ONCE UPON A TIME—ON THE NIGHT OF THE 8th February 1855, to be exact—the Devil visited England. At least that was the widely accepted theory, and to this day the theory has not been disproved. It must have been His Satanic Majesty, for his peculiar tracks—the marks of hooves—were found in the snow the following morning in and around a number of towns in the south of Devon. Moreover, they were seen in such physically inaccessible places as on the tops of high walls enclosing private gardens and on the steep roofs of houses, and it was apparent that the visitant possessed the power of passing through solid substances.

You don’t believe me? I refer you to the account (quoted elsewhere in this book) published in the issue for the 16th February 1855, of that most conservative and realistic of newspapers, The Times. I refer you also to various reports and articles appearing in issues of the Illustrated London News between the 24th February and the 17th March of that year. This is fact—not fiction. . . .

Even The Times, in cautious language, touches on the possibility that the impressions in the snow may have been the marks of Satan himself; and in the minds of hundreds of Devonshire folk, and perhaps thousands of other Britons, the marks of Satan they were.

A short while ago, in the year of the Big Snow, it appeared that he again visited the land, this time descending upon the outskirts of the small country town of Winchingham. Again he left his own peculiar tracks in the snow, corresponding to those of almost a century ago; again they were seen not only in the private gardens of inoffensive citizens, but also in such apparently physically inaccessible places as on the tops of the enclosing walls and on the steep roof of a house; and yet again it seemed that the visitant possessed the power of passing through solid substance.

But this time his motives were not so obscure, and an investigation of the phenomenon was undertaken by a sceptical—and intelligent—C.I.D. officer attached to the Winchshire County Constabulary, one Detective-Inspector Lancelot Carolus Smith.

The investigation was crowned with success— and yet . . . yet, at the end of it, Lancelot Carolus was left in unnaturally sober and meditative mood, left wondering whether, in terms of the Absolute, the Dispenser of Evil had not in truth been there and left his mark among the habitations of men. For, if Evil directs a medium or works through a channel, would you say it was the channel acting of itself? Or would you say it was the Overlord of the Lost manifesting himself?