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Contents ( 80)
  1. CONTENTS
  2. ACTING ON IMPULSE
  3. CONTENTS
  4. INTRODUCTION
  5. “A PROPOSAL TO CICELY”
  6. INTRODUCTION
  7. A PROPOSAL TO CICELY
  8. THE END
  9. READING “A PROPOSAL TO CICELY”
  10. “THE LITTLE LADY”
  11. INTRODUCTION
  12. THE LITTLE LADY
  13. I.
  14. II.
  15. III.
  16. THE END
  17. READING “THE LITTLE LADY”
  18. “LINCKES’ GREAT CASE”
  19. INTRODUCTION
  20. LINCKES’ GREAT CASE
  21. I.
  22. II.
  23. III.
  24. IV.
  25. V.
  26. VI.
  27. VII.
  28. THE END
  29. READING “LINCKES’ GREAT CASE”
  30. “THE BULLDOG AND THE BEAST”
  31. INTRODUCTION
  32. THE BULLDOG AND THE BEAST
  33. THE END
  34. READING “THE BULLDOG AND THE BEAST”
  35. “ACTING ON IMPULSE”
  36. INTRODUCTION
  37. ACTING ON IMPULSE
  38. I.
  39. II.
  40. III.
  41. IV.
  42. THE END
  43. READING “ACTING ON IMPULSE”
  44. “WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?”
  45. INTRODUCTION
  46. WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?
  47. THE END
  48. READING “WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?”
  49. “THE CHINESE SHAWL”
  50. INTRODUCTION
  51. CONT
  52. THE CHINESE SHAWL
  53. I.
  54. II.
  55. III.
  56. IV.
  57. V.
  58. VI.
  59. VII.
  60. VIII.
  61. THE END
  62. READING “THE CHINESE SHAWL”
  63. “THE OLD MAID”
  64. INTRODUCTION
  65. THE OLD MAID
  66. THE END
  67. READING “THE OLD MAID”
  68. “LOVE”
  69. INTRODUCTION
  70. LOVE
  71. I.
  72. II.
  73. III.
  74. THE END
  75. READING “LOVE”
  76. THE SEARCH FOR “ON SUCH A NIGHT”
  77. GEORGETTE HEYER’S BIBLIOGRAPHY
  78. FURTHER READING
  79. COMING SOON!
  80. OCTOBER 29, 2019

So either Dorothea Vautier really liked reading the same short story over and over again for a cumulative eight hours across more than two months.

Or this was no short story.

This was a novel.

I TOOK a look at the Wireless Weekly listing for Monday, January 17, the week after “On Such a Night” would have come to an end. In the same time slot the schedule simply read “Dorothea Vautier – Serial,” but contemporary newspaper listings, and subsequent Wireless Weekly editions, have the title of it as She Went to Paris by Fanny Heaslip Lea, which was read until Thursday, February 24, 1938.

That slot was not for a short story read over and over. It was for a “Serial.” Hell, after She Went to Paris came to an end, Vautier started reading out Pride and Prejudice for the next couple of months.

This had to be a book.

I called Jen, and explained what I had discovered.

“Then why does she have it listed under her short stories?” she cried, exasperated. The whereabouts of this “lost” Heyer short story had been puzzling her for more than a decade.

I sighed.

“I don’t know…” I thought some more. “Wait. Let me go and check all the Heyer stories and novels that the Women’s Weekly published. Then I’ll also check to see if there are any ads for Dorothea Vautier’s radio sessions in the Weekly itself.”

A minute’s searching in Trove and I came across and an ad in the for the first episode of She Went to Paris that simply read:

WEDNESDAY, January 19 – 11.45 a.m.: Serial (a modern romance).

I was exultant. Perhaps, I thought with mounting excitement, the Weekly will have a similar listing for “On Such a Night.” Perhaps we can, if nothing else, at last learn the genre of this long-lost story!

Less than fifteen minutes of paging through back issues later, searching for the unobtrusive text boxes tucked away toward the back of the magazine in which were listed the programming for the Women’s Weekly Radio Sessions on 2GB each week, and I had my answer. The listing read:

WEDNESDAY, November 17 – 11.45 a.m.: Serial (romantic thriller).

Oh my.

So, not only was it now confirmed that this – which the Wireless Weekly and Sydney newspapers of the time gave under the title “On Such a Night,” and persisted in calling a “story” – was in fact a serial, but also that its genre was “romantic thriller.”

I started flipping back through the Wireless Weekly, and soon found this confirmatory nugget, in the “Broadcasting Gossip” section of the November 26 issue that I had foolishly overlooked:

Dorothea Vautier is the latest to join the ranks of serial readers. Each week day at 11.45 a.m. she is reading “On Such a Night” from the pen of the ever-popular Georgette Heyer.

Had I found that earlier, I would have known we were dealing with a serial and not a short story, despite what Georgette’s notes might erroneously claim. It must be one of the detective novels, I thought in resignation. Or perhaps The Talisman Ring?