A conversation between Happy Harry, the owner of Harold’s Tea Salon and General Store, and Henry Chester in the back room of Harold’s late at night on Tuesday, February 10, 1925.
- Harry, hit me with one of the usual, will ya?
- Sure thing. Still no ice, right?
- Nah, straight.
(clucking sound followed by silence)
- Jeezus, Henry, you look like shit.
- I do, don’t I? Long day at work.
- Work? Right….
- Yeah, work.
- Ok, then.
(silence)
- Hey, Henry, I got some news for you.
- Like what?
- Someone else is checking out your buddies, I
am told.
- Oh?
- Yeah, like foreigners.
- For fuck’s sake, don’t tell me that these
guys were German…
- No, no, not at all. They were apparently,
well, reminding your friend Jules about certain paw-liti-cal organizations he’d
been a member of and asking for a lot of money to keep it a secret. Don’t wanna
have them Feds in Arkham, and such stuff. You know.
- Whaddayamean? They weren’t Huns?
- Nope. Russkies. Believe me, my old
mother-in-law, rest her soul, was a Russki. I know the accent.
- You’re shitting me.
- Nope. No shit.
- Shit
(silence)
*
A brief phone conversation on Thursday morning between Dr. Henry Armitage and Dr. MacKenzie McNamara. Tea and cookies from Richard's Bakery were unfortunately not available.
- Well, you know, Dr. Armitage... it has been a long day. Yesterday, Wednesday was a long day. Today is short. At least so far.
- But Dr. McNamara, the books! Have you heard anything about the book?
- Yes, sorry about that. Yes. No, I haven't heard anything about that book. Or any other book, for that matter. Nothing at all.
- Dr. McNamara, are you feeling alright? You sound a bit, well, shaky...
- No, really it is nothing, nothing of any importance. I am sharp as a knife. NO, not a knife. More like a butter spreader. One made out of wood.
- I will call upon you tomorrow, then. Good-bye, Dr. McNamara.
- Ta-ta.
*
From the diary of Burlington Jones:
So weird. So strange. So tragic. We are responsible for the killing of a child, even if it was under the influence of a psychotic episode - or something worse. The plan was simple, since we knew what the hooligans at the Hoover School were after: a "magic book", a skull, a knife, a silver bell, and a candelabra, all to prepare for the sacrifice of little Karen. We assumed that the next heist would be against a church to secure a candelabra or a candlestick used for church services, and while I observed the Hoover school together with lake, Pollack and Chester were staking out the South Church, and Baker together with McNamara St. Georg Church. Funny, I wonder why they dropped the final "e", by the way.
Around 09.30 we noticed to sturdy-looking boys leaving the school and walking into the Miskatonic Park. Light signals were discreetly flashed to our companions, and Lake started following the suspected miscreants. He lost track of them, but Chester and Pollack subsequently noticed two shadows seemingly trying to break into the South Church. They were indeed the two sturdy fellows that had been seen leaving the Hoover school, and they started running as Pollack fired his salt-loaded blunderbuss at them. Although Chester and Pollack lost track of the two school boys, Baker, McNamara, Lake and myself soon caught up with them. We decided to separate the two arrogant and cocky boys, who referred to themselves as Crabbe and Goyle. Lake, Pollack and McNamara took Crabbe down to the Miskatonic River, and making not-so-subtle hints about a watery grave and providing some, well, character adjustment, he broke down. Blubbering like a baby he was taken back to the Hoover School. Headmaster Winchester was confronted, as was young Harrison Thornton Smythe. The headmaster seemed to side with Thornton Smythe, but some form of sharp utterance made Harrison flee the scene in a trail of horror and bodily fluids, and we could go through his room. To summarize, we found Karen, the Beatus Methodivo, the Daemonologia, and the stolen items. Although the scoundrel Thornton Smythe had threatened us with all kinds of ruin, we left it at that. Case closed, or so we thought.
Meanwhile, Baker, Chester and myself took Goyle up to Baker's apartment. What transpired after this will forever be imprinted in me. A nosy landlady was assured that there was nothing afoot, and once up in Baker's cozy apartment, Goyle was tied to a chair, and Chester removed the carpets and started drawing up a pentagram on the floor to intimidate Goyle by hinting on the boy being part of some form of blasphemous sacrifice. The atmosphere was growing rather intense, and we should have kept better track of Moira Baker, especially since she was going on and on about the need for a ritual - and a sacrifice! We were all dumbfounded as Moira Baker yelled something about the greater arcane and Yog-Sothoth before violently slitting the throat of young Goyle. Blood spurted everywhere, and although Chester attempted to restrain Moira Baker by all means necessary, it was too late. Goyle was quite dead while Moira was slipping in and out of sanity. Eventually some powerful self-medication stabilized Baker, but the gruesome fact that we had killed a child remained. I really have few recollections of what happened next. Pollack and Chester seemed to deal with the situation better than most people, and the body of Gregory Goyle was disposed of at a location that I shall not name. I am still trying to fully fathom what transpired on that gruesome Thursday morning, but I fear fear that I will fail in a most miserable way.
ARKHAM ADVERTISER
Friday, February 13, 1925
According to the Arkham Police Department, student Gregory Goyle (age 17) disappeared at some point during the night of Wednesday from the Oliver P. Hoover School for Young Gentlemen. Any information regarding this case will be of great use for the Arkham PD.
*
Dr. Henrietta Queeg is one of the few modern psychiatrists in Arkham, and arguably the most qualified. Her youthful looks hide a lifetime of devoted study of the human experience, the human psyche, and the human brain. She is currently 36 years old, and she has been working in Arkham since 1923 while continuing to do research at the Miskatonic University Department of Psychology. Her work with Henry Chester has been quite successful, and she is currently seeing Moira Baker. The prognosis is auspicious.
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