The Erotic Adventures of Ambrose Horne

  THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF AMBROSE HORNE

  By Chrissie Bentley

  BEING …

  The loin-lunging adventures of Victorian London’s most unconventional detective

  Armed with only his relentless curiosity for the darkest recesses of human sexuality, Ambrose Horne is the enterprising eroticist for whom no puzzle is too perplexing, no secret is too scandalous, and no position is too impolite. Now, gathered together for the first time, The Erotic Adventures Of Ambrose Horne reveals the Carnal Casebook of the Idiosyncratic Inquisitor, the Horny Holmes ... the man who put the Dick into Private Investigator ... the one-and-only Ambrose Horne.

  MOVE OVER SHERLOCK: THERE’S A NEW SLEUTH IN TOWN!

  (The London Gentleman’s News Of The Lewd, January 1897)

  THRILL! as Horne casts a curious eye over

  THE LOQUACIOUS PRINCE

  SHIVER!! as Horne uncovers the groin-grinding truth behind

  THE MIDNIGHT SUCCUBUS

  DROOL UNCONTROLLABLY!!! as he mops up the mess left by

  THE COAGULATED CONUNDRUM

  AND MORE

  Published by Accent Press Ltd – 2010

  ISBN 9781907016905

  Copyright © Chrissie Bentley 2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Xcite Books, Suite 11769, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY

  The stories contained within this book are works of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the authors’ imaginations and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Introduction/glossary

  The Strange Case of the Confusing Corporal

  The Strange Case of the Coagulated Conundrum

  The Strange Case of the Midnight Succubus

  The Strange Case of the Loquacious Prince

  The Strange Case of Artistic Licentiousness

  AMBROSE HORNE (1865-1963)

  (Excerpt from The Crime-Fighter’s Who’s Who: 1986 edition)

  British detective and criminologist whose use of explicit sexual situations and solutions aroused considerable controversy in 19th century London. However, the success of his methods can certainly be compared with the more conventional means employed by other amateur detectives of the age, leading to several commissions by the British government, military and, on at least one occasion, the Royal Family. In later years, Horne would detail some 60 of these investigations beneath the umbrella title The Ambrose Horne Mysteries.

  Educated at the public school Charterhouse, an institution that he left under less-than-clear circumstances, Horne then spent five years (1883-1888) in India, both as an officer in the British Army, and a student at several native institutions. It was during this period that his talent as an eroticist first attracted attention, as the author of a number of texts published to accompany the paintings of the Hindu artist Lakshmi Kanpur. India also introduced Horne to the English author Captain Charles Devereaux, author of the erotic classic Venus In India – their friendship would survive until Devereaux’s death in the early 20th century.

  Returning to London in 1888, with his reputation as a private detective already confirmed by his sub-continental escapades, Horne immediately established himself as an extraordinarily prolific journalist and novelist, publishing an average of five book-length erotic tales a year, for the next half-century. He was also the author of a series of anonymous scientific texts, whose own graphic nature saw them widely circulated on the London sexual underground of the day. Exceedingly rare today, their influence on subsequent researchers (qv: Grafenberg, Kinsey et al), can never be discounted.

  In 1892, Horne became patron and head of ‘the Community,’ a socio-sexual utopia in which there were no taboos, no ‘forbidden’ pleasures, no stigma attached to sexuality whatsoever. He remained at the helm of the organisation until his death, safeguarding his founding principles by producing sufficient offspring that the society remains a ‘family business,’ more than four decades after his death.

  Horne’s other great legacy was the launch, in 1933, of the erotic quarterly, The Modern Man’s Literary Journal, published from his offices in Belgravia. It was within those pages that he initiated the publication of the aforementioned memoirs, relying upon the Literary Journal’s subscription-only circulation for license to circumvent the laws surrounding the publication of such explicit material.

  However, the spring 1941 appearance of The Case of the Congealed Conundrum saw a private prosecution brought under the Obscene Publications Act. Controversially, the case was thrown out of court, largely (it was alleged) because of Horne’s still-powerful connections to the upper echelons of law and society. Full details were then secured under the Official Secrets Act, presumably to prevent attempts to cite the case as precedent in future prosecutions.

  In 1955, aged 90, Horne passed the day-to-day running of The Modern Man’s Literary Journal to Martin Fletcher, an ex-army author whom he had been nurturing since 1946; Fletcher’s own autobiographical account of his introduction to Horne, A Man Of Letters, was then selected as the opening tale in the first volume of Horne’s collected memoirs, in 1957. (Subsequent volumes appeared in 1962 – The Casebook of Ambrose Horne; and, posthumously through the auspices of ‘the Community,’ in 1965 (A Study in Scarlet Women).

  Horne remained intimately involved with the publication, both intellectually and physically; indeed, a revealing interview by the American journalist Caroline Collins, published in the Journal in late 1963, was illustrated with explicit photographs of Horne’s seduction of his interrogator. Collins subsequently gave birth to Horne’s 17th, and final child; she also worked as the Journal’s office manager during the final months of Horne’s life, and co-edited (with Fletcher) the third volume of Horne’s collected memoirs (1965).

  Born one week before the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Horne died from mundanely natural causes in November 1963, one week after the murder of President Kennedy. Although it was a synchronicity that he would certainly have appreciated, his own final words were reported to be, ‘I don’t have a problem with old age. Unless, of course, it slows her down.’

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  Although the majority of Ambrose Horne’s memoirs date from the period 1888-1913, it was 1933 before he began preparing them for publication, at which time he made a number of amendments to the texts, most notably in the use of sexual terminology.

  This remained an on-going project, with the form of the stories featured in the 1957 ‘Collected Edition’ generally regarded as definitive. Nevertheless, Horne allowed a number of now-archaic terms and expressions to remain in the text; though they may prove unfamiliar to the modern reader, these words have been retained in this edition. A brief glossary follows this note.

  The precise chronology of the Memoirs is uncertain. It is presumed that those tales included in this first volume are among the earliest. However, scholars have dated several subsequently published stories to an earlier period in Horne’s life, including a number that clearly pertain to his years in India, while certain incidents and characters featuring in these stories were certainly borrowed from later events.

  In Horne’s defence, however, it must be remembered that, at no point did he intend his Memoirs to stand as a definitive autobiography; they were, first and foremost, ‘an entertainment, a diversion and, perhaps, an antidote to the drug-addled blatherings of that other fellow’ – a caustic reference to Horne’s early contemporary (and occasion
al rival) Sherlock Holmes. For this reason, no attempt has been made here to identify those names and places that Horne chose to disguise with an initial and a blank line (his long-time paramour Lady H_____, for example), even in those instances where subsequent research and writings have rendered such devices irrelevant.

  Finally, a word about Ambrose Horne’s sexual prowess. It has been written that Holmes had his Watson; Horne had a hard-on. This is true. However, his apparently licentious lifestyle was rarely indulged for the sake of carnality alone. Even in the throes of passion, we must remember that Horne was ‘working.’ In his private life, Horne was a remarkably faithful man, whose true loves can be counted on the fingers of one hand; and who could, in turn, count on Horne never to betray their affections. For Horne, therefore, sex was no less a tool than Miss Marple’s sagacity, Adam Dalglish’s intellect, or Sherlock Holmes’ magnifying glass. And, although his methods might often be regarded as unconventional, his success rate was second-to-none.

  A BRIEF GLOSSARY

  Acorn – glans (Eng, 18th century)

  Balanus – glans (Eng, 19th century)

  Baubles – testicles (Eng, late 18th century)

  Bun, Bunny – vagina (Eng, 19th century – forerunner of ‘pussy’)

  Crisis – orgasm (Eng, 19th century)

  Dong – penis (Eng. Late 19th century)

  Gamahuche­ – fellatio (French, 19th century)

  Godemiche – dildo (French, 19th century)

  Lingam – penis (Hindu)

  Little death – orgasm (Eng, 19th century)

  Merkin – vagina (Eng, 17th century)

  Muff – vagina (Eng, 18th century)

  Pintle – penis (Eng, 16th century)

  Tribadism, tribade – lesbianism, lesbian (Eng, 19th century)

  Wifthing – fucking (Old Eng)

  Yoni – vagina (Hindu)

  The Strange Case of the Confusing Corporal

  Even after her front teeth lightly grazed the tip of his erect penis, and her tongue coiled for the first time around his swollen glans, Ambrose Horne felt he really ought to say something.

  ‘Mary, listen. I know Major Carpenter said you should make sure I have everything I need, but I’m not positive that he meant absolutely everything.’

  Mary disengaged her mouth for a moment. ‘I know exactly what he meant, Mr Horne. This is just a little extra I thought I’d throw in for fun. It’s not every day we have a celebrity staying here, after all. Unless, of course, you have more urgent business elsewhere?’

  Horne sighed. ‘No. You’re all the urgency that I need.’ The girl resumed her gentle sucking, and he sighed softly. ‘And now I need it more than ever.’ He sank back onto the thick down pillow, eyes closed, one hand idly caressing the parlour-maid’s rich, auburn hair. It had been a long journey down to the city and, from the brief conversation he’d already had with the Major, he knew it might be some time before he returned. Yet any tension and anxiety that might have been building up within him; indeed, any thoughts whatsoever of the mystery that dragged him out to this small English seaside town, were already ebbing away, as the pretty Welsh girl expertly worked him with her accommodating mouth.

  Opening his eyes, he gazed down on her, watching as her head rose and fell, admiring the little dimples that appeared as her cheeks expanded and contracted around his hardness. Her eyes, closed in delightful concentration, opened and met his, smiling. Her hand cupped his balls, squeezing them gently as she inclined her head slightly, and licked his scrotum.

  Horne moaned lightly and Mary, sensing his pleasure, took each of his balls in turn into her mouth, sucking and swirling while her thin, alabaster hand jerked his cock harder and faster. She was still suckling him as he came, a thick jet of white spurting into the air, splashing onto his chest. Mary stretched up to kiss him hard on the mouth, then stood and straightened her prim uniform. ‘Now, ring if you need anything else,’ she told him. ‘Anything at all.’ She turned and walked out of the room, leaving Horne lying on the bed, still breathless from his orgasm.

  It was several minutes before he collected his thoughts, several more before he swung his legs off the bed, pulled on his pants and crossed over to the writing desk that Major Carpenter had thoughtfully supplied for him. Horne always thought best at a desk, his forehead cradled in one hand while the other doodled abstractedly on the pad of paper that he always carried with him. One day, he smiled to himself, one of those new-fangled European brain doctors he’d been reading about would stumble upon his doodles, the page after page of fat breasts, spurting penises and shapely bottoms with which his subconscious habitually relaxed ... he wondered what they would make of them all, and laughed aloud. ‘Head shrinkers. Whatever will they think of next?’

  Horne had little time for the newly emergent art of psychiatry ... like most learned men of the late 19th century, he believed that there was nothing wrong with a fellow’s mind that a little hard work, a few years in the military and, if all that failed, a padded cell at Bedlam Hospital, could not cure. And how was he so sure? Because his own life’s work was intimately bound up in examining the minds, and deducing the motives, of his fellow man – a life’s work at which, if he said so himself, he excelled.

  Twenty-three times he had been called in to solve riddles that the best minds in the land had been unable to crack; and twenty-three times, he had succeeded. The nameplate on his door in London’s fashionable Belgravia read, simply, ‘Ambrose Horne – Detective.’ But his reputation in the corridors of British Law screamed ‘Genius.’

  Major Carpenter reminded him of that fact when they met at dinner that evening. ‘You know the British Army really doesn’t like to bring in outsiders,’ he said in-between mouthfuls of piping oxtail soup. ‘But, quite frankly, Horne, we’re at a complete loss. We know our secrets are getting into the wrong hands, and we know the leak is here in this town. But neither our own top brains nor Scotland Yard’s have been able to track it down.’

  ‘Does anybody else at all know of this investigation?’ Horne asked.

  ‘Not a soul. In fact, you only got clearance because somebody remembered that you signed the Official Secrets Act back in ‘86.’

  Horne nodded. August 1886. Somebody had walked into a Naval laboratory and, apparently, sailed out again in a top-secret prototype submarine. It took the authorities six weeks to admit they didn’t know how it was done, but it took Horne just two days to produce both the thief and the submarine, while a certain Foreign Power gnashed its teeth and wondered where its ill-gotten prize had so mysteriously gone.

  ‘But surely I’m not the only private detective who’s had that honour?’ Horne asked, genuinely surprised at the Major’s revelation.

  ‘No, but you are the best ... and you know how to keep your mouth shut. Unlike certain others in your trade.’

  Horne nodded. ‘You mean Holmes.’ Sherlock Holmes, the bright light that beamed from Baker Street, was at the peak of his personal renown at that time, and Horne was constantly aware that, in terms of general public recognition, the absurdly-outfitted sleuth was streets ahead of him. And that, Horne contentedly knew, was his downfall – as Major Carpenter was swift to confirm.

  ‘Of course I mean Holmes. The pompous ass. Yes, yes, he’s brilliant, everybody admits that. But having that preposterous little assistant of his, Watson or whatever his name is, write the cases up for the popular press is nothing short of shameless self-aggrandizement. Mark my words, he’ll never work for this country’s government again ... and I don’t care what Watson writes to the contrary.

  ‘But you, Horne, you have admirers that even you are not aware of. From the lowest parlour maid ...’ and here, to Horne’s wry amusement, he gestured at Mary, as she hovered at the foot of the table, preparing for the arrival of the main course ‘... to the highest seats in the land. And there is nothing that they would not do for you.’ This time, Horne’s eyes met the girl’s, and he saw her tongue flick lasciviously across her lips. He cleared his throat, and turned
his attention back to the Major. ‘And why is that? Because we know that what you are told will never be heard again.’

  Horne lowered his eyes. ‘Well, Major, that might be for the best. Some of my methods are, shall we say, a little unconventional for present day tastes.’

  ‘A man has to eat, Horne. A man has to eat. Now, what say you we leave this matter until after dinner, and turn our attention to this splendid feast?’

  Back in his room, with Mary curled contentedly in his arms and the musky scent of their lovemaking still clinging to his nostrils, Horne began to consider the case that lay before him. ‘Mary, are you awake?’

  ‘I’m hardly going to be asleep after the seeing-to you gave me, now am I, Mr Horne?’

  ‘I suppose not.’ It had been a vigorous session, gentle to begin with, as he entered her with just the tip of his cock, and barely ruffled her labia with his movements; but rougher as she writhed beneath him, begging him to plunge his full length inside her, bucked her hips wildly to draw his taunting rod within. In a Court of Law, Horne would be willing to swear that the girl orgasmed twice before he even wholly entered her ... but once he did, the sweet torture that had gone before was forgotten in a seething riot of frenzied animal love-making. And there would certainly be time for more before this night was through. But, for now, he had another routine that must not be disturbed. Possibly unique among the male of his species, Horne’s mind was always at its sharpest when he’d just had his brains fucked out.

  ‘Do you know many of the soldiers at the camp, here?’

  ‘I should say I do,’ laughed Mary. ‘And a right bunch of jokers they are.’

  ‘Do you socialise with them?’

  ‘Ooh no, that wouldn’t be allowed. I was warned the first day I started here, any staff caught ‘fraternizing’ with the men would be dismissed on the spot. And I like my job too much to risk it for a little slap’n’tickle.’

  ‘Smart girl,’ said Horne, and squeezed a bare buttock. ‘But you know the sort of girls they do socialise with?’