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Dear Recipient
I hope my letter reaches you in good health. I reach out to you, for our mutual acquaintance Dr. Warren Wilson has informed me that you might be interested in assisting me in a rather peculiar matter that I have been puzzling over for several weeks now.
But I should not get ahead of myself, so let me start from the beginning. I am a businessman of some wealth, and ever since coming to a rather large inheritance from a distant relative several years ago, I have also been something of a patron of arts, though the local community of artists worthy of support is limited to several young, talented artists of various. Not much has come of my patronage, to be truthful, though I do now own several pieces of some merit. But I digress. Last winter I was struck by a peculiar illness accompanied by spouts of high fever. I have scarcely any memory of this time myself, but according to my household staff and friends, I would be completely lucid at times, conducting business as usual, only to revolve into ranting madman at other times or be completely bedridden and feverish. During this time, I apparently commissioned several art pieces of most perverse design. Once the illness had passed and I first heard of the piece, I was half of mind to order them to never be completed, for I had no wish to be reminded of whatever fever dreams I had spoken of, yet strange curiosity held me back.
It was nearly three months later when I received the first of these pieces. The artist - a rather skilled sculptor by name of McGrey - profusely apologized for the delay, and explained that he, too, had been struck by severe fever. The sculpture was most beautiful yet repulsive. It depicts a young woman with a stump for a hand, leaning over a stone tablet with the words Silver Key and something several several source have told me is called the yellow sign. One by one the other pieces have come in accompanied by similar apologies for their lateness and tales of severe illness, and truth to be told, while each of them has some disturbing detail to it, I have rather come to enjoy them. The last, however, is a thoroughly horrifying piece, depicting strange, dog-headed humanoids devouring a cadaver. It was delivered to me by a lawyer, for apparently the poor painter had committed suicide a fortnight prior and left the painting to me in his testament. It was this piece that convinced me to further investigate the matter, for while each of them contains this yellow sign - which I here dare not commit to paper - and some combination of words silver, key, and keeper. Upon investigation, I have discovered that these details were not part of the original commission. The artists, too, shaken by their colleagues suicide, have sworn that they did not speak to each other of such details, each having committed it to their art prior to seeing any of the other pieces. When pressed, several of them confessed to having had strange dreams that must have influenced their art. And indeed, being familiar with their work I can attest that their works since have some eerie quality that escapes definition that makes looking at them a rather queer experience indeed.
What, then, is this yellow sign and how does Silver Key of the Keeper relate into the matter? I hope you can shed some light to these questions.
Sincerely yours,
Alexander Weiss
6.5.1897
I hope my letter reaches you in good health. I reach out to you, for our mutual acquaintance Dr. Warren Wilson has informed me that you might be interested in assisting me in a rather peculiar matter that I have been puzzling over for several weeks now.
But I should not get ahead of myself, so let me start from the beginning. I am a businessman of some wealth, and ever since coming to a rather large inheritance from a distant relative several years ago, I have also been something of a patron of arts, though the local community of artists worthy of support is limited to several young, talented artists of various. Not much has come of my patronage, to be truthful, though I do now own several pieces of some merit. But I digress. Last winter I was struck by a peculiar illness accompanied by spouts of high fever. I have scarcely any memory of this time myself, but according to my household staff and friends, I would be completely lucid at times, conducting business as usual, only to revolve into ranting madman at other times or be completely bedridden and feverish. During this time, I apparently commissioned several art pieces of most perverse design. Once the illness had passed and I first heard of the piece, I was half of mind to order them to never be completed, for I had no wish to be reminded of whatever fever dreams I had spoken of, yet strange curiosity held me back.
It was nearly three months later when I received the first of these pieces. The artist - a rather skilled sculptor by name of McGrey - profusely apologized for the delay, and explained that he, too, had been struck by severe fever. The sculpture was most beautiful yet repulsive. It depicts a young woman with a stump for a hand, leaning over a stone tablet with the words Silver Key and something several several source have told me is called the yellow sign. One by one the other pieces have come in accompanied by similar apologies for their lateness and tales of severe illness, and truth to be told, while each of them has some disturbing detail to it, I have rather come to enjoy them. The last, however, is a thoroughly horrifying piece, depicting strange, dog-headed humanoids devouring a cadaver. It was delivered to me by a lawyer, for apparently the poor painter had committed suicide a fortnight prior and left the painting to me in his testament. It was this piece that convinced me to further investigate the matter, for while each of them contains this yellow sign - which I here dare not commit to paper - and some combination of words silver, key, and keeper. Upon investigation, I have discovered that these details were not part of the original commission. The artists, too, shaken by their colleagues suicide, have sworn that they did not speak to each other of such details, each having committed it to their art prior to seeing any of the other pieces. When pressed, several of them confessed to having had strange dreams that must have influenced their art. And indeed, being familiar with their work I can attest that their works since have some eerie quality that escapes definition that makes looking at them a rather queer experience indeed.
What, then, is this yellow sign and how does Silver Key of the Keeper relate into the matter? I hope you can shed some light to these questions.
Sincerely yours,
Alexander Weiss
6.5.1897