Friday, 5 April, 1872
The household is in a state. As if more houseguests arriving each day were not strain enough, the Inspector has brought a vexing mystery to the League's attention. Poor Colonel Dunbar is in a dire medical state, which appears to somehow be related to the death of a doctor in south London.
The lady of the house is recovering from her recent ordeal. Recovered enough to sneak from her rooms, borrow a bag of flour from the kitchen, and deliver a surprise to her secretary. To think that some of the women of the parish were worried she would become a recluse for months after the birth. The Senior Mrs Chigwidgeon asserted that it was not unusual for new mothers to have fits of boredom in-between bouts of exhaustion. As her experience in these areas is vastly superior to my own, I defer to her assessment.
I am getting ahead of myself.
The day started normally. Tattvick, Mrs Sharps, and I barely had time for our usual morning discussion before Miss Pinker arrived to go over the guest arrangements. I left Tattvick to take breakfast to our mistress while I delivered breakfast and the telegrams to the master of the house.
While most of the household was breakfasting in the sun room, an unexpected visitor arrived. The carriage was exceptionally fine, and the four matched horses were decked out with plumes. I did not recognize the crest adorning the carriage. The cards presented by the footman identified our visitors as the Comte and Comtess des Brabant--Mrs Cuthbert's sister and her new husband.
I took the cards to Miss Pinker. I could not help noticing that Mrs Cuthbert and Mrs Salmalin were already agitated, the former's mystical senses having, it seems, identified the visitor. Miss Pinker asked me to have our guests wait in the Red Parlour, and to prepare tea and a refreshment tray. The others voiced misgivings about the guests. Mrs Cuthbert and Mrs Salmalin accompanied Miss Pinker to the parlour.
The Comte seemed a charming gentleman, with excellent English. I could not help noticing some tension in the room when I returned with the refreshments, but everyone remained cordial. The des Brabants offered their congratulations at the birth of the new baby, and to all appearances were making a purely social call.
Afterward, the ladies reported to other members of the League that the Comte is a mage of not inconsiderable power, and that the Comte and Comtess have let a house in the parish, as they intend to enjoy springtime in the country. Though Edenfield has much to commend it, it seems rather suspicious that someone of the Comte's standing should come such a long way simply for the country air.
A Christening gift was found on the hall table after the Comte and Comtess departed. Mrs Salmalin and Mrs Cuthbert were very suspicious of its contents, and asked that I put it away separately from the other gifts.
Mr O'Flaherty's train arrived after lunch. We were all glad to see him in such fine spirits. Mrs Travers, Lt Wooster's sister, arrived at about the same time.
Among the many congratulatory telegrams arriving throughout the day, there were two more each for Lt Wooster and Sir Spencer. I gather that they contained my cryptic news from the lieutenant's brother Mr Willoughby Wooster, who works in the Colonial Service.
We expected Inspector MacGreggor and Mr Frazer
next, and the master went to the train station to retrieve the
gentlemen. At about the time I had expected them back, Miss Wilhelmina
and Miss Ber Mrs Wooster decided to go into town for a
shopping errand, in Miss Wilhelmina's clockwork cart. I have since
learned that Wilhelmina became concerned with the 3:20 train had
not left the station and steamed past the estate. Knowing that
the master had gone to the station, Wilhelmina decided he might
need assistance. Not wanting to explain this to Mrs Wooster, Wilhelmina
told her they needed to go shopping.
At the time I knew none of this, as I had been summoned to the mistress's room.
Mrs Cuthbert had had one of her premonitions that something was amiss. She, Mrs Salmalin, and Mrs Frazer had gone to her ladyship's room to ascertain that neither mother or babe was in danger. Then Mr Frazer's father and Inspector MacGreggor's father contacted Mrs Cuthbert, informing her that there was a problem at the train station, and that the Inspector needed Mrs Cuthbert's assistance. When Mrs Cuthbert then announced that her Second Sight was unable to perceive the train station, her ladyship declared that they must proceed to the station immediately.
Seeing that nothing would deter her, that others acquiesced and assisted her with a veil and other appropriate garments, while I ordered up the large carriage. Mr O'Flaherty insisted on accompanying the ladies to the station.
While they were gone we had an odd experience. I felt, at one moment, as if I were falling asleep while standing in the pantry. I became disoriented. Fearing that some sort of gas or poison had been released into the air, I tried to call out to some of the others, but found myself unable to move.
Then, quite suddenly, I heard the Senior Mrs Chigwidgeon say, "There you are, my boy," and seemed to awaken. I was still standing in the pantry. Mrs Chigwidgeon was nowhere to be seen. As I checked with other members of the staff, I found that several reported a similar experience.
The master and the others all returned, with the inspector and Mr Frazer in tow. There had been some excitement (it took a half hour to brush the dust out of Wilhelmina's dress!), but most of the news was disturbing and grim.
Col. Dunbar, who had attended school with Mr Ichabod Balderstoke and the master, was discovered by a porter insensible and apparently dead in one of the first class cars. The conductor was informed, and remembering that a police inspector on board, hurried to ask the Inspector to examine the scene. The local constable and doctor having been sent for, Insp. MacGreggor and Mr Frazer examined the body and searched the car.
When the master arrived at the station, he was informed of the problem. He hurried to assist. By the time the ladies arrived, the car had been detached from the train and moved to a siding. Upon close examination, Col Dunbar was discovered to still be very faintly breathing. Mrs Cuthbert attempted to improve the situation, and determined that the colonel's soul had been removed from his body.
By this time the strange events had drawn the attention of the Comte and Comtess, as well as Mrs Earwig, who was travelling to Edenfield to attend the Christening. The investigators, temporal and spiritual, determined that Col. Dunbar's soul had been removed by a being which appears to be an angel--specifically a seraphim. From evidence in the colonel's pockets, the inspector has decided that this is related to an equally pecular case he was already investigating in London.
Meanwhile, Miss Wilhelmina and Mrs Wooster had been dispatched to ask Mr Shorrock and Mrs MacGreggor to come to the station, as it was hoped Mr Shorrock's medical experiments would offer some method of preserving Col. Dunbar while Mrs Cuthbert and the others sought a cure to his spiritual difficulty. The initial attempt by the mystics to retrieve the colonel's wayward soul nearly resulted in disaster, as the spell also attracted the attention of the being which had taken the soul. This being attempted to harm Mrs Cuthbert. If not for the intervention of the inspector, she might very well be in the same precarious condition as Col. Dunbar.
The colonel is resting, unconscious but still alive, at the Shorrock's home, sleeping in the same apparatus which sustained Mr Shorrock for over six months. The rest of the household is busy sending messages, making inquiries, and trying to fit all the puzzle pieces together.
The inspector's peculiar case involves a Dr Kenyon, who was found dead several mornings ago in his consulting room. The doctor had recently visited a friend, Sir Robert Plank, in the country and returned to London with a girl by the name of Evie Botley. Evie had been the dependent of one of Sir Robert's tenants. The tenant had recently died, and Sir Robert felt an obligation to the girl. The girl had been diagnosed some years ago as an imbecile. Sir Robert and Dr Kenyon believed this diagnosis inaccurate.
Because the girl was missing and a window had been broken in the back of the building, the housekeeper and the police constable first summoned to the scene suspected that Dr Kenyon had been attacked. Insp. MacGreggor, Mr Frazer, and the coroner came to very different conclusions. The window had been broken from inside, as if somewhere were trying to escape the building, not break into it.
There had been a witness of sorts. A lifelong petty criminal known as Eddie "the Eel" Molony had been planning to break into the miliner shop next to the doctor's consulting room. Shortly before 3:00 a.m. of the morning in question, Molony saw a carriage pull up to the doctor's office. A well-dressed young man got out of the carriage and assisted an elderly woman, dressed in mourning with a long veil, from the carriage. The woman had a severe hunched back. She could negotiate the stairs only with great difficulty.
Molony proceeded to the alley preparing to break into the shop. At some point after 3:15 but before 3:30, Molony claimed that an angel appeared in the alley and confronted him. The angel told Molony to repent and walk the straight and narrow for the rest of his life. Molony therefore turned himself in to the police and began confessing all his crimes. Molony claims never to have seen the girl, nor to have heard and seen the window being broken.
Though Molony's story is quite fantastic, a number of facts found on the scene corroborated at least some details. Also, when Mr Frazer asked Mrs Earwig to examine the deceased, she also mentioned an angel, and described a similar being as that seen by Molony. Since she had not heard Molony's account, nor been told about it in any way, this convinced the inspector that Molony was telling the truth so far as he knew it. This also convinced him that Evie Botley was probably in danger from whatever forces were at work.
And now those forces appear to have struck
down Col. Dunbar--who was coming to visit, so his telegram to
Cosm- the master indicated, to show something of importance
to the master. A notebook in his pocket indicated that he had
been visiting Sir Robert Plank's estate. One page contained a
reference to Rambaldi--presumably the notorious fifteenth century
heretic--and included a drawing which Mrs Salmalin said reminded
her of something she saw in one of the books concerning Rambaldi
which she read a few months ago. The inspector also recognized
the ring Col Dunbar wears upon his left little finger: a thick
gold band with a lapis scarab beetle emblem. Dr Kenyon wore a
similar ring on his right third finger. As if this coincidence
and the alleged appearance of angels in their vicinity recently
were not enough to connect the incidents, Mr Frazer saw a young
man and a "hunched-back person dressed in a black mourning
dress with an opaque veil" exit the train at Manchester--just
a half hour before Col. Dunbar's body was discovered.
The master revealed to the League that in the past Col. Dunbar has worked for A's office. Since the master was recently asked to look into some of the writings of Sir Robert Plank, it is not impossible that Col. Dunbar was asked to make similar inquiries. A coded telegram has been sent to A's office to ask about that. Other telegrams have been sent to other possible sources of information--even to Edward's companions, the Radicals, who have been urged to seek Evie and offer her assistance if possible.
Lord Greyminster arrived while the household was in the midst of these communications, and seemed to take little notice of the peculiar behaviour. The fact that Lady Cowperthwaite invited him to see the new baby may have contributed to his distraction.
Saturday, 6 April 1872
A busy day as more guests arrived and the League scurried about. Much of what happened at the house was unremarkable.
While the master and mistress met with Mrs Cake and the vicar to finish arrangements for the Christening, Mrs Salmalin and Mr O'Flaherty called on the Comte and Comtess. The meeting was not unpleasant, but also not very informative.
After luncheon, Mrs Cuthbert, Mrs Salmalin, the Senior Mrs Chigwidgeon, Lady Cowperthwaite, and Mr O'Flaherty gathered in the upstairs reading room to conduct some rituals. From them I understand that they confirmed, as much as magic can confirm anything, that the young man and widow previously described arrived at Dr Kenyon's office at the unusal hour, that a being which appeared to be a seraph manifested and confronted the doctor. The doctor suffered a stroke or seizure and lost consciousness.
Meanwhile, Evie Botley recognized the strange light which appeared with the being manifested, and she fled the building. In the alley she bumped into Eddie Molony. A being seemingly identical to the first seraph appeared and confronted Molony, which scared him so that the girl could flee without interference. Than the first seraph came out of the building and confronted Molony. This second controntation with the supernatural overwhelmed Molony, who fainted dead away.
Meanwhile, Evie continued running. When she reached the nearest trainstation, she hid under the platform. She began performing a magickal ritual. At that point, the mystics could no longer see what happened. They believe she cast a "Veil" which would hide her from sight.
This information was shared with other members of the League.
Mrs Frazer and the other ladies being unhappy about certain holes in the information, wanted to travel to Manchester to search for signs of the young man and widow seen by Mr Frazer. The inspector raised some objections, though I do not know precisely what they were. Eventually, Mrs Frazer, Mr Frazer, Violet, the babies, Mrs Salmalin, Mr Salmalin, and Insp. MacGreggor went to the Edenfield station and searched for signs Evie Botley (there was some thought that she might have taken a train this far, though why she would come here of all places was never made clear). They also had Turgenov and Owen search the rail car where Col. Dunbar's body had been found.
When no such sign was found, the group proceeded to Manchester, where Turgenov and Owen were able to follow a trail whose scent matched one of the unidentified scents in the rail car. This led them to an alley, where the trail ended. Since the alley was a dead-end, it suffered far less traffic than the streets, and individual footprints were clearly visible. The prominent prints were ordinary boot prints and some sort of wheel marks, from a very small wheeled object. Mrs Frazer later described it as smaller than a wheelchair.
The trail ended there. The League searched for a secret door or some other sign of where the man and the cart had vanished. At this time the Comte de Brabant happened upon them. It soon became clear he was following the same trail, somehow. After exchanging pleasantries, he performed a ritual of his own, which had a similar effect as Mrs Salmalin's History spell, though it did so by appearing to make time run rapidly backward. I would imagine it to be very disorienting.
In any case, the spell revealed a young man and widow matching the previous descriptions coming into the alley. The widow's garb was opened in some way, and a being which looked like a seraph emerged. This being took up both the young man and the costume/cart and carried both straight into the sky.
While that portion of the household was gone, more amusing developments came to be in Edenfield Court. Another set of telegrams arrived from Lt Wooster's brother, which prompted some confusing conversation about the difference between a hectare and an acre. Later, the master noticed, while reading yesterday's Evening Standard, an article that mention Mr O'Flaherty. The article was about recent sales of timbering rights to thousands of acres of forest land in the Gold Coast region of Africa. Mr Seamus O'Flaherty was identified in the article as the Treasurer or a partnership which was involved in the sale of the timbering rights.
Mr O'Flaherty was flabbergasted. He had been questioned by a reporter as he was leaving London, he said, but he had thought the man was asking him about hardware or tools or something similar. He also disavowed all knowledge of being the member of any business partnership, let alone the Treasurer.
Sir Spencer and the lieutenant joined the conversation, the latter describing the strange telegrams they had each received. Mr O'Flaherty admitted to having received a similarly indecipherable telegram the day before. After more confused discussion, the lieutenant said he had a vague recollection of a conversation about a partnership. It had occurred during a night of carousing with Mr Willoughby Wooster when the household had been in Cape Coast. Lt. Wooster said that Willoughby had told them of a great investment opportunity, and convinced them to join into a partnership. For some reason Willoughby couldn't be directly involved. But if the three of them would form the company and put in an initial investment, he was certain they would reap a tidy profit.
The gentlemen had then played cards to see who would be which officer. Mr O'Flaherty had lost the first hand, so was forced to be Treasurer. After more discussion and prodding, Mr O'Flaherty admitted he was beginning to remember the discussion. And he thought that Wooster had been Secretary. Which would indicated that Sir Spencer wound up as President.
According to the article in the paper, the forest land in question is in territory which was under dispute between the Dutch and British governments. Since the United Kingdom and the Netherlands recently struck a deal whereby the British assumed control of all the Dutch territories in West Africa, the territory is no longer under dispute, and their are no barriers to harvesting the hardwood in question.
Mr Ichabod Balderstoke joined the household for dinner. The table was quite full with so many guests.
Very late in the evening the master received a telegram from Mr Willoughby in London. Sir Robert Plank's butler has sent urgent wires to Sir Robert's heirs. According to the telegram, Sir Robert has taken to a sick bed. He is unconscious and the doctor fears the worst.
Sunday, 7 April 1872
Very busy day for the household. Lady Cowperthwaite churched. Galen Robert Cowperthwaite christened. Unfortunate, but not serious, accident involving Wooster during ceremony.
Many guests at reception. Then almost as many at the house for informal gathering. Presents opened, though Lt Wooster was sent out to unwrap the gift from the Comtess de Brabant. A mirrored mobile. Lady Cowperthwaite doesn't want it in nursery. Wilhelmina said she had the perfect place for it.
Late in the day Mrs Travers had a discussion, which almost became heated, concerning Col Dunbar. Mrs Travers was disappointed that the colonel's fiancee, the Hon. Margaret Carringford, had not been notified of the colonel's medical condition. D (entry trails off)
Monday, 8 April 1872
I do not recall what I was next going to record in last night's entry. More urgent telegrams arrived from London. Sir Robert dead. Local constable asking for assistance as death is "suspicious and unusual." Detective Department wants Insp. MacGreggor to investigate. A's office wants the master to assist. Her ladyship does not want the master going off on his own--which means that young Galen and the nursemaid, Daru, would also need to go along. Mrs Salmalin, Mrs Cuthbert, et al feel the same. The inspector and Mr Frazer wished the assistance of the League as well.
Mrs Travers had deduced the direction, if not the exact nature, of the League's current investigation. She extended a generous invitation to Lady Cowperthwaite for the entire household to stay at her home, Brinkley Court, which is conveniently only a few miles down the road from Sir Robert's estate, Doverton Abbey. This simplifies the arrangements considerably.
The entire household was a flurry of packing all night. We saw them off this morning. The inspector, Mr Frazer, Mrs MacGreggor took the milk train. The rest of the League followed an hour and a half later on the mail train. I pray that none of them come to harm...
Proceed to Interminable Inquisitory
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