The Last Lodger...

The Enhanced Intelligence Service team of enhanced individuals continue to piece together the clues that they have unearthed and they are continuing to question the enhanced criminals in the safety of Hanslope Park. The EIS team consists of Alfie Baldrick, the one man rifle section; Mimi Dubois, maîtresse of skills; Madeline Forsyth, the living shadow; and Sven Hyse, the Norwegian shapeshifter.

London, England, September 1949

Madeline and Sven pull Big Alfie into the interrogation room, after the Doctors have injected him with a truth serum as well as something to counter the effects of the sedative keeping him unconscious. As soon as he regains consciousness, Alfred Roome immediately triggers his enhanced ability and transforms into his metallic brass body. Madeline turns the dial on her machine to give him a mild electrical shock and convince him to transform back, but he reacts disproportionately to the current that she uses and he passes out. The doctors rush in and inform both Madeline and Sven that he will have to be put back in intensive care while they run tests to determine what has happened.

Undeterred, they agree to pull Lucky Terry Hogan in for questioning. Madeline takes her usual approach and informs him what she already knows and that he is in a secure facility. She adds that no one knows where he is and he snaps back;

I know my righ...

He trails off in a grunt of pain as Madeline turns the dial on her machine and electrical current passes through the enhanced criminal. Madeline shakes her head in a sorry fashion and says;

I'd rather not do that. Shall we start again?

That is all it takes for Lucky Tel to open up and spill everything that he knows. His story is very similar to that heard from the others that have been interrogated, but he is able to confirm that the Doctors house was number 3 Raven Row and that he remembers being annoyed by the regular sound of sirens while he was there. Madeline pushes him for names of other members of the gang as well as any fences that the gang worked with. When she realises that he is not giving her all of the names she shocks him again and restarts the entire process. After a couple of hours Madeline is happy that she has rung him dry of information and gets the doctors to sedate him and return him to his cell.

William Graham puts up more of a fight, and Madeline finds herself turning the dial on her machine higher than she has had to with the others as Sven looms over Graham in the guise of Big Alfie. Eventually Graham calms down and stops fighting the process, and after an intense interrogation he gives up his story. He admits that they were just in it for the money and that he was hired muscle, his answers again tie up closely with the others and after she has finished her questioning she settles down and collates her notes, cross checking with Sven as she does.

In London, Alfie and I head to the British Library and check through the sign out history of the long list of books that Madeline had written down for me before heading for Hanslope Park. The list related to Madeline's investigations into the occult links and I was trying to find any sign of Doctor Jackal, or any pseudonim, researching similar subjects. After a couple of hours of cross referencing I had discovered nothing apart from Alfie's ability to puff his way through most of a packet of my French cigarettes. In desperation I started to cross reference the books on Madeline's list with others booked out by the same readers, and eventually my gamble paid off. I discovered the Doctor Jackal had signed out a book in 1945 that was a collection of advanced physics papers written by Albert Einstein.

I pull a copy of the papers from the archive and quickly flick through it, but it doesn't take long to realise that it is way beyond my ability to comprehend. The one item that caught my attention was a picture of what seemed to be a net with a large ball held in it. I put the papers back and headed for Alfie. Alfie contacted Isy mentally and got him to contact the Smartly Dressed Man to see if he could arrange for me to meet any renowned physicist for dinner.

When we get back to Canning Place Mews we put in a call to Madeline and Sven and have a quick debrief of all that both teams have discovered. No sooner have I hung up the telephone, it rang and I answered to the Smartly Dressed Man who informed me that he had managed to arrange a breakfast meeting for me with one Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs from the Atomic Energy Research Establishment who was in London for a meeting and had cleared space in his diary for a brief meeting.

The following morning Madeline and Sven question George 'Taters' Chatham, seemingly one of the three ringleaders of the enhanced gang, and the only one left alive. Chatham is surprisingly cooperative, almost as if he is fully aware of the situation that he is faced with, and freely admits that he was not involved in the Battle of London Airport but that he was involved in the Post Office van robbery. Under questioning he admits that he met Doctor Barghest in 1946 after Jack 'Spot' Comer had suffered a nasty injury after a job had gone wrong. The Doctor was drinking in the Blind Beggar and offered his services to heal Comer. After that the partnership grew and the Doctor became the brains behind the gang and made suggestions and plans for the robberies.

When Madeline questions Chatham if he knows where the Doctor has gone, he responds that he didn't even know that he was going, but he is not surprised after he stole a large amount of the take from the gang. Madeline asks him how much the Doctor stole and is told;

Roughly £500,000!

Sven whistles out loud at that and shares a glance with Madeline. They ask Chatham what Billy Hill's enhanced power was and Chatham tells them that he seemed to always be able to know exactly where things were. He could locate items over great distances.

While the others were questioning Chatham, I was having a lovely breakfast with Klaus Fuchs, who it turns out is a German theoretical physicist. I switch to fluent German to make him feel comfortable and shuffle my chair around so that I can hold his hand while I ask him about his studies. He is completely off of his guard and is happy to talk at length, as he does so I push out with my power and borrow his knowledge of physics, once I have it I am able to fully take part in the discussion and Fuchs is astounded at my grasp of the subject.

I wish Fuchs well and get Alfie to take me back to the British Library where I quickly start reading through the Einstein papers. They relate to theoretical discussions around space and time manipulation, as well as holes in space. Making educated guesses, mostly working on the fact that Doctor Jackal would be able to make theories actual facts, I surmise that the good Doctor is looking at the possibilities of leaping in time and space, but not travelling backwards in time.

We regroup outside number 3 Raven Row and discover that it is in very close proximity to London Hospital. Sven transforms himself into a pigeon and flies up to inspect the house from the roofline, he finds that all of the curtains are drawn and that there is a large piece of machinery on the roof that he is not sure what it is for. Having given it the all clear it is now Madeline's turn to investigate. She transforms into a shadow and slides onto Alfie who walks over and sits down on the steps of the house to have a cigarette. As soon as he sits down, Madeline slides off of him and in under the front door.

She finds herself in an entrance hall that looks like it has been used in the last couple of weeks and with no signs of any booby traps she picks the lock on the front door and waves the rest of the team into the house. Leaving Charlie in the car on watch, as soon as we cross the threshold Baldrick duplicates and we begin to push further into the house searching for any sign of occupants. Sven checks the floor for signs of movement and tells us that he believes that the house hasn't been occupied for at least a week. As we push in we discover a large sweeping staircase heading upwards, as well as an elevator. Which Sven believes explains the machinery on the roof of the building.

We leave one of the Baldricks guarding the base of the stairs and continue further inwards, while Madeline transforms into a shadow and heads down the elevator shaft. The rest of us discover a back staircase and descend that to the basement. Below stairs we find the kitchen and pantry and as we move through Madeline spots a section of wall that looks newer than its surroundings, and upon closer inspection she tells us that it is new but has been painted to make it blend in. Sven steps in and sets to with his axes, hacking away at it until a hidden doorway is revealed. The doorway opens up into a long corridor and as we move along it we discover a storeroom containing a lot of glassware, and I guess that it is a laboratory store.

Further in we discover a functional surgery as well as a fully stock laboratory including an X-ray machine with stenciled letters proclaiming;

Property of London Hospital

Leaving the hidden corridor we continue to search the basement and find a bedroom, which based on the furnishings looks like a ladies room, and within the room is a safe. It is a quick job for Madeline to crack it and she hands me the sheaf of papers that she finds within. I quickly reach out with my power and borrow her intelligence analysis skill and had back up to the Baldrick stationed on the ground floor to start to sift through the documents while the others continue the search. They discover a large library full of research tombs, including a number on horology. Alfie gets Isy to contact the Smartly Dressed Man to request a forensics team be put on standby for when we have confirmed that the house is fully secure.

On the first floor Madeline discovers a drawing room with an easel set up in the bay window. On the easel is a half painted surrealist piece of work, Madeline notes that the brush strokes are precise and controlled. On the third floor Alfie discovers a mannequin and when he inspects it he discovers that it has tiny bells sewn into each pocket as well as small fishhooks sewn into the inside of some of them. He mentions it to Madeline who responds that she thinks it is a pick pocket training dummy. They next room along they discover an horologists workshop and Madeline calls the rest of the search party to her so that they can search the room thoroughly. Midway through the search Alfie comments that none of the draws or equipment have any labels and Madeline points out that Doctor Jackal had an eidetic memory and so would not require any notes.

Finding nothing of interest they push on and find a darkroom and a room set up for the preparation and donning of disguises. But again there are no notes or photographs. The final room on that floor appears to contain all of the equipment needed to forge documents and identifications, while Sven discovers that there are indents in the hallway carpet indicating that a ladder had been placed there regularly. Looking up he sees a loft hatch, and when he opens it a ladder drops down. He slowly starts to climb upwards.

On the ground floor I had sorted through the documents and discovered that they had belonged to a lady by the name of Dorothy Clifton who had owned the house and rented the rooms out to professional people in order to make ends meet. The last entry in the guest book was for a Doctor Shuck in 1946, and after that no more guests are admitted. I have a feeling that Ms Clifton may not have survived her last lodger.

As Sven's head clears the loft hatch he spies a single chair placed in the shaft of light creeping into the loft space through the skylight. The walls are covered in scratched scrawl, some of which is illegible but one phrase stands out clearly in several places; 

WE MUST TALK!

Madeline joins Sven and discovers on the back of the lift shaft, written in a different hand;

I will talk!

Having completed the search Alfie calls in the forensics team while we thoroughly search back through some of the rooms. Madeline discovers a form booking passage from Liverpool to New York on the 17th September 1949. And I discover that the Doctor was preparing disguises based on Americans and American culture. We pass the information onto the smartly Dressed Man and request an urgent meeting with Sawdon.

Sometime later, sat in Sawdon's office, we are told that a Doctor Shuck booked passage on RMS Caronia to New York, and the ship will have docked before we searched Raven Row. Sawdon wants us to track down Doctor Jackal in America, but he wants it low key and does not want the Americans tipped off about our activity, but it will mean that we will need to work with Ambassador Philby. This news brings a slight groan from Madeline. Sawdon also confirms that London Hospital had a Doctor Shuck on their books for about a year from 1947 onwards. Madeline casually points out that the Doctor's second alias of Shuck sticks with the theme of British folklore hounds, and so Sawdon agrees to get the 'Boffins' to pull a list of possible alias' together.

New York, United States of America, October 1949

We land at Idlewild airport just outside of New York on the 4th October 1949, having stopped in Greenland for refueling and collection of new identities. Two couples stepped off of the aeroplane, Magnus and Magna Magnusson in the company of Arty and Janet Doe. We are met at the airport by a taxi driver who introduces himself as Archie Wise and he tells us that he is taking us to our hotel. When we arrive outside a rundown flop house in a shady part of the city he hands us a card and tells us to get in contact when we need him again. We enter the hotel and find that there is a single room book in the names of Doe and Magnusson, when we get into the dingy hotel room we find a pair of suitcases on the bed.

Sven steps forwards and flips them both open. One of the suitcases contains a pair of disassembled rifles, both with silencers and telescopic sights, as well as four silenced Colt automatic handguns and a single shotgun. We all grab a handgun and Alfie picks up the case with the disassembled guns inside. The other suitcase contains $5,000 in used notes, I removed a stack of notes and then Sven zipped up the case and picked it up. I look around and say;

Well, we are not staying here. Let's get a taxi to a nicer hotel.

We are dropped off by a different taxi outside the Bentley Hotel, I pay for two rooms for two nights and we head straight up to get some well needed sleep. The following morning after breakfast I ring the number on the card given to us by Archie Wise, a lady with a thick New York accent answers the call;

New York Taxi. How can I help you?

I ask for Archie Wise and she asks who I am, I respond Janet Doe and she tells me to hold for a moment while she connects me. A moment later an officious English voice answers;

How may I help you Mrs Doe?

I tell the unknown voice that we are just checking in and that we have relocated to the Bentley Hotel. I ask if they have anything for us and he responds;

This piece of intelligence was flagged for the day that the subject arrived in New York, that evening Albert Einstein was given a talk at Princeton University.

I thank him and head back to the others where I find Alfie reading the paper. The headline says in bold print;

Agent Liberty returns from Cuba.

Below the headline is a picture of a women in a close fitting armoured suit, clearly a stylised imitation of the American flag, and the story details her helping to help infants escape the communist regime. I tell the others about the coincidence of Einstein's talk and so we agree to head to Princeton University.