The Yeah, Welcome back everyone. The one thousand one classic short stories and tales this is your

host John Haggadorn today's short story is called Mrs Ray Burns Waxworks written by

Lady Eleanor Smith it's a bit of an eerie tale about a man named Patrick Lamb who takes a job as a

custodian of a waxwork exhibition. One part of the exhibition is devoted to wax figures of known

criminals and Patrick becomes very interested in the figure of a woman named Mrs Rayburn, who was known to a poisoned number of people.

He becomes bewitched by her seeming ability to communicate with him, and the story moves on from there.

Like many good short story writers, Lady Eleanor Smith relied upon her actual experience of attempting to stay overnight at Madame Toussaud's

famous London Max Museum in the basement section in 1924, which was and is today called the Chamber of Horrors devoted entirely to wax bust, full bodies, and death masks of both known criminals and victims of the French Revolution.

Those death masks, by the way, have a and victims of the French Revolution.

Those death masks, by the way, having been created by Madame Toussaud herself.

The incredible true story of Madame Toussaud's Chamber of Horrors is available right now at

1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories and Mysteries Podcast. So I'm suggesting if you want the

full impact of this story to check out the one at 1001 heroes as well.

I'll give you a quick rundown on Lady Eleanor's myth.

Like Jack London, she pursued life with a vengeance, and she wrote about it.

She began with a gossip column and soon after was offered a job as writer for the great

Carmo Circus which opened up to her being paid by a number of circuses, which she traveled with widely, always seeking adventure.

She became well acquainted with gypsies, which her successful novel Red Wagon bring to life, and

she also became a forward agent for circuses seeking their next location.

She was fascinated with ghosts as well, and wrote a collection of short stories called Satan's

Circus. A few of her novels did become films. And now

Mrs Rayburn's Waxwork by Lady Eleanor Smith. The Rain which had poured with a pitiless ferocity for so long upon the chimneys and roofs of the great manufacturing city, seemed at length to enclose the whole town within towering prison walls of Burntis Steel.

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