Interlude for a Funeral
Archdeacon Abbott decided that George should stay at Lambeth Palace so that he would not be attacked again and that they would go and find out about Lady Patience’s death the following day.
Monday 10th February 1873
Archdeacon Abbott and George Smythington went and found Captain Edington and told him of the events that had transpired yesterday. Captain Edington did not fully believe what the Archdeacon told him, but accepted that there may be some cult involved in these events. The Archdeacon asked if the Captain had a tattoo who confirmed that he did and told him it was shaped like a bird, but it was just an oddly shaped birthmark.
The group travelled to Lord and Lady Patience’s house where they found a constable guarding the half remains of her coach. The back half of the coach has been blown away and a rope erected around it. The chatty constable said that there had been a bomb under the coach that blew Lady Patience up. When asked he said that her body had been taken to the morgue in Kensington. Captain Edington asked that inspector Kenway be told about this case.
Captain Edington was worried that a bomb would only have a limited fuse and wondered how they could get it on the coach in such a short time. Checking around (whilst they distracted the policeman) they found no evidence of glass and bits of shattered metal around the coach. Capatin Edington decided that it probably was an explosive but worried how they could get the timer to work.
As they were looking around a coach drew up. The coach driver came round an escorted a young blond haired woman with a white stick out of the coach. The group followed her into the house hoping to talk to Lord Patience. The butler welcomed Lady Lamont (who is Lady Patience’s sister) and the group introduced themselves to her expressing sympathy for her loss. The butler said that it was a tragedy and that the coachman Kenneth was now in hospital at the Kensington and Chelsea. She was apparently heading to meet the lawyers in the East End to discuss the purchase of the slums for redevlopment into affordable housing.
The group headed to the morgue where they found Inspector Kenway. He warned them of the condition of the body before they viewed it. Lady Patience’s local vicar was there saying last rites and then he headed off to talk with Lord Patience about the funeral arrangements. The entire top half of her boady had been blown to bits, with only her lower half in a fit state. This indicated to Captain Edington that the bomb had been above her. The Archdeacon checked for a blue woad tattoo but could not see one. Whilst Captain Edington took the Inspector aside, warning him of a strange cult that may be involved in Lady Patience’s murder, Archdeacon Abbott checked the underside of her body. He found no woad tattooes there either.
The group decided to get Annie who was at university and wearing trousers. She came with them as they headed to the hospital to see the coachman. Kenneth Huddlestone was waking up as they got there and had burns all down his back. He told them that Lady Patience was heading to the East End but had asked him to wait whilst a shawl was brought out for her. After about 3 minutes he felt the coach shake a bit, then 30 seconds later he was hit by a blast
The group decided to see the lawyers Smeadly. Smeadly and Smeade but had to make an appointment for later in the day. After a nice lunch on the Archdeacon they headed to Whitechapel were they saw the slums that Lady Patience was going to buy up and redevelop.
Later Mr Smeadley told them that the slums were owned by muliple landlords but some were holding out for more than triple their value as they knew that Lady Patience needed to purchase the lot. None of the landlords had a problem with the same, but a tennant David Strange did and had threatened Lady Patience, but they had taken a restraining order out on him.
22nd February 1873
Two days before Lady Patience’s funeral, novice Jenson came to inform Archdeacon Abbott that his guest was now well enough to speak to him. Albert Pearson told him that he was missing his friend the shining one. The person who had brought him the books. Albert’s description of the “shining one” seemed to indicate that it was the same person as the Count of St Germain. Albert seemed to have some kind of affection for the “shining one” as he “gave him nice dreams”. It seemed that he didn’t remember much after the Opium den and that there was a horrible stabbing pain in his dreams smacking through his head that he had to get rid of. He told them that he used the things from the nice stories to help him get rid of the horrible pain.
Archdeacon abbott sent for the others and got Albert to repeat what he had told them.
That night George Smythington awoke suddenly as he was being beaten with something soft. He opened his eyes to find he was wearing a dress over his nightshirt and a rather cross red haired woman in a nightgown was beating him with a pillow and calling him a pervert. George ran out ripping off the dress as he went. He found he was down the road from Lambeth Palace and that he had left of door open. He nipped back in an ordered a stiff drink.
24th February 1873
At the interment of Lady Patience Captain Edington spotted a tall man standing to the side. The other members of the Society for the Betterment of Humankind were there along with Lord Patience and Lady Lamont. The others in the society had heard rumours that Lady Patience was training up a young nobleman called Horatio Villiers to take over from her at the insistance of his father who was a familly friend. It seemed that Mr Villiers wanted his son to find something useful to do with his life.
About 2/3 way through the internment an old man in a black suit with a cane at the back was attacked by three thugs with cudgels. Captain Edington and a couple of other mourners beat the thugs back. Two of them ran off before the Captain brought down the third. He spotted a spear like pin on the thug’s jacket and recognised that it belonged to a underworld mastemind called The Brigante. Whilst the Archdeacon ensured that the old gentleman was alright, Captain Edington took the thug around the other side of the crypt and waited for him to come around.
Archdeacon Abbott found out that the gentleman was Lady Patience’s Godfather called Melvyn Reed who had know her father in business. He was from Wales and had come up for the day, staying in the Astoria hotel for the night.
When the thug came round Captain Edington questioned him. The Brigante it seemed had sent them to kill the old man. He had told them that he believed that he would turn up here and they thought they could easily take him as he was an old man and they were “hard”. The old man had proven to be suprisingly sprightly and had only been bruised in the attack. Captain Edington pressed the man to reveal where the Brigante was , but even after the Archdeacon came to put the fear of God into him the man would not tell them and told them to go to hell. Captain Edington got one of Lord Patience’s servants to get the police.
At the wake Annie blatantly came out and asked Melvyn Reed whether he had a woad tattoo. The man was curious as to how she knew about them and she told him that she had one. The exchanged drawings of their tattoes and she spotted that his tattoo looked like a fish. She asked him who he worshipped and he said God and said didn’t everyone? She asked him if he knew about the tattooes and he said that he did. He told her that they had been put on by druids in the past. A long discussion ensued involving the others in which he eventually revealed that he was in fact Merrdyn (Merlin) and that he had been asleep for around 1400 years after Morgan Le Fey had cast an enchantment on him. He did not know all of them but he did know George who had killed Guinevere in the past and felt that she would still be out for revenge.
After the battle of Camlann he had taken Arthur to Avalon (the land of the faeries) to heal. A little later the Faerie known as Cartaphilus (Count of St Germain) persuaded the Druids that they needed to cast the third great enchantment to protect the land from enchroachment from beings from the otherworlds that had begun to possess people the more that the Druids had been casting magic. Merrdyn would not say what the first two great enchantments were. The group told Merrdyn that they had encountered such a gate being made near Crawley next to a stockpile of spent Aether. He said that he was going to try and fetch the rightful King back from Avalon now and take back his throne from the Saxon upstarts that had taken it.
He looked at the tattoes of the various people and identified Captain Edington’s as belonging to an entity called the Morrigan. He suggested that the Captain look it up if he wanted to know more. Private Pearson had a tattoo that belonged to Maponus.
25th February 1873
Annie got a letter in the mail that morning from ardent feminist Lydia Becker. She was coming to London on Saturday to demonstrate against parliament and she invited Annie to come along.
1st March 1873
Annie sneaked out from the house and took the Metropolitan District underground train to Westminster. There she met Lydia who welcomed her to the cause and invited her to show her dedication by coming to Ascot with them next month to make a statement to the male dominated establishment.
Captain Edington escorted Rossalyn Rathe to the Archeological dig in the city. It seemed that her father had arranged the trip with Professor Periwinkle who was in charge of the dig. Whilst they were there they spotted a number of germans who were visiting from the University of Heidelberg. Rossalyn spotted a broach in the finds tray that she took a fancy too and asked Captain Edington if he could acquire it for her collection of artefacts. The good Captain went up to the find tray and when the students weren’t looking stole the broach, giving it to Rossalyn. She seemed delighted and her children had a great time playing in the mud. Just before he headed off Captain Edington spotted a long 5 foot long bone pole in the finds tray. For some reason he seemed to find it somewhat familiar but he could not think why.
