Dear Olga,
I may be old fashioned, but I like to send greetings at the end of the earth year, even though it's purely notional to us here at Spook Central. I hope you are well. I'd like to visit, but it would upset the comrades, who can't cope with the afterlife. Though they can't be half as upset as Joe Stalin, stuck down there with all those rich people.
I keep busy. I still visit the house in Lauriston Gardens, though I haven't had to since it got mains sewerage. (I suspect that I did more for the cause by dying of typhoid than I could ever have done by making a bomb that went off.) Number 13 is thoroughly gentrified again. I enjoyed the years when it was a squat--as you know, smoke is all we can keep down.
There has been a lot of activity here in the Holmesian section too. First Peter Cushing arrived. His wife had a cottage ready on the Downs, and they are quite quiet and happy there. He sometimes goes to Eric Morecambe and asks for his money. Eric is helping Eric Porter polish his song and dance routine now, so we see quite a bit of him over here.
Jeremy Brett's arrival caused quite a stir. You know what the bureaucracy's like before you can get in. They let the old soldiers and civil servants run it, because that's what makes them happiest. But Jeremy charmed his way though in no time, and Joan was waiting.
As soon as he decently could, of course, Sir Arthur came bouncing up to him. "I see you got my messages," he said. "You got him exactly right. The mannerisms, everything." (We get Granada here courtesy of our colleagues at Bisley.)
Jeremy obviously guessed what he meant, and smiled politely. "Your writing is splendidly precise," he said. "It was a pleasure to work from." Sir Arthur looked crestfallen. He was sure he'd beaten the laws of entropy and got a message through. He really won't believe that we can see and feel them, but they can't know anything at all about us.
Sir Arthur was just off on his favourite topic when Sir Bob arrived. He hadn't bothered with the paperwork. When they stopped him from storming straight through, he just flirted with one of the girls for a few minutes and slipped in anyway (as it were). Jeremy and Bob went off for a few pints of nectar and a curry. (Our local tandoori does a mean Peshwari ambrosia.)
They came back a bit worse for wear. Jeremy told Joan that they'd decided to straighten things out with Larry and might be a while. He was a bit miffed that she didn't seem to mind. "We have all the time in the universe here," she said. Jeremy couldn't grasp this concept yet. Einstein explains it quite well to anyone who worries about it for long, but rumour has it that the only person who really understands it is Moriarty, and he's not here.
Sir Arthur was also pleased to see Robertson Davies, who somehow showed an accurate grasp of the spirit world in spite of the laws of entropy. But Davies protested that he had no special knowledge, only a good imagination. He certainly used my name for a character who is much more interesting than I ever was.
Well, let's hope we can settle down for a bit now. Peter, Jeremy and Basil Rathbone are playing bridge regularly, but they're having problems finding a fourth. Both the Nigels -- Bruce and Stock -- pretend to be outrageously stupid and always win, which spoils the fun except for them.
You know, I sometimes think that it's a bit sad. Up here we're all perfectly happy (each according to our individual capacity for happiness, as Thomas Aquinas is always explaining to anybody whose individual capacity for happiness includes a love of total tedium in naff Latin). But we get these wonderful people. Whereas down there, they need all the happiness they can get, and they lose them.
Holiday greetings,
Karlheinz Vitzlipluetzli
sometimes known as The Brixton Ghost
Please note: Spook Central manifested after volume one of Baring Gould fell on my head while I was watching Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death. Any resemblance to other afterlifes real or imaginary is purely incidental. HE.