Eau de morgue by Arthur T. Harris
QR code
Eau de morgue by Arthur T. Harris is a Poe-tinged science-fantasy detective short story written in the mid-20th century. It centers on an occult-leaning perfumer, her aristocratic patron, and a sinister gift that turns a social feud into a macabre disappearance. A first-person narrator, Jan Mystel, recounts to a detective how he drifted into part-time work at Madame Outre’s Greenwich Village perfume shop, bankrolled by the imperious Duchess of Dunscombe. When the
Duchess demands the shop move uptown and hints at blackmail, Madame coolly severs ties and mails her a final “gift”: a jar of greenish bath salts that Jan posts. Madame then vanishes, and soon the Duchess disappears from her hotel bathroom; all that remains is an empty bottle of the same salts and the Duchess’s ring wedged in the open drain. The duke reports a half-scream and a gurgle of water before silence, leading the detective and narrator to the chilling inference that the Duchess dissolved and went down the drain. The story closes on that eerie possibility, with Madame likely in flight and the narrator aghast at the perfect, uncanny revenge. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Download for free
For your e-reader or reading app — Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, Calibre etc.
Kindle → Use Send-to-Kindle
Kobo, Nook etc → Transfer via USB
Phone, tablet or computer → Open in a reading app
Other formats & older devices
There may be more files related to this item.
About this eBook
| Author | Harris, Arthur T. |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Emshwiller, Ed, 1925-1990 |
| Title | Eau de morgue |
| Original Publication | New York: King-Size Publications, Inc., 1956. |
| Series Title | Produced from Fantastic Universe, June 1956 (Vol. 5, No. 5.). |
| Credits | Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Science fiction |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Subject | Mystery fiction |
| Subject | Greenwich Village (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 77869 |
| Release Date | Feb 5, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 227 downloads in the last 30 days. |
Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free!