At least London seems safer. We've made it in one piece after our adventures on the White Maiden, and docked in Southampton safely. Our first look at London, England was smog, fog, and grey rain over Big Ben's glowing clock face in the early dawn. How utterly charming. Donovan, eternal child and inexperienced boy he is, was awestruck to find out that, yes, Londoners do in fact drive on the opposite side of the road, and double-decker buses are a thing that exists. He insisted, dragged us even, onto one which brought us to our hotel, a fine place with a large room and excellent room service. Our attendant, a man of Arabic descent named Mohamed, even brought us our first real London tea time tray. Hospitality seems to be more prominent here than in the States, that's for sure.
Our first order of business was a telegram, sent by Kensington back in New York. Apparently, Clayton had gone and gotten himself jailed. Of course he did, damn fool. Not the brightest crayon in the box, Clayton; he was always distracted by shiny things a bit too much. As it turns out, he was being held in an Irish jail somewhere, but there was an agreement between the UK and Ireland that meant he'd be shipped to London soon. We of course had to pay the bail... but that could wait until we met with Kensington's other helpful ally, one Mickey Mahoney, a yellow journalist who was head of The Scoop with offices in Soho.
Have you ever been to Soho? It's not exactly a pleasant place. There's advertisers and barkers in your face every other block, and prostitutes in between. Nothing against working women, of course - it would be damned hypocritical of me to say otherwise - but must they really distract a group of foreigners, most of whom are men, when we clearly have somewhere to be? They're pushy, and of course Brad was schmoozing on them like he was thinking with the wrong head. Men... Well, at least one of the ladies of the night was helpful - she pointed out that The Scoop had its offices on the second floor of its building. Unfortunately, it seems that Jolly Old London Town has a bizarre way of numbering its floors. When we headed to the second floor we found it labeled as "Floor One".
"What, is the second floor the first floor now?" Ralph muttered in confusion.
The receptionist caught ear of this, and looked up from her files kindly, so I took the chance to speak with her.
"Can I help you?" she asked in a lilting Yorkshire accent.
"Uh, yes... we're looking for the Offices of The Scoop?" I murmured, embarrassed.
"Oh, that's on the second floor," she said, smiling in vague amusement. "You need to head another floor up, love... Don't feel too terrible, we get confused American visitors quite a lot."
We all blinked in confusion a second, then thanked her for her help, unsure if she had just insulted us or not. Instead of questioning further, we headed sheepishly up another floor to the offices of The Scoop.
I guess the best way to describe what the place was like is "Barely controlled chaos". There were presses running, papers flying, men and young boys hard at work printing, and amongst it all a stocky, short man in a jaunty cap, redheaded and smoking a large cigar. He noticed us enter (amongst all that noise? How on earth?) and approached, smiling.
"Ah, ye must be the Americans ol' Jonah said'd be comin'," He murmured in a thick Scottish brogue. "Name's Mickey Mahoney. How can I be helpin' ye?"
We explained the situation - that Elias was dead, that we were looking into the Carlyle Expedition, that we thought the Penhew Foundation might have some information, that we needed leads. Everything, really. No stone left unturned. When Mahoney heard of Elias' demise, he reacted with shock, and then deep grief. Apparently the two had a strong friendship - they even took tea together whenever Elias happened to be in London. Elias was apparently looking into some sort of conspiracy last the two met, and Mahoney was interested in everything Elias could gather. Sadly, he left London before anything was really discovered, although there were three specific leads he knew Elias was interested in checking out.
"In fact, I have copies o' the articles he was lookin' at," Mahoney replied, "Back in the Morgue. I can find 'em for ye if you want. Maybe you'll be findin' out what Elias couldn't, and if ye do... I'd love to know the details, yeah?"
We agreed. He found us the newspaper clippings, and we all took to reading them. There were three in total. One was about some artist of macabre paintings that was taking the London art scene by storm, Miles Shipley by name. I personally don't know why Elias would be interested in that, but maybe there was some connection there we didn't know about. The second article was about a fire at the home of one Hugh Tylesman, who sadly lost his entire family in the blaze under suspicious circumstances. Some sort of lunatic? A criminal? Maybe a cultist of some kind? It certainly wasn't a stretch after what we'd seen so far... maybe he knew something we didn't?
As for the third, it was much more interesting. Apparently, a bunch of murders had been happening - people disappearing, mostly of Arabic descent, only to be found washed up dead in the filthy, polluted Thames a few days later. They were calling them the "Egyptian Murders", and when we asked Mahoney about it he had his own theory - that some sort of cult in London was responsible, perhaps even a coverup. Sensationalist, sure, but of course a yellow journalist would think in terms of sensationalism. The mention of a possible cult, though, piqued our interest. It was something to look into later, but first, the Penhew Foundation called, and to deal with it, we needed our temple-robbing archaeological professional back in action. We resolved to rest for the evening, and returned to our hotel to sleep - travel lag had us in its iron grip, warm beds called to us, and we needed some relaxation.
Unfortunately, I didn't sleep well for the dreams. I found myself dreaming I had been chained to a stone altar, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I remember a large stone obelisk, and a throng of people - all masked with Pharaoh-like gold death mask replicas, all garbed in red and black and gold robes. All bearing pendants with that curious inverted ankh we had seen tattooed into the flesh of the guards on the ship. Another cult? My fears were confirmed when I heard chanting in Arabic or some sort of bizarre Arabic-sounding language, a male voice... a dark one. Then I saw a man in a black mask, opposite colored to the others, lean over me, his head crowned with the head dress of a Pharaoh... and he spoke.
"Did you honestly believe you could deny the power of the Brotherhood?" He murmured snidely, his accent clearly British. "You're a fool. We knew what you were doing from the start. The Black Pharaoh sees all..."
A glint of gold and black, a horrific weapon brought above my head - a bladed mace, tipped with a wicked metal spine on the end. I watched in horror as it hung above my head like the Sword of Damocles, trying to protest through the gag in my mouth, but I could do nothing as the man continued to gloat.
"He has a great plan for our world," he continued. "What a terrible shame you will not be there to see it."
The mace fell into my skull, and I felt pain as it cracked under the pressure. I felt blood trickle from my head down my face. I felt my vision blur and swim as the cruel instrument struck again and again. Then... reprieve. For a second, reprieve and relief, shattered suddenly by the sharp blow of the spike into my chest...
I woke up in a cold sweat, and I haven't done that in a long, long time. Not since the boat had I even had nightmares, and never had they been this intense. Maybe I should have retired when I had the chance, spent more time rehabilitating in Bellevue. I guess that's how crazy I am now, though... that I would traipse halfway across the world to put myself in more danger for the sake of a dead man. I guess that's why our normal author and Brad both decided to stay behind while we got Clayton out of the brig, and spoke with the folks at the Penhew Foundation.
Well, okay, Donovan had a different issue for why he felt bad. Turns out, after a little examination and medical intervention on my part, that he had caught something from that girl he, ahem, enjoyed on the ship. Fool boy didn't even think to protect himself, but we all do stupid things when we're young. He should be fine if he rests up, and I know a few of the folks at the hospitals here. After all, I worked with some of them during the War. Let's just hope this teaches him a lesson about using protection next time.
Getting Clayton free on bail was easy, but as for why he was arrested in the first place... Well. Apparently he had an Irish colleague he met up with before we started our trip to London, who had the absolutely brilliant idea of trying to steal the Magna Carta from the British Museum of History. The Queen's Agents didn't take too kindly to that, apparently, and they were caught before they got too far. Then his colleague sold him out, and managed to convince the bobbies that apparently, they both did it for Ireland as some sort of defiant act against Great Britain, so they both ended up shipped to an Irish jail. Since it was no longer their jurisdiction and it was assumed the Irish courts had handled it, the case was dropped. Fortunately they agreed to send Clayton back to a London jail for us to bail him out, which we did. Unfortunately, he had a pretty terrible pipe dream he was looking into...
"There's a map on the back of the Magna Carta!" he insisted, and we all groaned.
"You sure they're not just mold stains?" Ralph replied, incredulous.
"Goddamn it Clayton, you idiot," I muttered, and we dropped it from there. Well, all except for Clayton, who kept insisting for the rest of the trip that there was a map to some sort of treasure on the back of a British peace treaty and equivalent of our Declaration of Independence. I'll admit, even with my PhD, I had to look it up - I don't really remember much about World History from my grade school days, and besides, I'm not an Historian.
Let's just hope he doesn't do something stupid once we do take him to speak with the folks at the Penhew Foundation. Lord knows we don't need the one lead we have to Jackson Elias' clues and the Carlyle Expedition severed because Clayton can't keep his damned mouth shut.
-- Dr. Morgan Baker, Surgeon (February 12th, 1928)
The Penhew Foundation. Such a collection of Egyptian historical artifacts and culture there never was, I mean it was a veritable museum of the Age of Pharaohs. Hands down one of my favorite parts of this trip so far, more exciting even than finding the artifacts at Ju-Ju House. It was like walking into a magnificent tomb or treasure vault, and I surely wasn't the only one who wanted to explore. Sadly, there was no time to look around. We came not to visit the vast menagerie of collected history, but to speak with the man in charge of the institute.
Unfortunately, the clerk didn't prove very helpful. She told us in no uncertain terms that a Mr. Edward Gavigan, head of the Foundation, was extremely busy. Not even Ralph explaining that a robbery of a statue bound for the Foundation could sway her. Fortunately, the phone distracted the little bird, and we ended up easily slipping into Gavigan's office. The receptionist there proved much more helpful, and buzzed us in immediately. Guess the clerk outside never gave her the memo. So much the better for us, right?
Edward Gavigan's a real gentleman - blond, blue-eyed, and sharply dressed with a lovely office space and the manners of a saint. He even offered us some fine whiskey from a crystal carafe as we explained the situation. I let Ralph explain the missing statue case, and the two corroborated the details. I was more interested in my own findings, as well as information concerning the Carlyle Expedition. Unfortunately, now was not the time to discuss the Magna Carta, so I resolved to meet with him privately. Also unfortunately, the gent didn't know much more about the Carlyle Expedition than we did, although he was extremely disheartened when he learned that the former head, Sir Aubrey Penhew, perished during the trip. That left Gavigan in charge, a position he stepped in quickly to fill as was his duty to his lost friend and boss.
Things went well, and the majority of us felt satisfied in having our questions answered. Gavigan even said he'd be willing to help us out however we desired, giving us another ally to our cause. I had a few more questions for the man... and that's when things took a turn for the odd.
"So, we never really explained our other reason for being here, sir," I replied. "We're looking into something else as well. Have you ever, by chance, met with a man named Jackson Elias?"
Gavigan's face was a near-mask, but I saw the change in his eyes - one of having touched on something I shouldn't have... and the little twitch in the corner of his mouth betrayed his distaste of Elias. Something about Jackson Elias rubbed this guy the wrong way, and I seized on it.
"Oh yes, once," He murmured coolly, returning to shuffling through his papers on the desk. "A bit pushy, him... He was also looking into the Carlyle Expedition, though why on earth, I haven't a clue. Why do you ask, is he a friend of yours?"
Everyone except for me corroborated that yes, he was... I said no, so I didn't burn any bridges. Clearly he disliked our friend, and I needed more information from him later. Gavigan expressed condolences when we mentioned Elias was dead, but said he had told him no more than he told us. Aside from that, the rapid chill in the room told us it was clearly time to leave, though not before Gavigan explained he was still available if we had any questions concerning artifacts or Egyptology while we were here in London. Somehow, I think he meant that statement for me, because I saw and felt the distrust he had for the others...
Call me crazy, but I think something's up with Gavigan. Something about Elias, more than just his spunky demeanor and aggressive search for information, rankled this guy. I want to know what it is, but that of course can wait for later. Right now, we have a mysterious fire and a madman to investigate...
-- Clayton Byrd, Treasure Hunter (February 12th, 1928)