Today we arrived in Port Victoria. We were guided into the harbour by pilot vessels, we were greeted graciously by a delegation including Sir Spencer's uncle and Lt Wooster's godfather, we were invited to dine and to stay at the Governor’s Mansion, and various among us proceeded to business at Government House.

That is about as far as we got in grace and good form before untoward events overtook us.

Not that all of us knew it right away.

Mr Frazer and Inspector MacGreggor went straightaway with to the Constabulary offices to begin their briefing and consultation. Mrs Salmalin, Mrs Wooster, Mrs MacGreggor, and Mrs Cuthbert all went to take a bit of rest at the Governor's Mansion.

Sir Spencer and Lt Wooster were invited by Maj Gen Cuthbert and Lord Henry Bicklestaff to visit the gentleman's club here. Typical.

I accompanied Sir Cosmo and Wilhelmina to Government House. The first order of business was the receipt of a number of telegrams--a few for Sir Cosmo, but a veritable avalanche for Wihelmina. They were all the strangest nonsense--a series of code phrases which meant nothing to me. They obviously meant something very aggravating to Wilhelmina. She vouchsafed to Sir Cosmo and myself that they were from her partisans in London, and related to her mother. Through the sequence of missives, she was informed that her mother had disappeared from her place on a farm in Australia. I learned at that time that the woman had married a wealthy landowner named Voach. Subsequent telegrams unfolded a mystery wherein our professional ally and personal foe Sir Phillip Bond had contacted the woman and a few days later she had vanished. Why Sir Phillip is troubling her, we cannot yet guess. His most recent post, taking him mercifully away from London these last few months, has been to serve as the "Resident" of the Protectorate of Perak. I should note that our Mystics later confirmed that the new Mrs Voach is in fact under the power of Sir Phillip and his lieutenant Maj Powell. The latter seems to be restraining some of the former's worst excesses in regard to his female captive. This entire situation is full of unknown yet decidedly unsavoury motivations.

After we had considered that difficulty for a time, the Governor himself, Admiral Sir Miles Naismith, gave us a briefing about what might have befallen Lt Pellew and the crew of the Arabis. As he is the primary naval officer of this area as well as the Governor of the island, he is responsible and informed regarding naval actions. The Admiral seems a very unusual sort of man, quick in thought and action, energetic, and not at all alarmed by the extraordinary. He astonished me by addressing Wilhelmina quite directly, without the patronising tone usually prompted by her tender age and sex. He seemed unsurprised that she is participating actively in the search for her father. I have high hopes that he will be of help instead of the hindrance I might have expected of a Colonial Governor.

We were told of the circumstances of Lt Pellew's search for a hidden harbour being used by one of the notorious pirates in these waters. Wilhelmina, Sir Cosmo and I were given access to the Leftenant's office (which he shares with a Lt Cedric Cunningham) and we spent several hours going through his notes. We found a series of maps copied from historical and folkloric sources, as well as some recent accounts, complete with descriptive information on the backs of the maps. We also found some maps folded up in peculiar ways and marked with seemingly impossible sailing routes.

We were just finishing our search for the afternoon when a clamour arose outside. Since this clamour included police whistles, I imagined my husband would end up in the thick of it. The core of the uproar proved to be our own Mr O'Flaherty, somewhat the worse for drink, surrounded by a number of local constables and with Mr Frazer beside him. It took some time to sort it all out, but we eventually determined that the warrant for "Atlas O'Flaherty" referred not to our Mr Seamus O'Flaherty but to a Quaid O'Flaherty, the uncle of our friend. Mr O'Flaherty was horrified to learn that his uncle, whom he had believed to be a reasonably law-abiding whaler, is instead regarded as a notorious pirate in these waters. Mr O'Flaherty wandered off toward the Governor's Mansion in a state of some perturbation.

Wilhelmina, Sir Cosmo, Mr Frazer and I set out to find the man Mr O'Flaherty had met in a pub, who had claimed to be a former shipmate of "Atlas," hoping to learn more about the pirate's whereabouts. Inspector MacGreggor traveled off toward the Governor's Mansion to find his wife.

From this point onward, the evening became increasingly exasperating. By the time we reached the pub, we discovered that Lady Cowperthwaite and Mrs Salmalin, along with Mr Salmalin, had already been here with Mr O'Flaherty. I surmised that they had caused some degree of uproar by the rather fearful looks bestowed on me and on Wilhelmina when we entered, and the earnest cooperation given by every man we questioned--hallmarks of a previous encounter with Lady Cowperthwaite.

We proceeded along the trail of our companions toward the address given for the home of a Mr O'Brien--a retired seaman who claimed ot be a "great friend of Atlas'". This home proved to be a room in a two-storey hovel--to call it ramshackle would be a significant understatement. We met our companions there, arguing over the form of Mr O'Brien, soddenly unconscious in his verminous bed. Mrs Salmalin was arguing that since Mr O'Flaherty had accidentally broken the door down, they could not leave Mr O'Brien there alone and unconscious in his room, unprotected. Lady Cowperthwaite was prepared to carry him back to the Governor's Mansion, but there was some consternation as to the etiquette of bringing an unknown drunken former pirate to the home of one's hosts.

At last I simply woke the man with some smelling salts, so we could question him without removing him from his own premises. When he woke, he was understandably alarmed at the presence of so many strangers in his room. I was just beginning to get him calmed down when he laid eyes on Lady Cowperthwaite. Thereupon, he started violently and began to babble in a manner that suggests he recognised and feared her. She pressed the advantage and asked him a series of questions. Then he glanced around and caught sight of Mr Frazer, gasped in terror, and fainted dead away. While my husband is a formidable man, he is hardly terrifying. This was all very mysterious. We were, moreover, back to the question of how to ensure this man's safety, since he was again unconscious.

Then Inspector MacGreggor arrived and chimed in that it would be kidnaping to take him away from this room, and he couldn't countenance it. Nothing any of us said could convince him that it was justified and necessary for the man's own safety. I'm afraid I lost my temper and was quite rude. His obstinacy can be so exasperating! Fortunately, Helen and Sir Cosmo presented another convincing factor, having examined the unfortunate Mr O'Brien and determined that he is suffering from chronic malaria, and he requires treatment. We determined to take him to the hospital.

While the majority of us made our way there, Inspector MacGreggor lingered in the shadows. I think he thought we didn't notice him hanging back. While I was concerned that he might be in danger alone, I surmised that he had a plan, and was not merely sulking. I recognised that if I drew anyone else's attention (i.e. Mrs Salmalin's) to his plan, the ensuing discussion would render his plan worthless. He had stayed to observe the pair of local men who had been tailing our groups as we made our way here. We had obviously excited a great deal of interest among the locals.

The rest of us made our way to the colonial hospital, which looked and smelled like Florence Nightengale's worst nightmare. As Helen and Sir Cosmo worked to get our patient settled, Benton suggested that we go outside for some air--Turgenov was feeling queasy (not only the hospital's smells, I'm sure, but the sausages he stole at the pub earlier in the evening). We had scarcely taken three deep breaths when Benton was struck in the neck by a small dart. I had not even turned to find the source when I felt something similar strike me. I pulled out both darts as Benton collapsed, and called out to my comrades inside. Trying to keep calm, I turned to see Turgenov charging two men, one again raising a blow-pipe to his lips. His dart struck Turgenov, and I saw him also fall insensible before I was overcome by the poison.

I awoke to the stinging scent of smelling salts. Before me stood a character from one of Lady Cowperthwaite's magazines: an oriental woman, at first glance scarcely older than myself, but with a cruel set to her eyes which belied the apparent youth. She had lustrous black hair in a chignon coiffure and an indecently form-hugging gown of an elaborate silk brocade. I did my best to feign more grogginess than I felt, but this didn't last long as my outrage at the situation got the better of me. The woman started asking me questions about a Captain Tiberius. I could mostly honestly say I had no idea what she was talking about--the name Tiberius was familiar, but I know little of him. The woman angrily demanded how I could not know him when I was with a man who is his spitting image. She demanded to know our business here, and I freely gave the mostly-true and publicly-known answer, that I was travelling with Sir Cosmo and his ward while Sir Cosmo investigates the disappearance of his ward's father. I also explained, at her insistence, that the big man we were traveling with was not Quaid O'Flaherty, but his nephew, and that this nephew knew nothing whatever of his uncle's business or whereabouts.

Suddenly there was a crash of shattering glass in the next room, and an eerie wailing cry which sounded like Sgt Frazer's voice. The woman left the room swiftly to investigate and I started to work against my bonds. I redoubled my efforts when I heard a scraping noise from the wall near me and a chunk of the wall fell inward to reveal a man's head. He crawled out of the hole he had made and immediately cut me free of my bonds. I instructed him to cut Mr Frazer free while I untied my feet. The stranger then used a small tool he had brought to pry the covering boards off the window, urging haste. The distraction, he said, would go off at any minute. I revived Mr Frazer, who had remained unconscious in the grip of the dart drug, and helped him to his feet. I was compelled to remove my outer skirts and leave them behind as we escaped out the window. Another gown spoilt. I barely had time to turn and see the sign on the building, written in Chinese characters and in English, "Foo Chow Fireworks Factory." The building exploded.

The man hurriedly introduced himself as MacGyver. Despite the name, he did not appear to be from Scotland. His accent sounded possibly Australian.

We ran through an alley toward the street, and met up with Mrs Cuthbert, the Salmalins, Sir Cosmo and Lady Cowperthwaite, Mrs Wooster, and the MacGreggors. And, to my Surprise, Lady Katherine Naismith. We were immediately embroiled in the effort to round up all the criminals who were fleeing the fireworks factory. The local constables were on the scene, but they were outmatched in numbers and in armaments--the constables carried truncheons to the criminals' knives and swords. With the help of our partisans (and Lady Katherine, who was shooting a pistol slightly larger than my own with fair accuracy), Things were Getting Done. I gathered some help and worked my way around the building, looking for some sign of the woman who had questioned me. I had no luck.

As things quieted down, I heard the mysterious Mr MacGyver approach Wilhlmina and request an interview. She seemed to recognise him and addressed him as 'Mohindar," though he then insisted that he was called MacGyver now. She made an effort to expressly exclude me from this conference, taking only Lady Cowperthwaite as a guardian. I am not sure why Wilhelmina seems to be trying to keep certain of her activities from me, no doubt she assumes I will disapprove of her management of the Moriarty Formerly-criminal-but-now-merely-extensive Network. Sir Cosmo seems to be advising her, and while his judgement is not always sound in regards to matters of social propriety, I trust his ethics absolutely. But I digress. I found a spot where I could hear the proceedings, and listened to Mohindar/MacGyver's report regarding Wilhelmina's mother. In the main, it added detail to the earlier wired messages, but not much information of present use.

Eventually, we gathered our partisans and returned to the Governor's Mansion. We had a supper of sandwiches and cold meats--the Governor's cook being apparently accustomed to dinners being set back indefinitely, just as our own cooks in London. We could compare notes somewhat as to the day's events and what each of us had learned. For one thing, it is becoming apparent that Sir Cosmo's mission of finidng Lt Pellew is quite entwined with Inspector MacGreggor's mandate of helping to curtail the actions of pirates and other criminals in the vicinity of this colony.

The Inspector reported that after most of us left O'Brien's hovel, he watched the two watchers, who conversed mostly quietly in what he thought was Chinese. When they left the scene, another person followed them for a while, and the Inspector followed him. That man moved through the streets until he met a local vendor, and stopped to ask him questions about the two he had been following. The two men were known as Zing and Bong (this is the Inspector's interpretation of their names, and he doesn't speak Chinese any more than I do--I wish I had been able to ask Mr Frazer to stay with him without alerting the others). The questioner himself appeared to be an American, fairly well dressed, and undertaking an investigation of some sort, parallel to our own. By listening to the third man's conversation with the vendor, the Inspector was able to gather information about several of the criminal factions in the area without being marked himself as "a man asking questions."

When that conversation concluded, the Inspector followed the American to the very same pub as we had all visited earlier. There he found Sir Spencer, Maj Gen Cuthbert, Lt Wooster, and Lord Henry Bicklestaff, who had abandoned the Gentlemen's Club as too tame. As the Inspector paused to converse with all of those fellows, the American was grabbed by some other men. The Inspector and the others of our partisans gave chase, and after a fracas in the street had rescued the American. He identified himself as Gideon Spilett, a journalist. Some of us recognised this name as one of the men rescued from a desert island. His was one of the accounts Lt Pellew referenced in his search for the hidden island.

According to Mr MacGyver, the two men who captured Mr Frazer and myself were addressed as "Zing" and "Bong" by the woman--he overheard her castigating them for bringing us to her hideout without better verification that their captive was actually Captain Tiberius. Knowing that the men who captured us are incompetent is highly embarassing. At least that episode brought us some information, even if it was considerably more conspicuous than I would prefer.

Tomorrow we will continue our investigations. Some possible avenues include:
-questioning Mr O'Brien, though he probably knows nothing of his former ship's location.
-further investigation of the Woman who imprisoned Benton and myself, through police reports and direct inquiry, as opportunity presents.
-questioning Mr Spillet about the "hidden island"
-can Mrs Cuthbert's map-oriented scrying work with one of Lt Pellew's strange folded maps?

I am also hoping for an opportunity to examine the gardens of the Governor's Mansion, as Helen has told me they are fascinating. It was far too dark to look at them when I finally arrived here this evening. I also hope to make the better acquaintance of Lady Katherine--she seems to be our sort of person.

Notes on Lt Pellew's search for the hidden island(s) and our search for his whereabouts:
a) several maps feature an island approximately 10m by 12 m in size, with overall shape and salient features stongly suggesting that all accounts represent the same island. The recent account by Capt Cyrus Smith calls it "Tabor Island".
-several accounts describe obstacles to navigation in the area--some magnetism which disturbs compasses, and a difficulty in reaching the island even if one goes to some known coordinates.
-two accounts indicate that a person on the island may perceive a different passage of time from those elswhere, in one case seeming faster, in the other seeming slower.
-the accounts also indicate a nearby smaller island, called "Lincoln Island" by Smith, apx 80 miles E of Tabor, and perhaps not quite so difficult to reach.

-Lt Pellew persuaded a captured pirate named Isamu (see notes on Pirate Factions) to try to lead the Griffin to the secret harbour island of Will Sparrow. Lt Pellew reported that although the pirate appeared to be making a good faith effort, the island was not located.
-Lt Pellew later requested the use of a wooden vessel, the Arabis, to continue the search, stating that he thought an iron ship would not be able to find the island due the the strange magnetic phenomena.
-Mrs Cuthbert, in one of her scrying efforts, dreamed that Lt Pellew was at the wheel of a sailing vessel, blindfolded.

Notes on Pirate and Criminal Factions:
Will Sparrow
-operates the vessel "Jiushi", (which translates as "to take advantage of an opportune moment")
-has not been reported seen since apx early January
-Wu Chang had placed a bounty on Sparrow, which was withdrawn around early January, suggesting that he has been in some way neutralised in regard to Wu Chang's interests. Killed, captured, or allied, there is no clear information as yet.
-a crewman of Sparrow's called Isamu had been captured and was persuaded to try to show the way to the secret harbour, but the effort was not successful

Wu Chang
-operates the vessel "Feng Long" (translates as "Storm Dragon"), but may also control a fleet of other vessels.
-seems to be expanding his influence, and has recently seemed to elude pursuit in a manner which suggests to some that he now has a "secret harbour."

Captain Tiberius:
-seems to resemble Mr Frazer very closely. There is some muted discussion about a disowned and disgraced uncle of Mr Frazer's. The Sergeant may be able to provide some information.
-operates the vessel "Black Rock"
-crew includes first mate Quaid "Atlas" O'Flaherty, who seems to be the uncle of our Mr O'Flaherty, and superficially similar in appearance--this was the cause of the erroneous arrest attempt earlier
-retired crewman O'Brien fears him enough to have fainted dead away on seeing Mr Frazer.
-neither the Black Rock nor Tiberius, nor any of his known current crew, have been sighted since around early January

Dragon Lady:
- not a seagoing faction. Interests in smuggling, prostitution and drugs.
- until very recently, operated a base in a fireworks factory
- her agents used soporific darts deployed via blowtube to incapacitate Mr Frazer and myself and capture us.
- those agents, "Zing" and Bong," seem to be low-level criminals; it is as yet unclear if they are primarily in her employ, or if they are independent agents who seized the opportunity to capture persons (us) they thought would be of value to her.
- has some mystical resources--captured Sgt Frazer until he was freed by a summons from Mrs Cuthbert.
- seems to be feared by at least some of the lower echelons of Port Victoria's populace.
- abominable taste in clothing.

Proceed to Much trouble on themselves

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