Doorway To ... Destiny? (Bookhounds)

Sometimes these things just drop in your lap. 

This week’s post is inspired by a recent Guardian article: Graffiti-covered door from French revolutionary wars found in Kent (Ether Addley 20240515). 

English Heritage

Short version: atop a medieval tower at Dover Castle sits a plank door which has been ignored for many years. It was recently taken out for refurbishment, thick layers of paint stripped off, and lo and behold the conservationists found early Napoleonic graffiti, including what may or may not be a crudely carved Napoleon meeting his just deserts.  

This is the kind of thing that gives historians pleasurable thrills. Is it valuable to history? Certainly. Valuable to collectors? Mmmmmmmaybe. People collect all kinds of odd things.  

I don’t think you need me to explain graffiti to you. But it does crop up in all kinds of odd places. For example, it crops up in Egypt courtesy of French soldiers who carved their inscriptions into Egyptian monuments during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign. Roughly the same time as these English inscriptions were being carved into a door at Dover. 

From that we get: 

Saint Ghastly Grim’s Door 

The medieval church of St Olave's on Hart Street is a rich layer cake of historical artefacts. One of the few medieval churches to survive the Great Fire, Charles Dickens called it Saint Ghastly Grim (The Uncommercial Traveler) thanks to its somber stone carvings. It has exactly that tone: visitors feel the weight of centuries on their shoulders as they walk through the door.  

Its former verger, Thomas Wyckham, has a bee in his bonnet about the door. 

Up in the tower there is a wooden door that’s been there for nobody knows how long. Wyckham happened to notice some peculiar carvings that, he thinks, date to the 1600s. An amateur historian, he spent many happy hours trying to understand the markings, some of which, he claims, were esoteric and possibly magical. Or, in Rough Magick terms, Magickal.  

For reasons he’s not prepared to divulge Wykham was fired from his post several years ago and these days makes his meagre living as a book scout. That’s how he knows the Hounds.  

Recently he’s discovered that a well-heeled collector has recently acquired a Stele from Egypt with markings on it that, Wyckham claims, match exactly the markings he noticed on Saint Ghastly’s door years ago. He thinks the collector will be very interested in that door and will probably pay very good money to anyone who can acquire it for him. However, the collector won’t listen to someone as down-at-heel as Wyckham. The former verger needs a go-between. For that matter, he also needs someone willing to steal a door from a church. 

Enter the Hounds. 

Option One: The Brotherhood Connection. The well-heeled collector is a member of the Brotherhood of the Pharaoh, which is why he bought that stele in the first place. It’s part of an elaborate temple he’s building at his mansion. However, he is intrigued by the prospect of adding a door to his collection and, as luck would have it, he has magical means at his disposal to make sure the Hounds do as they’ve promised or die in the attempt. 

Option Two: Who’d Forge A Door? Thomas Wyckham, that’s who. He happens to be aware that someone with more money than sense would be interested in what he has to offer and he’s not above making a few carvings if it means he’ll get a tidy payment. The door itself is genuine and it is at Saint Ghastly’s; he’s going to add a few extra marks. He needs the Hounds to help him negotiate with the collector but he hasn’t told the Hounds his door is fake(ish). Thomas has copied the markings on the stele (which he saw when making a delivery to the collector from the Hounds’ shop) and all he needs is a little time to make his mark. What he doesn’t appreciate is that the markings really are magical and copying them to and fro is not a good idea. 

Option Three: French Perfidy. The stele is genuine as are the markings on the door at Saint Ghastly. The markings that Wyckham noticed are in fact graffiti marks carved there by French soldiers in the 1790s. The marks on the door at Saint Ghastly’s date from the 1600s. Both refer to a peculiar kind of demonic entity that can be found described in Mythos texts of even earlier vintage. The collector is extremely interested in this and will demand follow-up, offering incalculable sums to the Hounds if they find anything else that fits the pattern. Trouble is, this search is going to alert all kinds of peculiar folk. French Tomb-Hound and cultist Solange Bonneau, for one, who’s been looking for those same mythos texts for a while and will be keenly interested in that peculiar door, that odd stele, and the contents of the Hounds’ brains, which she’ll quite happily extract with an ice pick if she has to.  

That’s it for this week. Enjoy!