This episode, we return to the Feldkirch plateau in Austria where a small village is terrorised by a serial killer in ‘A Pastoral Horror’, first published in 1890.

You can read the story here.

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Synopsis

Following the collapse of a city firm and the loss of his capital, John Hudson is forced to find an affordable place to live while he waits for legal restitution. He fixes upon the Austrian Tyrolean village of Laden where he settles into a contented if somewhat dull existence, enlivened to some extent by the presence of the intellectual village priest Father Verhagen. This placid atmosphere however is shattered by the gruesome murder of one of the villagers. At first, the killing is blamed on an itinerant Italian pedlar with whom the victim had quarrelled, but the police have to release their suspect when a second and more prominent villager is also murdered and a reign of terror begins…

Next time on Doings of Doyle…

We head back into military life where a game of cards erupts into ‘A Regimental Scandal’ (1892). Read it here.

Acknowledgements

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Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.

Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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