Must I remind you that it was the piquant Miss Lally that is leaving the house in the prologue with a dripping parcel? And what that parcel contains? Her larky manner should not blind you to her thoughtful consideration of a suitable addition to the Doctor’s cabinet of horrors. What unconscious confessions will the ‘Novel of the Black Seal’ contain?
The format of the tale follows that told by ‘Wilkins’. Poverty stricken in London about to expire meets a benefactor and employed by him goes on a journey leading to strange and terrifying events. In a sense this is like those elaborate phone cons run by groups of thieves. There is a script. They follow it closely hewing to the fears and hopes of the ‘mark’.
Why are they doing it? Wilkins tells that when he came back from America his fortunes changed utterly. He now was welcomed everywhere and his bona fides were accepted without question. We may conjecture that certain forces emanating from the dark side were looking after their acolyte.
How did Miss Lally find Phillipps in Leicester Square? The rational sceptic is putty in her hands. I see the coin is like a tracking device. It brings earnest seekers to it to continue the slaughter that it commemorates. The Three Impostors will themselves be confounded should they get hold of it.
Miss Lally is not a good girl.
