{
  "title": "A. V. LAIDER / DEATH IN THE HAND",
  "category": "[SHORT-STORY]",
  "article": "[The Times] “…based on an idea in Seven Men, by Max Beerbohm…”\n[BBC Title Card] “Variation of a theme by Max Beerbohm: visitor in a hotel lounge hears\nhorrifying story from another visitor about results of palmistry, only to find afterwards it was all\nfabrication.”\n[Classic Horror Movies] “DEATH IN THE HAND (1947) 44mins. BW. UK. Credits: Dir: A. Barr-\nSmith. From the novel \"Seven Men\" by Max Beerbohm. Cast: Esme Percy, Ernest Jay. A pianist\non board a train predicts the deaths of several passengers by reading their palms.Most notable for\nit's similarity to DR. TERRORS HOUSE OF HORRORS (1964).”\nDouglas Cleverdon adapted from his own radio script. Release date: 1948. A pianist aboard a\ntrain reads the palms of passengers and predicts their deaths. Soon those deaths begin to happen.\nCast members included radio actors Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley (later famed as the\nBBC’s Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson).\n“Cosmo Vaughan, believer in palmistry, is travelling in a train with four other passengers all of\nwhose palms have revealed that their sudden and violent death is imminent. In an attempt to\nprevent the deaths he pulls the communication cord...”\n[Original press book] \"Cosmo Vaughan, the palmist, is played by Esme Percy, who created the\npart in the original radio play in 1939, and has played it on several occasions when it was re-\nbroadcast.\"\nIn addition to the stage and films, Esme Percy did extensive work in radio. He was\nMephistopheles in a 1932 broadcast of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (and Piers Gaveston in the\nplaywright’s Edward the Second), and also performed at the microphone in Chekhov’s Uncle\nVanya, Shaw’s The Man of Destiny, and Denis Johnston’s The Moon in the Yellow River. He\nstarred in several broadcasts of James Hilton’s radio adaptation of his novel Lost Horizon, and\nwas prominently in Lance Sieveking’s original script Wings of the Morning, “the story of a\nfantastic crime committed in the fourth dimension.”\nHe was an actor of precise diction, and an eccentric personality bordering on camp. He knew\nShaw well and was entrusted with the production of his last play. He was a friend and admirer of\nJohn Gielgud—his famous whispered “Isn’t he wonderful?” became a recorded part of Gielgud’s\ndefinitive performance of Hamlet on the BBC in 1948. And, in another fabled moment on the\nstage with Gielgud, his glass eye popped out of its socket during a scene of The Lady’s Not for\nBurning and went flying across the stage. The entire play came to a standstill until it was found\nagain.\n[“Beerbohm Story To Be Filmed, The Times, February 5, 1947] “Sir Max Beerbohm has at last\nparted with one of his stories to the cinema…his story from Seven Men of a man met in a seaside\nhotel who tells how he read in their palms the fate of his fellow-travellers in a train a few minutes\nbefore the accident of which he was the sole survivor.\n“In Seven Men, published in 1919, this story bears the simple title, ‘A. V. Laider.’ For the\npurposes of the film this will be changed to Death in the Hand, and, inevitably, there will be other\nchanges. But in the engagement of Mr. Douglas Cleverdon to prepare the script there is some\nassurance that care will be taken to retain much more than the bare outline of the story.\nIncidentally, Mr. Cleverdon adapted this same story for broadcasting some four years ago. Except\nfor his occasional broadcast talks, Sir Max Beerbohm has fastidiously avoided the complex\nmachinery of the modern world, and knowing this, the small film company to whom he has\nentrusted Laider’s story values all the more the concession he has made.”\n[“Max on the Sinister Side of Palmistry,” The Times, November 16, 1955] “ ‘A. V. Laider’ is the\nstory of a man met in a seaside hotel who tells how he read in their palms the fate of his fellow-\ntravellers in a railway train a few minutes before the accident he had also foreseen; it has not one\ncharacteristic Beerbohm ‘twist’ only, but two, and is full of the refinements of macabre comedy…\nThe same story, incidentally, was adapted for broadcasting some 12 years ago by Mr. Douglas\nCleverdon, who later also prepared it for the cinema screen under the title of Death in the Hand.”\n[“Conversation Piece by Max,” The Times, December 5, 1955] “ ‘A. V. Laider’ opens, it will be\nrecalled, in a sleepy hotel by the sea, where for the second year running Max is convalescing from\ninfluenza… A correspondence in a magazine Laider has borrowed about faith and reason takes\nthem on to palmistry, and from there to Laider’s bland confession that he is a murderer.”\n[John Updike] “A.V. Laider’s “limpness of demeanor” is marked only by an incongruous shock\nof white hair that gives him a touch of the charlatan; behind his bland reticence he is revealed to\nbe a compulsive story-spinner, a wildly inventive bard.”\n[Bernard Levin, The Times, November 27, 1974] “The liar I love best, because of the magnificent\ningenuity of his lie, is Max Beerbohm’s A. V. Laider… On the spur of the moment, which is of\ncourse the test of a really great liar…, Laider invents a tale of being in a railway-carriage with six\nother people, where—dabbling as he does in palmistry—he is prevailed upon to read their hands,\nand discovers to his horror that all their life-lines stop abruptly at almost exactly the age they are\nat that moment, whereupon he realizes, to his deeper horror, that since, as he has learned, some\nof them are going abroad for many years on the morrow, the simultaneous extinction of all of\nthem must be about to take place, with the crashing of the train. The narrator of the story\nswallows it whole, and is much put out later to learn that it was only ben trovato. On his guard\nthereafter, he falls into conversation with Laider while they are walking on the beach, and finds\nhim shudder at the thought of the seagulls. Max ends it beautifully. ‘They always remind me of\nsomething—rather an awful thing—that once happened to me.’ It was a very awful thing indeed.’”\n[A. V. LAIDER] “One of the first things I had seen in my own hand, as soon as I had learned to\nread it, was that at about the age of twenty-six I should have a narrow escape from death--from a\nviolent death.\n“There were other people staying there, and at the end of the week we all traveled back to\nLondon together. There were six of us in the carriage: Colonel Elbourn and his wife and their\ndaughter, a girl of seventeen; and another married couple, the Bretts.\n“The coincidence was curious, very. Here we all were together--here, they and I--I who was\nnarrowly to escape, so soon now, what they, so soon now, were to suffer. Oh, there was an\ninference to be drawn. Not a sure inference, I told myself. And always I was talking, talking, and\nthe train was swinging and swaying noisily along--to what? It was a fast train. Our carriage was\nnear the engine. \"We were near the outskirts of London. The air was gray, thickening; and\nDorothy Elbourn had said: 'Oh, this horrible old London! I suppose there's the same old fog!'  And\npresently I heard her father saying something about 'prevention' and 'a short act of Parliament'\nand 'anthracite.'  And I sat and listened and agreed and--\"\n“Laider closed his eyes. He passed his hand slowly through the air.\n\"I had a racking headache. And when I said so, I was told not to talk. I was in bed, and the\nnurses were always telling me not to talk. I was in a hospital. I knew that; but I didn't know why I\nwas there. One day I thought I should like to know why, and so I asked. I was feeling much better\nnow. They told me by degrees that I had had concussion of the brain. I had been brought there\nunconscious, and had remained unconscious for forty-eight hours. I had been in an accident—a\nrailway-accident. This seemed to me odd. I had arrived quite safely at my uncle's place, and I had\nno memory of any journey since that. In cases of concussion, you know, it's not uncommon for the\npatient to forget all that happened just before the accident; there may be a blank for several hours.\nSo it was in my case. One day my uncle was allowed to come and see me. And somehow, suddenly,\nat sight of him, the blank was filled in. I remembered, in a flash, everything. I was quite calm,\nthough. Or I made myself seem so, for I wanted to know how the collision had happened. My\nuncle told me that the engine-driver had failed to see a signal because of the fog, and our train had\ncrashed into a goods-train.\n“In a way,\" he said, \"your theory was quite right. But--it didn't go far enough. It's not only\npossible, it's a fact, that I didn't see those signs in those hands. I never examined those hands.\nThey weren't there._I_ wasn't there. I haven't an uncle in Hampshire, even. I never had.\"\n“I have, alas! a very strong imagination. At ordinary times my imagination allows itself to be\ngoverned by my will. My will keeps it in check by constant nagging. But when my will isn't strong\nenough even to nag, then my imagination stampedes. I become even as a little child. I tell myself\nthe most preposterous fables, and--the trouble is--I can't help telling them to my friends. Until\nI've thoroughly shaken off influenza, I'm not fit company for any one.”",
  "origination": "",
  "duration": "",
  "personnel": "",
  "extant_recordings": "",
  "chronology": "(NATIONAL PROGRAMME, LONDON)\n[Tuesday—9:50-10:15 PM]\nMay 2, 1939\n“Death in the Hand”\n[Wednesday—3:25-3:50 PM]\nMay 3, 1939\n“Death in the Hand”\nPERSONNEL: Douglas Cleverdon (scriptwriter), Michael Goodwin (producer).\nCAST: Edward Brandon, John Drummond, Hedley Goodall, George Holloway,\nAlison Horstmann, Ross Hutchinson, Barry Kendall, Albert Nelmes, Esme Percy\n(Cosmo Vaughan), Phyllis Smale, Jean Wickenden.\n(HOME SERVICE)\n[Friday—8:00-8:30 PM]\nSeptember 4, 1942\n“Death in the Hand”\nPERSONNEL: Douglas Cleverdon (scriptwriter, producer).\nNELSON OLMSTED (\n[\nJuly 3, 1943\n“A. V. Laider”\n(HOME SERVICE)\n[Wednesday—9:35-10:10 PM]\nAugust 9, 1944\n“At the Cross-in-Hand”\n[BBC TITLE CARD: “Cosmo Vaughan staying at Cross-in-Hand tells guests\nstory of train disaster—how, on reading passengers hands he foresaw\ndeath etc., so he pulled communication cord and caused following\nexpress to crash into them. Story proves to be flight of imagination on his\npart…”]\nPERSONNEL: Douglas Cleverdon (scriptwriter, producer).\nCAST: Vivienne Chatterton (The countrywoman), Belle Chrystall (Patricia\nMottram), Ernest Jay (Jenkins), Julian Orde (Sylvia Thorp), Esme Percy (Cosmo\nVaughan), Brian Powley (The business man), Norman Shelley (John Thorp),\nWilliam Trent (The chairman), Richard Williams (Captain Mottram).\n(RADIO 4, LONDON)\n[Wednesday—11:30 AM-12:00 NOON]\nAugust 8, 1973\n“A. V. Laider”\n[“…At an Eastbourne hotel, Max sees in the rack a letter he had written to\na fellow guest (A. V. Laider) a year earlier. This reminds him what had\nhappened. The two men had discussed palmistry and A. V. Laider told\nhim he had foreseen the deaths of some companions in a railway accident\nand felt guilt at not pulling the communication cord, although this might\nnot have prevented the tragedy. The letter disappears from the rack and\nMax sees A. V. again. He admits that his story had been a fake. He has\nhad flu again and tells of a rather awful thing that happened to him\nconcerning seagulls…”]\nPERSONNEL: Benny Green (scriptwriter), Bruce Montague (scriptwriter).",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "Max Beerbohm                         Douglas Cleverdon, book                       Esme Percy\npublisher & radio writer-producer",
  "images": []
}