CH2-10a Brichester bound

[carnage_lee]

Andy Wade

Andy nods in agreement and carries a box to the car... "We'd better clear up before we go." he says and starts to pack the tools away after the boxes that they'd just pilfered.

[ghill]

It is a matter of minutes for Andy and Albert to clear away their camouflage and stuff the stolen materials into the boot beneath a drop cloth.

[Papa Gateau]

As they finish loading up and prepare to drive Albert grins Eat your heart out Raffles. I reckon you and I deserve a quick pint, whaddya say?

[ghill]

Pint or not the two burglars eventually return to the hotel where Liz sits poring over a considerable amount of code.

OOC:   Considering the amount of thought which went into the planning, I'm happy to assume a similar approach is taken to cover tracks post job.

OOC:   OOC: Thank you Mr Handy for being so patient.

[Mr. Handy]

Liz looks up when Andy and Albert return, still typing blind on her laptop. She has done this enough that she knows where the keys are even without having to look at them. "Well done, chaps," she says. "Let's see what you found."

Spoiler:

No problem. I've been pretty busy anyway.

[ghill]

Box One
The smallest of the three boxes contains several years’ worth of correspondence, all of which has been carefully tied up with ribbon. There are several hundred letters, some of which are several sides in length. Working carefully through the letters for anything of interest is a day’s work.

Box Two
The second box is full of books .

The Quadripartite, Latin w/English translation, 464pp Ptolemy, Cambridge Press 1923

The Histories – Latin w/English translation, 448pp, Polybius, Cambridge Press 1954

Le Geographica de Strabon, 3 vols, containing Books 1-17, Strabo, translated by Beauvoir Rue de Bremoir 1908

The life and times of Ulpius Crinitus - Latin w/English translation, 640pp London Ancient Historical Societ Press (LAHSP), 1928

The History of Alexander: Bks.V-X v.2: Bks.V-X Vol 2 – Latin w/English translation, 640pp LAHSP, 1946

The History of Alexander: Bks.I-V v.1: Bks.I-V Vol 1 – Latin w/English translation, 500pp LAHSP, 1946

Anabasis of Alexander: Bks.5-7 v. 2 - Latin w/English translation, 604pp LAHSP 1933

The Complete plays of Aeschylus – 400pp Chicago University Press 1966

Baxter’s “Ancient Tribes of the Balkans – 450pp Oxford University Press, 1915.

Pliny’s Natural History – Latin w/English translation 233pp Oxford University Press, 1937

The unloaded contents of box 3

The book
Stored within a small, unadorned stoneware box itself placed within a well-made velvet lined wooden box:
A codex with four pages of what appears to be solid gold sheets - The book measures 8 centimetres in length and 4.5 centimetres in width. It is bound together by gold wire.
Each plate is covered in what appears to be text of some kind. Although the characters are indecipherable at the centre of each page is a single image: they are a horse, a boat, the sun and a knife or possibly a sword.

The Golden Femur
Wrapped within a velvet cloth and sealed within a hard leather map case:
About 20 inches in length the two ends of what looks like its abone have been carefully covered and capped the whole thing has an embossed design of a naked male with upraised arms the head however is that of a the sun or more likely a star, the whole thing is covered in flat, thin sheets of gold which have been carefully beaten around the bone.

The Coin necklace
Stored in a blue velvet lined box, the necklace consists of 18 ancient coins hanging on a heavy gold 9" chain. The coins have all been crudely struck on fragments of other coins.

The faded ceramics
Wrapped in a yellowed copy of the Times dated 12th October 1913 are three large pieces of ceramic. Two bear heavily worked painted decorations incorporating equine motifs. The third, larger, piece was also decorated, but has been defaced: At some point in time someone has scratched the same pattern of symbols into the pottery over and over again.

[Mr. Handy]

"Shiny!" says Liz when she sees the contents of the boxes. "That'll take some going through. Maybe you chaps can do that while I code. Those letters might give some clues as to what to look for in that box full of books. Right now the only one that looks relevant is the Baxter one, but once we learn more, we may get pointed towards the others."

[carnage_lee]

Andy Wade

Andy looks at the letters and books forlornly, Liz is right, they need to start sifting through their haul.

"OK then, heads you get the letters, tails I do?" he says as he fishes a coin from his pocket.

Spoiler:

carnage_lee rolled 1d2 and got a total of 2:
2

[carnage_lee]

OOC:   I guess 2 = tails ...

[ghill]

As Andy sifts through the mail it becomes clear to him that the Prof and Maria had a "thing" going on (and off) since they were at college together. Not only that but she is or was at least sympathetic to some of his stranger ideas.

[ghill]

Further analysis* of the box's contents indicates it contains several years’ worth of correspondence. There are several hundred letters, some of which are several sides in length.

Many of the letters are to Maria Demachi. The vast majority of these are personal correspondence and it is quite clear the professor and Demachi have/had a long history (on off romantic/physical). The letters cover a variety of topics mainly home and work life, they rarely talk in detail. The exception to this is the most recent letter. Where Demarchi talks about receiving the package and her hopes to continue translating the texts included in the photos (NB there are no images in any of the copies of the thesis which you have seen)

One other letter which seems out of place is from a Mr Alex Avlonyali, an Albanian fixer who Professor Gosshamm has clearly used on several occasions before. Alex’s letter is an apology for not being available to assist the Professor when he next visits the country due to the ill health of a relative. The date for this seems to be just shortly before the professor last went to Albania.

In the top of the smallest box is also a DHL invoice for the delivery of a manuscript and camera memory card to a Ms. Maria Demachi in Tirana Albania (Jacob has a photo of this invoice on his phone)

OOC:   * Its a days work to sift through the letters, but it occurs to me Andy and Albert could probably do this in an evening.

[Mr. Handy]

Spoiler:

I think she was in Tirana, not Trieste (which is in Italy).

[carnage_lee]

Andy Wade


As he sorts through the letters Andy makes separate piles one for anything 'interesting' and another for the mundane letters, the bulk of which are the letters from Maria Demachi. After hours of speed reading them he has very few letters of interest but shows the others his findings.

Looking a little glum as he discusses his findings, "No smoking gun here I'm afraid. We've got the DHL invoice, that Jacob snapped earlier and something that may prove helpful later. If we travel to Albania it might be worth contacting this Alex Avlonyali he might be able to held us and god knows we need it!" He bundles up the bulk of the letters and puts them back from the box e got them from, keeping the ones he had selected as being important to their investigation.

"We need help with these artefacts, do you think we could send photos of them to Westerlund for him to help identify?" he ask the other two.

[Mr. Handy]

"That's a thought," says Liz. "You can always say you got them from an anonymous source. Are you sure we can trust this Alex Avlonyali? We don't really know anything about him. He could lead us into a trap. I think Maria would know more about him, and she'd prolly be open to helping us finish Gosshamm's work. I think it's sweet that the two of them got together. The poor dear might not even know what has happened to him yet."

[ghill]

OOC:   The letter from Alex Avlonyali is written in a manner which leaves little doubt that he and the proffessor are a) friends (he mentions Maria and talks about his wife and kids) b) have a reasonable long history together - he talks about two previous expeditions to the North of the country.

[ghill]

OOG: The problem will be Westerlund's world view probably doesn't allow him to draw conclusions simply from looking at things. He'll look at a broach for example and if it looks Hellenistic Greek he'll say its a Hellenistic Greek broach, when proper examination might lead him to the conclusion its designed by an ancient race of sub aquatic beings.


NB None of the artefacts are designed by an ancient race of sub aquatic beings

[ghill]

Having finished the website and the spyware backend Liz "pushes it live" and is gratified when it starts to send her info of those hitting the page (initially this is simply search spiders like Google and Yahoo) While she watches events on the site she is able to Google the list of books from the other box.

1. They are all readily available from academic book specialists, they are expensive, but more modern cheaper imprints are also readily available)
2. All of them are on Gossham's course reading list.
3. They are mentioned in the bibliography of his previous papers and in the current thesis.

Reading them would take several months.

[Papa Gateau]

OOC:   A little time travel...

Let me just photograph these artefacts and I'l give you a hand with those letters Albert says.

He picks up the items and takes them across to his studio, setting them up in a light box and ensuring he captures plenty of detail of each.

About and hour later he returns to the front room You see the horse motif on the book and the ceramics - are they similar at all to our friend's tattoo he asks before sitting down and picking up a pile of letters.

[Mr. Handy]

Liz tries to remember how the horse tattoo looked. "Well, the site's up and running," she says. "We can spring the trap any time we're ready, and now I'm freed up to do some poking about online to find out about who's really behind that property company. We could also check in with the others and compare notes."

[ghill]

To the best of Liz's recollections it does indeed look very similar....it also bears a marked similarity to some of the photos of carvings Albert took at the last dig site.