Saturday, 5 August, 1871
The master will recover. Mrs Cuthbert has assured us of this. Her ladyship seems barely assured.
The household returned in quite a state. The master was wounded quite severely, as was Emily. Truth be told, none of the League seemed to escape this encounter unscathed. Edward had captured and nearly subjected to some sort of black magic ritual. He claims that he was simply taken by surprise and not harmed. Mrs Cuthbert exhausted herself healing her companions.
I have tried to piece together what happened when the League left in search of the leaders of the missing magickal artifacts. Moving in three carriages, they quartered the streets of Greenwich. Mrs Salmalin and Mrs Cuthbert looking for mystical signs, the others simply looking for anything suspicious. At intervals they would consult the Oracle of Abydos to determine how close and in which direction the missing artifacts were.
This method led them to a home which appeared to be mystically veiled. The house was identified as the property of the Compte Montelimar, whom the League has had reason to suspect as being involved in these affairs, though no solid proof.
Insp MacGreggor was sent to get reinforcements while Edward and Mr Salmalin stealthily scouted the premises. Her ladyship and Mrs Salmalin approached the front door on the pretext of collecting for the Young Mothers & Orphans society. They were admitted into the home. Mr O'Flaherty and Mr Maws both slipped away to check the perimeter. Lt. Wooster and Mr Caine decided to inspect the other perimeter of the ground. Mr Cuthbert took up a post near the gate with one of his hunting rifles. The others waited.
Meanwhile Edward had entered the third floor library window, and was inspecting some suspicious books when someone grabbed him from behind. He lost consciousness. Unaware of this, Mr Salmalin had discovered a number of the ninjitsu inside the house, and was quietly incapacitating them. Lt. Wooster and Mr Caine had entered the basement by way of the coal chute.
Inside the house, the ladies were waiting in the parlor when they were confronted by Mr Niall Malloy and some of the criminals in his employ. Mr Malloy made several opprobrious comments. Her ladyship held her temper until Mr Malloy insulted Mr Salmalin (and by implication, Mrs Salmalin, as well). Since Mr Malloy had also made it clear that he intended to hold them prisoner, her ladyship felt justified in taking physical action.
Mr. Malloy and his employees were not prepared for such action from two ladies. And the were even less prepared for the ladies to be as skilled at fisticuffs as they were. Stuart had slipped into the house shortly after the ladies had, feeling it unwise to leave them unattended, and he assisted them in subduing the miscreants.
Meanwhile Mr O'Flaherty and Mr Maws had discovered ninjitsu guards lurking about in the shrubby, and engaged them in combat. One of their oppenents was hurled into the very parlour wheren the ladies were subduing Mr Malloy. Mr O'Flaherty and Mr Maws followed shortly thereafter. At this point the household was aroused, and fighting broke out everywhere.
The master, Sir Spencer, and the others waiting at the gate rushed to the aid of their companions. Sir Spencer noticed suspicious activity in one of the towers over looking the drive, and fired a shot at a man who appeared to be aiming a weapon at them. Mrs Cuthbert and Mrs Salmalin determined later that this person in the tower was the sorcerer in the employ of the enemy, and he was in the midst of a ritual when the bullet struck him. This caused the situation which Mrs Salmalin describes as a "wild spell" and added considerably to the confusion. The original ritual was some sort of summoning spell, and once gone wild, it had the effect of randomly transporting persons from diverse parts of the grounds to the tower itself.
Lt Wooster's party encountered fierce resistance, and even with the aid of the "gatling pistols" were forced to retreat into the wine cellar until Mr Maws punched a hole through the floor and came to their assistance. Mr Maws had convinced one of the guard he had subdued to reveal that Mr Gates, the boxing manager, was being held prisoner in the basement, which is why Mr Maws took the unorthodox route.
The great entrance hall of the house was the scene of quite fierce fighting. It was there that the master was greivously wounded, which caused her ladyship to take extreme measures.
Mrs Salmalin was doing her best to staunch the bleeding and shield the master from further harm, while her ladyship allowed Kali to handle the rest of the opposition.
Meanwhile, Sir Spencer, Mrs Cuthber, and Emily had, by various means both mundane and mystical, reached the tower of the sorcerer, where Edward's unconscious body lay on what appeared to be an altar.
The Inspector and a cadre of constables had just reached the grounds when the effect of the wild spell whisked him to the tower. Which was quite lucky because Emily had been wounded, requiring assistance from Edward, and she and Sir Spencer were hard pressed to keep the many sword-weilding ninjitsu at bay.
Plaster was falling from the ceiling of the great hall, and Mrs Salmalin became concerned about the immense crystal chandelier which was swinging widely. The house had been shaken several times by the forces in combat, and it seemed wisest to her to move the wounded out of the line of fire. She and Stuart and just finished doing so when Mr Salmalin arrived, apparently jumping down from one of the upper stories, and pulled her ladyship out of the way of the falling crystal.
The chandelier crashed to the floor, shaking the house yet again. Mr Salmalin ran to retrieve Mrs Cuthbert to heal the master, and warn the others of the possible collapse of the house.
The constables had arrived by that time, and the Inspector and they set about evacuating the house and rounding up the suspect.
Mrs Frazer had been awakened earlier by Sgt Frazer with news of the fight. She and George had gather food, bandages, ammunition and I'm not sure what else, and left in the second of Sir Spencer's carriages to lend assistance. She informed me as they were perparing to go (fortunately she understand how lightly I sleep and roused me without alerted the neighbors). I promised to get her notes to A and to Miss Mitzi.
She and George arrived at the Comte de Montelimar's home after the evacuation had begun. Mrs Frazer joined in the investigation of the grounds. She and Mr Frazer (with Turgenov's help) followed the trail of the Comte out a secret passage, through a tunnel under the grounds, until it opened in a public stable some distance away. The trail was lost at that point. A history spell confirmed that the Comte and one associate had fled with the objects known as the Key and the Rod.
A and various assistants from the foreign office arrived at the home, as did Mr Moody, Deputy Superindent Guardsman of the Tower of London. They began cataloging criminal, artifacts, and other undesirables.
There was some sort of turmoil over the arrival of Mrs Salmalin's younger brother, Mr James Whitnell. Edward was not certain what the difficulty was (or rather, he was too busy trying to convince Mr Whitnell, Sir A, or someone else to let him keep some of the explosives discovered in the garden shed to pay attention). From the casual manner in which Edward referred to young Mr Whitnell's employment in Sir A's department, I conclude that this information is now more common knowledge. It would seem reasonable to infer that Mrs Salmalin did not take the information gracefully in stride.
I have also learned from Stebbins that Mrs Sinclair was awakened by the night's activities and discovered the members of the household returning in the morning. Mrs Frazer tried to explain her abscence away with a story of Mr Frazer being called away on a case, and needed some equipment from home. She might have been more inclined to believe the story if Mr Frazer was not in bandages.
Proceed to Out of sorts
This page copyright 2002 by Gene Breshears. All Rights Reserved.