Philip Clayton

In the short story The Stymphalean Birds, Philip Clayton is the husband of Elsie Clayton. According to Elsie and her mother Mrs Rice, Philip was a violent man who drank too much and was extremely jealous. Harold Waring thought it was Philip who turned up at their hotel to confront Elsie and accuse her of having an affair with him. However it turned out that this was part of a scheme to blackmail him and that Philip was being impersonated by Mrs Rice. It is thus not entirely clear if Philip Clayton actually existed or if he had the kind of character which Elsie Clayton and Mrs Rice attribued to him.