Enquiring Minds

I've been reading a lot of Mutant City Blues recently. It's a fun RPG setting; I particularly like the concept of the Quade Diagram, in which various kinds of mutation can be linked to other kinds, creating a chain by which certain powers can be deduced, and weaknesses too, based on the observed powers of the mutant in question. Fun stuff!

If I'm disappointed at all - and I'm not even sure that disappointed is the right word - it's that, for a game in which crimes are solved, relatively little emphasis is placed on the crime scene. I suppose you could argue that this is the difference between, say, an Agatha Christie novel and a CSI scenario. The television series CSI, particularly in its more recent incarnations, sacrifices detail to tell a story, whereas a crime drama in its classic incarnation is all about the detail. The very first Hercule Poirot novel, for example, turns entirely on a point about a document that may, or may not, exist. The reader is able to deduce whether or not it exists and, as a consequence, what happened, next, by paying attention to details, chief among which is the discovery of the crime scene. Christie even goes so far as to draw a map of the house in which the scene takes place, so her readers can follow along and make their own deductions.

CSI follows a completely different path. Television is a visual medium; the viewer isn't supposed to supply intelligent input. Certainly the viewer isn't supposed to work out whodunit. The whole point of a crime story as presented in this light is to entertain, for an hour or so, and then present a result that the viewer finds satisfactory. Or at least that the network finds satisfactory, which is why so many follow the CSI path and so few the Wire. But that's a story for another day.

If you will write, then you must read. Write what you know is the popular credo, but as so few people know the intricacies of murder it follows that, if you are to write crime, you need to read a hell of a lot. All manner of odd, forgotten authors become grist to your mill, which is why I have a copy of Burt Rapp's Homicide Investigation: A Practical Handbook.  I'm not about to pretend that Rapp is an unsung genius. Apart from anything else, he's as dated as hell; that book was written back in the 1980s, when DNA analysis - never mind the computerized databases that are meat and drink to CSI - was very much in its infancy. Which, incidentally, makes books like Rapp's invaluable to anyone writing a story set before DNA and the current television cop; ie. anything set before 1989. Many of us can only imagine what that world was like; Rapp knew. But that's by the way. 

There's a section on canvassing for information that I want to cover here, and Rapp's text is as follows:

Canvassing isn't a casual task to assign to anyone who happens to be available. Canvassing requires dedication, intelligence, motivation, and skill in dealing with people. The officers assigned to canvassing should have a clear idea of the information they should try to elicit. Basic information is as follows:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Work address and telephone
• was person present during the crime?
• did the person see or hear anything?
• does the person know either the victim or the suspect?
• names of any others at this address
• names of any visitors during the period of the crime
• convenient time for another interview, if necessary
• witness' travel plans, for the foreseeable future 

I've been acting as Keeper in I don't care to guess for how many investigative games, for however long, and I can't recall any player asking any of those questions. Nor, for that matter, can I recall many of them taking notes.

It all seems so simple, when laid out as Rapp has it, in order. If you want to know what happened, then you ask who was there, you ask what they saw or heard, and you ask if there was anyone else on site who might have heard or seen anything. Hardly the stuff of revelation.

Or consider something from a different source:

Similarly, an Edinburgh surgeon in 1880 diagnosed a patient as a recently discharged sergeant from a regiment posted to Barbados; the man was respectful but forgetfully kept his hat on, as in the Army, he was Scottish with an air of authority, and he had elephantiasis, which you get in Barbados but not in the Highlands. Elementary, my dear Joseph Bell (1837-1911).  [The Alarming History of Medicine, Richard Gordon]

Investigation is, above all, the art of paying attention. In RPG terms, it starts in the very first scene, and does not stop until the scenario is over. Players should never take the information as presented entirely for granted; there is always something there to discover. Equally they should never neglect the basics. Who was there? What did they see, or hear? What is present at the scene, and what might account for it being there? Tunnel vision never does anyone any good, and to wed yourself to a theory of the crime without sufficient evidence is to invite disaster. It isn't all about progressing from scene to scene; sometimes it's about making sure you're on the right path, before making that deductive leap that transplants a Scot to the isle of the Bearded Ones. Just one or two questions can prevent a great deal of useless, even counter-productive effort.

But perhaps most importantly, have a clear idea of the information you're trying to get. In many ways, it's like an exam; understand the question, and then attempt to answer it. That way you have a better chance of getting the right answer down on paper ... or at least, having the satisfaction of knowing that you understood, just before the horrific minions of Cthulhu come knocking on your door.

Dusting Off Price

I've been reading Pelgrane Press' Night's Black Agents, trying to digest its ideas and see whether or not it will work for me. I think it might. However this may be because, in the first few pages, it references one of my favorite authors: Anthony Price.

Night's Black Agents, for those who don't know it, is an RPG horror setting that presumes vampires exist, and are at the heart of a gigantic, possibly world-spanning conspiracy. You know this because, until recently, you were working for them; but, having discovered your masters' true identity, you're now more of a liability than an asset. Vampires hate loose ends, so if you want to keep on breathing, you need to do something decisive, and fast. It's a spy game at its heart, with you as the spy, betrayed by your former masters, and now on the run.

Spy games are exactly the sort of thing Anthony Price was fond of. Price, a former journalist, turned to novel writing in the early 1970s and, over time, put together nineteen intricately crafted stories. His two favorite characters were David Audley, a former tanker in World War Two who gets recruited for Intelligence work in the aftermath of the war, and Colonel Butler, also a soldier, who is recruited at much the same time by the same person, and who eventually rises to head of the Intelligence branch that Audley works for. Most of Price's work was set in the 1970s and 80s, with occasional glimpses back into the war years. I say was because, although I've no proof one way or the other, it's long been my assumption that Price is dead. Certainly he hasn't published anything for over two decades, though I see that, according to Existential Ennui, he was still with us in 2011.

The Night's Black Agents connection comes early in the Modes section when, in talking about the Dust option, Hite says: "To instead recreate the gritty, low-fi espionage world of Anthony Price or Charles McCarry ... you can de-power the game into Dust mode," and he goes on to give advice as to how this may be done. "In Dust mode," Hite continues, "the vampires and their agents will be far more challenging and powerful in open combat. Design, and encourage your players to design, operations that avoid shootouts unless the team has overwhelming positional advantage, or some surprising ace in the hole."

If there's one thing Price is especially known for, it's the cerebral nature of his plots. At one point you may be convinced beyond all hope of reason that the supposed villains - they might be KGB, they might be agents of another foreign power - are secretly after the gold of Troy, or a list of names from an old Napoleonic warship, or hidden treasure from the English Civil War, only to discover that the truth of the matter is something altogether different. In his Other Paths To Glory, much depends on the fate of a regiment that went missing, almost to a man, on the Somme in 1916; yet it's not until the final chapters that the reader discovers why these soldiers' deaths were - are - so important in 1974.

Double and triple agents are commonplace. One of the enduring tropes of Price's works is Debreczen, the alleged school for spies in East Germany, whose sole purpose was to create people for very deep cover operations. They weren't supposed to deliver secrets; their role was to exist, and keep on existing for as long as possible, rising in the ranks of whichever organization they had penetrated. Imagine an Intelligence agency, a corporation, a political organization where the leadership wasn't merely corrupted, but had been - from the very beginning - working for the Other Side. Audley and his fellow spies were never entirely sure whether Debreczen had even existed; merely the threat that something like it might exist kept them awake nights. Because once you introduce that sort of thing into the mix, anything's possible; the people you report to, work for, vote for, might not be who you always believed them to be.

I can see that kind of setting working very well in a Night's Black Agents game. The whole idea of double and triple crosses, agents who might have been working for the enemy all along, ought to be meat and drink to a Vampire Spies game. If anyone's wondering what a Price setting might be like, I offer the following guidelines:

1. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Very few agents in Price's world get far on guts and guns. In the early chapters of October Men, Italian agent Villari is set up as the perfect bravo, swaggering, assured, lethal. Yet when the bullets fly, it is not he but his more bookish and cowardly partner, Boselli, who emerges triumphant; even if it is, at least in part, by complete accident. Those who get into gunfights often die young, in Price's world.

2. Nobody is who they seem to be. The Brigadier in The Hour of the Donkey is anything but, the dentist in Our Man in Camelot is no dentist, and Paul Mitchell, reluctant hero of Other Paths to Glory is no soldier, but that's all right, as his partner Nikki MacMahon isn't really from the French Ministry of Tourism. When in doubt, always assume someone's lying about their true identity. It saves time.

3. Everybody's lying about their intentions, as well as their identity. In The Labyrinth Makers, Price's best known novel, the prevailing assumption throughout the book is that the Russian top brass who wants to visit England is doing so because he thinks that, as a result of a recent discovery, the true location of the gold of Troy, lost during the War when Germany fell, is about to be discovered. Then we're led to believe he's after something else, only to discover that what he was after might not have been the important thing at all. Or perhaps it really was Trojan gold ... But the smoke and mirrors is integral to the plot; it's not like a Bond novel, where the true identity of, say, Auric Goldfinger is known pretty much from the opening pages, and the point of the narrative is to discover how he intends to burgle Fort Knox. Goldfinger has many faults, but concealing his intentions isn't one of them. He wouldn't last long in Price's world.

4. The stakes are both unbelievably high, and potentially meaningless, all at the same time. In one novel, which I shall not name, the entire scheme - which has already claimed several lives and is about to claim many more by the climactic moments - is undone by damp and wet. Another hinges, in its final moments, on ancient grenades. Perhaps we're finally about to find out what happened at Debreczen, or perhaps we're about to find out that Debreczen never existed in the first place. The illusion of Trojan gold, in the first novel, is repeated again and again; fantastic treasures, that somehow turn into worthless lead.

5. Relationships are key. Most of these novels take place before widespread computerization, and the reader's left with the impression that Price himself didn't think much of technology. For his agents, it's all about who you know, the expert you can turn to for that much-needed clue. The trading of favours comes up again and again, in Price's world. Even knowing your enemy puts you one step ahead; October Men opens up with an Italian spymaster recognizing, in a few fleeting seconds, an old foe at a busy airport terminal, and in more than one story David Audley's knowledge of that preeminent Russian archaeologist and spy, Panin, saves the day.

At any rate, that ought to be enough to get the Director thinking. I shall need to read Night's Black Agents a few more times to see if it really is for me, but early results are promising!

The Value of Knowledge

I've talked about books within the context of a Trail of Cthulhu campaign once or twice before, arguing for the concept of fake Mythos, and describing a potential Mythos tome. This time I want to talk about books that aren't Mythos related at all, yet still have their uses in a horror setting.

There are many possible Mythos tomes out there. The main Trail book mentions seventeen, but even a little research will uncover dozens more, many of them invented by scenario writers specifically for a particular campaign or one-shot. This is undoubtedly useful, yet - particularly in the early stages of a campaign - I'd warn against resorting immediately to Mythos tomes.

When I discussed the first story arc I mentioned that it should be almost entirely about the setting, and the characters' role in that setting. If it is Arabesque, then everything the protagonists encounter should reinforce Arabesque tropes and ideas, and so on. Naturally this means that, in general terms, the kind of horror the protagonists will be coming up against is low-key. Something to whet the appetite, not something capable of crushing the life out of the protagonists.

What this means in terms of Mythos tomes is that, realistically speaking, there probably oughtn't to be any; at least, not in the first arc. At most, perhaps there are rumors, or one or two fakes floating around; but anything that dangerous probably oughtn't to be on offer, at least not until the very end of the arc.But if there are no Mythos tomes, then what kind of tomes are there? After all, the protagonists run a bookshop; they can hardly be expected to ignore books.

My response is that there are books, and plenty of them; ordinary, honest books, like the Thousand and One Nights (I'm having a lot of fun with that in my own campaign), which don't in themselves have Mythos knowledge, but can be used as part of an ongoing plot. In some cases borrowing from the plot can be useful; imagine a book scout, sniffing for valuables, who happens to re-enact the voyages of Sindbad the Sailor in the process. Or perhaps a regular customer to the shop, who begins to take on attributes common to Ali Baba, complete with meddling rich brother and a hidden treasure. In that setting, the books could become a kind of divining tool, not unlike the way the bible is used in M.R. James' The Ash Tree. What is troubling our dear friend, and why is that book mysteriously open to that very page in which Ali Baba discovers his dead brother, killed by the Forty Thieves?

But this kind of indirection may not suit every campaign. There are more direct methods. The Dust-Things described in the Bookhounds can be very useful, in that they take on attributes of the books they mimic. Imagine what a collection of, say, R.L. Stevenson's works might become, with one or two of those hidden away in its leaves. Would the bookstore become the haunt of pirates? Or would the Dust Things lead the protagonists on to discover the New Arabian Nights, and the Suicide Club that still exists, hidden somewhere in London?

There is one other alternative, and that is to have a mundane book become magical. There are plenty of precedents for this; black magicians often wrote their copies of the Grand Grimoire out in longhand, on the presumption that their personal energies, poured into the creation of the book, made the item magical. There's potential for almost anything to become an occult text, under the right circumstances.

And with that, let me tell you about the Books of Knowledge.

Printed by the Grolier Society in London, this Children's Encyclopedia was intended to teach - and mould - young minds, and included such topics as nature, science, famous books, golden deeds, poetry, and - most important, this - Things to Make and Do. I happen to have a 1911 collection of these inherited from my great-grandfather, which is how I know about them; I used to read them when my grandmother looked after my brother and me. Physically, the collection is a set of sixteen thick hardback volumes, mostly black-and-white with the occasional color plate. The stories are intended to be edifying, though often in a gruesome sort of way; I'm looking at The Story of Little Red Shoes as I type this, which ends with headstrong Karen pleading with a headsman to cut off her perpetually dancing feet rather than her head; her eventual reward is to be taken up to Heaven by an angel. And all this, mark you, for the crime of wearing pretty red dancing shoes on a Sunday. One line in particular strikes me as being strong meat for young minds: She told the headsman what she had done, and persuaded him to cut off her feet, and away they danced in the red shoes across the moor. Now there's the stuff of nightmares! But I digress.

I want to talk about Model Town.

It is a very troublesome thing to build a real town, the opening paragraph reads, and it costs a great sum of money. There is the land to buy, streets to make, sewers to lay, architects, builders, clerks, foremen, and workmen to pay. Then inspectors and surveyors come to see that the work is being done as they like. So that not many people have ever built a whole town alone. We will try to do so ... 

It goes on to describe how you, with your inquiring young mind, sharp knife - but what boy or girl is without a knife? - pencil, glue, and a quantity of cardboard, can construct wonders. It starts with a model of Shakespeare's birthplace, but it doesn't stop there. There's the Fire Station, a Farm, the Chapel and its Parsonage, Shops, Villas, the Church, and, of course, the Gasworks.

It is some time since we made any new buildings to add to Modeltown, the last section reads. The last building we made was the Gasworks. We could go in indefinitely ... If we have made all the buildings, or even a considerable number of them, we ought to have become rather expert at the work of cardboard modelling. But, after all, we have only followed instructions and plans. There is, however, a much higher ability than this. There is the ability to think things out for ourselves, and invent ...

In game terms, the Books of Knowledge in themselves are non-magical; perhaps poring over them will net the reader 1 temporary pool point History, Art History, or similar. But there is one very special collection, previously owned by Henry Worthing, and poring over that will earn the reader 1 dedicated pool point Craft (model buildings), and 1 point Occult, Magic, or Megapolisomancy, reader's choice.


Henry Worthing, born 1901 in India, where his father was a colonial administrator, was a happy child, but wild in his habits. The Books, bought for him by his doting mother, were the only things to truly capture his imagination, and he spent hours and days working on his Model Town, which he patterned on what he imagined London to be like. Then he was sent Home shortly before the War started, to live with his aunt and uncle in the real London. He soon discovered that all was not as he had imagined; his relatives grudged him his keep, often told him that he was only there on sufferance, and was a wicked child, for any number of reasons. His parents' deaths soon afterward only compounded his sorrows; though there was a little money, his aunt and uncle kept most of it for themselves. Meanwhile Henry stayed up in the attic, working day and night on his Model Town. Now he had the actual London streets and buildings to work with and, piece by piece, he put together something extraordinary.

Then, one night, Henry vanished, never to be seen again. It was claimed at the time that his relatives, worried that their bilking of his inheritance was about to be uncovered, got rid of the boy, but a thorough investigation came to nothing. The Books - and Henry's Town - were soon got rid of, presumably destroyed.

Yet, claim some Megapolisomancers, Henry's London proved remarkably difficult to truly kill. Some of his models have turned up in the most unlikely of places, and are prized by those who use the bricks and soul of London in their magic. But the books are the real prize, and more than one practitioner has spent many hours picking through obscure bookstores, hoping against hope that they'll stumble across one of the precious volumes with Henry's hand-written notes in the margins.

As to where Henry himself ended up, practitioners of the Art theorize that Henry managed, one night, to vanish into a London of his own devising, becoming one with the city he loved so much. Perhaps his aunt and uncle could shed some light on what really happened, but his uncle is - supposedly - dead, and his aunt now lives far out in the countryside.

It's said she has a horror of cities.

M.R. James' Winter Tales

I'm going to use the first post of 2013 - yay! - to talk about a subject dear to my heart: the ghost stories of M.R. James, as retold in the DVD boxed set The Complete Ghost Stories of M.R. James. This is the Region 0 version of the tales, recently released by Australians Shock UPC. All of these programs were originally broadcast on UK television, many of them decades ago.

For those who aren't familiar with the contents: there are twelve episodes in all, though only eight stories are drawn on. Each episode tells one of M.R. James' stories, and depending on which you pick, they can be straight-up narratives - as with Christopher Lee's Ghost Stories for Christmas - period pieces, or modern retellings of the old stories. The oldest is a 1968 edition of Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, and for that matter the most recent is a 2010 version of the same tale.

First, a quick note on format. This may not be something the British realize, but UK DVDs, when viewed in formats outside the UK, tend to come out slightly pixelated. I'm not going to go too deeply into the technical what-not behind this; just take it from me that they do. As this is a Region 0 set, that isn't a problem here. The picture is as clear as a bell.

As DVDs, the discs lack a certain something. Each contains the original programming, and no more. No extra features, interviews, or any content other than the show itself. Since many of these have been unavailable for some time, that isn't a huge problem; most will be happy with just the episodes. However as these old shows are also published by the BFI, which does include extra content, people who find themselves having to choose between one or the other may prefer the BFI discs. Take the 1968 Whistle; the BFI version has two Ramsey Campbell extras and an audio version of the story, as well as the 1968 piece, whereas the 1968 story in the boxed set only has the show itself. Bear in mind, my BFI version of Whistle is the older one; I understand there is a more recent BFI edition, which probably has different extras.

For that reason alone, I'm not sure I would recommend the Region 0 to anyone who has the chance to get hold of the BFI editions, particularly since the BFI has re-released all of these shows in 2012. However the Region 0 has them all together, where the BFI has broken them up into several separate discs. I don't think there's a separate BFI version of the Christopher Lee stories either, so if you went the BFI route you might have to pass on those. Also, the BFI has a nasty habit of letting material like this go out of print very quickly, and not bother to reissue them.  The same may not be true of Shock.

From a price perspective, there's some difference between the two. The individual BFI discs are cheaper, but even once you add all of them together, there's about 20 quid between the Region 0 and the BFI versions. There's also a BFI boxed set, but that doesn't seem to contain the same shows as the Region 0; as it's labelled 'Ghost Stories for Christmas', I rather suspect it won't be out there for very long. Of course, all this assumes that you're able to buy in the United Kingdom; if you're importing this, the price difference may well be eaten up in shipping or forex costs.

Now that I've had that rather long digression, what about the shows as shows?

For my money the Christopher Lee versions, which originally aired in 2000, are the most faithful, and the most atmospheric. That probably has a lot to do with the format of the original stories. They were structured in such a way as to be read aloud to an audience, which is exactly what Lee does. There are very few effects, and most of the shots are of Lee sitting in an armchair, talking, with occasional glances at his audience. While that certainly works as a story, I'm not convinced it works well as television, though I still prefer these to some of the more modern retellings.

The 1970s titles - A Warning to the Curious, The Ash Tree, The Stalls of Barchester, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, Lost Hearts - are all very well done, and many of them really work wonders. The Ash Tree and The Treasure of Abbot Thomas are probably the best of these, though I admit I'm giving the Ash Tree credit largely because of a very effective end sequence. Good special effects are always going to be a problem with something like this, and there are one or two moments when Ye Plasticke Hande of Satan - or something very similar - almost spoils the mood. That said, options in the 1970s were limited; they can't be seriously faulted for the occasional duff moment.

The modern versions are probably the least satisfying, particularly the 2010 Whistle, which throws almost all of the original plot out the window, up to and including the reason for the title. My quarrels with the 2010 Whistle are specific, but were I to pitch a general complaint at all the modern versions, it would be that the protagonists seem to have been re-cast to be as unlikeable as possible. That's a huge problem in a setting where, as MR James points out, the objective is to get the audience to think "if I'm not careful, something like that might happen to me!" For that to work, the audience needs to be in sympathy with the protagonist, which is damn near impossible when the main character is a miserable prick.

The 2010 Whistle is just odd, to the point where you begin to wonder whether the director would really rather have been working on something else, but got stuck with this instead. I don't say the central plot device wouldn't have worked as an original piece, but it isn't an original; it's a rework of an existing plot, and as the two stories are so different in character and tone - really only retaining the setting and the title - it's impossible to come away happy with the 2010 edition if you've read the original story.

So, to sum: I would recommend the Region 0 set to people interested in M.R. James' stories, since it's a complete set, and contains some material that you won't easily find elsewhere. That said, if it's a choice between the Region 0 and the BFI, I'd recommend the BFI, as those discs contain more material and are probably cheaper to obtain. You'd probably have to sacrifice at least some of the Christopher Lee versions, but if that doesn't trouble you, purchase away!
  

Bookhounds: Expanding on the Text

It's always useful, when considering published source material, to expand on the text provided, and this holds true whether it's a scenario or a sourcebook. The case in point this time is The Book of the Smoke publsihed by Pelgrane Press and written by Paula Dempsey, a work I'd highly recommend to anyone wishing to run Bookhounds games. The section I'm going to be discussing can be found on page 58: The Buckingham, in Berwick Street.

I don't know whether this establishment is based on something in the real world, or something that the author made up. That doesn't matter. What does matter is what I do with it because, ultimately, this needs to fit my game, and that means it needs to fit my play style. This is precisely why the Keeper should always rework in-game material; however well written, a supplement's author doesn't play in your game world, and it's always best, if you want to keep on top of the game, to add your own personal touches to the material.

"A fashionable supper club where one may dine and dance to the latest jazz music," a club that hasn't been in business very long, is what the text says. This is very handy, as it gives me enough to work with, without bludgeoning me with too much detail to work around.

Describing a place as a supper club implies that you're intended to spend pretty much the entire evening there. You might turn up at cocktail hour, enjoy a few swift ones, then have a meal, and afterwards go dancing or enjoy the cabaret, all in one well-presented package. It also implies a certain standard; not everyone is going to be able to get in, and that in turn suggests that there must be bouncers on site, and probably also slick manager-types to deal with fractious VIPs. Any business catering to the fashionable set needs to be able to meet pretty much any contingency, from the mundane - rowdy drunks, always a hazard wherever alcohol is in the mix - to the more serious, like yellow journalists infiltrating the place, sniffing after one or more of the clients. It will probably be reinventing its look every other season, just to keep up with trends, so the important thing for the Keeper is to get the personalities right; like any other business, a nightclub's culture tends to be dictated by the management, so the Keeper needs to put some detail into the NPCs.

So, without further ado: the Buckingham.

Its current aesthetic evokes a New Orleans style, with gaily painted murals on the walls meant to make the guests feel as though they're in the heart of the South. It has two levels, with the serious drinking done on the ground floor, while the eating and dancing happens on the upper level. The Buckingham often has guest bands performing, but the club regulars are Pat Quinlan's Quintet. Pat's a a Chicago Style man, and claims to have once played in a club owned by Bugsy Siegel.

Nobody knows who owns the Buckingam. The Club has a manager, Charlie Cooper, who is well paid to keep his mouth shut and run a clean place. Rumor has it that Charlie, a former associate of dope dealer Eddie Manning, had his record expunged by friendly Scotland Yard officials so he could get a license to run the Buckingham, but Charlie - a very personable character who looks a decade younger than his actual age - denies this. His criminal past, he claims, is greatly exaggerated; he was a little wild when he was a lad, but then, who wasn't? As for Eddie, Charlie only ever knew him as someone in the neighborhood; Charlie never touched dope. Charlie's talent, apart from a natural business acumen, is for spotting journalists, even in disguise. He claims to know every single one and, while he says he has no prejudice against them, Charlie's rule is that journalists aren't allowed inside the Buckingham. Charlie says it would make the other guests nervous, if they thought that what they got up to on Friday night would hit the Scoop on Saturday morning.

The other attraction of the Buckingam, apart from Archie's lethal cocktails and Quinlan's Quintet, is Charlie's Girls. These well-groomed women can always be found at the bar or on the dance floor, willing and able to keep guests company should they arrive stag. Not that there ought to be any suggestion of impropriety; Charlie's been known to get personally offended when drunken guests mistreat his girls, and there's never any question of lewd behavior. Charlie's girls are there to lend the place tone, to dance, and to make light conversation. Anything more than that is ought of bounds. 

As might be expected, there are any number of stories about who might have a stake in the Buckingham, and one of the most persistent is that it's secretly owned by the Honorable Charles Evelyn Harcourt Pryce, also known as the Duke of Crime.

Technically he’s not entitled to the honorific; he’s not the son of a peer, much less a Duke. That said, there’s a lot of money behind him, and people will keep claiming he’s the bastard son of an otherwise childless peer of the realm. Certainly he dresses and acts the part, and he is a Baliol man, as well as a former college cricketer.

The ‘Duke of Crime’ tag dates from 1928, when the Honorable Charles was accused of a string of jewel thefts that had been committed over the previous five years. The trial occupied the front pages for several months, and the so-called Duke was accused of being, among other things, the mastermind behind a gang of well-organized thieves. However the whole case fell apart when the two chief witnesses for the prosecution vanished, and the Detective in charge of the investigation, Bill Saunders, was found to be blackmailing Pryce. It was assumed at the time that the witnesses were involved with the blackmail attempt and had fled before they could be arrested, but they’ve never turned up since, whether in London or anywhere else. Bill Saunders was disgraced and was lucky to escape imprisonment; these days he works as a barman in a much less prestigious East End establishment.

Though the Honorable Charles is, of course, entirely innocent of any wrongdoing, it is odd how so many people seem convinced that the Buckingham is the best place to meet with knowledgeable fixers and discreet criminals.

Bill Saunders maintained his innocence throughout the investigation, and once swore revenge, but that was long ago, and he’s done nothing about it.

The Honorable Charles is an athletic man approaching his forties, dark haired and clean shaven. His face is amiable but not truly handsome, though he has a reputation as a charmer. He’s seldom seen with the same woman twice. He’s never dressed in anything less than the best; he claims his man, Emsworth, would never permit him to be seen in public otherwise. He’s usually found either propping up the bar or on the dance floor, and is supposed to be on very friendly terms with the as-yet-unidentified management.

Bill Saunders, the Honorable Charles' self-appointed nemesis, is a burly man gone slightly to seed. Though he’s only in his mid thirties, he looks at least ten years older, and his hair is prematurely grey. His nose has been broken badly, and not mended properly. His current job is his third; he can’t seem to keep a post long, probably because he gets into fights.

Clues associated with the Buckingam:

The Knowledge. Nobody knows where the management got the money to open up the Buckingham. Wherever they got it from, it wasn’t the usual sources, and none of the gangs have ever tried to put the bite on. All sorts of rumors are flying around. The most popular is White Russians, refugees from the Soviets, sunk some of their capital into it. The one thing everyone seems agreed on is that the Honorable Charles certainly did not put money into the Buckingham. People who suggest that, even in jest, get very unfriendly treatment from Charlie.

The Knowledge, Streetwise. Though there are fixers and criminals who use the Buckingham as their office, they never show up before midnight and they never do business direct. You have to put your request through one of the staff, or Charlie's girls, using the words ‘Mister Bill said he’d meet me here; let me know when he shows up.’ A generous tip also helps. After that, the terms and conditions are up to you, when Mister Bill - any one of several well-connected fixers - shows himself, but violence is not one of the commodities they trade in at the Buckingham, and drugs are at best discouraged. Discreet theft and goods bought in bulk well below market rates is their usual line. 

The Knowledge, Occult. During the Cholera Epidemic of 1854, the building the Buckingham now occupies was abandoned by its owners, who fled to the country. When they returned some months later, they discovered that a family of twelve had broken into the building while they were away, contracted cholera, and all died. Nobody discovered the bodies until the building owners returned, by which time decay was well advanced. People say their ghosts still haunt the building. Magicians claim that some houses within the cholera zone are useful sources of magical energy. All that death ended up stored in the walls like a psychic battery.   

Streetwise, Cop Talk. Bill Saunders daren’t set foot in the Buckingham. Last time he did was when he got his broken nose, and since then the doormen are under strict orders not to let him in. That said, Bill still has some friends, and those in the know claim he’s been building a case against the Duke of Crime. Not that any evidence he gathers will ever see a court of law, but he thinks he can get enough together to convince the powers that be to reopen the Pryce investigation. Any dirt on the Duke of Crime will be gratefully received by Bill, though he can’t pay much. 

 Plot Hook associated with the Buckingham:

The Honourable Charles is an amateur bibliophile, with a fondness for crime of all kinds. He’s particularly interested in Sherlock Holmes and all his derivatives, from non-canonical to comic pastiche. He’s supposed to be an easy touch for that sort of thing and will pay well over the odds. As luck would have it, Bill Saunders has a copy of a book the Duke might be interested in, a galley proof of an Arsene Lupin novel by Maurice Leblanc, featuring Herlock Sholmes. Bill naturally isn’t keen on meeting the Duke face-to-face and will want an intermediary, but is there more to this book deal than meets the eye? How did Bill get this French galley proof, and why did he even want it in the first place?