# Halpin Chalmers — Short Fiction character guide

> Halpin Chalmers in Short Fiction by Frank Belknap Long.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Chalmers, Mr. Chalmers, the late Halpin Chalmers

**First appearance:** 0000-the-hounds-of-tindalos

## Snapshot

An occult author found headless in a bare rented room, his charred notes warning of Doels and satyrs who breach walls through scarlet circles.

## Who they are

Chalmers is the murdered occult writer whose death opens the mystery: a nude body ringed by plaster fragments arranged in a perfect triangle, the room stripped of furniture, the walls smeared with plaster of Paris. His charred papers—'I am waiting and watching,' 'the plaster is falling'—reveal a man who believed something was breaking through from the other side and took desperate geometric precautions. His legacy drives the investigation, turning a sensational crime into a question of whether his fears were madness or prophecy.

## In the story

### [The Hounds of Tindalos](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_17_se/chapters/the-hounds-of-tindalos)

A colleague or associate who is involved in the events surrounding the Hounds.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_17_se/chapters/i)

The central figure of the chapter; he has taken a drug to explore time and space, and describes horrifying visions of the Hounds of Tindalos and the nature of angular time.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_17_se/chapters/ii)

Phones the narrator in a hysterical state, pleading for help to plaster his room against the Hounds of Tindalos.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_17_se/chapters/iii)

Found murdered in an empty room, decapitated and covered in blue slime, with cryptic writings about supernatural entities.

### [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_17_se/chapters/v)

Narrates his theories and experiences with the Doels and a being from another dimension.

### [The Miniature Menace](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_17_se/chapters/the-miniature-menace)

Chalmers pleads for help as the miniature threat escalates, underscoring the desperation of the situation.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_17_se/characters/chalmers
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_17_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_17_se/characters