Any Given Sunday (IC Day 2)

[Seon]

"Walked, yes," Laura said.

"But it's not often that you run into yourself while walking now, is there?"

[Quinch]

Luke watches Laura for a few seconds and then shakes his head.

"Look, I don't mind going somewhere dangerous but if you know something that's going to help me, why don't you just spill it so we can all get on with what we're supposed to be doing? You're giving me half the information and it's starting to wind me up. Just start from the beginning, tell me what I need to know, and cut the rest of the crap out. We're against the clock here."

[Seon]

"The man headed for the centre of Seven Dials," Laura explained. "But he followed a path which, instead of going directly towards it, spiralled around and around without ever crossing his own tracks. As we passed by a street that he followed before, I saw him again in the previous path, with me following him."

Laura shook her head. "It... I don't know how that could possibly happen... or how he could move like that. I suppose that if you put his movements on a map, they would resemble the Troy Game."

[Taavi]

Click here if you have The Knowledge,The Troy Game is a hopscotch-like game played by London kids. An elaborate spiral is drawn on the ground and divided into squares, children toss stones or tokens onto it and have to hop from edge to centre and back again. The spiral looks a bit like this: [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Labyrinth_2_%28from_Nordisk_familjebok%29.png[/img]

Click here if you have History or Archaeology,The Troy Game is an ancient and largely lost British tradition based upon racing around the traditional turf mazes called Troy-Towns to reach a prize (or girl) at the centre. W.H. Mathews' 1922 book [i]Mazes and Labyrinths[/i] devotes a chapter to it, which you can consult on the bookshop shelf [url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/ml/ml21.htm]here[/url].

Click here if you have Occult as well as one of the above,Such Labyrinths are often used as meditative tools to reach higher states of consciousness, and are connected to Magic Squares in symbolic practice.

[Bookman]

Harwood looks up suddenly,

Did you say Glen Coe Father? Our mysterious Spaniard is one Don Alejandro Glencoe de Unamondo. He's a strange one. Scottish descent, his family were old-fashioned Scottish Catholics, not unlike our Friar, who ended up in Spain. He is proper old money with a serious interest in mysticism. Does printings of all sorts of people from Teresa's Cloud to Priscillian's alchemy. Weirdly for a seeming Catholic hardliner he sails a little close to the wind, heresy-wise. He has done some of Sansire's work for instance. I find it interesting, and seriously worrying, the parallels between his interests and background and the last crumbling vestiges of the Cor family Wellington was drinking with. I wonder, given the connections and given what happened to Laura, if he is our mysterious adversary. He seems to believe that he can end the problems in Spain by some sort of religious renewal, that might well explain his interest in whatever it was Irving was writing about in Alhambra.

He breaks off suddenly, takes the Burton back from Carse and walks over the counter. He runs his finger down Mr Grant's notes.

I thought so, bloody...look at that. He opens the Burton to the The City of Labtayt.

Notes on the City by our mysterious doctor. Notes in the Irving on Labtayt - the A Glencoe translation.

That cannot be coincidence. What is it about this story which links a fallen-from-grace doctor with a fascination for distillation and a family history of treasure hunting with ghosts, with a scholar with a mystical mission in Spain and an obsession with other people's writing on his manor? What is in South London that they wanted? What did they do to Wellington? Is the Don a representative of this 'Hidden Pope'?

He sniffs with slight laughter,

Is he the current Hidden Pope? Is he avenging his family? Retrieving his property? Is he punishing those who failed? If so we better find that last Cor before he does.

Actually, what links the Irving to the current Spanish unrest. We've got a mystic who wants to end the conflict. We have a strange note in German, and we know they are pushing themselves in over there. Given the Contessa's links to right wing elements, and her interest in alchemy as well...throw in our own home-grown lot and you have a lot of people who might have a vested interest in seeing the outcome over there go their way. What the Hell is in this manuscript that makes it political?

The City is about a treasure house isn't it? Some tower in Andalusia with twenty-four locks, it gets raided by Arabs or something like that. What the Hell is in that tower they all want?

You mentioned grave robbery didn't you Father? I might just look up an old friend...

[Quinch]

"It sounds like they drugged you Laura," says Luke, not without sympathy. "There's loads of things they could've used to make you forget what really happened. Best you stay here and recover. I'll go and try and track down this Spaniard. It won't be the first time I've shadowed someone."

With that, Luke briefly nips upstairs to collect a couple of things and then heads off for Seven Dials Square.

[WinstonP]

That's a damned odd coincidence, you lot being hired for this auction and your chum Wellington finding that book. While I hold great stock in Serendipity... Lovely girl, dancer just before the war... I don't have nearly the same faith in blind chance.

Seems like we have some leads on this doctor, though. Any thoughts as to your next step? I can't say this isn't a most intriguing puzzle... Could I be of further assistance?

[Seon]

"He went into a hotel with a sign showing a blind man holding an unlit lantern. One which I never saw before," Laura said. "It's at the square."

[Bookman]

Good to have you aboard Father. I suppose we need to find this doctor don't we. Perhaps we could run 'P Cor' through the year books of the College of Physicians or Surgeons see if we can find him from that?

I think you said you remembered the name of this Friar from your archive? Anything there that might help us?

[andyw666]

The Bookshop:

An ominous silence settles on those remaining in the bookshop as they potter, ponder, research or worry, as their inclinations dictate. Suddenly and without warning, the air is split by a terrible, ungodly clanging that shatters frayed nerves. Tea cups are jolted, books are clutched tighter, while eyes and ears search for the source.

No wait, it's the bookshop telephone ringing.

Would anyone care to answer it?

[AndrewTBP]

“Hello! Grant's Military Bookshop. Mr Grant speaking. To whom am I speaking?”

[andyw666]

Jory:

The distinctive sound of a penny dropping into a public telephone can be heard, then a cheery voices pipes up. "What ho Old Bean! Just me."

"Now, I've got two bits of intelligence to pass on, but I have taken the sacred vow of silence regarding the provenance of my gossip, so Mum's the word, what? Firstly, this doctor chappie who was selling the books to poor late Wellington, he's from Kings College Hospital, where I shall be journeying to next."

"For my second piece of intelligence, could I trouble you to get a piece of paper and a pen or pencil? I have something for you to write down."

Jory will wait patiently for Grant.

[AndrewTBP]

“Ah! Hello Captain Penhalligon. Kings College Hospital, yes. Just a moment. I’ll have to put the telephone down.”

Grant fetches a pencil and paper from the office desk drawer.

“Hello, Captain Penhalligon? Go ahead, please.”

[Bookman]

Harwood has a brief moment of shocked silence, before remembering where he is. When he sees Mr Grant head for the telephone he returns to the books. After a moment perusing Mr Grant's notes he looks up at the Reverend.

Here's another odd connection. There's a footnote by Burton under Iram for the City of Brass. Now if I recall correctly that has fishermen catching brass bottles in which Solomon had sealed up evil spirits – Jinn, Mareeds and Satans – using lead to stop their mouths. Now, sealing up spirits in bottles is a great start as it is, but lead? Lead, used of course for pendulums, pendulum coming from plumbus for...lead. Lead being used for plumb lines similarly, and, as I've no doubt any duty officer will remember, leading to cases of plumbus oscillans just before busy days. That is of course, swinging the lead - from dangling plumb lines to make walls look straight.

He shakes his head.

Sorry, digression, the point being that here, from the notes on the Irving, 'plombos'. I will bet that is derived from the Latin root, and I'll bet no one here would take the bet if I wagered it was Spanish. What if the source is not a person or an archive or similar but rather a pendulum?

[andyw666]

“Ah! Hello Captain Penhalligon. Kings College Hospital, yes. Just a moment. I’ll have to put the telephone down.”

Grant fetches a pencil and paper from the office desk drawer.

“Hello, Captain Penhalligon? Go ahead, please.”

Jory:

Jory sounds like Grant's calm tone is helping calm him too, no doubt a good thing.

"My source, a rather tragic, down and out type, tells me that a while ago, he was - quote - dragged off the street by a policeman, and thought he was for the clink, but instead he was hustled into "a posh joint" where a bunch of toffs pushed whiskey upon him until he passed out drunk"

"Since then, this poor chap has been having odd dreams of the ocean, distant islands, far cities and whatnot. Odder still, he wrote this poem in his sleep. Let me read it to you."

"Far from the ocean's starry sky,
Up from my grave where I did lie
Imp in a bottle, Gray out of hell
Thrall or Thrawn will not bend my will,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter returned from Hell."

"Now, obviously, that's some mangled version of Stevenson, but I recall reading that Bottle Imp story as a kiddie and it fair gave me the willies then. Worries me a darn sight more given what Harwood was babbling on about today, what?"

"And, salt of the Earth he may be possibly, but it would be fair to guess my source has never written poetry before in his life, awake or asleep. Possibly never read any Robert Louis Stevenson either."

[andyw666]

Jory:

Jory pauses for a minute to gather his thoughts. Grant hears sounds of a cigarette being smoked.

"Sounds like the poem has had a bit of The Bottle Imp thrown in, as well as Stevenson's other horror stories Thrawn Janet and The Body Snatchers. Not that I'm the expert Old Boy. Rather preferred Kidnapped for personal reading."

"I shall leave it to you boffins to contemplate that one."

[AndrewTBP]

Grant puts the pencil behind his ear and picks up the candlestick to talk.

“I think I got all that, Penhalligon. Take care at the hospital.”

[andyw666]

Jory:

"Don't worry about me Old Boy, not planning on taking any chances! Good news though is if anything does go wrong, I shall be in the right place to get some first aid, what!"

"I'll leave you to ponder with the others what that poem is all about, if anything. Cheerio!"

And Jory hangs up.

[AndrewTBP]

“Goodbye, Penhalligon.”

Grant hangs up the telephone and rejoins the others in the shop, pencil still behind his ear.

“That was Captain Penhalligon. He told me …”

OOC,i'm not rewriting all that a third time. :) If this was a TV show, there'd be a cut here.

[andyw666]

Next Plan For Jory,[b]Jory's [/b]plan now is to public transport his way to Kings College Hospital by the fastest possible route. [b]Jory [/b]will, if possible, use [i]The Knowledge[/i] to gain an insight into the layout and various entrances to said hospital, back doors, unusual geographical or architectural features etc. If he can, [b]Jory [/b]will spend a pt of [i]The Knowledge[/i] on this. [b]Jory [/b]does not want to go into the hospital yet, he wants to have a bit of a scout about outside first.