[Scene II] The second killing...

[Dave Syrinx]

Grimes physically moves Fitzgerald along. "You'll have to tell the constables all this. Thank you for cooperating."
To the crowd he says with his copper's voice. "Nothing to worry about. Detective Grimes. Carry on!"

[Mr. Handy]

"It'll be all right," says Amanda as she leaves with the others, though it isn't clear whether she's trying to convince Barnaby Fitzgerald or herself.

OOC,Where do I record my spends? If you want me to edit the character sheet I could, but most players don't have the power to do that since it's your post.

[Airbornexo]

OOC:   Note - I'll keep track of spends. I'm in the process of setting up a spreadsheet. I've moved the action on, we don't need to see Fitzgerald being handed over to the police at the apartment. Onto the Isle of Dogs...

The Isle of Dogs
London - 27th November 1932

The odious Fitzgerald safely secured with London's finest, Grimes was happy to whisk the companions the short distance throught the rain-soaked streets to the Isle of Dogs. This wasn't an area that any of them frequented often, its reputation preceded it though: It was a stagnant area. Thirty years ago when dock workers settled on the "island" it was thriving. As the docks grew in importance, by the turn of the century, over twenty thousand people lived here; largely dependent on the river trade on the Isle as well as in Greenwich and Deptford across the river to the south and west. The closing of the only railway line into the area six years ago had started the slide into decay and people had drifted away from the area.

The large shabby tenement looms over the road fully five storeys high. Grimes pulls over where a police constable, clearly waiting for them waves them to a parking space behind Dr. Guinn's small car. Everyone in London knew these desperate buildings, for desperate people. Rooms here are offered for rent by the week, at rates that reflect the run-down state of both the building and the neighbourhood. Whole families are crammed into these tiny, filthy rooms; the plumbing never works and there’s a worrying, ever-present smell of gas.

Grimes switches the engine off and suddenly the only sound is the gentle hiss of the rain on the metal car roof...

[Priest]

Millicent Peers through the cars window at the benighted gloom of the area. The very air smells of poverty and desperation Thank God for cigarettes, she thinks as she lights another.
She smiles at Grimes' reflection in the rear mirror, and in a voice dripping with sarcasm quips, "Oh my dear Inspector Grimes, you do know how to show a gal a good time"

She opens the car door and slides one leg out, "So what connection to the murder of Hornley will we find here?"

[Dave Syrinx]

Grimes pushes the wireless igniter of the Ford and pulls out a cigarette of his own from a tin box in his coat pocket. He puts it in the corner of his mouth as the mechanism ejects the bolt igniter. He lights the stick and pushes the bolt back in the jack. He glares at the legs. "'bit chilly, I guess."

He exits the car and opens the car properly for Millicent. "I expect to find that out when we enter the locale. If I have to guess, I'd wager this one also had ties to academia. We all kmow what odd types they are - male authors that is."

He smiles and waits.

[Tabs]

Felix opens the other car door for Amanda. He listens to Grimes brief description and tries to prepare himself for what he may see. "Miss Somerville, stay well back when we go inside," he warns.

[Airbornexo]

Constable Avery, a solid sort in a dripping rain poncho, walks over to the group, from the doorway of number 12, Hesperus Crescent. "I'm glad you've arrived sir. The Doctor's been in there for about half an hour sir, begging your pardon. Adam...sorry Constable Albrighton has taken a brief statement from the landlord who called us in, we had to break down the door and we found a man dead. He's been in there for a few days judging by the smell sir and his face was cut up pretty badly." He gives Grimes a knowing look suggesting its worse than present company is allowing him to discuss.

He leads the party up to a landing on the top floor. Rain drips through leaks in the roof and the carpet exudes a mouldering smell. The paper is yellowed and peeling from the walls and the whole building practically screams decrepitude.

Outside room 56, Constable Allbrighton is blocking the door to the apartment. Standing with him is the landlord:



The Constable introduces the heavy-set landlord, as Mr. Theo Fletcher. Constable Avery leaves Allbrighton upstairs and heads back to the street to await the coroner's vehicle. From inside the room a familiar voice calls out, "Is that Grimes? About time man, get in here and have a look!" A few people a peeping from the half-closed doors trying to see what is going on...

[Dave Syrinx]

"This is my third stop tonight, Avery. And I guess it's not my last. We are all out of our elements constable." Grimes shakes the constables hand and hurries inside. "Pretty bad. Eyes missing, right? Broken neck. That should fit the M.O. of the killer from our previous site. Guess SI Atherton was on top of this one, linking them together." He stops to reassure himself. "Eyes...neck?"

Grimes ponders on the poor living conditions of the tenants and comes all the way up to room 56. "Grimes.."

he says and looks at the door. "Was it locked? Did he lock himself in and offed himself?" Somehow Grimes had not expected the apartments to have locks. They barely had walls.

"Fill me in Allbrighton."

"I brought a small entourage to get fresh eyes on the living conditions at the Dogs. It eases the tension of those grizzly slayings as well. Any witnesses to whatever passed here?" He keeps the voice low and to the key, trying to sound all matter of factly - trying to convey the idea that this is making their jobs easier and less dirty. "Unless you want to assist me Adam?"

"Does all apartments have locks?" He directs the question to Fletcher.

[Mr. Handy]

"Thank you," says Amanda to Felix as she steps outside, looking around. She stays behind him when they go inside, following his advice. She can't help noticing the contrast with her own lovely building. "My, what a dreadful place. Ordinarily I wouldn't be caught dead here." Her cheeks suddenly turn the same color as her hair when she realizes what she just said. "Er...I mean..."

[Tabs]

Grimes ponders on the poor living conditions of the tenants and comes all the way up to room 56. "Grimes.."

"Exactly," replies Felix, echoing the consensus of everyone.

Her cheeks suddenly turn the same color as her hair when she realizes what she just said. "Er...I mean..."

"I understand, Miss Somerville," he says, "there is no need to explain. At the very best of times this is 'a dreadful place,' as you said."

Felix stands behind Grimes as he addresses Fletcher. Felix fiddles with his Kodak and tries to look like the official police photographer.

[Airbornexo]

The manager, Fletcher, puffs up with pride at being addressed first at the scene. "Yes guv, all my apartments have the latest in Yale's locking mechanisms, which lock as you pull them closed. Lot of ner-do-wells around 'ere and my tenants like to feel safe." He shakes his head wearily, "That room was rented out to one Edmund Grobbam who arrived two weeks ago, give or take a day."

I knew I was going to pay for letting Grobbam have a room here, but he could pay upfront. Despite myself I found I quite liked him, charming fellow even though he smelled of trouble. Strange how that was what led me up here! A neighbour noticed the smell of 'im rotting in Room 56."

The call from inside is more impatient this time as Dr. Howard Guinn appears in the doorway."Grimes, I haven't got all nig....oh....I see you still have your entourage in tow. Giving them a taste of our fair cities' sordid underbelly are we detective."

He doesn't appear especially phased by the company once again and quickly reels off the facts. "Like our estwhile Hector Hornley, Edmund Grobbam over there, has had his eyes gouged out and his throat cut. To be more accurate than the good landlord, I would happily suggest that it has been four days since he was killed due to the advancement of decomposition, hence the smell which you might have noticed!" He grins at the assembled group, "not to pleasant is it?"

"The weapon in both cases of injury was a pocket knife that’s been stuffed back into Grobbam's trouser pocket. He also has a bullet wound in his side, where a shot grazed his ribs. Now interestingly that bullet injury is at least a week old. Seems like our Grobbam was used to being in violent conflicts. He has several smaller cuts and scrapes on his palms and knees, implying he was involved in a scuffle or chase."

[Dave Syrinx]

Grimes silently looks at the crime scene watching for footmarks indicating the size of the attacker. He merely hums. He walks around the room, half expecting to find a book - or something pointing at the book store, or university angle. "As I estimated. This is the primary murder. But could this brutish man enjoy a good book as did the young Hornley?" He checks the pockets of Crobbam and uses a handkerchief to pull out the knife.

"Prints on this maybe? Take mr Crobbam's as well." Again the detective talks to the room rather than to someone specific. As if thinking out loud.

"Whoever visited those two gents really made use of weapons of opportunity. China shards and a small knife. This points at a crime of passion of sorts. Not premeditated."

[Mr. Handy]

"But he's done it twice," says Amanda. "That we know of, anyway. And he's liable to do it again. He doesn't seem to have planned things out, so perhaps he feels some sort of compulsion to kill. On the other hand, what if he did plan it this way? He could have deliberately used his victims' possessions to kill them instead of his own in order to make it harder to trace back to him, or to make a sort of statement." She pauses. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to tell you how to do your job. Just thinking out loud."

[Priest]

Previously Fletcher said:   "I knew I was going to pay for letting Grobbam have a room here, but he could pay upfront. Despite myself I found I quite liked him, charming fellow even though he smelled of trouble."

Millicent turns to the manager, "May I ask why you thought that? And what trouble did he 'smell of'?"

[Airbornexo]

As Grimes talks to the doctor, Fletcher turns to answer Millicent's question: "You get a sense of people, living down 'ere in the rougher end of town. When I bought this building 30 years ago, it was a thriving place. Then they ripped out the railway line, the 'eart and soul of the trade down here. Things have been going downhill here ever since."

"I don't know what Grobbam was mixed up in, but if I had to guess? Then I'd say 'e was a petty criminal of some manner. Not violent, mind you, very mild mannered gent was Edmund. That's what convinced me to give 'im a room, well...that and the money. Everyone deserves a second chance; and down on the Isle, some need a third or fourth chance if you catch my drift!"

[Tabs]

Felix takes some snaps of the scene whilst listening to the conversation.

OOC:   Airbornexo, Evidence Collection?

[Airbornexo]

Felix looks quickly around the room as Grimes talks with the Doctor. Room 56 has a single unmade bed with what looks like two large suitcases or valises tucked underneath, a little gas cooker with several cans of beans, a saucepan with a thick crust of burnt beans, several plates covered in the remains of beans and a body. The newish looking Yale lock is handing from the frame of the door where Allbrighton's size 12s have kicked the door open as several splinters of wood attest!

OOC:   San roll please Felix as the state of the corpse is worse than at the previous scene - 4+ normal difficulty check (1 point loss so little point spending here)

[Dave Syrinx]

At Amanda's theory, Grimes says, "You have a point there. It's one possibility. We have to compare prints from both crime scenes." Grimes checks the room for a sink or somewhere the attacker could have cleaned himself off after the deed.

[Tabs]

OOC:   Sanity loss vs. Grobbam's corpse (1d6=4)

It's another bad one, the condition of Grobbam gives Felix a moment's pause, but he ins't too shocked. He kneels down to examine the suitcases.

[Airbornexo]

Grimes pokes around at the small sink and hits pay-dirt when he spots a waste-bin underneath near some crusted pipework. Inside the bin there are several blood-soaked bandages, and several sheets of paper that have been torn into ad-hoc bandages. These are also encrusted with dried blood. On top are a few scraps of paper, which can be pieced together into a torn bookplate:



Felix pulls out the two cases that are both stacked under the bed. He plonks them unceremoniously onto the bed and pops the catches open. The first contains a selection of cheap suits and underwear.

The other, however, is more interesting, containing the following items:

• • One well-tailored and expensive suit, with matching shirt and shoes.
  
  • A set of knives, lockpicks and safecracking tools, as would be used by a professional burglar in Felix's opinion.
  
  • A folded street map of Oxford, England.
  
  • A book called 'Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New England Canaan', the information inside indicates it is an 1801 printing, with a bookplate marking it as belonging to the Dagworth Library of Oxford.
  
  • A second book 'De Vermiis Mysteriis'. The first page of this book has been scraped with a knife...