The Investigation Begins

Air Date: 02 Oct 2010
Present: Kim, Maer, Andy, and Jim

August 15, 1867, Thursday
Lady Katherine’s Townhouse, Dorset Square
London, England
Afternoon

Beignet takes Josephine aside and tells her that it is not seemly for her to be a personal Ladies’ maid, not when Flora Spencer is already present to fill that position. Josephine, in short, is not high enough in class or station to fill that role. Therefore he has already arranged for Josephine to be the Head Housekeeper, on Col. Fleming’s payroll, during the times she is residing in London prior to the job on the Continent. Does she understand the necessity for this? Josephine internally bridles at the man’s stuffy manner and the perceived high-handedness of the change but calmly agrees.

Satisfied, he details Abegail, the now-demoted Head Housekeeper, to train Josephine to the task. Abegail lets her displeasure be known by starting Josephine off on the most distasteful, messy, and smelly jobs possible. Josephine does everything without complaint.

However, before her training can begin, Josephine leaves with Katherine and Beignet and Ezekiel to the laboratory of Mde. Dashwood. It’s in the warehouse section of London, south and east of Deptford. We enter and hear a whirring noise and going up the stairs to the lab, we encounter a winged creature. About the size of a smallish child’s doll, it is vaguely female in shape with leathery wings, red hair, and surprisingly Eldren features. Those in the party with guns shoot at it, those with blades cut at it. We end up bringing it down and Ezekiel carries it up to the lab and puts it in a jar of preservative liquid.

The lab is a combination laboratory and living space. It is tall and cavernous, as is the style of the day, and there is more than enough room for a pen of animals to be kept there. They get somewhat noise upon our arrival, obviously hungry and in need of care and Katherine is immediately drawn to the poor things. She finds out that just about all of them have been altered in some way. Here is a bunny with cat ears, there a Weimeraner-coated horse. Birds, a cow, other animals are similarly altered. Beignet is horrified and outraged and demands they be immediately destroyed when Katherine suggests we take them back to her townhouse for care. Katherine insists on taking them. Beignet refuses. It looks like a fight is brewing and Josephine steps into the middle of it saying that we will do no such thing: the creatures are evidence in an investigation and must be taken in by the proper authorities, there to be taken care of according to the needs of the animals and the evidentiary process. This mollifies both sides of the argument and Katherine and Ezekiel busy themselves with feeding and watering the menagerie. Ezekiel further reinforces the injunction against taking the animals home, citing the logical reason that we are imply not equipped to care for them properly. The animals are appreciative and quite tame, obviously domesticated and accustomed to contact with people.

Meanwhile Beignet and Josephine go over the lab and the living quarters for any clue as to Dashwood’s or Rembecki’s whereabouts on the Continent. Josephine finds several crates, obviously old and in differing states of having been broken into, spilling excelsior to the floor. One crate has the name Sir William Dashwood printed on the side and inside there are many old books.

One of them sports the title in German: UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN KULTEN. Translated, it means “Unspeakable Cults”, in the manner of those cults of which nothing should be spoken. There is an inscription inside the book: “To Sir William, Thanks for your assistance. Frederic von J.”

Josephine also finds many legal papers in which it appears Dashwood is attempting to have her missing father declared dead so as to finally inherit his estate. No success seems to have been made in that endeavor but Josephine cleans Dashwood’s desk of all relevant papers for study later.

There being little else they can do here and much that is time sensitive, Josephine and the others bundle up as much of the relevant items together to one side and take what is easily transportable with them. Some of which involves getting the cabbie waiting outside for us to port it down the stairs and onto the roof of his vehicle. Josephine writes a detailed list of everything left behind that should be claimed for the investigation and climbs into the cab with her compatriots.

They ride straightaway to Bow Street and the Magistrate’s office and are met by Philip again. Josephine quickly explains the situation and drafts him to unload the cab and gives him the list with the express instructions to give it to Sir John. Philip supervises the unloading and Inspector Williams is assigned to take over the scene at the warehouse.

We get back to Katherine’s to plan what we will do next. Beignet decides we need to take our thaumaturgical findings to his old professor, Throckmorton, at Oxford. Also, Selene Dashwood’s old professor of Biological Thaumaturgy at Oxford might be able to shed some light on her and her background. We pack the jar with the creature into a picnic hamper, bundle up the book, and board a train soon thereafter for Oxford.

Josephine spends the hour-plus train ride reading the book. It’s written in German and in Latin. Josephine reads the German portion of the book and the first half covers various religious cults in various parts of the world, a veritable global survey of the weird: Thugee Cults, Leopard Cults, seriously weird stuff and hints of the Dark Arts. Reading the book gives her a tremendous headache and Josephine has to set it aside, pained, before she can get more than halfway through it. Unbeknownst to her, the book is inimical to those with any sort of magical talent, especially of the Channeling sort. Had she been a Channeler, the book would have drained her of her sanity the longer she read it. Her innate inability to use magic saved her and she comes away only with a fierce headache.

Katherine is in the compartment with her and seeing her friend’s pained look, asks her whatever is the matter. Is it the book? Josephine, mindful of Katherine’s innocence and curiosity, tells her only that the book is truly horrid and it would be best to leave it unread. Katherine orders tea and has the men join them to discuss the book. The magically talented of the group ascertain that those who are sensitive to magic should not touch the book at all. Ironically, Josephine is the only one of the party who could have handled and read the book without coming to lasting harm. Josephine wraps the book in a fine unused linen napkin to avoid touching it and locks it up in her valise for the rest of the trip.

The night train pulls into Oxford and we alight to visit the people on our list.

We visit Miss Dashwood’s teacher first. Sir Winslow Moresly; senior lecturer of Thaumaturgy is able to see us. We settle and ask him what he knows of Miss Dashwood and he tells us a few things. Selene Dashwood was working with the Frenchman Anton Moreau. She has a Doctorate in Biological Thaumaturgy (Esoteric Thaumaturgy). Hearing this and taking into account her parentage and her state as a beastperson, Beignet believes Miss Dashwood is going to be used to host her grandfather’s shade via Necromancy.

Could Sir Winslow help us with the evidence we found in her loft? We give Morsely the slides. We tell him of the animals we found in her loft, how they were amalgamations of different types. Moresly tells us that yes, she was studying the process by which they came to be. We found them alive? Yes, we did. Moresly mentions Moreau’s work briefly in contrast to Selene Dashwood’s research. She was studying Hedgemagic associated with Midwifery. We show him the drawing of the red and white sunbursts. She wasn’t able to make the things live for more than a few hours, Moresly tells us.

Then we show him the creature in the jar.

Moresly tells us that he knows of Rembecki, that she is a Thaumaturgist of East Europe, involved with the Austrians before the War. Josephine shows Moresly the chalkboard notes. Ah yes! “It’s from the nucleus of cells undergoing mitosis,” Moresly tells us. He tells us other things as well. For instance there is an Eldren Midwife spell to ensure all children are male or female, fixing characteristics magically at inception.

“That’s wrong,” Ezekiel asserts. “Meddling with the work of the Host …”

Miss Dashwood, it seems, is doomed to suffer for her family’s past crimes as Diablerists. In fact, there is material on the Dashwood family in the Library hear. We should inquire at the Bodleian.

Beignet suggests that Selene Dashwood was drawn to her studies due to her own physical nature. Her father and everyone before her were human and yet, she herself is a cat woman. How is that possible? Her value to Rembecki is her association with the Dashwood studies and her Doctorate in Thaumaturgy.

Katherine asks after the Estate Selene Dashwood wanted—was there more to it than just an Estate? Yes, there was. It’s a title, a Baronetcy and income from the land. It’s West Wycombe, west of London, a crossrowad near Deacon’s Bottom and Pittington. Where are her father’s and Grandfather Francis’s effects stored? At the estate, which alas, has burned down.

Damn.

We thank Sir Winslow for his time and help and the group splits up: Katherine and Josephine are escorted by one of Moresly’s grad students to the Bodleian to research the Dashwood family. Meanwhile Beignet and Ezekiel will take the book and the creature to Throckmorton, Beignet’s old professor.

Throckmorton is able to see us and he perks up when the men show him the creature in the jar. He interrogates it quite unmercifully as to Rembecki’s location and when it proves recalcitrant, Throckmorton suggests to Ezekiel that with some of his blood, touched by the Host that he is, he might be able to weave a spell to force the creature to give up its secrets regarding Rembecki. It would be a spell he would have to do after night fell. He will tell us the results come morning. Ezekiel agrees to the risk and gives up some of his blood to the cause.

We show him the book. Throckmorton’s eyes go wide. He strokes it and doesn’t quite open it. We tell him of the inscription and he tells us that it must have been shortly after writing the book that Von J. committed suicide. Of Rembecki, he had more to tell. Rembecki, he says, is no Hedgewitch. She’s powerful and has a cabal of mages with her. She is Hungarian, has an estate in Hungary, and her husband was Bavarian. We tell him of Beignet’s idea that Selene was kidnapped to be sacrificed, to bring back Francis Dashwood. Why Francis? Throckmorton asks. He’s not a good one to being back. Well, we ask in turn, if he’s not a good one to bring back, then who is?

Not sure. And good luck finding out from the German Thaumaturgists. They are a very cliquish lot against outsiders. Where can they be found, we ask? Beignet offers the fact that Lake Bled was mentioned in our investigation and Throckmorton asserts that yes, that sounds like a place they’d be.

What about the creature in the jar? Throckmorton interrogates the creature again for Rembecki’s last orders to it. At the end of the session, Throckmorton says this one is a little odd. How so?

First, the creature is cute, after a fashion. Why? Well, perhaps it has to do with the second odd thing about it—it seduces people. With that in mind, it was rather easy to capture and that in itself is odd. Normally a demon of the 3rd Pale would put up a fight or try to illusion you into its clutches. Yet, it did neither when we captured it.

Throckmorton is much taken by the book we’ve brought and throughout the interview he can’t seem to put it down, is constantly touching it. He can hear it calling to him, but he is also a habitual drunkard and his drunken state protects him from its inimical effects. So long as he keeps drinking—and he is unlikely to stop—he should be safe keeping the book. We leave it with him. He reassures us he will do the spell after dark and cable the results to us in London.

Beignet and Ezekiel make their way to the Bodleian and gather up Josephine and Katherine from their research. The women have discovered a few things, among them that Sir Francis Dashwood achieved his money first and was friends with Pitt the Elder. Dashwood came into his money via slave trading and rum—the Triangle Trade of Africa and the Carribean.

There wasn’t much more to be found on the Dashwoods and the hour is getting late. We need to catch the train back to London and prepare for our journey to the Continent. We board the train to London in time and find a card waiting for us from Sir John Fielding when we return to Katherine’s townhouse. In it are instructions: when we get to Paris, we are to go to the Trumpshaw’s there and ask for Arthur MacEwan. We are to ask to see the Special Collection.

A private note has also been left for Josephine: When she arrives in Paris, go to Trumpshaw's alone and ask to see the Special Collection. Someone will be there to speak to her privately.

We make some last minute ticket purchases for the boat train to Dover and thence to France. Flora makes ready to go with Katherine and Josephine as one party, with Beignet to act as chaperone. Bertie and Ezekiel will follow as a separately booked party, accompanied by their manservants. It is the only way Beignet will countenance our departure from English soil and is the best way—by his lights—to avoid scandal.

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