Part 1 - Doors to Darkness/The Ties that Bind: Finger Sandwiches

“Hello, Victoria? Enid here [Victoria finally remembers the gruff voice as Enid Carrington. The pompous  Enid who married into her wealth (railroad tycoon) and views everyone else beneath her.].  The police here in Ipswitch are buffoons.  I’ve a vandalism problem here; be a doll and bring your own team to investigate.”

Ipswitch

Enid Carrington

Really? Victoria didn’t run with her crowd. Come to think of it, she did attend one of the many garden parties where her date presented Tori as a wealthy link to the mob (in not so subtle words).  Crap! This visit means she’ll have to dress up. As for a team: well, 1) Twisted-Digit (burglar)  would have the eye for details, 2) Maxwell (con-man; street magician) can ‘squeeze water from a rock’ as far as charm and interviews go, 3) Eloise (cop) can handle the legal side of things, and 4) Dragon (acrobat) can get in places the rest of us can’t.

Victoria (Bill) mob accountant	Twisted-Digit (Jim) - burglar
Maxwell (Tony) - con-man	Eloise (Hannah) - cop	Dragon (Haven) - acrobat

 
0900: “Victoria, I’m glad you could…” Enid’s demur shattered by the sight of the others. “Why’d you bring police? I told you…” “Now, now Carri darling. Eloise here is the best.” Tori stifling a chuckle at how she’d bypassed formalities with the rude old crony.  We’re led out back to the sprawling rose garden, “Stay on the path. The ground is flooded. My beautiful fountain has been drained by those imbecile workers. “Piles of stone and dirt and construction equipment suggest the fountain is a recent addition.

Boy and Dolphin statue

Rose Garden

 
“I’d ordered the central statue all the way from Italy. “Boy and Dolphin”, just like you’d see at the Rose Garden at ‘Castle Hill’. And these clumsy fools broke it. Vandalism I say. I’m out tens-of-thousands unless you can find the perpetrators and convince the insurance company to pay up. I need the fountain replaced in time for my society ball late October.” 

Tori and Max stay with Enid as the others approach the workers. Who direct them to their foreman Denny. “Actually the morning shift found the damage and called me in. Look for yourself. Tell me how 2 workers could destroy the statue while completely emptying the pond; water splashed out. I say a meteorite fell; except, there’s no solid core or fragments of the thing. Mrs Enid won’t believe us. Just trying to place blame; make us pay damages. Makes me sick. Which reminds me. I need to check up on one of the workers; went home sick. Alfred Hacket. His address? Check with HR at our company office.”

Meanwhile, Enid directs Tori and Max towards the house. “Let me show you something. Workers must have dug it up while creating space for the concrete-lined fountain. I made them carry it in here. Might be something valuable; enough to buy another statue.” Enid pulls out a ring-of-keys and unlocks a large steel door to an inner workshop. Light peeks in from 2 old basement windows to reveal more statues, wrought-iron railing, and a work bench with stones on it. Not stones; they look more like overgrown eggplants in a clutch.

Two empty stems suggest 2 eggplants removed. One lays next to the clutch. Max begins to inspect it when Twiz walks in, “What cha got there?” And proceeds to lick it, “Yuck! Kinda grainy.” Max adds his observations, “Hollow. Sloshes as if liquid inside. An egg?”

“Two empty stems. Where’s the other egg?” Enid badmouths the workers as a bunch of immigrant thieves. “That’s why I have them locked up. I’ve called Miskatonic University. A couple of professors should be arriving to give their opinion. May be worth something to them.”

As Enid escorts us out and locks up, Max slips the keys from her pocket. We return to the fountain with new information.  They question George, the other morning worker, “Yeah, Alfred was here this morning. Helped me carry those things into the shop. He’s the one who lifted them into the wheel-barrel. Soon after that, he got sick and had to go home.” [Twiz reconsiders his actions of licking the thing! Poison?!] Max and Eloise walk the perimeter, confirming the center statue was the impact point. “Holes in the foundation. 8 of them. Parallel but offset. Almost 7 inches deep.” Alfred saw them this morning and thought them to be drill holes. No clues what they are; why they are there.

1030: It’s a 45 minute drive to the Boston-Incorporated-Construction company,  where we learn Alfred lives at the Border-Arms Hotel, 488 West High Lane. Which takes another hour of driving since we didn’t ask for directions. The poorer section of town. Winnie at the front desk ignores our requests for Alfred’s room number till Twiz slips her a buck, “Top floor. Room 403. He still owes his rent!” “Don’t worry mam, we brought a cop.”

1200: Our knock at the door, is answered with shuffling inside, “Who is it?” It’s a tie between “Cops here” and “Your foreman Denny sends his concerns for your health.” The door opens with the inside chain still latched. Alfred tries to reassure all is OK, but the sweat on his forehead is a giveaway to his stress. As he wipes the sweat away, he leaves a smear of blood from his bandaged finger. He closes the door and can be heard shuffling items around. Tori tries to convince the men to take action; their stalling leads her to put shoulder to the door to break the chain as the door swings in.

Alfred is on the other side of the bed still in the act of kicking fragments under the bed. “What ya got there? Looks like egg shells.” Alfred points with his bandaged hand (missing a finger), “It’s in the closet. Careful, it bites.” Twiz listens at the door, “Ack, Ack.” Max slips on heavy gloves and grabs a pillow case, before suggesting Twiz open the door a crack. Both shutter in surprise as they spy what can only be summarized as a six-legged-large-beaked-turkey!

Max quickly slams the door and looks with surprise at Alfred. “I was washing it off when it hatched about 3 hours ago. Feed it some chicken [and your finger!]. Look how quickly its grown. It’s mine! Mary wants to see it.” “Whose Mary?” And that’s when we hear footsteps in the hall.

Tori is surprised when she recognizes Enid’s daughter, “Mary?” “Yes, I brought Karl…professor Brighton along from the university.” Obviously they didn’t belief whatever Alfred told them because they didn’t come prepared with a cage or anything to transport such beast. Nor resolve as they too shutter in failed sanity as they peek into the closet. “We need a bigger…pillow-case.” 

We explain there is a clutch of more eggs back at Mary’s mothers’ house, but she insists on staying with the professor. So we excuse ourselves for the 40+ minute drive back to the Carrington mansion.

1340: Parking in the driveway, we walk around the lit house, finding 3 workers camped in front of the locked workshop playing cards. Twiz is already peering into the windows with his flashlights when the workers interrupt, “Hey, get away from there. Mrs. Enid told us not to let ANYONE into the shop.” Max straightens his collar, and dangles the keys, “Now do you really think the lady meant us? I mean she did give us keys to the place.” To make it official, Tori forges a note from their foreman. As Max unlocks the doors, “Careful, they might be dangerous.” Which causes the workers to scramble out of their chairs and further away. But all is in order; the clutch still intact. As Max locks everything back up, he conveniently drops the keys on the floor. Hopefully Enid will think she dropped them when Max bumped her earlier.

1500: Max and Twiz have carefully placed the clutch in doubled pillowcases and stored them in the car trunk. As we drive back to Alfred’s place, our stomach remind us we haven’t eaten all day.  So it’s almost 1730 when we arrive back at the room. Mary excitedly proclaiming, “Karl believes it is from the Amazons …a new species.” The professor adding, “Yes, quite fascinating. And hungry. Likes meat; yes we feed it.” Max injects, “What’s it worth?” [Is he asking for himself or Mrs. Carrington? Yeah, right. As if we need to ask!] Alfred walks toward the creature in Karl’s arms trying to show ownership, when the thing snaps at him, squawking loudly, “Ack, Ack!”

Glass shards radiate through the room as something BIG smashes through the double window. Sanity failure as most of us realize it’s the mother come for her babe. Max has already bolted for the door in absolute fear. Twiz pauses as if pondering a conversation to be had, when better judgment has him turned and running out the door. His back turned when the beast casually swipes at the professor, lopping his head off clean with razor-sharp claws.

Alfred’s charge to re-claim his possession is met with another taloned leg that literally impales him then rips his heart out.  Mary frozen in shock as the rest of us bolt. Except Dragon who witnesses the mother grabbing her babe, then launching out the window, her razor-tipped tail JUST swishing inches over Dragon’s ducking head.

Max has already rushed past the lobby and the clerk. The rest of us not far behind, but late enough to see the clerk already phoning the police. Eloise explains the mother’s departure which has us returning to the scene. Entering to find Dragon trying to slap Mary out of her stupor. “Time to go” as we carry Mary to the car for a fast getaway to the Miskatonic University. Arriving late in the evening; past closing. Twiz ‘unlocks’ the necessary doors getting us in to the Nature Department, where he finds a directory. “Got it, we want Dr. Hay. Here’s his number.” A quick call only to get his wife telling us the doctor is at an Elk’s Club meeting. Max on the phone now charming her into looking up the phone number. 

Another phone call finds they serve alcohol at the club, as the doctor sounds a little tipsy. And disbelieving professor Brighton is dead, “Why I just talked to him hours ago. I’ll be right there.” 20 minutes before he stumbles into the Nature Department, with a fellow Elk in tow. Twiz doesn’t miss a beat as he cleverly convinces the two he too is an Elk man. Which is good enough as Dr Hay allows us to place the egg clutch in his secure vault. “We’ll talk in the morning. When my head is clear.”

CONCLUSION: https://rigglew4.blogspot.com/2017/07/conclusion-hatchling-return-to-sender.html