Painting has been a bit slow this week for this game, although I have managed to work on the table a bit. I have pretty much worked out the scenario and I’m sticking with ‘Trial by Fire’ now using Pulp Alley rules (in case anyone was in doubt!). The meaning of this will not be revealed until the game starts. So, in the meantime, here’s another snippet about the back-story and the mysteries surrounding the murder at
Chimneys and Snapcase’s dispatch to British Somaliland as the unwitting tool of the Colonial Office and the R.A.F.:
Chapter III
“They hired Carl Peterson to kidnap Georgina Worsley, that’s how serious they are! Peterson’s a master of disguise, that’s how he got her out of the house in Belgravia”. These solemn words were uttered by Superintendent Battle as he stared into the fireplace at Mad Lord Snapcase’s London flat in Marylebone.
After the Colonial secretary and the Chief of the Air Staff had left Baker Street, Snapcase and Battle had drawn two wing chairs nearer the fire, which Old Scrotum had banked up to keep out the December chill. Another essential precaution Snapcase had taken against the cold winter weather was to have Scrotum bring in a bottle of the
Tuke Holdsworth port he’d won in a card game in 1912 in Monte Carlo. He and Battle were on their second snifter before Battle had spoken those portentous words.
“Who hired who to kidnap whom?” spluttered Snapcase, taken by surprise.
“Who hired who to kidnap whom?”
“Perhaps I’d better start at the beginning” said Battle sipping at his port. “Ever met a chap called Gerry Wade?”
“No, I don’t think I have”.
“Well, Gerry’s an old chum of mine. He met a girl called Georgina Worsley in the
Pelican Club earlier this year. She’s the Marchioness of Stockbridge or something; look her up in Debrett’s. I’ve got a photograph of her here, the usual Christmas photograph with the servants. That’s her, bottom left, pretty little thing eh?”
The Marchioness of Stockbridge
Snapcase’s moustache bristled as he looked at the photograph. “Dashed pretty indeed”.
“Don’t get too interested old man; she’s Gerry’s girl y’see. After they met at the
Pelican Club, they became quite pally. Mother went down with the
Titanic in ’12 and she served with the Voluntary Aid Detachment during the war. Turns out her uncle is a bit of a chemist, name of Phibes, Dr. Anton Phibes”.
“Never heard of the old coot”.
“No, not many people have. But my colleague at the Yard, Inspector Trout is currently investigating his disappearance. Apparently he was working on a secret formula that could make ordinary wire as tough as steel. It could revolutionise the aircraft industry. Obviously, a lot of people would give their eye-teeth to get hold of that formula and now he’s disappeared into thin air.”
“Bless my cotton socks; it sounds like one of those cheap mystery thrillers you read in
The Strand magazine”.
“Well, the upshot of it is, Georgina told Gerry she knew where the formula was hidden. Gerry came to see me at the Yard and whilst we were planning our next move, a call came in from the local police in Chelsea saying that a Georgina Worsley had been abducted from 165 Eaton Place in Belgravia”.
“So where is the formula, then?”
“Ah, there’s the rub. She didn’t tell Gerry where it was, just that she knew of its location and now she’s disappeared as well, damn and blast it! But, we have a lead”.
“You do?”
“Yes, by sheer chance Captain James Bellamy who knew Georgina from the war, she nursed him after he was wounded at Passchendaele, saw someone who looked exactly like her being unloaded from a tramp steamer, strapped to a stretcher and apparently unconscious. He was knocked to the ground by an unknown assailant as he went to investigate. By the time, he had disentangled himself, the stretcher had disappeared and further enquiries on the steamer proved fruitless”.
“And where was Bellamy when he saw Georgina then?” queried Snapcase?
“At the port of Berbera, in British Somaliland, hence your mission!”
“Ah” said Snapcase, his mind a whirlwind of facts and suppositions “as clear as mud, old boy, as clear as mud”.
To be continued……………………………….