I had read this message at
the office, during the day. Not having seen the book he was refering to, I was prepared to
send a negative answer to Benoît when I returned home. As soon as I had crossed the door,
I was surprised to discover that a book had indeed been left in my mailbox while I was
away. No stamp, no wrapping. Just a card slipped between two pages, bearing only the
words: "To Sylvain St-Pierre".
A quick browsing through the book, entitled Correspondances,
revealed it to be a compilation of the exchanges made over the years between the Authors
and a person presenting herself as Mary Von Rathen. Any fan of the Obscure Cities series
worth his salt knows about the existence of those letters, and it is further said that the
Authors have long suspected each others of having written them. To this day, several
details contained therein have worked their way into the series, mainly in the hard cover
versions of the Guide to the Cities.
I do beleive in coincidences, but this one was rather too great for
comfort and I mentionned to Benoît that he was in my eyes a prime suspect. He swore that
neither he nor François was the author of this book. It was easy enough to beleive him,
as I became myself a suspect when I spread the word amongst my fellow obscurophiles!
Speculations started to spread at the speed of a galloping bunyip.
Even better: a few days later, our friend Olivier Tissot told me
that he had also received a copy of the mysterious book. In in case, the things was
delivered at his office, the address of which is not widely known. As an added amazing
coincidence, he was at that very moment deep in a phone conversation with Alex Willem,
another well known obscurophile! It took nothing else for Olivier to join, much to his
reluctance, the club of suspects.
Several hypothesis have been raised so far regarding the true origin of
this book. While some of them are somewhat silly, not to say downright wacky, others are
worthy of further examination.
The only thing I am absolutely certain of is that I am in no way
connected to this plot. I am however aware that convincing others of this may be
difficult, hence this, which I will try to make as exhaustive and impartial as possible.
Being a Canadian, I follow the British rule of law: any accused is innocent until
proven guilty! |
