Bookhounds: Cameo Characters 4: The Exterminator

“All my lifetime I’ve been a-dealing a little in rats; but it was not till I come to London that I turned my mind fully to that sort of thing. My father always had a great notion of the same. We all like the sport. When any on us was in the country, and the farmers wanted us to, we’d do it. If anybody heerd tell of my being an activish chap like, in that sort of way, they’d get me to come for a day or so.

“If anybody has a place that’s eaten up with rats, I goes and gets some ferruts, and takes a dog, if I’ve got one, and manages to kill ’em. Sometimes I keep my own ferruts, but mostly I borrows them. This young man that’s with me, he’ll sometimes have an order to go fifty or sixty mile into the country, and then he buys his ferruts, or gets them the best way he can. They charges a good sum for the loan of ’em—sometimes as much as you get for the job.

“You can buy ferruts at Leadenhall-market for 5s. or 7s.—it all depends; you can’t get them all at one price, some of ’em is real cowards to what others is; some won’t even kill a rat. The way we tries ’em is, we puts ’em down anywhere, in a room maybe, with a rat, and if they smell about and won’t go up to it, why they won’t do; ’cause you see, sometimes the ferrut has to go up a hole, and at the end there may be a dozen or sixteen rats, and if he hasn’t got the heart to tackle one on ’em, why he ain’t worth a farden.

“I have kept ferruts for four or five months at a time, but they’re nasty stinking things. I’ve had them get loose; but, bless you, they do no harm, they’re as hinnocent as cats; they won’t hurt nothink; you can play with them like a kitten. Some puts things down to ketch rats—sorts of pison, which is their secret—but I don’t. I relies upon my dogs and ferruts, and nothink else.

Mayhew, LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR

One thing London is not short of is vermin.

It might be insects, it might be rats or mice, it might be termites or this or that or the other, but there is something that walks, slithers or crawls and you want it gone. Yesterday.

The Hounds might want it gone for practical reasons. These are the things that damage book stock.

Or perhaps it's not the Hounds but someone else, a neighbor, a friend. Their house, livelihood, whatever it may be, is under threat, and they need a remedy. 

Enter the Exterminator, of which probably the most familiar is the ratcatcher.

These tend to be mobile workers. They go where the trade is. However, with the rise of the urbis comes a spike in vermin population, and with it a chance for a settled life. No more traipsing from town to town. Now you can establish a business, get regular customers, have a share of a burgeoning market.

Jack Black, the hero of Mayhew's piece, relies on ferrets but even he knows a little about poisons. In the 1920s there would have been a tendency to the scientific method. Not that the ferret became extinct, but that in a world where technology is the New Normal people will be looking for technological answers. 

Given that the world's just had a War, there will be a number of ex-servicemen in the ratcatching business. It's a decent job, relatively well paid, and a lot of time you're outdoors. Perfect for the man who can't stand being cooped up thanks to spending too long in the trenches. 

Don't forget, rat-catching is the Law thanks to the 1919 Act:

Rats and Mice Destruction Act 1919

Which is a useful bit of trivia to fling the Hounds' way should you want an excuse for the Council (or whoever) to stick their interfering nose into the Hounds' business. Why, the Council's man has a perfect right to be here, in your shop, marching about with his big hobnail boots. Do you want a twenty quid fine? No? Then shut up.

All that said:

Claudia (Ratcatcher)

Athletics 5, First Aid 3, Scuffling 8

Claudia was a ratcatcher's wife, before the War, and did all the work keeping the dogs and ferrets. Then her Charlie and her son Bill went off to the trenches and never came back. Now she's the sole representative of Saxon and Sons, Exterminators, but she's a big believer in keeping family in the family business. That's why all the people who work for Saxon and Sons are her nieces and nephews, of which Claudia has a small army.

That doesn't mean Claudia doesn't muck in. She still goes out on jobs; not for her the office life, that's what lazy people do. She can clean up and dress like a lady when she feels like it, but she doesn't often feel like it, even these days when she has a Council job and has to deal with the muckety-mucks. That Council contract's good money for Saxon and Sons. She won't let anything threaten it, or her family's livelihood.  

As Ally 

Claudia can contribute 1 point The Knowledge of her patch of London; there's nothing she doesn't know about her Council. If the Hounds need some ferrets, some dogs, or a bit of friendly advice about Biology (particularly as it relates to rodents) Claudia's the go-to. If the Hounds need to ding someone else's Credit Rating Claudia can manufacture a rat problem that will temporarily inconvenience them.

As Clue

Claudia's almost as good as a tosher; look at this peculiar thing she found in some hole or other underneath London. Is it medieval? Roman? That peculiar rat behavior underneath (wherever it may be) might be an indication of some Mythos activity, and Claudia can pinpoint where the problem originates. She knows bites, and is almost as good as a forensic surgeon when it comes to identifying which animal made which wound.

In Play

Bluff, hearty and no-nonsense. Try not to disturb her on the 15th July; that's when her Charlie and Bill got theirs, at the Battle of Delville Wood. She's in low spirits from the 15th to the 3rd September. When not out in the field with dogs at her heels, Claudia's doing her best to understand the modern methods, her nose buried in a book. No poison, thank you; she can't stand the stuff. Anything else, and she's a willing student.

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

Bookhounds Cameo Character 3: The Scribbler

The scribbler writes columns, or stories, or fiction, or all three simultaneously, for a Fleet Street newspaper, magazine, tabloid, or tip sheet. He (sometimes she) dresses badly or flamboyantly or both; even tailored suits look off-the-rack or worse hung on a scribbler. He wants news, scoops, gossip, and tips; he’ll offer up his own on a tit-for-tat basis (Oral History) Bookhounds Main Text p 43

This unkind verdict springs from tales of Grub Street. 

Grub Street doesn't really exist anymore. Once upon a time it was a cheap place to run a printshop. Newspapers sprang up there like mushrooms and with them came writers, fleas on the dog's backside. This is the kind of scribbler Bookhounds is talking about: write anything for pay, and the pay's better if you make it entertaining. Grub Street became a byword for hack journalism, and the name continues to this day even if the street does not.

However, among the Gods of Grub Street are the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Kipling, H.G. Welles and John Buchan. They don't really fit the scribbler mold. Yet they dabble. Welles dabbled in science and technical journals. Buchan was an editor of the Telegraph and went on to write propaganda during the War. Kipling was a prolific writer on all things Colonial and Conan Doyle ... well, he has a reputation for psychic investigation.

You could hardly call any of them scribblers in the classic mold. 

No, for that you're looking at someone like Edmund Curll, who I've mentioned before. Writers of yellow journalism. Clickbait artists. Someone with more than a hint of Sax Rohmer. They know what they're talking about, for the most part. Truth has no meaning for them. What sells, that's what matters. They might be subject experts in [whatever it may be] but their expertise is just a screen. They'll use their talent to dress up a fiction rather than publish fact, because the audience doesn't want facts. It wants titillation, gore, and a bit of violence. Good must triumph over evil, of course. Everything needs its resolution. But before you get there, you first must have Villainy with a capital V. 

Oddly, one of the best examples of the type in cinema is James Cagney, Picture Snatcher.

This one's famous for, among other things, damn near killing Cagney. There's a moment about halfway through, more or less, when Cagney's disreputable former gangster turned newsman Danny Kean is caught in a gunfight. He sticks his head out of a window and almost has it taken off in a burst of machine gun fire. According to legend the director just told the guy with the tommy gun, make it look real but don't hit him. So he did. 

According to Cagney the director, Lloyd Thompson, finished the film in fifteen days. The usual turnaround for quickies in those days was twenty-one days. Cagney used to kid Thompson that he was getting a bonus for bringing it in ahead of schedule.

Cagney's Kean is the epitome of the scribbler. Almost as much crook as creative, the scribbler lives on scraps and dreams of the big time. Their bosses are just as crooked as they are, but the scribblers are the ones on the sharp end, getting things done. They take risks. They might get a reward, but they'll blow the loot soon enough on some thing or other. Then it's back to the streets for more stories.

The Scribbler

Disguise 4, Filch 5, Fleeing 8

Miko was a supercargo aboard a ship impounded on smuggling charges, and the ship's owners cast the crew adrift. Lost in an unfamiliar city, Miko vanished into dockland looking for whatever work he could get. He has two great talents. He can draw like a draughtsman, and he has a gift for languages. He used both to parlay his way into contract work for the papers. At first it was a few gigs here and there, then a steady stream. These days he's on exclusive for the Illustrated News. Editor Bruce Ingram calls Miko the Conscience of the East End; there's nobody knows what's what better than Miko.

As Ally 

Miko can help spike an unfavorable story, if he's promised something better. Miko knows every disreputable bar and nightclub in the East End and is no slouch when it comes to Soho either. If you want to know what's going on at the Police Courts, or want to get into the Court when it's in session, Miko can get you in by pretending you're a reporter. 

As Clue

If you want to know what the police really think and don't have Cop Talk, Miko knows the score. Miko has his sketchbook with him all the time and got a pretty good look at [whatever it may be]. If you don't have the Languages pool for a conversation with [whoever] Miko's a good interpreter. Miko collects books from his home country and if you're looking for something from that part of the world Miko knows where it can be found.

In Play

Miko can play clueless foreigner for the whites, but he's sharp as a tack. His love life is a tangled mess and he's always trying to get out of one entanglement while pursuing some other girl. Thanks to a lifetime diet of gangster films, he sounds more like an American than an Englishman.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Bookhounds: Character Cameos

The street-sellers of stationery, literature, and the fine arts, however, differ from all before treated of in the general, though far from universal, education of the sect. They constitute principally the class of street-orators, known in these days as “patterers,” and formerly termed “mountebanks,”—people who, in the words of Strutt, strive to “help off their wares by pompous speeches, in which little regard is paid either to truth or propriety.” To patter, is a slang term, meaning to speak. To indulge in this kind of oral puffery, of course, requires a certain exercise of the intellect, and it is the consciousness of their mental superiority which makes the patterers look down upon the costermongers as an inferior body, with whom they object either to be classed or to associate. The scorn of some of the “patterers” for the mere costers is as profound as the contempt of the pickpocket for the pure beggar. Those who have not witnessed this pride of class among even the most degraded, can form no adequate idea of the arrogance with which the skilled man, no matter how base the art, looks upon the unskilled. “We are the haristocracy of the streets,” was said to me by one of the street-folks, who told penny fortunes with a bottle. “People don’t pay us for what we gives ’em, but only to hear us talk. We live like yourself, sir, by the hexercise of our hintellects—we by talking, and you by writing.”

But notwithstanding the self-esteem of the patterers, I am inclined to think that they are less impressionable and less susceptible of kindness than the costers whom they despise. Dr. Conolly has told us that, even among the insane, the educated classes are the most difficult to move and govern through their affections. They are invariably suspicious, attributing unworthy motives to every benefit conferred, and consequently incapable of being touched by any sympathy on the part of those who may be affected by their distress. So far as my experience goes it is the same with the street-patterers. Any attempt to befriend them is almost sure to be met with distrust. Nor does their mode of life serve in any way to lessen their misgivings. Conscious how much their own livelihood depends upon assumption and trickery, they naturally consider that others have some “dodge,” as they call it, or some latent object in view when any good is sought to be done them. The impulsive costermonger, however, approximating more closely to the primitive man, moved solely by his feelings, is as easily humanized by any kindness as he is brutified by any injury.

The patterers, again, though certainly more intellectual, are scarcely less immoral than the costers. Their superior cleverness gives them the power of justifying and speciously glossing their evil practices, but serves in no way to restrain them; thus affording the social philosopher another melancholy instance of the evil of developing the intellect without the conscience—of teaching people to know what is morally beautiful and ugly, without teaching them at the same time to feel and delight in the one and abhor the other—or, in other words, of quickening the cunning and checking the emotions of the individual.

Among the patterers marriage is as little frequent as among the costermongers; with the exception of the older class, who “were perhaps married before they took to the streets.” Hardly one of the patterers, however, has been bred to a street life; and this constitutes another line of demarcation between them and the costermongers. 

Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

These next few posts are going to delve into Bookhounds territory, with some Cameos. 

Cameos are an idea I'm going to borrow from Night's Black Agents. Briefly, a cameo is a short description of an NPC the agents may meet. It's stat-light and intended for immediate use, the point being that you, as Keeper, may need to pull a rabbit out of a hat at short notice and this is as good a Lapine as you're going to get, Mr. Magician.

From Double Tap:

Each writeup includes: important abilities, a physical description, a story hint in the text, and the preferred Interpersonal method to win their cooperation. Then come three things they can provide as an asset (for the vampires or for the agents), three clues they possess, and three handles for roleplaying them.

Henry Mayhew published his work in the 1850s and 60s. The great thing to bear in mind is, if Mayhew's writing about it in the mid-19th century, then it probably still exists in some form in the early 20th century. Not exactly like, obviously; but enough like that you, as Keeper, can borrow ideas Mayhew expounds for your own work. 

We're looking at someone older. Someone born in the 19th century, who grew up in the shadow of the greats - or at least, the people they thought were great. They live by the dodge, whatever their particular dodge is. They have a line of patter that they have practiced and used a thousand thousand times before. They're a bit like comedians, in that they make a complicated spiel seem effortless. Their self-esteem is impervious to the battering of fate. Whoever this is, they probably belong to what Mayhew would have described as the third class of patterers:

those who, whatever their early pursuits and pleasures, have manifested a predilection for vagrancy, and neither can nor will settle to any ordinary calling.

They are constantly on the move and probably operate from a barrow, which they either push around themselves or have a donkey to do it for them. Their wares are broken down and tired, but that doesn't matter. Their bones ache, but that doesn't matter. They have an inner well of pure optimism that sustains them through the coldest winter, and they know things. All kinds of things. In fact, if there is one Bookhounds pool which they have in abundance, it's The Knowledge. They may or may not know a little Magick as well, depending on the nature of your chronicle.   

With all that in mind:

The Patterer

Auction 3, Conceal 5, Shadowing 7

Grocer George/Judy, so called because their parents were grocers in Leadenhall Market, has been a fixture of the scene for as long as the Hounds can remember. Nobody's sure how the Grocer came to be a street vendor. There are all kinds of stories. The most popular is that they were wronged in marriage, and went on the dodge immediately afterward. 

The Grocer allegedly has family still living, scattered across the City of London. It's true that children flock to the Grocer, their so-called nephews and nieces, but whether any of them are actually the Grocer's family is an open question. The Grocer has a way with children. The stories the Grocer tells keep them wide-eyed and begging for more. 

The Grocer is a superstitious soul and will not sell or do anything on a Sunday, except huddle under a bridge or somewhere else safe and wait for the day to be over. It's impossible to get the Grocer to do a stroke of work, or any other thing, on a Sunday. They barely eat on the Sabbath. Yet on the Monday they rise bright and early, march off to Smithfield for a hearty breakfast, and then get about their weekly routine. 

The Grocer's main gaff is fortune telling. There's many a merchant who swears by the Grocer's ability to see into the future by the patterns birds form when they fly. The jury's out as to whether this is some kind of druidic survival into the modern era, or whether the Grocer is a servant of darker powers.

As Ally

Access to any one London location or resource capable of granting 1 point Mythos or Magick. Grocer happens to know the secret of this particular location/resource and can get the Hounds to it without trouble. If the Grocer were not there, then the Hound either will not find the location/resource or will have to fight to get it. 

As Clue

The Grocer knows who's been troubling Fate recently; the Grocer remembers, after the course of a very long and disreputable life, where old secrets are buried; the Grocer, through their Knowledge, can tell the Hounsds the history of a particular London location or show them the location of a London secret.

In Play

The mysterious old soul, part Falstaff, part Chaplin, who flits in and out like a sparrow. They run impossible risks and make it seem effortless. When talking, they do not shut up, but when not talking they pay attention to everything, no matter how small or meaningless. They always have an old crust or dab of food hidden somewhere on them. There's always a new bit of clothing, it might be a hat, a scarf, a shoe, and the Grocer can never remember where it came from. As an auctioneer, the Grocer never takes a bribe or favours one side or the other; they are scrupulously honest and not easily fooled, when an auctioneer. At all other times, they're as bent as a dog's hind leg.

That's it for this week! Enjoy.

Forgotten London: Amen Court (Bookhounds)

Amen Court is entered from the junction of Warwick Lane and Paternoster Row ... Of the old houses NOs 1-3, No 1 is interesting as R.H. Barham, then a minor canon, lived here from 1839 - 1845 and wrote The Ingoldsby Legends during his occupation.  ... [the pre-Reformation processions allegedly] began with the Lord's Prayer in Paternoster Row and got in their Amen at Amen Corner. They said their Hail Mary in Ava Maria Lane, then their Credo in Creed Lane, and heard their exhortation in Sermon Lane ...  

London Cameos by A.H. Blake, 1930

I have a copy of Legends, picked up on a whim in Guernsey. Well worth your time. When I posted about them before I said:

The Ingoldsby Legends. Picked up at Curiosities, an antiquarian shop in Guernsey. It’s often worth your while poking your nose in that sort of place, particularly in somewhere not often frequented like Guernsey. You never know what might be hanging around. This is the 1898 Richard Bentley edition, with illustrations, and is a collection of all three books. The originals would have been published in the 1840s as single volumes. Comic ghost stories and verse. I'm not a huge fan of comic verse - it goes on a little long and I find it wearisome - but the stories are entertaining Gothic and might give you inspiration for your own tales.

One other landmark that would have been close by is Newgate Prison. A portion of the old prison wall still exists at Amen Court. It's slightly surprising Blake didn't mention it; the prison was still there well up until his period, finally being demolished in the early 1900s. In its day it was notorious both as a prison and as a place of execution; the Newgate Hornpipe, ie. hanging, is immortalized in song. 

Odd side note. The iron gallows door that led to the place of execution allegedly found its way to Buffalo New York and is now at Canisius University. At least, so says Wikipedia and the internet is never wrong. Not sure how it got across the water, or why; it sounds like the sort of thing that ought to have been put up outside a speakeasy. There was a Newgate Prison in Buffalo, but it was contemporaneous with the existing one in London.

The Legends first appeared in Bentley's Miscalleny, a monthly that boasts Charles Dickens among others as its editor, though Dickens soon fell out with Bentley over editorial control concerns.   

With that we get:

Legendary Correspondence

A book scout, Elliott Parker, claims to have discovered some as-yet unknown correspondence written by Dickens to Bentley and approaches the Hounds hoping for a quick sale. The two pages Parker proffers are clearly part of a larger collection, written to Bentley while Dickens was still associated with Bentley's Miscalleny. Parker claims to be acting on behalf of an unnamed seller, and further investigation (eg. tracking Parker's movements) discovers that this seller lives at Amen Court, though it's not clear who the seller is or where, exactly, on Amen Court they live.

The Hounds can determine that the papers are genuine and, if there are more of them, could be sold for a tidy sum. 

At one point in the small portion the Hounds have in their possession, Dickens talks about a draft of 'a horrible, gothic little tale' he's working on. It seems to be an early version of his tale, The Haunted House, but if so then it's a version that never saw print. Finding that could be a real boost to the shop. 

Spending 1 point of any relevant investigative pool discovers that Parker, when he visits his unnamed seller, always goes to that part of Amen Court closest to the old Newgate Prison.

Option One: Liar. Parker has discovered some Dickens but it's incomplete and has faked up the rest to encourage gullible buyers. He used the good stuff as bait and is relying on the fakes to seal the deal. He's using a false front at Amen Court to sell the story, relying on Rough Magick to get him from his Amen Court false front to his actual hideaway, not far from there, traveling by shadow and subterfuge. However, this repeated use of Magick is making for some very peculiar side effects at Amen Court, and the canons who live there are starting to get worried.

Option Two: The Real Deal. Parker has a genuine seller at Amen Court. The seller discovered these papers during a home refurbishment and thought they would be able to sell these for a small amount. Parker knows their true value and is hoping to fleece the seller. What neither the seller nor Parker appreciate is that the papers are part of a larger stash of lost and found items, hoarded by a supernatural collector. The collector is very unhappy that their stash was found, and is attempting to reclaim the papers.

Option Three: The Newgate Hornpipe. Parker didn't get those papers from Amen Court. He got them from the shadowy remnants of Newgate, gone these many years, which Parker gets to via a magickal door in the wall of Newgate Prison located at Amen Court. Once there he steals the items from the Newgate Hangman, who still exists in that death-touched world beyond. Theoretically the Hounds could copy Parker's technique, get into Newgate and take the papers from their keeper. So long as they're willing to risk a grisly end in the execution cell ...

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

Forgotten London: Dead Man's Chest (Bookhounds)

Last sleep before the flight. No post next week.

In the days before Army and Navy pensions were instituted there was no fixed and national provision for wounded and mutilated soldiers and sailors who were discharged after serving their country in the wars. 

The substitute in the Navy was a chest kept at Chatham. The idea is said to have originated with Drake after the Armada in 1588. Our seamen eventually agreed to have certain sums docked from their wages to make a pension fund for poor and disabled ex-Service men. 

The money collected soon reached a considerable sum, and the Keeper of the Chest was often, not without cause, suspected of dipping his own fingers into the savings ... [the original chest] is believed to have been captured in one of the vessels of the Spanish Armada and to have been presented by Sir Francis Drake for the purpose to which it was afterwards used until as late as 1802. As much as three hundred thousand pounds in Consols was in the possession of the chest in 1817 ... London Cameos A.H.Blake

A Consul, as far as I can work out, is a Government security and they were issuing those as far back as the 1750s. 

According to London Cameos the chest found its way to Greenwich, where Blake took a picture of it in 1930. As far as I can make out from that picture the chest Blake saw is not this one though it is similar, and probably of similar vintage.

Blake doesn't specify but I presume when he mentions Greenwich he means the Naval College which, in the 1930s, would still have been training the British Navy. These days the buildings are open to the public but that wouldn't have been so when Blake was writing about them. If you didn't have an invitation or know someone on the inside, you'd have to sneak in. Not impossible, but tricky.

All of which brings me to:

The Last Resort

The Hounds are suffering hard times. Bills and debt notices are flying like a blizzard, and Rough Lads are staking out the Hounds' home and shop pressing them for payment. Without an influx of cash it may be time to padlock the place for good.

If only they knew a way to make money quick ... but there is someone who claims to know the secret. An old sailor who remembers the days of sail and now lives in a shack in the East End supposedly knows how to raid Drake's old pension fund; it's how he keeps himself in drink money. A number of people have tried to get him to spill the secret but he's always held firm ... until now.

The sailor, former Lieutenant Dalton RN, is old, frail, and an opium addict who's seen all the world and every nation in it. He frequents the Grapes in Limehouse and if the Hounds can't find him anywhere else they may find him there. 

He knows how to get a handful of cash through Rough Magick, but if the Hounds can get hold of any document written by former Navy clerk Samuel Pepys (or plausibly forged to seem as if it came from Pepys) he says he can raid the box for thousands of pounds. Can the Hounds organize a burglary of the Naval College armed with Pepys' papers to raid Drake's pension fund?

Option One: Bad Lieutenant. Dalton does know how to raid the Chest but up till now his magical ability only netted him a few pounds at a time. He intends to keep all the cash for himself and has hired a few Rough Lads - those same Lads who are on the Hounds' heels - to delay the Hounds while he gets away with the loot. 

Option Two: Good and Faithful Servant. Dalton is telling the truth. What he doesn't appreciate is that the chest has a guardian. Up till now that guardian hasn't been active because Dalton only ever stole a few pounds at a time, and after centuries of people dipping their fingers in the till a few pounds' theft isn't worth the guardian's effort. However, attempting to nick the entire pension fund will rouse the Spanish Don whose chest this was, and the dead man isn't at all happy about it.

Option Three: College Japes. Whether or not the chest can be raided isn't the issue. The issue is that there's a small branch of the Cthulhu Cult at the Royal Naval College, loosely affiliated with the Brotherhood. This Cult, made up largely of officers and men who served in Egypt, isn't going to be pleased about a bunch of outsiders breaking into their premises and casting spells. Direct action is called for ...

That's it for this week. See you soon!

The Doom Bell (Forgotten London, Bookhounds)

From London Cameos, A.H. Blake:

Just a simple hand-bell on a shelf in a City church, yet it rang out the doom of hundreds of victims about to die a horrible death within a few hours at Tyburn tree.

The church in question is St. Sepulcher's, aka Saint Sepulchre-without-Newgate, which stands on the north side of Holborn Viaduct across a crossroads from the Old Bailey, and its parish takes in Smithfield Market. During medieval times, the site lay outside ("without") the city wall, west of the Newgate. 

The bell was paid for by a tailor, Robert Dowe, who stipulated in his will that the bell be rung for each condemned man outside the cell on midnight on the day of execution. A midnight prayer was recited, and a bouquet of flowers would be presented before the last journey, all paid for by Dowe's endowment. This little flower ceremony took place on the porch of the church, after which the condemned went marching off to Tyburn tree. 

The recitation was:

All you that in the condemned hold do lie,

Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;

Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near

That you before the Almighty must appear;

Examine well yourselves, in time repent,

That you may not to eternal flames be sent.

And when St Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,

The Lord above have mercy on your souls.

Past twelve o'clock! 

It gave the condemned a few hours warning (not that they needed it, most like) so they had time for a last prayer. Dowe made this arrangement in 1605, and the bell was in use up to the 19th century, so three centuries or so worth of dead men were led off by the ringing of the Doom Bell.

It's not the only 17th Century antiquity at St. Sepulcher's. The church organ dates to 1670 and, in a Bookhounds game, has been recently rebuilt (1932). The Doom Bell in the present day sits in a glass case but, judging by Blake's description, in the 1930s it would have been resting on a shelf. Anyone who wanted to could touch it.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

A well-known musician, Benjamin Pettiman, is looking for whatever the Bookhounds have on their shelves about curses, and Saint Sepulchre-without-Newgate. According to Pettiman, two have died by hanging and he doesn't intend to be the third.

Pettiman is one of a group of musicians who regularly practice at the Musicians' Chapel, part of St. Sepulcher's. They were all trained from childhood at the church and learned their love of music playing on the church organ. However, ever since the organ was rebuilt there's been a spate of small calamities at St. Sepulcher's, and of the group of musicians two have hung themselves. At least, that's the official verdict; death by suicide. 

Pettiman isn't convinced. According to him the two were plagued by peculiar dreams. Each dreamed they were in the condemned cell at Tyburn; each dreamed they heard the ringing of the Doom Bell. This happened for three nights before the final night, and each died on the fourth night. 

Pettiman heard the bell ringing last night. That means he has two nights to go before the end.

Option One: Bad Pipe. As part of the organ repair pipes were salvaged from a peculiar organ discovered at an abandoned chapel. Research shows that the chapel was used by the Church of Starry Wisdom and its organ supposedly had peculiar properties, though nobody living remembers what those properties were. The pipes ring in horrid sympathy with the dead spirits that cling to the bell, and those dead spirits demand their pound of flesh.

Option Two: Dead Man Walking. A talented musician, thwarted in his ambitions, is using the Bell to clear the path. This musician, Joshua Fowle, knows he'll never get the recognition he craves while his rivals still breathe, so he's found a magical means of doing them in. He can summon up the spirit of the bell by playing a particular tune on the organ, a dirge that he found in a collection of manuscripts bought at the Hound's own shop. What he doesn't understand is, the more times he summons up the spirit of the Doom Bell, the more likely it is to break free.

Option Three: Self-Inflicted. Pettiman himself is the source of the problem. He walks in his sleep and it's he who rings the Doom Bell for his colleagues and, eventually, himself. He has no idea he's doing this and he does not know why. The Hounds may discover that he's been possessed by an antique spirit, a hanged man from the 1700s who wants more to join him in death. Once Pettiman is dead the possessing spirit will need someone else to inhabit - perhaps one of the Hounds.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!