Mister Slaughter (59 page)

I wanted Matthew Corbett. Not Matthew's son or grandson. But the more I read about the colonial era, the more I realized 1730 or so would be the most fertile starting place, because the social structure was more defined and there really was a lot going on. Also, the maps I found of New York tell an interesting tale: in 1690, it was a small, rather primitive town to our standards, but in 1730 it was well on its way to becoming everything we think of as a "city" today.

But . . . if Matthew was twenty in 1699, in 1730 he would be . . .
fifty-one
?

I have no problem with people over fifty, since I'm one myself, but the idea of a swashbuckling hero fifty-one years old setting out on a quest to uncover a mystery on a global scale did not sit right.

So, what I've done is combined the eras of 1690 and 1730 and come out with something in-between that I can live with, and that Matthew can live with. I am trying to be faithful to the
atmosphere
of what was, but once again . . . not totally accurate, not totally inaccurate.

One thing I would have missed out on by setting the series in 1730 was Lord Cornbury. He actually was the governor of New York and New Jersey from 1701 to 1708, and there's a portrait of him in the New York Historical Society that shows him dressed in women's clothes. Evidently he was obsessed with pleasing his cousin, the Queen, and has been hailed as the archetype of the crooked politician as well as at the time called "a degenerate and pervert" for his habit of crossdressing. Reports say he may have worn a dress when he attended the funeral of his wife. What's not to love about that kind of character?

Speaking of another character, and I would be terribly remiss if I did not: Mister Slaughter himself.

In England in the 1930s, a stage actor changed his name to Tod Slaughter, and soon became known as "Mr. Murder" for the roles he so vividly portrayed. Slaughter was an original, and he broke the mold. He was an over-the-top, scene-stealing, red-blooded, teeth-clenching, funeral-bell-laughing
villain
, and it's thought that he portrayed Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, at least 2,000 times on stage. His film version of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street was released in 1936. In the movie
The Crimes of Stephen Hawke
, he actually breaks the spine of a small boy. His villain in that piece is aptly known as "The Spinebreaker."

Slaughter's characters are usually upwardly-mobile scoundrels with an eye for young ladies with family money. Murder was soon to follow. His performances are not for everyone, for sure, and they may not have "aged" well, but when I was a little boy and Horror Creeper Theater came on at eleven o'clock on Saturday nights showing a Tod Slaughter movie with its scratched film and strangely-muffled soundtrack . . . man, I was there.

I would like to think that Mister Slaughter would appreciate this encore performance.

Hopefully, you'll understand more of both where I'm coming from and where I'm going with this series. As I say, I'm not an expert, but I'm learning. The challenge is writing what is essentially a "modern" mystery around a "period" settting. Matthew Corbett's world is both elegant and brutal, more pure than we can know and more wicked than we can imagine, and I think that this combination is what's always interested me about the era.

So: I do hope you'll return for more adventures with Matthew, and his continuing struggle against the hand of Professor Fell. Though Matthew Corbett's world may be a place that can never be fully and accurately reached, it will be more than enough for our imaginations.

I thank you for your continued readership, and your gentle graces.

Your Humble Servant,

PART ONE:
The Monster's Tooth

One
Two
Three
Four
Five

PART TWO:
The Valley of Destruction

Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen

PART THREE:
Time Stops for the Englishman

Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty

PART FOUR:
Rattlesnake Country

Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five

PART FIVE:
The Road to Paradise

Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One

PART SIX:
A Meeting of Night Owls

Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five

Matthew Corbett's World