"Tom Slemen made up Lewis's Death Mask Story"

It has come to my attention that a certain individual, perhaps a journalist, or perhaps just a website writer, has alleged - on a website (yeah I know, not even a book) that I made up the story about the Department Store Death Mask - a death mask made of a girl who committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Seine. The person or persons - probably pulitzer-winning journalists - or maybe not - should do a little research before they make such comments. What you do is, you go to the library, and you can either look in a 1955 book by my friend, the eminent criminologists and respected writer Richard Whittington Egan (who kindly wrote the glowing foreword to my best-selling Jack the Ripper book - soon to be a film) called Liverpool Roundabout, or you can read his excellent Liverpool Colonnade (also published then) - and you will see a photograph of the death mask in question which once hung in Lewis's. To clarify this, here is a page from Whittington Egan's book (which was also reprinted in his excellent Liverpool Ghosts and Ghouls book, published by Gallery Press of Neston, 1986:

And here is the cover of the book for the alleged journalist/amateur writer or whoever it was who wrote the article, to make the search easier:

The article which alleged that I made the story up also says there are 17 volumes of Liverpool. There are now actually 18 and I have been commissioned to write - wait for it - TWENTY new books, besides my five works in progress. I am also writing a series of scripts for television...

So, there you have it. I was asked by someone if there ever was a death mask exhibited in a department store in Liverpool, and I have provided the proof.

I am now taking legal advice.