian nature. 

Perhaps the worst of it is that the parchment is not really parchment at all. It’s too leathery. It is, to be frank, and ladies you might want to refrain from listening for a moment, but I suspect that they are made of well-preserved skin. My hope is that it was not sourced from human beings.

Miss Weetamoo and I share the belief that the mysterious Middle Eastern man was brought over by the bootleggers in order to translate these texts. And if it’s something that those sort of men want translated, it doesn’t bode well. It’s something that will either increase their illegal alcohol empire, or help them destroy their competition. 

Since our mystery man wasn’t at the log cabin, it’s likely he is working on copies of these parchments. Which means, the race is on. We must find out what these parchments say before the gangsters do.
But I fear we are behind in this race. Far, far behind.


Arkham Sanitarium has sent out a pamphlet stating that they are running desperately short on blood supplies. They urge all Arkham residents, and I’m quoting this now, “All Arkham residents who have an excess of blood to please come to the Sanitarium to make a donation. We have cookies!” A little bit further down it says, “How do you know if you have excess blood? Trust us, you do.” And here, right at the very bottom, it says, “Other bodily fluids also welcome.”

This pamphlet raises all sorts of questions, not the least of which is why an insane asylum needs blood at all. Still... I could go for a nice cookie right about now.


I received a call, Monday night this was, just as I was preparing to slip into bed. Being a doctor, I am of course used to late calls, but I’d never had one quite like this.

Instead of an anxious parent worried about their child who has an unrelenting fever, or the police telling me there was an accident involving a man swinging his axe into eight random people over the period of half an hour, it was Miss Commonprance. I am a creature of habit, as much as a doctor can be, at any rate. Miss Commonprance is a woman given to impulses, and she was giving in to one right at that moment. 

I had barely finished identifying myself and my number when she cut in, exclaiming the Northern Lights were in full bloom and that she wanted me to come pick her up so we could see them together. The old me, the me before I started seeing Miss Commonprance, would have found a reason to beg off. But I am the new me, the more exciting version of myself, and I agreed.

I dressed in a hurry and went downstairs, whereupon I was startled by Miss Weetamoo who had come up from her place in the cellar. She thought I was off to some medical emergency, and I replied that someone did urgently want to see me, which is the truth. Or as much truth as I felt comfortable in sharing. So off I went.

As soon as I opened the door, I was greeted by green light. The Northern Lights were indeed putting on quite the display. Any of you living in the region surely must have noticed them. As for the rest of you, you’ll just have to take our word for it when we say that it was spectacular.

Miss Commonprance came bounding out the front door of her boarding house and had herself positioned in the passenger seat before I even had the chance to get out to open the door for her. Her landlady had a curfew in place, one which I suspect Miss Commonprance only ever took as a suggestion, rather than as an iron-fast rule.

I drove us northeast out of town, somewhat in the direction of Beck Pond. There is a raised field there, and we stomped through the snow so we could get a clear view. Many of Arkham’s citizens had the same idea, and there were clusters of people all over the field, including children, despite it being a school night. I admit I felt a bit sorry for Miss Weetamoo not being able to take in the show in this manner. I hope she at least managed to stick her head out the door to look up at the sky. Then again, she might be spotted by any bootleggers tasked with spying on my house, so perhaps it would be best if she refrained.

At any rate, the entire night sky was filled with thick curtains of green light that faded off to purple at the edges. I started to explain to Miss Commonprance that the spectacle was caused by electrically charged particles from the sun hitting different layers in our atmosphere, but she clapped a hand over my mouth and told me to “clam up, buster,” and to just enjoy the show. Thinking back on it, while the borealis was indeed stunning, I was equally captivated by the look of wonder and joy on Miss Commonprance’s lovely upturned face.

In fact, her face was where I first learned that something was wrong. I had turned my eyes to look at her again when I saw the smile sink away from her lips and her wide eyes narrow into suspicion. I looked up and saw something forming on the waves of light, like they were parchment being written upon by the finger of a titan.

Letters. I do believe they were letters. Letters that very much resembled the lettering on the parchments Miss Weetamoo and I liberated from a remote log cabin a couple of weeks ago. Letters and words that we had failed to translate since then.

People began to clutch their heads. I shared their discomfort, because the letters at that size gave me a headache and a noticeable case of nausea. All of us left, the wonder of a beautiful evening spoiled by that hideous writing cast across the atmosphere.

I checked imported newspapers over the next week, and it seemed that everywhere else in the region was allowed to experience the sky-bound display without the addition of migraine-inducing calligraphy. Only Arkham was subjected to the foreboding missive.

Miss Commonprance became so violently ill that I had to help her inside, raising the rather prudish eyebrows of her landlady. However, we were able to mark it down as a visit from her physician, as I had administered medication to help ease her migraine and vomiting.

When I arrived home, I found that Miss Weetamoo had indeed matched the writing in the sky to some of the strange and upsetting words written upon the skin-like parchments. 

This being Arkham, there is almost zero chance that this foretells of good fortune coming our way. We both swore to redouble our efforts to translate the hideous writing.

Before it’s too late.


Reciting all these trials and tribulations is wearing me down to the bone. Let’s focus on you instead, Dear Listeners. Did your March come in like a lion or a lamb? Have you been eating objects far too large for your esophagus to pass, and if so, how? Have you found yourself constantly issuing half-truths to keep two women in separate compartments of your life, even if you’re not having the benefits of an affair that would usually be the cause of such vagaries? If so, I would dearly love for you to tell me how you keep your stories straight. I admit, you ladies can be a smashing delight, but my goodness, the amount of work a fellow has to put in to keep you all happy!


Town Hall has been getting the word out that we might be locked in this bitter localized chill for some weeks yet. They’ve issued some ideas for how to keep warm when the thermometer dips out of sight. Ideas include:

Forsaking religious institutions, all that stone and marble is hard to keep warm.

Telling on your neighbours if they complain about Town Hall. The thrill of watching them being hauled away will cause your blood to race, increasing your internal heat. 

Pinching old ladies.

Burning any literature or pictures of other towns and cities. It’s best if you don’t waste body heat imagining yourself living somewhere safer. Plus you’ll be able to have a cozy little fire going, perfect for warming your fingertips.

I have to say, not all of these suggestions sound medically feasible to me. I’d publicly object to them, but the neighbours have been staring at my windows ever since the tips came out over the radio. It’s probably best if I keep my arguments to myself. Besides, who knows, meteorologists have been wrong before. This cold snap could break at any time now, freeing us from the scrutiny of suspicious eyes.

Any time now...

Any moment... 

I’m going to go and throw on another sweater.


Hello, Dear Listeners. It’s late at night, I’m alone in my study, just me, the phonographic recording machine, and in the future, one presumes, you. I wish, future you, that you could send a message back to me, to let me know how all of Arkham’s intrigues work out in the end. I’d like to be assured that Miss Weetamoo and I can stop the bootleggers’ plan, whatever it is. In fact, I’d like you to tell me that both of the remaining gangs of bootleggers have been vanquished from the city altogether. I’d like you to reassure me that I remain a good man as I descend further into the bizarre antics of this town. And I’d really like to know if Finland is real. I mean... Fin Land? Someone just made that place up to keep some fishing rights alive, right? It’s right there in the name!

Until next time, Dear Listeners...


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