SOURCE: "The Thing That Smelt" (The Purple Sapphire and Other Posthumous Papers, 1921)  by Christopher Blayre

DESCRIPTION: "...Almost immediately I heard that snarling I told you about, and Black, who was on my right, got up in the dark and left the table. We heard a sort of scuffling, and then a choking noise in the corner of the room. We switched on the light and saw Black lying on his back by the wall, his tongue out, and blue in the face, struggling violently with nothing. We rushed at him and tried to pick him up. There was Something that we could not see, between us and him, pinning him down. We could feel it though—it was soft and pulpy, with a surface not furry, but like a mouse or a mole—and huge! And it stank like the Small Cat House at the Zoo. We could not free him of it, and we saw him die; choked before our eyes, whilst we clawed at that soft pulpy Nothing. We could not move it. When he was quite still, the Thing got up of its own accord. Carver and I were crouched close together, and the Thing forced its way between us, and so away. How it stank! It seemed to leave a greasy smear of smell all over us..." ("The Thing That Stank" by Christopher Blayre)

NOTES: Augustine Black was a man who dabbled in séances. Many of these were faked ceremonies but sometimes he would hear a spirit growling that was not part of the fraud. This spirit eventually came to him, an invisible feline of some unknown nature. It killed Black and in the process rubbed up against two men trying to save him, George Carver and Mark Shelton. The smell of the creature is described as stinking 'like the Small Cat House at the Zoo'. This odor got into the smell and taste of the two men so completely they could not eat or drink. Eventually they both committed suicide.

HISTORY: This story, like all Blayre stories, is a bit of a curiosity. Blayre, who is really Edward Heron-Allen, was not hugely influential on other writers because his work was known by a small circle including Oscar Wilde, and in some cases suppressed ("The Cheetah-Girl"). Now in the public domain, he may get the appreciation he deserves.