The Curious Case of Ms. Gretchen Weiss

On the morning of Friday, October 17, 1924, Mackie MacKenzie’s phone rings, and it is the elderly provost of Miskatonic Univerity, Ralph Maynard, who’s been serving Mikatonic U for a good 30 years. As it were, one of the graduate students of history, Gretchen Weiss, has been missing for almost a month. Since Mackie had advised Ms. Weiss on occasion, the provost decided to call Mackie to find out the whereabouts of Ms. Weiss. Mackie had indeed met with Ms. Weiss roughly six weeks ago to discuss a thesis project regarding glyph structures of late ancient Egypt, but at that point nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. 

Ms, Gretchen Weiss

Ralph Maynard

Mackie doesn’t know Gretchen Weiss that well, but she is a diligent student, who came to Miskatonic as an exchange student from the Humboldt University in Berlin during the spring semester of 1923. She is rather quiet and shy, and some might even say of a sensitive nature. Ms. Weiss is not known to be a reveler, but she enjoys painting water colors, and she frequents certain cafés, typically with a stack of books. She also has a cat, Schatzi.

Mackie is enjoying a rather lazy Friday morning in her father’s old mansion, and she is not really ready to face the world, so she calls Henry Chester to see if he might be able to find out what might have happened to young Ms. Weiss. Henry Chester really doesn’t mind at all, and he places a few calls himself as well as visiting to the police station. As the paranormal investigators gather at J. Polack Fine Antiquities for a Friday afternoon cocktail, Henry announces that the young graduate student had been admitted to the Arkham Sanatorium, also irreverently known as the Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane after a very violent episode in the building she lives in on Boundary Street and West Saltonstall. She is not seeing any visitors. The Arkham police claimed that there was no suspicion of any criminal activity, and they are not involved in the case, although the landlady, Mrs. Helen Gardener, was apparently injured by Ms. Weiss before the police could take her into custody.

Mrs. Helen Gardener  

                               

                      

How incredibly strange! What befell the young graduate student? How are all of you doing?