Mystery! (3)

Coffin lid stamp reported missing. Look around?

Summer 199_. Visiting relatives on Cape Cod in _____ville I remembered from one of the dust wrapper secrets that my favorite writer/illustrator lived part year on the Cape. "Night Owl. Edward Gorey is listed in the phone book! In Yarmouth Port." We took our stuffed Doubtful and our one-year-old twins and found Strawberry Lane. You know how hard it is to find house numbers. Driving up and down the Lane we could not see a single house number anywhere. Being a good future letterboxer, I decided to stop looking too closely at the trees, and stepped back to see the forest. Taking the wide view we were standing in a little park surrounded by old, pretty, white, clapboard, Cape Cod houses. Except for one. Grey, unkempt, overgrown and choked with vines, one house stood out from the rest. A statue bust in the upstairs window. A cat in another. Elephant house. Mr. Gorey stepped out, on his way somewhere, and said hello.

Elephant House is now the Edward Gorey House museum. From there head east on 6A and shortly turn left on Homestead Lane. Follow this around and turn right on Kingsbury Way. Down on the right is a small parking lot for a Yarmouth Port Walking Trail.

Read:

Take the path, cross the marsh on the boardwalk, and head into the trees. A path appears on the right. At the intersection look for the penny post and leave some. Take the path to the right and start counting: 43 Scarab paces, or 99 Night Owl steps. You will come to cut and broken logs scattered on both sides of the path. On the left, look for the large fireplace length log with almost a foot of bare branch sticking up out of it. Left of that a fallen log points away from the path up a small rise. About 7 steps along this log look for the box under bark and leaves between this log and a curved one making a V with it.

Coffin Lid: MISSING replaced with

Poster Detail: (originally part of a PLB ring)

After examining the skeleton the constable explained that the rest of the crime scene was further into the woods. "This way Inspector. Walk straight north from here about 37 steps to a small Y tree. If you then turn to 40 degrees, in about 15 steps you'll find two Y trees, a medium and a small one. The scene is straight north from here about 33 steps. It looks like it was three against one and an intervener." "Are they just as they were found Constable?" "Yes. These three are laid out parallel, feet to the north, lying straight south. The big one here, fell the opposite way." "The survivor here is the 'intervener'?" "Yes, Sir. It's as if she cast a violent spell and felled all four of them at once." The survivor seemed in shock, half upright, limbs all akimbo. Wild looking. "I am Inspector Ogdred. I appreciate that you must be still in shock from all this. Can you tell me what happened?" The wild limbed woman only pointed to the larger victim that had fallen to the north. Looking under it carefully I discovered the elaborate missing coffin lid. "Constable, this is the oddest case. We have suspects, weapons, clues, even maps and diagrams, but no idea what the story is. I'm not sure we'll ever know what happened here."

Coffin Lid was added 8/25/2006.
Poster Detail added 8/12/2007
==========
April 27, 2007 -- STAMP MISSING -- I have a report that the box was found open and gnawed, the contents wet and scattered, and the stamp missing. Oh despair! I would much appreciate if someone would look around for the stamp lying on the ground. It is large, about 3" x 6", made of the pink stuff, and black with ink on one side.

I search myself and found nothing. Replaced the box with a new stamp.
==========

Be sure to look for A Very Gorey Letterbox and G B Heron's Haven in the same park. After the Heron you should be able to find your way to the shore and view Cape Cod Bay. Then return to Edward Gorey House for a visit. You may not recognize it since they cleaned up the exterior for the neighbors.