World of Darkness - Victorian

The journal of Tweeny Sodd with annotations by Colonel Blimp

Julian Fitzpatrick – Warren
Colonel Augustus Blimp (ret) – Paul
Wilfred Hyde-White, MP for Marlebone / Patrick O'Brian / The great Mafonzo – Dave
Arthur 'Tweeny' Sodd – Derek
George Sampson – Steve
Gordon Bennett / Nigel Golightly - Stuart

October 1888. Siege in the Travellers' Club

We were all having lunch in the travellers club. Blimp had brought in a guest, some MP called Wilfred when a commotion broke out outside the club. Outside was a gentleman who had collapsed in the street. [Blimp: it was rather unseemly of some of my colleagues to leave the table over such a matter while we were still at luncheon. However, I got to eat Mr Hyde-Whyte’s plum duff as he became otherwise occupied.] His clothes were in tatters. Wilfred carried him round to the servants entrance of the club. He whispered about helping Susan then died. I performed a cursory examination of the body. It was covered in boils. There was also a blue substance trickling from his right eye. Wilfred searched the body and found a passenger receipt from the East Indies steamship company in his sock. His clothes came from a tailors in Kensington.
I removed his glasses to get a sample of the blue substance and found he had no eyes. His eye sockets just contained the sticky blue substance. One of the club porters reported he had been dropped off outside the club by a handsome cab. A policeman was called and I returned to my lunch. The policeman made arrangements to have the body taken to the morgue.
After lunch we took a cab to the docks to pay a visit to the East India steamship company. The individual was called Mr Windebank. He had signed for 1 crate but they still had 2800lbs of luggage waiting for collection. Wilfred arranged for them to be taken to his residence. Gordon and Blimp went to the London carriage company to find out where the Windebanks had been taken. The rest of us went to Wilfred’s residence to look at the crates. They all contained samples of flora, fauna and insects. There was no information about their owner.
Gordon sent out for a copy of the new magazine – National Geographic. [Blimp: how coarse!] We then travelled back to the club. In the magazine there was an article about the Windebanks and a Dr Arbuthnot Granger of the University of London School of Tropical Medicine. They had collected samples from Sumatra for the royal geographic society.
Gordon had found the address of the hotel where the Windebanks were staying. We took a cab there. Julian and George bribed the clerk behind the counter. [Blimp: even more unseemly behaviour. It only needs to be demonstrated to the lower classes that we are their betters when dealing with them. Bribing them only panders to their baser instinctcs. I was beginning to be extremely concerned about the company in which I found myself.] One of the maids had befriended Mrs Windebanks. Mr Windebanks had been visiting a Dr Ranger. Blimp looked at the register and found the room they were staying in. We got the keys and went up. In their room we found a small leather bag containing a blue transparent stone the size of a pigeon’s egg. When Blimp picked up the stone he found it to be hot. We also found a small diary belonging to Alfred Windebank. While they were collecting their samples Dr Granger repeatedly went missing for days at a time. He then made an inappropriate suggestion to his wife. By the time they reached Pedang the Dr had gone mad.
We then travelled back to the club for tea. I spent the evening reading up on Sumatra. [Blimp: I had a much more edifying time at the theatre.] An inspection of the members list revealed Windebank was a member of the Travellers’ Club. Wilfred and Julian went to the Conservative Club to find a member of the Royal Society to ask their opinion about the blue crystal.
We met back up at the club in the morning. Wilfred had suffered from strange dreams overnight, and had come out in boils. [Blimp: how typical of a politician!] I advised he use a hot compress and get them lanced in a few days. We took a coach to the School of Tropical Medicine. We finally tracked the Dr Granger to the British Museum. He was looking gaunt. His story contradicted the one in Alfred’s diary. He suggested it was Alfred that had been acting strangely. He also seemed to know Alfred had died from a disease. [Blimp: Dr. Granger struck me as erudite and intelligent gentleman. I was much more inclined to believe his explanation of events rather than a diary clearly written by someone in a distressed state of mind.] In the meantime George went off to find where he lived. He had a residency at the school. George bribed someone into letting him into the Doctors room. [Blimp: tsk!] His room was full of books, and the doctor had been growing cultures in a dish. The cultures were of a blue fungus.
One of the books (Quigley’s Tome of Diseases and Cures) open on a desk described the Sumatran blue death of the fearsome cannibal Bataks. The pages detailing the cure were missing. The symptoms described matched those of Alfred.
The next day we went to Blackwalls books in Oxford Street. They had a copy of Quigleys, which we bought. Blimp had it delivered to the club. Wilfred, George and myself went back to the School of Tropical Medicine with the intention of following Granger. We waited all day, but finally at nearly 8pm he came out. He went to a newspaper stand and bought a paper. He read something then jumped in a cab and raced off. We followed. He headed to the east end and pulled up in Brigg Street. I followed him to a tenement building. Outside was a policeman. Granger saw him and went round the back. There was a sign saying do not enter above the door. Granger forced the door and went in. I listened at the door and heard voices. One sounded like the Inspector Jones who had come to the Travellers’ Club. They were talking about 2 bodies in the basement. They also talked about plague.
Wilfred and George started creeping down to the basement when Granger came rushing up. They had a scuffle which attracted the attentions of the police. There was an argument but the police were not interested in arresting all of them. Wilfred and Granger went back down to the cellar where there were two bodies.
I waited until everyone had left before creeping down into the basement to inspect the bodies myself. They were clearly infected with the same disease as Alfred. They had been shaved of all hair several days before their deaths. Their heads had been removed and there was major infection of the brain by the blue fungus. It was obvious Granger had done some quick amputations in his own examinations. I took samples before returning to the travellers club.
At the club I started reading Quigley’s. The cure for the fungus was 4oz of blue stone ground to powder mixed with urine of the victim. The cure is drunk and the patient recovers after 24 hours.
Overnight I had an awful dream about a large 3 eyed rat creature and when I woke I had a convincing feeling that there was a great evil lurking somewhere in London. [Blimp: I always thought that Tweeny was never quite the same after being hit over the head with a club by some Thugees while we were stationed in India.]
The morning papers had a story about a robbery at the Windebanks hotel where the safe had been broken into. We went there to investigate. The Windebanks room had also been broken into. Someone who looked a bit like Granger had been seen in the coffee shop opposite that afternoon.
I performed an examination of Wilfred who had come out in boils. My conclusion was that he had been exposed to the blue fungus but had managed to fight off the infection.
Blimp invited Granger to the club to discuss the disease, but he failed to show. [Blimp: how extremely rude. Contrary to the opinions of my colleagues, who had already damned Dr. Granger, this was the first time I started to have my reservations about the man. To miss luncheon without any suggestion of an apology is the sign of a cad.] We went to the school where we found he had resigned. We got his forwarding address which was somewhat strangely the Java coffee company. We headed there. George found the owner of the warehouse in a pub. A small bribe got him to agree to let us in. [Blimp: tsk!]
The evidence in the warehouse suggested the activity was in the basement so we went down. Wilfred opened the door into the room below. Inside the room was Granger, six black men and the hideous rat creature I remembered from my dream. [Blimp: this was a real shock to me. Dr. Granger was consorting with foreigners!] Granger shouted out 'kill them' and the black men charged. They were armed with blowpipes and swords. Granger had a pistol.
I pulled out my knife, Julian and George produced pistols, Wilfred found a piece of wood. Blimp started wielding an umbrella. [Blimp: they were only foreigners for goodness sake! The might and bravery of a true Englishman would be enough to put them to flight without the need to resort to anything as crude as knives and guns. It would appear as if the true Englishman is a dying breed...]
We killed 4 of the black men then Granger. When Granger died the other two surrendered. In the fight Wilfred was badly wounded by Granger and I had to perform an emergency procedure to save his life. The rat man did not move during the fight. When Blimp examined it there was a pop and a blue stone popped out of its side. Julian shot it from point blank range but it did not react. He shot it another two times then it waved a tentacle at Julian who vanished.
Blimp contacted a friend in the Royal Geographic Society to have the creature taken away. We found Susan upstairs in the warehouse. A week later we received a telegram from Julian who had appeared somewhere in the Scottish highlands and had to walk to Aberdeen. [Blimp: Mr. Fitzpatrick is a flighty writer type of an extremely nervous disposition. I attach very little credence to this particular claim of his. He was probably at home suffering from writer’s block and dreamt up this outlandish explanation to avoid this truth.]

March 1889. The Eyes of a Stranger

Wilfred was in hospital for about a month. Christmas came and went, and the New Year came. [Blimp: I spent the winter on my Estate in Wiltshire, which passed uneventfully apart from one incident where a new member of staff toppled the Christmas tree whilst decorating. I had no choice but to fire the girl on the spot. I’m sure once her broken ankle healed she would be able to acquire further employment.] It was a quiet start to the year until the middle of March. We received invitations from a John Bidwell to an evening of intelligent conversation on the evening of March 13th. [Blimp: had I realised Bidwell’s concept of “intelligent conversation” was a lot of balderdash I would have never accepted his invitation. It was a monumental waste of my time; I could have been at the theatre.] We arrived at exactly 7pm. I had to listen to Julian talking about his latest novel on the journey. [Blimp: Tweeny has my sympathies here.] Many intellectual people attended the party. There were actors, writers, artists and psychics among them. [Blimp: I don’t know about intellectual. Most of them were fools and poltroons. Only a Colonel Hardwicke of the Guards appeared to be in any way normal.] I tried talking to some of the artists but they were quite rude. I also spoke to a woman who kept on about woman's rights. She did not seem to have a sense of humour and got upset when I suggested a woman's place was in the home. [Blimp: Tweeny was quite correct. I have no idea why that harridan got upset.]
John Bidwell did not show up until 9pm. [Blimp: I made sure to chastise him for his poor showing as a host.] He appeared malnourished and may well have been incarcerated in an asylum in the near past. He invited several of us to attend a séance later in the evening. [Blimp: what a lot of poppycock! This was clearly my cue to leave so I managed to get to the theatre after all.] We went up to the library to hold the séance. John showed up with some strange crystal cube with a disk embedded in the centre. Half way through the séance Julian broke hands then accused me of doing it. I had had enough of all their rubbish at that point and left. [Blimp: quite right too!]
In the morning I got the paper. I had managed to get a mention in the report of the party as having upset that woman.
While we were eating breakfast 2 policemen arrived. They wanted to talk to us about the murder of John Bidwell. He had been stabbed through the heart with a fire poker. The butler was the prime suspect and was missing.
We went back to his house to look for clues. I found a photograph of Bidwell with a boy in a desert. He was holding the cube in one hand. On the back was scrawled 'with Mortimer - Cuncudgery 14th October 1887'. Cuncudgery is in Australia. Blimp found the butlers coat still on the door of his room. Julian found a ring with a plain face. He discovered on further examination the plain face was a concealed cover over a symbol of the masons. A diary Julian found told how Bidwell took the cube from some aborigines by force, killing most of them. The lad Mortimer tried to steal it back and was beaten. [Blimp: clearly Bidwell had been a man of resolve, and worth of respect. How he had turned into the sallow and gullible wretch we met the previous night was a mystery to me.] It also said how Bidwell had been to Yekub where he had been a god and had been locked away in an institution at the same time. He was trying to get back to Yekub. Clearly he was mad. [Blimp: barking!]
While we were searching someone else showed up. He said he was an inspector called Jay Malverhill and he wanted us to leave. Blimp started shouting at him. [Blimp: can’t have these police oiks getting ideas about their station.] He backed down somewhat but still insisted we all leave.
Wilfred spoke with some of his police contacts and found the mental hospital Bidwell had been at was in Gloucestershire. We caught the train to Gloucester and arrived just after 4pm. From there we caught a cab to Mercy hill where the Albrooke asylum was sited.
We spoke with a Dr Campbell. Bidwell was admitted on 14th November 1888. Sir William Withy-Gold had bought him to the asylum. He acted like a wild beast uttering nothing more than growls and weird clicking sounds. On 20th February 1889 he fell into a coma. When he recovered his sanity had returned and he seemed confused as to his location. He was released in the beginning of March. We looked at the visitors’ book. Jay Malverhill had visited Bidwell at the asylum.
We stayed the night in the local inn and took a train back to London in the morning. [Blimp: my man Jennings found excellent accommodation in this godforsaken wilderness; the man is a marvel!] Gordon went to speak with his contacts. A chinaman had been arrested for committing a mugging in the limehouse district. The description of the victim matched that of the missing butler. Blimp, Gordon and Julian went back to the Travellers’ Club [Blimp: it was time for afternoon tea] while myself, Wilfred and George went to see the chinaman. When they arrived at the Travellers Club Godfrey Williamson, one of the psychics [Blimp: “lunatics” would be more apt description!] from the party was waiting. He claimed to have had visions since Bidwell’s murder. He said the visions were about Duncan or Dougan and he was concerned. They talked about the séance and how bad it was. Godfrey thought it was more like he was trying to cast a spell. [Blimp: indeed, “lunatic” is much more apt.]
We went to speak with the chinaman. Apparently he was asking directions from a man clutching a square crystal and the man attacked him and killed his 2 friends. He had a scorpion tattoo which we suspected meant he was a member of a Chinese gang called the Tongs. [Blimp: I have to protest! I have no such knowledge of the sordid underworld. This information came from Mr. Bennett.] George beat him up a bit until he admitted he belonged to a group called the Si-fan. They had decided to attack the butler as they thought the crystal might be valuable but he just turned on them and killed his two friends by breaking their necks. The butler had been heading to Emmet Street.
We headed back to the Travellers’ Club. We were followed. When we confronted the individual he turned out to be Malverhill. The taxi driver admitted he had been told to follow us all evening. We invited Malverhill into the Club to discuss things further. He was not forthcoming but we got him to admit Bidwell was an embarrassment to them, and 'them' probably referred to the masons. Withy-Gold had sent him to the asylum. He had to recover a few items including the ring and the crystal. He implied Bidwell might even have been the ripper.
I did some investigations in the London directory and found a warehouse called Dunnagans off Emmet Street. In the morning we went to the warehouse. The door was open and there was a body lying face down in a corner. The body was of Hanson Bartlett the butler. I examined the body and determined he had been strangled. We searched the warehouse and found a pile of books on a crate, on history, astronomy and a tome called the Panacotic Manuscripts. All the books were marked property of the British Museum. Another crate had some piles of paper on top. The paper contained diagrams of some sort of transmitter or receiver and the cube was central to the device. [Blimp: Mr. Fitzpatrick was clearly interested in the Panacotic jobbie, but I insisted that it be returned to its rightful owner, namely the British Museum. He gave me his word as a gentleman that he would arrange for this to happen, although I suspected that he would try to read it first, which is extremely unseemly given that he is not a Member.]
After a more thorough search of the warehouse we found a scrap of black cloth caught between two floorboards. George seemed to think it would have been from the clothing of an oriental woman. He would not say how he knew what oriental women wore. George looked through the manuscripts and found a passage which talked of alien races which used cubes to travel through time and space. [Blimp: London seems to be increasingly full of lunatics who actually attach some credence to this mumbo-jumbo. Conscription would go a long way to rectify this embarrassing state of affairs.]
When we left the warehouse there were a couple of orientals hanging around nearby. Blimp started shouting at them and they ran off. [Blimp: hardly surprising: foreigners just don’t have the backbone of a true English gentleman.] Gordan went and asked his contacts about the Si-fan and was told he should avoid them. There were rumours they were run by a Dr Fu-Man-Chu. There was a Chinese restaurant called the Yellow Dragon in Limehouse on Goth Street which was rumoured to be an opium den, and the headquarters of the Si-fan.
Gordon decided we should go to the restaurant. Gordon told the man on the door that we had come for the special menu and we were lead up some stairs. I noticed he had a gun. At the top of the stairs we were asked to hand over any weapons. Julian and Gordon handed over pistols. We were then lead into a room where a number of people were reclining and smoking opium. There was a Buddha statue which looked like it would slide and was probably a concealed doorway.
Blimp decided to make a distraction and started to pretend to cough and splutter while the rest of us slipped past the statue. In the room was a strange device. Wilfred thought it was a bomb and tried to smash it with a crowbar. He managed to get electrocuted for his troubles. I picked the lock to a cabinet before realising it had been covered with a contact poison. I quickly mixed an antidote. In the cabinet were some documents, a letter, a chinese puzzle box and 3 vials which I took. Julian pulled the power lead from the device and took the crystal cube.
Some Chinese men and a woman came into the opium den heading to the statue. Blimp tried delaying them but was only marginally successful. [Blimp: I was hardly going to assault a lady, even if she was a foreigner.] Wilfred managed to hold the door shut for a few seconds before they forced it open. The woman said 'kill them'. As the fight started Malverhill came into the den and drew his gun. George punched one unconscious and I killed another with a deft swipe of my knife across his throat. Malverhill shot another who ignored the wound and hit Wilfred with a cleaver. Wilfred fainted with shock. Malverhill shot him again, killing him. Julian tried running but was blocked by a huge Chinese guy. I came up behind the man facing Blimp and sliced him as well. George grappled the woman and pinned her to the floor. Malverhill shot the big guy and I stabbed him 3 times before he died. Malverhill then took the cube and left. [Blimp: again, unnecessary violence with foreigners. All they need to be shown is a firm hand. For my part I accosted them only with my cane, just as any true gentleman would.]
I analysed the vials and found them to contain poison, so I poured the contents away. George managed to open the puzzle box. Inside was a small vial with a label in Latin which translated as water of life. The letter was from a Dr Fu Manchu instructing his loyal servants to guard the scrolls and vials until his return.

June 1889 Eyes for the Blind.

Easter came and went. May was quiet. The Henley regatta was the 1st week of June and the weather was hot. Blimp organised a trip to the regatta for us all. [Blimp: somewhat to my surprise some of my colleagues had never attended this jewel in the English social calendar.] We took a train to Twyford then changed for Henley. Two others, a man in a derby hat and a blind man got on the train. [Blimp: quite how the blind man had arranged a first class ticket was beyond me.] As we went through a tunnel there was a scream and a thump then the emergency brakes were applied. We stopped in the tunnel. In flickering torchlight we could see the man with the hat clinging to the emergency chord, with the blind man slumped against him. Both were dead. The blind man was covered in blood but not his own. His body was very cool for someone so recently dead and rigor mortis had already set in. The evidence suggested the body had been dead several hours but that was not possible. The man with the hat had been stabbed 3 times, the third was a fatal blow to the heart. The blind man had no eyes, just empty eye sockets. [Blimp: he was probably French.]
The man with the hat had a briefcase. Inside was a letter addressed to J Oldacre esq, 9 Hart St, Henley on Thames. The letter was from an Elias and said a Nystor Ferencz meant to raise the Dulcarnon. Olaus Wormius instructed Horatio Cartwright to hide and should have destroyed the green man. Other things had been buried at Robin Hood’s Bower. There was also a warning to beware of blind men. [Blimp: at this point I began to wonder if these fellows were associates of that madman Bidwell with whom we’d made acquaintance in March.] He also had a business card in the name of Horatio Cartwright and the address had been changed from a Chelsea address to Church St, Maltlake.
The train moved forward and stopped at the next station where the police were called for. We took a carriage the rest of the way to Henley. When we arrived we read in a local paper that 2 children had been found in a parcel in the post van of a train. We went to Hart St. but no one was in. Wilfred asked about Robin Hood’s Bower in the hotel and was told it was about 1/2 hour to the south by carriage. Past Knowle Kill and Maidenhead Thicket. We went back to Hart St. in the evening. There was still no one in so we knocked at a neighbour’s. They said Oldacre was a bit of a recluse and they did not see him much. They had not seen him for a couple of weeks. [Blimp: for middle class people their tea was almost drinkable.]
The following morning we rode out to Robin Hood’s Bower. We got the morning paper at a local inn. There was an ongoing trial about the two parcel children. The defendants claimed they bought unwanted children from prostitutes for 5 shillings then sold them to a blind man for a sovereign each, and that they had done nothing wrong. [Blimp: they probably had French ancestry.]
Robin Hood’s Bower was a field. There were 3 people in the field. I noticed there was no bird or insect noise. We approached the people. Two were wearing turbans and were clearly Indian. The 3rd man looked English and was carrying a Y shaped stick. He said he was dowsing. [Blimp: more flapdoodlry!] He was David Smythe and was a stockbroker from the city. Wilfred had a go and claimed the stick reacted. Smythe claimed there was nothing there. Blimp bet Wilfred there was nothing there so Wilfred started digging in another part of the field until Smythe left then suddenly decided to go back and dig where Blimp had bet him he would find nothing. He had no explanation as to why he wanted to go dig elsewhere. [Blimp: how typical of a politician: one makes a bet to dig in a particular part of the field and they toodle off to dig their own hole somewhere without any hint of an explanation. This had become very analogous of politics for me since this wager was made.] After Wilfred, Julian and Blimp gave up digging I carried on and found four oilskin wrapped objects. They were a book – Mysteries of the Veil, a 5” long vial of cut grass containing an amber liquid, a piece of parchment and a note.
The note was from an Elias to a Jeremiah. It said he was the last hope to avert the doom of Dulcarnon. The vial was the last resort and to use it the contents should be smelt then the rhythms in the parchment should be struck. The parchment had some musical notations on it. A page was marked in the book saying Dulcarnon was a beast whom the ancient druids made sacrifice to, and he slept beneath the hill Merlyn raised to hold him. Tablets of Aelda said he shall awaken and that time would be dread surpassing all dreams of men. [Blimp: this level of banal dross could have easily been found in one of Mr. Fitzpatrick’s “novels”.]
We buried some empty beer bottles in the hole then went to the nearby inn for a drink. Blimp asked the barman about Smythe. [Blimp: an illustrative point: no bribe required!] The barman said he had been in and was staying at the Seven Stars near Molehill. Wilfred asked one of the locals about a Merlyn hill nearby and was told it was actually in Wiltshire.
We rode back to Henley where there was a great commotion around a Royal Carriage. [Blimp: God bless Her Majesty!] We went on a boat ride then went to the local police station to try and convince them to let us into Oldacre’s house on the pretext he was suicidal. After some discussion they agreed to go to his house and check on him.
When no one answered the policeman kicked down the door. Wilfred then gave him some money and asked him to go and get something to be able to secure the door again. We went inside and looked around. There was a dead body lying on the bed upstairs. He had been killed by a triangular bladed dagger and been dead about 5 days. [Blimp: it was a fond reminder to Tweeny and myself of our time stationed in India. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Fitzpatrick, having never had the good fortune to serve in the Army, found it too distressing and was violently ill. It was the kind of reaction I would have expected from a lady.]
There were many letters scattered about, most from Elias Cartwright. I identified a book on astrology as being the last book he had been reading. It was written in Latin so I put it in my bag for later study. The police asked me to perform an autopsy on the body which I did in the morning. He was killed by a single stab wound to the heart and was then eviscerated. He had put up a struggle before and had bruises to his wrists. He died early evening on the 30th May.
Julian went to speak to Oldacre’s neighbours. They remembered seeing a blind man in the street on the 30th May. Julian made arrangements for Oldacre’s books to be delivered to his house. We travelled back to London in the afternoon, and went to Maltlake. The cabbie said a John Dee used to live there. He had something to do with Elizabeth I and had the biggest library in Europe. We arrived at a sprawling medieval building with a hearse parked out front. As we approached someone ran out carrying something heavy, jumped in the hearse and drove off at breakneck speed. Wilfred told our cabbie to chase him. On the back of the hearse was 'Rowse's' funeral parlour. Blimp took the reins but was unable to catch it up and we lost the hearse. [Blimp: the quality of the horse pulling the Hansom carriage was exceedingly poor.]
We got the cab to take us to the funeral parlour. Blimp started blathering about nearly being run over. [Blimp: there’s nothing like an irate gentleman customer to put the working classes in their place. Once again illustrative: no bribery took place.] We learned they had 5 drivers 3 hearses and 2 horse drawn traps. He said one of their hearses was stolen. In the conversation I got the feeling he was hiding something. Blimp went to the police station to report the theft. They said one had been found abandoned in Hyde park ¼ hour ago. The gates to the yard were shut and locked with a padlock. It would be odd for a thief to pick the lock then lock it again when they left. I left with Blimp to look at the hearse. An eyewitness saw 2 disreputable looking people, one with a parcel were seen exiting the hearse.
Wilfred and Julian chased a suspicious character who was hanging about outside the funeral parlour. Julian caught him up but could not stop him running. Eventually one of the policemen caught him. Blimp and myself got back just as the chase ended. He looked like a pickpocket or common thief. He had Blimp’s and Wilfred’s business cards. Wilfred’s had “Be careful this one is an MP” written on the back.
Blimp questioned him while I sharpened my surgical knives. [Blimp: a technique Tweeny and I perfected and put to good use many times in the Raj.] He said he was told to spy on us. He was given the cards by the man who runs the citadel (a criminal hideout) at the Seven Dials which is located east of Charing Cross Road. He knew of two entrances to the citadel, a coffee shop and Hengst book shop. The description matched the individual we had previously met at Robin Hood’s Bower. We knew too much and he had been told to watch us.
We went back to Maltlake to look about. There was a large book missing from the library. The nearby books were about subjects like witches and demonology. I found a note written in an unknown language. The writing was incomprehensible but two English sounding words were wormus and necronomicon. Julian said the necronomicon was a dangerous book containing 'forbidden knowledge' and Wormus was someone who had translated the necronomicon from Arabic to English. [Blimp: what a waste of effort! It just confirms that one should be very careful about anyone who speaks Arabic.]
There was some diaries written by Horatio Cartwright. In them it said his father had died on the 24th May. He had fallen under a Hackney cab and died of his injuries. The diary suggested he was more upset about the lack of financial provisions than the death itself. After the funeral he found he had been left a parcel and a letter.
The letter said by the time it was read he would be dead. He should obey the following instructions to the letter. Go into the main library and hide a book (described as being where the missing book was). He should only give the book to Oldacre if he asked. He should go to Truro and book into the Black Lion Hotel. In the morning open the parcel, light the candle it contained and read the phrase on the note with it 3 times then leave for London immediately. Finally he should deliver an envelope to Oldacre. Julian made enquiries about buying the library but was told the estimated value was £40,000.
Julian did some research in the books from Oldacre. He read about a spell called candle communication where two people could talk at a distance. There were two passages allowing communication with people called Nystor and Smythe. I gave Julian the book I got from Oldacres house but he could not read Latin either.
Julian wanted to go and talk to a few people to try to borrow some money. Blimp was feeling unwell, he had probably eaten too much again, so I travelled to Truro with Wilfred on the overnight train. [Blimp: in actual fact an old Army colleague of mine had unexpectedly arrived in London from service in Sudan, and we had a splendid evening at the Dorchester. For fear of upsetting my colleagues, who, with the exception of Tweeny, seemed to be of sensitive natures I put it about that I was unwell.]
We went to the Black Lion Hotel and found the room Cartwright had stayed in had been badly burned. We spoke to the porter when he took our bags to our rooms. He said that night had been very peculiar. Mr Graystone the hotel manager had been more concerned about a heavy bundle, which weighed at least 15 stone. He had to take it from the cellar which he had to take outside until the fire had been put out. The night boilerman Perkins seemed to know something about the bundle. We convinced him to let us look in the burnt room. The fire appeared to have started in the centre of the room and had been far more intense than the available fuel would have suggested.
We looked round the hotel. There was a freight door and coal chute to the cellar but both were locked. We talked with Mr Graystone and convinced him we sold boilers and could save him up to 50% on his fuel bills. We got him to take us to the cellars to look at his existing system. We looked around under the pretence of looking at the boiler. There was some evidence of disturbance in the South west corner.
We waited until 2am before creeping downstairs from our rooms. [Blimp: Tweeny and Mr. Hyde-Whyte gadding about Cornwall unsupervised was bound to involve such shenanigans.] We asked the night porter for a drink and crept into the kitchen while he was distracted. We waited for the boiler man to go out for a smoke then crept into the cellar. Behind the crates in the South west corner was a concealed and locked door. I found a piece of old wire and picked the lock. [Blimp: I’m sure Tweeny didn’t learn that particular “talent” in the Army; we’d just smash a door down if we needed it open.] Beyond the door was a room with a pentagram chalked on the floor. [Blimp: hardly surprising as this was Cornwall.] The pentagram seemed to be emitting bursts of light. In the centre of the pentagram was a figure which looked to be constructed from plants. When we tried to step into the pentagram we hit an invisible barrier. I could not throw anything over it as it seemed to extend to the ceiling. We lit the candles and found it made the barrier softer. We decided to try to burn the figure but as we started to move burning coals and wood in it suddenly animated and attacked us. [Blimp: I suspect that they both had had too much cider.] It was very strong [Blimp: clearly so was the cider...] and seemed able to sap energy from those it grasped. It grasped me and when I desperately hacked through its wrist it grasped Wilfred. We managed to cut through the other wrist to free him but in the meantime the boiler man Perkins had smashed the cellar door and come in. The creature turned on him. We managed to start a fire and set the creature alight as Perkins ran for his life. We kept backing off and throwing flammable stuff at it until it collapsed in flames.
As the hotel started burning we all ran to the garden. Perkins accused us of arson and the police arrested us. My wounds were so severe that I was hospitalised and taken back to London for treatment. Wilfred refused to pay for the damage and went to court where he put up a poor defence and was found guilty. We both got sentenced to 90 days. [Blimp: quite right too. Very unseemly behaviour from gentlemen.]

August 1889 Sacraments of Evil

I spent 2 months in jail before being let out for good behaviour. Wilfred did not do so well and died in jail. [Blimp: poor Mr. Hyde-Whyte. The shock of the scandal and his having to resign as a Member of Parliament was just too much for him.] When I got out the chaplain of the jail, a Patrick O'Brian, asked me to go to York with him to help him find a murderer. Not having anything better to I agreed.
We travelled to York to meet the Dean there. There had been 3 murders committed. The body of Grace Siddions, a flower peddler was discovered at 6am on 21st July on Lord Mayor’s Walk. On July 29th the body of a rag picker was found in an alleyway off Coney Street. On 3rd August an 11 year old boy Jimmy Patrick Fergusson was found outside the city in a marsh along the river Ouse.
The police had hired a Dr Allen Melrose to help them. We met him in his hotel. He shared his information. Grace Simmons head had been mutilated. The top portion had been removed. Her brain cut into sections and the pineal gland removed. The second victim had similar mutilations. Both had traces of chloroform. The boys head was crushed and there was evidence of him being bitten. The central portion of his brain was also removed and he had been raped. Both women were covered in cockroaches but not the boy.
We went to look round the city. In the street was a hunchback with a German accent. [Blimp: no doubt the perpetrator of these horrific crimes.] He hated religion and sold books. Patrick found one on monsters which he bought. [Blimp: I’d expect nothing less from a Catholic Priest.] I bought a set of French books about 'The Art of the Human Form'. [Blimp: sounds like pornography to me.] He was also able to point out the alley where the 2nd body was found. There was still some signs of blood in the alley. We could not find any signs of where the 1st body was found.
We also stopped in some bars on the way. [Blimp: one would have thought that Tweeny would have been more abstemious after his cider fuelled arson attack in Cornwall.] While in one we heard a police whistle being blown. We rushed to the sound and found a policeman outside an alleyway. He had been sick. At the end of the alleyway was the body of an older woman who looked like a prostitute. The top of her head had been removed and Patrick threw up. [Blimp: so much for the spirit of the Inquisition still residing in the Catholic clergy!] When he recovered he looked around and found an ornate gold button covered in blood and jammed between two flagstones, and a business card belonging to the Deans. The button had a strange emblem of a tree.
In the morning we went to the morgue. Dr Melrose was already there performing an autopsy. The body had the same wounds as the previous women. Patrick spent the day delivering sermons and reading his new book. He read about a reptile creature called the old king who was a dragon king. I looked around the town for tailors and jewellers. The following morning we went to the Museum and Library.
I found a Scandinavian mythology book. The tree on the button was the world tree which joined heaven and hell. A book of heraldry showed the crest to be from the Bristol family. The Dean’s secretary was Edwin Bristol.
I went to the tailors with the thread from the button. It was royal blue and from a waistcoat or jacket. Patrick continued reading his book. He read that there was an evil dragon king of Caerebranc called Gunhatex who ate peoples’ brains once a month. Caerebranc is the Brigantes name for York.
The morning paper had a story of a fifth murder. A boy called Johnny Pensies was found dead in an estuary not far from where Jimmy’s body was found. I went to the morgue and did the autopsy. The skull had been smashed open with a rock, and he had been raped. In his pocket was a piece of greaseproof paper.
We decided to go to the Minster to investigate some suspicious barrels we saw when we were first shown round. Patrick went to where they were restoring the chapter house and had a new statue. He noticed there were cockroaches in the area. The barrels had acid written in the side. When he examined the statue he found it seemed to be over some sort of hole.
That evening Blimp, Julian and Gordon arrived, having received a telegram I had sent the previous day. [Blimp: they cleared needed our help, having spent most of their time, as far as I could ascertain, in public houses or reading fanciful books.] That night we all had a strange dream. [Blimp: not I. I woke up once and promptly went back to sleep.] We were all on a narrow staircase. We went up and in the room was a hunchback. He had eyeless bleeding eye sockets. He said you must help, she is dead. He moved aside, on the bed was a mutilated female body and another of a boy. The hunchback threw himself on the bodies and broke into a mass of cockroaches. Then the dream ended. I got up and dressed. My watch, knife, gun and bag were missing. I went down to reception but no one was there. Suddenly I was outside. All the people stopped, their flesh peeled back and they turned to stone. Then I was outside the Minster. I thought it must be another dream and suddenly woke in my bed. [Blimp: I put all this nonsense down to the very poor quality of cheese we had had the previous night. I sensibly arranged for Jennings to find me proper lodgings elsewhere.]
After breakfast we went to see the stonemason that made the statue. He finished the statue 3 months ago. He said the limestone was a bit strange and had something called organic clay within it, but it did not seem to affect its strength. Blimp commissioned him to make a bust. [Blimp: I could do with a new one for the East Wing of the Estate at Wiltshire. Apparently this chap had carved the statue with almost preternatural speed, so he seemed like an ideal man for the commission.] We then went to the quarry. We arranged to examine the mine where the limestone came from in the afternoon once they had set up some scaffolding. We went back to York for lunch. While there we saw in the paper another boy was found dead in a loft off Bootham Street. We went to the mortuary and I did an autopsy. The police told us he was Albert Wareham. He was brutally raped and killed. His head was smashed open and brain mutilated. The body had blunt trauma indicative of beating.
We went to were the body was found. There we found a battered riding crop with the letters YDG and some grease proof paper with some fish, pie and chips. Patrick thought it might stand for the York Draymen’s Guild.
We then went back to the quarry. Julian said he sensed something evil [Blimp: as I mentioned earlier Mr. Fitzpatrick is flighty and of an extremely nervous disposition] so Patrick threw some holy water on the wall and strangely it boiled into steam. We felt a tremor and started heading back. Gordon did not move and said he was stuck. We went back and found he could not move and seemed to have become incredibly heavy. With a great effort I picked him up and carried him. [Blimp: to be entirely accurate: Tweeny and myself carried him. Tweeny occasionally has these flights of self-aggrandisement. That’s why he never became an officer.] As I headed for the mine entrance a fissure opened up beneath me. Blimp knocked me to the side but Gordon dropped into the fissure from which burst a huge gout of flame. [Blimp: I could only save Mr. Bennett or Tweeny. Whatever his faults may be, Tweeny is a damn fine surgeon and I’d seen him risk his life many times on the battlefield to save a wounded man. It wasn’t a difficult decision for me to make.] He managed to leap back out and we smothered him, putting the fire out, before dragging him out of the mine. I struggled to stabilise his wounds. Blimp then decided his wounds were so horrible it would be a mercy to kill him, and before anyone could react he pulled his gun and shot him in the head. Patrick started complaining about murder and not having been able to administer last rites. [Blimp: his eyes were melted, his fingers had fused together, his ears were gone, and his entire body was covered in the most grotesque of burns. I can only hope that one of my colleagues would do the same mercy for me if I was thus afflicted; although I doubt most of them is man enough.]
Patrick made arrangements for the body then we returned to the hotel.
In the morning we went down for breakfast. There we met Nigel, someone we knew from the Travellers’ Club. He had come to York to get away from the smog in London and shoot grouse. Patrick told him what we were doing and he decided to help as he had an interest in occult.
We went to York Minster and Patrick tried exorcising the statue there. He had several attempts before getting the statue to steam a bit when he threw holy water on it. We then dragged the statue away to see what was beneath. Under was a cracked flagstone which we lifted. Under that was a narrow fissure which disappeared into darkness.
We spoke to the Dean who seemed surprised at the fissure. Patrick told him we had found his card on one of the dead prostitutes. He said she had come to him to repent. When shown the button he said he had never seen it before. He also proclaimed Edwin could not possibly be guilty. We convinced him to let us search Edwin’s room. Inside we found a coffee tin full of alcohol with part of a brain inside. We also found a waistcoat with a missing button. Blimp offered to buy the statue and commission a new one. The Dean agreed. We then went back to the Minster to wait for Edwin. We confronted him about the brain in a jar. He confessed to killing the prostitutes but not the boys. He said he had been guided by the lord who had reached out and touched him from the statue.
He took the brains to the statue and ate them. Tonight was to be the last victim. He then reached towards Patrick shouting 'let us burn together', turning into a pillar of flame as he did so. [Blimp: he had obviously doused himself in lamp fuel before our meeting. He was quite obviously deranged.] Patrick screamed in pain and pulled away from him. I drew my pistol and shot him, though it looked like the heat surrounding him affected the bullet. Patrick threw holy water at him with little effect. Blimp also shot at him. After struggling to draw his pistol Julian also started firing. Finally he collapsed to the ground. The room started burning from the inferno but we were able to alert the local fire brigade who were able to put it out before it spread. [Blimp: this connection between Tweeny’s presence and destructive fires is becoming very worrying.]
We then got the statue taken back to the quarry and paid them to put it in the mine where the rock had come from, then blow it up with dynamite, collapsing the mine at the same time. We then went back to York for lunch before visiting the Draymen’s Guild to investigate the Guild marked crop we had found. No one had reported one missing. When we showed him the crop he said he thought it belonged to Malcolm Sedny, who was simple in the head. He lived in Foss Islands Eoad. We went there. As we approached we were affronted by the smell of curing leather. We found Sedny’s hovel but he was not at home. Questioning one of his neighbours we discovered he normally got home about 6pm, so we decided to wait. [Blimp: Mr. Golightly was proposing to give the man five pounds for his assistance, but I showed him the error of his ways. He is young and new to money and requires some grooming.] After a short while we arrived. We showed him his crop and he started babbling about having to go back and get it before it was found. He started climbing the ladder to his loft so I kicked the ladder away. He got up and started ranting about seeing his friend before pulling out a knife and attacking Patrick.
Patrick ran away so he turned on Blimp. He managed to get several deep cuts on Blimp before we took him down. [Blimp: once again I need to point out that my wholly appropriate attempts to subdue this mindless working class yob were undone by my colleague’s penchant for knives and pistols. Mr. Golightly was commendable in merely trying to club Sedny with his pistol, but perhaps less commendable in not having the safety engaged and almost blowing his own head off. The yob did manage to slash me a few times admittedly, but it was nothing a good tailor couldn’t remedy.] We searched his loft and found a bundle of rags with bits of some of his victims. We showed the evidence to the police who were very pleased and convinced of his guilt.

September 1889. Lord of the Dance

When I got back to London I found I had been blackballed from the Travellers Club. [Blimp: I did try to plead Tweeny's case but he had done too much damage to his reputation.] Still no real loss, they were all a bunch of old farts that never went anywhere. I sent them a letter pointing that fact out. [Blimp: I expected a little more gentlemanly magnanimity from Tweeny. I think he was upset about missing out on the regular Sunday morning crumpet with raspberry jam because the Club serves the most exquisite raspberry jam in London.] Julian received a letter a Miss Agnis Cardew saying that his cousin, Dorothy Amis, had gone mad, and asking if he could come and find out what the cause was. We travelled to Chelsea and went to Agnis's house. She said Dorothy had been found by Kings cross station in a state by the police a couple of days ago. She had been uncommunicative since. Dr Simms in the Brookbury nursing home has been caring for her since.
The only thing she talked about in the last 6 months was her lover Sebastian Fewkes, an artist. [Blimp: a "lover"! I was shocked and outraged, and conveyed this in no uncertain terms to Miss Cardew. She had an alarmingly relaxed attitude to her friend's behaviour.] He lived in Bromwells Road, south of the Thames. The nursing home was in Kent. We arranged to take a train there. Dorothy was completely unresponsive. Dr Simms was running a treatment of relaxation and sedation. [Blimp: for once Father O'Brien and I were in agreement: administering sedatives to someone already in a catatonic state seemed largely redundant. We, along with Tweeny, suggested that the more traditional shock treatments might be in order, but Dr. Simms rejected our suggestions. Miss Cardew similarly brushed aside my suggestion that she move Miss Amis to a proper asylum.] Julian talked to her but got no reaction until he mentioned the name Sebastian, at which point she suddenly started singing a hymn. She sang the same hymn every time the name Sebastian was spoken.
We were unable to learn more so we took the train back to London. The following morning we went to the Kings Cross police station. She had been found in a tunnel which was still under construction, in an area which was padlocked shut. They did not find how she got there. They also found her purse lying in the tunnel. The police had not been able to contact Sebastian though they did find he had connections with the Canlis gallery. They also got his address as 17 Bromwells Rd.
Julian got Dorothy's possessions from the police, and we went to her flat. We looked around and Patrick found a wall safe. I unlocked the safe. Inside was a will, some money and some diaries.
The diaries said she had met Sebastian at a party 6 months ago, and had been immediately been attracted to him. [Blimp: the harlot!] The relationship had soured in the last few weeks as he had been spending far too much time at the Dorianean Club. She had posed nude for Tom, one of his friends, to make a waxwork. [Blimp: words fail me!]
Patrick spoke with the landlord. He was half deaf. He did not like Sebastian, who he had last seen 3 or 4 days ago. We took a cab to Sebastian's flat. They were owned by a Mrs E Barton. She said Sebastian had not been seen for a few days. The way she spoke about him suggested she did not like him much. He had a load of paintings in his room. We found a ledger showing he owned about £4000. [Blimp: it disappointments me to think that someone so obviously a cad and a bounder had amassed, what was for him, a tidy sum.] We also found a note saying 1 Tiber Street, rear, 8:00 sharp in an address book next to the entry Smythe, David, Dorianian club, the strand. We had met David Smithe in a field a while back. [Blimp: I remembered him because of his strange habit of consorting with foreigners. He must have gained membership of the Dorianean Club by subterfuge.] Nigel decided to buy a painting of 2 figures joined together which was marked up as costing £100 so he could investigate it further later. [Blimp: now I understood how Mr Fewkes had acquired such sums of money: wealthy fools like Mr. Golightly, with considerably more money than good sense, were prepared to throw money around without any consideration to its true worth and a man's station in life.]
We went to Tiber Street. The house was locked up but looked like it had been used recently. [Blimp: I had to deter my colleagues from trying to gain illegal entry in the properity. Really!] We then went to Kings Cross Station. Julian bribed someone into letting us go to where Dorothy had been found. [Blimp: seven pounds he gave to the lower class working type! Seven pounds! I was scandalised!] I spotted some tracks which we followed. They lead upto wooden boarding in the side of the tunnel. We pulled the boarding aside and found a tunnel behind. We went down the tunnel. Near the end the surroundings turned to rock, and there was a hole punched in the side of the tunnel. Beyond was a large hall which Patrick announced to be neolithic in construction. We all went in, except Julian who was acting scared. [Blimp: this came as no surprise to anyone.] At the far end was a set of stairs. With a trapdoor at the top. There was also a pit with a black boulder with carved alien forms. There was a chair on top of the boulder. Sitting on the chair was a life size wax figure. On one of the walls was a chalk diagram. Nigel said the pattern was some sort of gateway. [Blimp: this was starting to explain Mr. Golightly's profligate and unseemly approach to money: he was another of those gullible fools who believed in this spiritual mumbo-jumbo that was infecting non-military people in London at this time. I was resolved more than ever to ensure that the boy started to behave as a gentleman of means should behave.]
The trapdoor was locked but I put my shoulder to it and forced it open. I climbed through the trapdoor and found myself in the basement of the house in Tiber street. Julian and Patrick followed me. We went upstairs. In one of the rooms we found a pile of black robes and a metal cylinder. Julian said he thought the cylinder was made of the same metal as the knife that was used to kill the guy on the train when we were travelling to Henley. He does have a vivid imagination.
Patrick picked it up, stared at it then said 'open'. The cylinder seemed to squirm in his hand then transformed into a knife. I have no idea how he performed the trick, but he and Julian must have been planing it for a while. Patrick must be quite good at that slight of hand stuff.
Julian and Patrick insisted we had to go back down the tunnel. Something about the guy in the station wondering where we were if we did not go back. Julian drew a sketch of the pattern before we left.
In the evening I went to the theatre with Blimp. The others went to Nigel's library to do some reading and try to find out about the pattern. They read books that claimed it was a gate to Limbo. Nigel also claimed he found how to cast a spell with the dagger. I went to see them in the morning. They were still reading their books so I went and did something more interesting. They read wax statues could be used in a ritual to transfer life energy.
The next day Julian had bought a camera and wanted to go back to the cave to take photographs. We went back to Tyber street. There were people in the house. I crept up and listened to them. There were 3 male voices. It sounded like they were playing cards. We went back to Kings Cross Station to try creeping through the tunnel again. The ticket officer said someone called Smythe had been round a day ago asking if anyone had been in the tunnel. He was very reluctant to let us back in as he was scared of loosing his job. Nigel offered him a new job looking after his seaside home down in Brighton.
We heard more voices coming from the cave. I crept down the tunnel to listen in. There were 3 men in the cave. One had a rifle. The other two were playing dice. They all looked lower class. I listened to their conversation. They were just there to guard and were going back to the citadel afterwards. The others did not want to try to destroy the wax statue, which we suspected was the cause of Dorothy's illness, as they were scared of attacking the thugs, so we left.
Nigel went to do more research on the statue. He found it was likely to be protected by some sort of enchantment, but also found a spell he claimed would dispel it. The rest of us looked for Tom's Waxworks. We found one run by a Tom Luthwaite. I went there with Julian and Patrick. Patrick saw a waxwork which he thought looked like Dorothy. When he started talking about Dorothy Tom made some excuse about being busy and went into a private room. I heard him talking to someone and asking what to do. We burst in and saw him kneeling next to a candle, talking to it. Patrick blew the candle out and Julian told him not to move.
Tom attacked Julian and grappled him to the ground. Julian had his pistol drawn but froze in terror and did not fire. I grabbed a chair and started battering him. The chair seemed to have no affect so I drew my knife and stabbed him. The knife went in to the hilt but there was no blood when I pulled it back out. I struck a couple more times with the same result. Patrick threw a blanket over him and I grappled him to the ground and started trying to squeeze the life from him. Having freed Julian, he got chloroform from my bag and threw it in his face. It had no effect. Julian then started looking round the room. He found a life size wax effigy of Tom in a cupboard as Tom looked at Patrick and said “I curse you in the name of Azathoth” in Latin. Patrick exclaimed he was blind. He said the same to me but I was unaffected. Julian then broke an arm off the waxwork. He screamed and stopped struggling. An awful smell came from under the blanket and a puddle of something disgusting crept out from under the blanket as his body slowly dissolved.
We searched the room. There was a cloth covering what looked like a mirror but it had an image of a young bearded man looking like Sebastian Fewkes rather than a reflection. I prodded the surface. It was solid but had an oily feel. A close inspection of the Mary Queen of Scots waxwork revealed it to be a close likeness of Dorothy and to be anatomically correct. [Blimp: I shudder at the thought of how my colleague's were so sure that the model was an anatomically correct image of Dorothy; but the woman was clearly a strumpet so I shouldn't be surprised.] In the basement were waxworks of strange mythical creatures.
There was also a library with hundreds of books and some paper with diagrams and a set of coordinates. We left. I took the papers, Julian took the waxwork of Dorothy and Patrick took the mirror. I looked up the coordinates and found they pointed to a stretch of the East Anglian coast near Tollesbury. Specifically Shinglehead point. [Blimp: I should clarify that I was out of town that day having some business to attend to. It was becoming clear to me that whenever my colleagues were denied my firm guiding hand they ended up in all kinds of ludicrous, and frankly borderline criminal, escapades.]
We all decided to go to the Dorianean Club in the evening and were admitted into their visitors room. [Blimp: a slightl correction: I was astounded that their first port of call had been anywhere other than The Dorianen Club, and insisted we went their immediately!] Blimp knew someone there and asked him about Smythe. He was a stockbroker with a flat in Kensington. We arranged to meet with Smythe. He was somewhat blunt and said we should not interfere in his affairs. He also said Fewkes was under his protection but he got upset when Patrick suggested we should break the mirror. Later in the evening Patrick read up about travelling in Limbo. I went to see some Shakespeare with Blimp. Patrick also researched the paperwork I took earlier. The page with coordinates and other symbols apparently meant there would be an event there in the next few days. [Blimp: Tweeny and I were very keen to destroy the painting - for it was no mirror as it showed no reflection - if only to irriated the destestable Symthe. Father O'Brien was passionately opposed to this for some spiritual mumbo-jumbo about souls being trapped in the object. He was so adamant that we relented for fear of upsetting the volatile priest.]
The following day Julian was busy. He said something about learning a spell. I had a lie in. In the evening we decided to go back into the underground to the cave. Julian was flagging badly as he had not slept, so I gave him a shot of cocaine to pep him up. When we got to the cave there was no one there. By the waxwork were some bones that had not been there previously. They were human and had been dead less than a day. Somehow the flesh had been removed but there was no knife marks other than evidence of a blow to the back of the head with a sharp instrument.
Julian knocked the waxwork over and announced he had broken the enchantment. Patrick tried to catch it but failed, and it smashed when it hit the floor.
Patrick announced he was going into the dreamworld and started walking towards the chalk marks on the wall. When he got to the wall he vanished. Blimp went up to it but could not find the secret door. I shut my eyes and walked towards the wall with my arms outstretched. I was expecting to hit the wall but instead got a strange feeling and when I opened my eyes I was in a vast expanse surrounded by fog. A few seconds later Julian then Blimp followed. [Blimp: I followed Tweeny's example. My theory is that hallucinogenic spores had been placed in the cavern, very much like those used during Thugee ceremonies back in the Raj. Father O'Brien believed we were in some kind of portal, but the man had already established his credentials as a lunatic in my mind. The effect was disconcerting, I'll grant, but nothing that can't be explained by the nefarious deeds commited by bad men. Clearly this was supposed to be some kind of warning as we were not harmed while under the influence of the spores. But we were made of sterner stuff. Or rather all of us excluding Mr. Fitzpatrick were made of sterner stuff.]
Patrick said something about following a symbol he had drawn on a piece of paper and started walking off. The rest of us followed. We passed some strange symbol hanging in the air before we heard a trumpeting sound. Ahead we saw some more symbols. Patrick headed towards one which turned out to be the same as what was drawn on his paper. Patrick walked through the symbol. Blimp and myself followed. For some reason Julian did not.
We found ourselves near a shoreline which had not been there a moment ago. [Blimp: at this juncture I believe the spores had worn off. While under their influence we had obviously been moved to another location to disorientate and demoralise us. A ploy destined to fail!] A short distance away was an old house and a large pile of stones. Patrick said something about going back and vanished. Shortly afterwards he appeared again with Julian, who was shaking and looked like he had been crying. We walked to the house. Outside was a sign saying Polseaze. Patrick opened the door and went inside. Julian followed him. A couple of minutes later they came back out and shut the door. We then set out along the nearby path. The path led to a signpost which said St Just and pointed south towards a village. The only place called St Just I had heard of was in Cornwall, but clearly we could not have walked from London to Cornwall in a few minutes. We headed to the village, a walk which took about half an hour. We looked round but could find no tavern where we could get a drink and meal.
Julian knocked on someone's door. A peasant answered. He said the nearest tavern and train station was in Penzance, which was about 8 miles away. When asked about the house he said it was where the Polseaze lived. They were twins who worshiped Satan. [Blimp: this level of ignorant superstition confirmed to me that we were, indeed, in Cornwall. Up until this point I had been skeptical.] He said the shopkeeper had a cart, so we went and hired him to take us to Penzance. When we got to Penzance we took rooms in a hotel and had a good nights sleep. [Blimp: well, as best we could get in this establishment that could barely be called a hotel.] In the morning we had breakfast. Julian complained of feeling ill. He was clearly suffering from an addiction to the medicines I had prescribed the previous day. [Blimp: the man is blubbering fool. Tweeny's ministrations were sound and sensible, whereas Mr. Fitzpatrick, whatever his talents, is a lilly-livered fop.] I gave him a placibo but he complained it did not help and went to find a local doctor who gave him tranquillisers.
We then took the train back to London. Julian went to another doctor [Blimp: I paid for him to see my Physican, mainly to stop his interminable whining] and got a prescription for some more morphine. Julian then went and read some more of his books. I went back to the cave in the underground with Blimp. It was as we had left it, and there was no evidence of how we got taken to Cornwall. [Blimp: all evidence of the spores had obviously been removed by the perpetrators.]
I we went back to my house. The cook said Smythe had visited, and the maid said she had seen a ruffian in the garden the previous night. I told her to call the police if she saw him again. Patrick wanted to go back to Penzance to investigate the old house. He wanted to take the overnight train, but we persuaded him to wait and we would catch the train in the morning.
During the night three ruffians broke into my house. I fought and killed them all, though they got some lucky blows and I was badly wounded in the fight. I went to hospital to get stitched up. The police came and took the bodies away.
The following morning we took the train to Penzance. Patrick said he and Julian had also been attacked last night by people sent by Smythe to get the mirror, but they had backed off when Patrick threatened to smash the mirror. Blimp telegramed ahead to arrange for horses to be ready for when we arrived. We rode out to the Polseaze house.
Patrick said the pile of stones nearby was a cairn where the small people lived. I think he must have been reading one of Julian's novels. {Blimp: I concur; Father O'Briena and Mr. Fitzpatrick seemed to have talent for exaserbating the farcial in each other. It wasn't so damn irritating it would be mildly amusing.] When we went to the pile of stones we found an entrance and it was hollow inside with a pit in the centre. Patrick climbed in the pit but could not find anything.
We went up to the house. We went inside. Suddenly the ceiling seemed to shoot upwards and the fireplace shot inwards and seemed to grow enormously. The doorway behind us seemed to be 200 yards away. The house must be full of those funny fairground mirrors. [Blimp: also my conclusion.]
We headed back towards the door but a strange creature appeared behind us and attacked Julian. [Blimp: the chap seemed to be a Turkish mamluk; they are singularly odd chaps in my experience but I wouldn't really describe them as creatures.] I fired at it, but the bullet seemed to take a strange trajectory but did hit it. A second creature appeared. I tried running back to the door but seemed to go nowhere. Patrick said something about going where they came from, then jumped forward and vanished. A 3rd creature appeared, but one of the first two turned and seemed to follow Patrick, disappearing. [Blimp: I surmised that they were understandably upset about our illegal entry into their property.]
After taking a few steps I found myself back at the door. Blimp and Julian also shut their eyes and managed to find their way through whatever was causing the optical illusions and got to the door. [Blimp: I've often found that a cool head and the ability to ignore any distractions will resolve most problems.] Patrick was nowhere to be seen. Blimp said he thought the creatures were in fact Turks. I had not been to Turkey but Blimp seemed confident so he must have been right. [Blimp: they were definitely mamluks.]
We waited for Patrick to come out. After an hour we heard him calling from the beach. He must have left by the back door and crept round behind us. He told us a tale about being chased by a demon through limbo and escaping through a portal back to the beach. I however looked round the back of the house and found a tradesman's entrance which he must have come out from. [Blimp: his flights of fancy were getting worse. He was now resorting to cheap tricks in order to try and convince us. I began to fear for the priest's sanity.]
We rode back to Penzance. We then took the train back to London where we rested for a few days. Patrick and Julian read their books and claimed a dance was due to take place in Thaxstead which would let them go to a city full of treasure rising up in Tollesbury. What rubbish they must read. [Blimp: one was a cocaine addict, the other a Cathloic priest. The conclusions are obvious.] Patrick had some hip flasks made with an eye symbol on the side. He gave us one each and said it would ward off demons. I think it probably could once I had filled it with brandy.
We caught the train to Thaxstead. It was a market town in the centre of Essex. [Blimp: which was curious becuase my cursory research had suggested it was a fishing village on the Essex coast.] At the train station was a sign advertising the dance and sponsored by Mr Tarrant. Questioning the locals we discovered he was the major landowner in the area. We booked into a hotel then took a cab to Tarrant's estate. Blimp told the gatekeeper we were acquaintances of Smythe and had come to see Tarant. He went up to the house then returned and said Tarrant would see us.
We went up to the house and met Tarrant. He seemed to know about us. He admitted Smythe was staying at his house. Were invited to stay for dinner. At the table was Smythe, Tarrant and two short individuals in monks robes who were introduced as the Polseaze twins. [Blimp: their appalling table manners made it obvious that they were Cornish.]
We chatted over dinner. Smythe made some threats about us leaving in the morning and never coming back. Patrick claimed afterwards he had seen Smythe cast a spell on Tarrant. What an imagination that boy has.
After dinner we went to the smoking room for cigars and port. Blimp gave Tarrant his hip flask and Tarrant started acting strangely for a few seconds like he did not recognise Blimp. Patrick and one of the twins had what sounded like hostile words in Latin. The twin tried to poke Patrick with his staff but Blimp knocked it aside. [Blimp: the twins behaviour in polite society was almost as bad as Tweeny's!]
In the evening we played bridge. I partnered with Smythe against Patrick and Blimp. We won both games. [Blimp: when the chips are down, as it were, it clear where Tweeny's alliances lie. Fortunately I had the satisfaction of ensuring that Tweeny was unlikely to get his share of the wager by making a cheque out to Symthe.] Afterwards we retired for the night. Julian woke me up in the night complaining about a light in the garden. I opened the window and heard a strange clicking noise. I watched for a while and saw nothing so I went back to bed.
In the morning we went down for breakfast. Tarant and Smythe had already left. I had a look round the gardens where I saw the light. There was some broken branches on the ground but no sign of footprints.
After breakfast we went to Thaxstead. Blimp went round town trying to incite them to riot at the horn dance in the evening. [Blimp: I fell "riot is perhaps a bit colourful"; I was hoping for more of a noisy demonstration.] Patrick went to the hotel because he wanted to draw some magic symbol on a load of pieces of paper. [Blimp: it appears that not only does God move in mysterious ways; his servants do likewise.] I went into the church where a service was taking place. Julian went to the blacksmiths then joined me shortly afterwards. In the church was a casket bolted onto the wall. Smythe's two turbaned bodyguards were standing either side of it. Smythe was sitting in the front row listening to the sermon.
I left the church and waited to see who came out after the service ended. Julian hung around inside. He heard Smythe talking to the priest about the evening dance. He said Fewkes was in the crypt with the twins, who also had the 'burden' and were waiting to infuse it with the power from the Madonna. Smythe had to travel to Tollesbury to get the receptor from the sunken city. He also talked about a lure the twins had. Smythe then said if we continued to interfere he would have us killed. He also said he was not scared of guns. They then headed off into the crypt.
Julian called me back inside. I opened the casket and took out the Madonna. On the base was a catch which opened a small compartment in the bottom of the Madonna with a strange round object inside. I took the object, stuffed some other stuff in the Madonna to make up the weight. Then I put the Madonna back and left the church.
I went back to the hotel and showed the object to Julian. He said it was evil and had “beware of the dog” written in Latin. He also said it appeared to defy the laws of physics. I am not sure how he came to that conclusion. Patrick tried hitting it with a hammer. He did not put much effort in it so I took the hammer and hit it as hard as I could. There was a click and the object started ticking. When I tried picking it up I got a shock. Julian ran away. [Blimp: Mr. Fitzpatrick is at least consistent in his cowardice.] A strange haze then started coming from the object. I decided it was a good time to leave and left the room. As I went I noticed that strangely all the clocks in the room had stopped.
I ran out of the hotel. When I turned around I realised Patrick was not behind me. Julian was still running and was almost at the end of the street. I heard a few screams from inside then everything went quiet. I went back inside. Patrick was nowhere to be seen. There were a few drops of blood on the floor and a lot of water. The room looked badly smashed up. The object was lying on the floor so I wrapped it in a cloth and picked it up.
There was a scream from outside. I looked out the window and saw a woman collapsed in the street. When I went down I met Julian and Blimp who had returned. They had just looked in an alleyway where the woman had been. Patrick's body was lying in the alleyway, mangled and torn. The woman said she had seen a giant skinless hound licking on his body. Blimp commented she had probably been on the gin.
We decided to go back to London. Blimp said he had to do something in Patrick's room first. He used Patrick's hammer to break the mirror with Fewkes image in it. It made a strange screaming like noise as it smashed. [Blimp: I suspect the screaming was someone in the village overwhelmed by the recent traumatic events. I had to protest at the repeated use of the description of the object as a mirror. It was clearly a painting. I'll admit it was an act of petty vandalism on my part, my intention being to deny the object to Symthe who had been very clear on wanting it handed over to him. If he had asked politely and behaved like a gentleman I would have probably acquised. However, his heavy-handed boorishness led me to desire to deny it to him instead.]
We took the train back to London. Julian read his books and said the object was called a lure which stopped time and opened a portal and summon a hound of Tindalos. {Blimp: I said, and still say, "Pah!"] Nigel said it could be destroyed in a furnace, so I went to a blacksmiths and threw it into his furnace.
There was a funeral for Patrick. Blimp and Julian went and gave a eulogy. I did not bother going as I find that sort of thing boring. [Blimp: the eulogy was composed by Mr. Fitzpatrick, and I have to remark that it was extremely well written; not only were there no references to Moontions but it placed poor Father O'Brien in an extremely favourable light.]

January 1890 Horror on the Orient Express

One morning a cab showed at my door. The driver said Julian had sent him to collect me. We had to meet in Cheapside, though he did not give a reason. I told him to wait outside while I got ready. I met Julian, Nigel, and Blimp. Apparently one of Julian's friends, Professor Julius Smith, was in trouble, and his house had burnt down the previous night. [Blimp: I should elobrate here. The previous evening we had attended a talk from Professor Smith. Appaently his was an infamous debunker of the spriritual mumbo-jumbo currently very popular with the guillable in London, claiming to use science to refute some of their esoteric ideas. I attended with high hopes, but alas, the gentleman was a fraud. While he did indeed pour professional scorn on some the more outlandish theories, his efforts were only to confirm his own outlandish theories, to wit, something a fool might consider a spiritual manifestation was in fact only an echo, or image, of something that happened on another dimension. Pure poppycock! According to Professor Smith there are hundreds of dimension, each with their own slightly different versions of our "own" dimension. What I particularly objected to was that he mocked the theories of the spiritualists for lacking any proof, yet could provide none to support his own. He asked us only to "believe" his theories, to which I reposted that belief required faith and therefore denied any certainity, their acceptance thereofre existing solely in the realm of an individual's credulity and beyond the scope of scientific proof, which is what he had the gall to claim. Or at least that was my understanding of his talk; he doned on for almost three hours and I fell asleep. Tweeny was not parly to this information as his behaviour at Mr. Bidwell's gathering the previous year, and subsequent incarceration for arson, had seen him somewhat understandably excluded from such social events.] ] I am not sure what was going on but Nigel had brought his shotgun with him.
Inside the house Smith was lying in bed. He had been badly burned. He said he had been on the trail of an occult statue of great power, a sedefkar simulacrum. [Blimp: Hah! My thoughts about the man the previous evening as being a charlatan and on equal standing with those whose own theories he was so dismissive about because they lacked scientfic proof were confirmed.] In the 18th century it had been taken apart and scattered. He planned on finding the parts and destroying them. {Blimp: if he truly believed this antique was dangerous and had been scattered for good reason, a theory I need not mention I believed as delusional as the man himself, then one has quesiton the wisdom of embarking on a quest to gather all the pieces again.] The previous night he was attacked by mad Turks who burned down his house. [Blimp: my time in the Crimea, although only a boy, revealed to me that will the Ottoman was a ferocious fighter they were also very prone to maladies of the brain.] The statue was owned by a Conte Fenalik, and was lost just prior to the French Revolution, having been dismantled in Paris. A piece was sold to an Alvise de Gremanci. A part went to Trieste. A Johann Winckelman in the museum there might know more. A piece might be in Serbia, the Belgrade museum might know something about it. One part was lost, possibly buried, near Sophia in the Bulgarian war of 1875. The final piece was in circulation in Paris and sold to someone from Milan. To destroy the statue the pieces must be taken back to the shunned mosque in Constantinople. A ritual to destroy it is described in the Sedefkar scrolls. He had booked tickets for us on the Orient Express. [Blimp: as I suspected, the man was as mad, if not madder, than the Ottomans he purports attacked him. However, if he were reckless enough to purchase tickets for all of us on that most hallowed and luxurious of trains who was I refuse him, particularly as he was extremely agitated and only calmed down once we had acquised, even it would require spending a few days in France.]
The following morning Blimp, Nigel and Julian showed up at my house with some stage magician called The Great Mafonzo [Blimp: an infuriating man who insisted we all address him by his ludicrous stage name. I baulked, and when he refused to tell him is proper name I replied that I would address him as Mr. Smith until informed to the contrary.]. Apparently he wanted to investigate someone who spontaneously combusted. Blimp had found him somewhere, though I did not think he was the sort of person Blimp would normally associate with. [Blimp: I had seen him performed, and despite his vanity, he was a first class performer. I must confess I have a weakness for performing types, probably as a result of my frequent trips to the theatre. He was a fellow member of The Travellers' Club and was travelling to Constantinople to perform for the Ottoman. I suggested he might like to join as, seeing as we were embarking for the same destination. It was only the polite thing to do.] We went to an antique shop which belonged to a Mr Makryat, the person who the papers had reported has having been killed 3 times a few nights ago. At least 3 bodies with his identification had been found, stabbed through the heart. Mafonzo thought there would be a connection because Makryat had sold a toy train to the guy who had alledgedly combusted.
The antique shop was closed but a neighbour gave us an address of the person who rented out all the shops. Mafunzo persuaded him to give us the key to the antique shop on the premise we were interested in renting it and wanted to look round. Mafunzo found some account ledgers under the counter. I looked round upstairs but it looked like someone had packed their bags and left.
Nigel looked through the ledgers and found the entry of the train set. It was the only one in the ledgers. Everything else was foreign antiques.
We went back to Nigel's place as he and Julian wanted to research the person who had sold the train to Makryat. I sat on his veranda with Blimp drinking Pimms while they read their books. The train set had belonged to an occultist called Randolph Alexis who had died in 1867 in a train derailment. His son was murdered in 1887. His wife had sold the train off recently. They found the address and so we headed off to Chelsea. Mrs Alexis said she had been selling off her husbands occult book collection. Makryat had come to buy some books and had also taken an interest in the train.
We looked around another room of stuff she was selling. Blimp pulled the leg off a desk and pulled out a rolled up manuscript from inside the desk. [Blimp: an old trick I learnt from a Maharaja in the Punjab.] When he pulled it out a silver amulet fell to he floor.
The manuscript was written in German by Vilhelm Sphingien and was titled Sphingien Manuscripts, also known as the Book of Abominable Bondage [Blimp: such a book could have only be written by a German.]. Julian took it to read it later. The amulet had Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight written on the back in Latin
In the evening Julian and Nigel went to the British Library to read their manuscripts. Mafunzo came to the theatre with Blimp and myself. Nigel found someone slumped dead at a desk. He had a Library index open with a piece of human skin on it. [Blimp: really, standards are slipping the British Library.] Written on it was 'the skinless one will not be denied'. When his hat was removed Nigel saw the man's skin had been removed. [Blimp: you would expect this kind of thing at the Natural History Museum where they let any old riffraff in, but not the British Library!] When he showed me the skin later I pointed out the text had been scribed into the skin using acid before it had been removed from the body.
In the morning we took the train to Stoke Newington where the man who bought the train set lived. The cabbie who took us to the house said it was a queer business there. Outside the house was a chalk sign reading 'see the death room, 6d'.
We looked at the room of death. There was some evidence of soot. Mafunzo seemed to think the markings looked like they had been made by a train. What a stupid idea, there is no way you could have got a train in that room. [Blimp: I concur. I was starting to regret inviting Mr. Smith to accompany us on our journey.] We went to the police station to see the toy train. Under the track was a handkerchief with RA in a corner. (Randolph Alexis??). On the underside of the train was scratched some indecipherable symbols. We took the train back to Nigel's house. I availed myself of Nigel's drinks cabinet. [Blimp: I rather sensibly decided to go to the theatre.] Julian took the handkerchief off the base and found more symbols beneath. Nigel looked up the symbols and identified them as representing numbers 1 to 8. He seemed to think the layout of the symbols had something to do with a gate and the train was a magical conduit for a spell. The brandy helped me understand all this rubbish.


Last updated: July 6, 2009