TheStarsAreRight:BaileySessionApril2008

April 2008 Session: Feb 15-16, 1932

Last session

• Visited the Dark Pharoah in the afternoon
• All but Rebecca & Henrik went back to asylum
• Arranged boat to Greece, to arrive in two days (on the 17th)

Feb 15

On the morning of the 15th, John Elwar was gone -- left in the night to go back to his home in San Francisco. For a time, Carl and the others discussed his leaving and the question of making a deal with the Dark Pharoah. Redland Jack is quite concerned over this, and is not yet discouraged from trying. Rebecca and Henrik were much less sanguine about this, but did not immediately speak up.

Boris had arranged with connections of his to have the patient Laura released, and the operations are underway.

We visited the library to look up Lord Orinvale in books of the peerage. We found that he was in Athens, now quite elderly. We also researched the Answell estate, on whose grounds the asylum was. We found it was a very old family, whose estate was in the hands of the family until 1912. It passed to the government in 1921, with the family parents dead and their only heir or heirs killed in the war. The asylum was founded in 1921. The only remaining relative of the family was an elderly aunt living in Northern Scotland, Edna May Answell.

We then sent telegrams to Lord Orinvale and Edna May Answell, asking for information on the whereabouts of the former groundskeeper and friend of the Answell's Donal. We explained -- truthfully -- that his god-daughter was about to lose her means in 2 days. That evening, we received replies to the telegrams.

 From Athens, Greece  Lord Orenvale
 DONAL TRUSTED CARETAKER OF ESTATE UNTIL 1920 STOP 
 GODDAUGHTER LIVED LOCALLY LAST I KNEW STOP 
 DONAL LAST KNOWN TO LIVE NOT FAR FROM PENZANCE STOP
 MOST LOCALS KNOW HIM STOP 
 HOPE THIS IS HELPFUL END

Asking the innkeeper, we learned that Donal was indeed a known local, whose house is 2-3 miles north of town. We went there at night in a rented car, and found the house empty, abandoned for around one year. There were no signs of violence or abrupt departure except a big stain on the stone wall of the bedroom. There was no sign of a struggle, but Boris suggested it was from a person presumably being killed. Boris found the psychic residue of a non-human that regularly came to the house -- the last time being a few weeks earlier. He said it felt like Theo's two servants -- outsiders that often appear as large black dogs.

Feb 16

The next morning, we went to talk to the local vicar, Thomas Goldfield, to learn more about Donal and his god-daughter. He said that Donal's god-daughter was a Lydia Strickly, age 16-17 and currently at a boarding school in Switzerland. Mark Strickly, her father, was a well-to-do man in London and good friends with Donal. Mary Kate, her mother, was a local girl.

Henrik and Rebecca took the afternoon train to London to visit Mr. Strickly. They checked into a hotel (in two rooms), and visited Mr. Strickly's house, Henrik giving his card. As they prepared to meet, Rebecca offered to use her emotion-manipulating power to make him friendly and open to them. Henrik agreed that it would be best. Strickly turned out to be a gray-haired industrialist and opened up immediately under Rebecca's power. He said that Donal had been in New York for the last two months, working for a corporation called "Penthius". The corporation was searching for a scientific solution for the impending apocalypse, based on containing the incursions of outsiders while allowing them to feed on humans in limited quantities. Penthius is in the phase of setting up a laboratory and starting "field trials". Strickly was looking for importing their methods to a similar setup in England, if they were successful. Henrik got an address in New York for Donal. Strickly, though, said that Donal had a "one track mind" -- that track being "to learn what he can about controlling these things". Henrik described some about the French and Spanish groups and their methods, showing Strickly the life weapon he had been given -- which Strickly was interested but unsurprised by.

Meanwhile, back in Penzance, the others had arranged for dowsing on the objects they had. Laura's few objects of her godfather traced back to Donal in New York. The letters, however, traced back to a non-living person. The stain on the wall of Donal's house traced back to a different partially-dead person.

Henrik and Rebecca took their leave of Strickly, still quite friendly. They went back to the hotel, and reported to Carl and the others via mental radio. Henrik wanted to have some sort of communication with Penthius immediately, but Carl said that this should be put off until they knew more.