The Three Impostors · Chapters

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Chapter companions for The Three Impostors by Arthur Machen.

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Chapter 1
Prologue
Three conspirators—Davies, Richmond, and Helen—depart from a decaying, deserted house after a sinister plot involving a man with spectacles. They leave the front door ajar, mock their victims, and discuss the acquisition of a severed hand that took a gold coin. Later, two idle gentlemen, Dyson and Phillipps, discover the house and are struck by its eerie, decaying atmosphere.
Chapter 2
Adventure of the Gold Tiberius
Mr. Dyson and Mr. Charles Phillipps meet by chance in a tobacco shop and become friends, debating the nature of literature and art. Later, Dyson recounts a strange encounter in a London street where he witnessed a man fleeing in terror and another pursuing with a knife. He discovered a rare gold Tiberius coin dropped by the fleeing man. Phillipps is skeptical and warns Dyson to be cautious, but Dyson is eager to pursue the mystery, seeing it as the beginning of a grand adventure.
Chapter 3
The Encounter of the Pavement
Mr. Dyson, while walking along Oxford Street, is accosted by a frantic man named Mr. Wilkins, who has just missed pursuing a youngish man with dark whiskers and spectacles. After calming down, Wilkins invites Dyson to a secluded French café, where he begins to explain his strange behavior.
Chapter 4
Novel of the Dark Valley
Mr. Wilkins recounts his harrowing past to Mr. Dyson: after his father's death, he moved to London with little money, struggled to survive, and eventually fell into poverty. He then describes being mistaken for a member of a criminal gang led by Jack Smith, nearly lynched by a vigilante mob in Blue Rock Park, and his ongoing terror of Smith, who he believes has now followed him to London. Dyson listens but grows suspicious of Wilkins's agitated manner.
Chapter 5
Adventure of the Missing Brother
Mr. Charles Phillipps, a scientific materialist, is skeptical of Dyson's tale but is drawn into a mystery when a distressed young woman in Leicester Square recounts her brother's disappearance. She describes seeing her brother accompanied by a figure with a decayed, corpse-like hand. Despite Phillipps's rationalist objections, she invokes the name of Professor Gregg, whose own mysterious disappearance involved a parcel with undecipherable cuneiform characters, hinting at occult forces.

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Prologue

Adventure of the Gold Tiberius

The Encounter of the Pavement

Novel of the Dark Valley

Adventure of the Missing Brother