The Nashville connection
revealed
Everyone who has visited Graceland, one
of the most elegant Victorian cemeteries in the world, with Don Izban
has awaited the booklet, Sherlock Holmes Visits a Cemetery by Donald
B. Izban. BSI, PSI.
His text is enhanced by the exquisite cover
art and a caricature of Izban by Jean Pierre Cagnat and the illustrations
of Paul Churchill. The Introduction is by David Hammer (he describes
Izban as louche!). The Afterword is by George Vanderburgh whose Sher-lockian
publishing company, The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, published it.
You can order copies from there:
P.O. Box 122, Sauk City, Wisc. USA 53583-0122
or PO Box 204, Shelburne, Ontario, Canada, LON 1SO, Fax (519) 925-3482.
The book is also available from
Classic Specialties
P.O. Box 19058, Cincinnati, OH 45219. 1999. $11. Paper covers.
The deluxe hardbound edition with watercolor print of the Cagnat's
Holmes visiting Vincent Starrett's gravesite is also available at
$75, postpaid.
Izban guides the reader through 17 steps (or chapters) of one of the
most unforgettable Victorian cemeteries in the world. He takes Sherlock
Holmes along for the ride. On a personal note, two of the Nashville
Scholars found "Step Five" at Inez Clarke's grave as every bit "A
Singular Mystery", as Izban entitled that chapter.
Inez Clarke - A Sliding Mystery
(Gael Stahl continues...)
Ever since Inez Clarke died mysteriously
in a violent thunderstorm in 1880, her spirit occasionally haunted
and romped among the entrancing tombstones on stormy nights. To put
a stop to it, her relatives enclosed her statue in a glass cage. She
has since been spotted skipping in the cemetery. Caretakers have rushed
to her grave where they found the glass case intact, but empty.
Izban says, "If this story sounds incredible,
it's because it is. Nonetheless, you are hereby advised not to doubt
it. Noted Nashville Sherlockians
Gael Stahl and Billy Fields tell how their experience, bordering on
the occult, is chillingly unbelievable, but ever so true." Izban then
tells readers to "ask them to relate their Inez Clarke story to you
- it will raise the hair on the back of your neck for sure."
We admit it. It was eerie. The occasion
was the STUDy in Scarlet dinner in March 1998. Head STUD Dennis France
invited Billy and me to attend. He also invested us into the sodality
and conferred on us te preeminent STUD lapel pin.
Izban, whom we'd invested Cardinal Tosca
in our scion in hopes he'd be named to succeed Chicago's Cardinal
Bernadin, said that he might produce one of his famous a Rache Road
Rallys the next day ending it with a visit to Graceland Cemetery.
He stayed up "all night" devising a devilishly
scholarly quiz devoted to red herrings, and staged a rally on Saturday.
He treated all the STUDs and visitors to coffee and doughnuts at Dunkin
Donuts, then sent us off on a half-dozen mile ride on the street leading
to Graceland.
All along the thoroughfare we identified
Sherlockian clues among Chicago place names, matched Victorian photos
and hints to each other, and wrote a Limerick on a Study in Scarlet
theme. At Graceland, Izban checked the quiz from each vehicle, and
distributed prizes to the winners (Izban's first name, Don, is fittingly
the root of the word "gift" in Latin - sometimes everyone goes home
a winner).
In a light rain, we walked and drove in
the entourage of Izban. It was a wondrous event for newcomers who
crowded around the speaker. Some veterans stayed in cars and listened
through the windows. At the Inez monument we gathered under umbrellas
to hear Izban's account of the strange things that happen at one of
his favorite stops in this last home of Chicago's ultra rich.
Izban said hundreds visit the grave weekly
and we could see coins they'd thrown around Inez' grave. Billy Fields
dug into his pocket and tossed some coins on top of the glass case.
They slid off. He placed them back on top. They slid off. He pressed
them individually onto the top. They slid off. He looked at me wide-eyed.
I furtively turned for enlightenment from our leader. Izban raised
his palms skyward in prayerful wonderment and shook his head. "That's
scary," Billy whispered, leaving the coins on the ground.
Izban and his wife, Georgianna, offered
to drop us off at the doughnut shop to pick up our car. We got to
talking about his days as vice president at Commerce Clearing House,
the publisher of legal books. Since it meant only a mile or two detour,
they took us by the company complex on the way. Nothing mysterious
about that. But as we neared the donut shop, we stopped for a red
light.
The next thing we know, Billy in the seat
behind the driver, turns to the left to see a wrecker loaded with
a couple of cars brake and slide into his side of the car, stop mere
inches from his back. It slid with the inevitability of the coins
for Inez. Billy crawled out my side of the car. Georgianna said it
was eerie. They had just gotten the twin of that car back after a
long stay in a body shop.
These things come in threes don't they?
We were leery about Izban's invitation to join him on Sunday night
at his country club, the club that all of Chicago's cardinals frequent.
But nothing untoward happened.
The uncommon splendor, the large, dark-wood
paneled room where we chatted over cigars and Grand Marnier, the anecdotes
of golf outings across the country, sometimes with golf masters, was
uneventful. 'Twas wonderful.
On Monday morning, Inez struck again. Rain
turned to snow about 3 a.m. We slipped and slid to the airport about
5:30, turned in the rental, and as we walked toward our gate, the
last plane to leave Midway for 12 hours slid off the runway. But Billy
and I were on that plane.
Time passed quickly for me. I read and studied
The Hound of the Baskervilles. Billy took charge of the revised boarding
lists at end of the terminal and kept our names at the top. Then our
luck turned. We got out after the runways were finally cleared. But
shortly after, a few more feet of snow fell leaving friends in south
Chicago without electricity for the better part of a week.
Inex at work? Inez Clarke was probably cavorting
that night. I returned to Graceland last July. The coins I tossed
on the case stayed put. Billy wasn't along. Perhaps we've found the
cause of this slippery chain of mishaps that must be exorcised.
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