Excerpt from The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

C H A P T E R 1

'If you'll permit me,' said the Stranger, 'I'd like to tell you a story. After all, it's a long journey and, by the look of those skies, we're not going to be leaving this carriage for some time. So, why not pass the hours with some story-telling? The perfect thing for a late October evening.

'Are you quite comfortable there? Don't worry about Herbert. He won't hurt you. It's just this weather that makes him nervous. Now, where was I? What about some brandy to keep the chill out? You don't mind a hip flask, do you?'

'Well, this is a story that actually happened. Those are the best kind, don't you think? Better still, it happened to me when I was a young man. About your age.

'I was a student at Cambridge. Studying Divinity, of course. There's no other subject, in my opinion, except possibly English Literature. We are such stuff as dreams are made on. I'd been there for almost a term. I was a shy boy from the country and I suppose I was lonely. I wasn't one of the swells, those young men in white bow ties who sauntered across the court as if they had letters patent from God. I kept myself to myself, went to lectures, wrote my essays and started up a friendship with another scholarship boy in my year, a timid soul called Gudgeon, of all things. I wrote home to my mother every week. I went to chapel. Yes, I believed in those days. I was even rather pious—"pi," we used to say. That was why I was surprised to be invited to join the Hell Club. Surprised and pleased. I'd heard about it, of course. Stories of midnight orgies, of bedders coming in to clean rooms and fainting dead away at what they discovered there, of arcane chants from the Book of the Dead, of buried bones and gaping graves. But there were other stories too. Many successful men had their start at the Hell Club: politicians — even a cabinet member or two— writers, lawyers, scientists, business tycoons. You always knew them because of the badge, a discreet skull worn on the left lapel. Yes, like this one here.

'So I was happy to be invited to the initiation ceremony. It was held on October 31st. Halloween, of course. All Hallows' Eve. Yes, of course. It's Halloween today. If one believed in coincidence one might think that was slightly sinister.

'To return to my story. The ceremony was simple and took place at midnight. Naturally. The three initiates were required to go to a ruined house just outside the college grounds. In turn, we would be blindfolded and given a candle. We had to walk to the house, climb the stairs and light our candle in the window on the first floor landing. Then we had to shout, as loudly as we could, "Hell is empty!" After all three had completed the task, we could take off our blindfolds and re-join our fellows. Feasting and revelry would follow. Gudgeon ... did I tell you that poor Gudgeon was one of the three? Gudgeon was worried because, without his glasses, he was almost blind. But, as I told him, we were all blindfolded anyway. A man may see how the world goes with no eyes.'




'So,' I say, 'what's happening here?' 'Something bad,' says Peter.

'You're quite right,' I say, counting to ten silently. 'What makes you think that?'

'Well,' says Una, 'the setting, for one thing. Midnight on Halloween.' 'That's a bit of a cliché,' says Ted.

'It's a cliché because it works,' says Una. 'It's really spooky, with the weather and everything. What's the betting they get snowed in on the train?'

'That's a rip-off of Murder on the Orient Express,' says Peter.

'The Stranger pre-dates Agatha Christie,' I say. 'What else tells you what sort of story this is?'

'The narrator is so creepy,' says Sharon, 'all that "have a drink from my hip flask and don't mind Herbert". Who is Herbert anyway?'

'A good question,' I say. 'What does everyone think?' 'A deaf mute.'

Excerpted from The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths. Copyright © 2019 by Elly Griffiths. Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.