A Call of Cthulhu story

[Sheelba of the Eye]

Let me introduce you to the gang…

And how could I begin anywhere other than with the sophisticated and eminently suave Michel Blabla (stage name). From his cravats and gold plated cigarette holder to his immaculate suits from the most fashionable Parisian tailors he looks every inch the movie star. And like all silent movie stars he can’t act a bean. Currently in London until the furore around the newspaper articles suggesting that he spent more time in the Great War entertaining a certain German countess, the Countess —————— (please, no names, show some decorum) than the troops at the front line this devilishly handsome 50 something is finding the English adorable - just like children really. How ever did they acquire an empire? In his attempt to win the admiration of a London pressman, to further his career in this quaint land, Michel is puzzled to find himself keeping company with a librarian of all things. Although he is beginning to realise that librarians can be quite pretty, if only they didn’t dress like, well, librarians.

Next comes the independent and hard working Yasmine Astor (no relation). An editor at The Great Chase, based in Clapham, she is only now realising that librarians can come from wealthy families too! Or at least her friend from her book club has turned out to have very wealthy parents. Determined to make a name for herself she doesn’t notice the great strides she has already made and how proud her parents are of her. Oh, and gentlemen, she isn’t pleased to see you, that is a pistol in her pocket. Fearless, successful, she is determined to have the security which can only be found in greater success. If only this Frenchman wasn't following her around, after all she doesn’t work on the gossip columns and pretty soon she might find herself “linked” with a movie star for whom Low Tea is something to be drunk when feeling depressed.

Percival Wilson makes the third in our quartet. A pharmacist at the Bloomsbury Royal Infirmary Percy never quite gave up the habit of having his service issue Webley .455 close to hand following his experiences as a dispensary in Flanders during the Great War. Fortunately, the nightmares stopped some time ago. Wanting a quiet life he can’t quite get along side a society which frowns on a man of any social standing who does not habitually wear a hat. Enjoying the peace and quiet which comes of living in Richmond he nevertheless diligently commutes into central each day to do his bit in alleviating the suffering of the masses. One can’t help but suspect that he secretly wishes he had decided to become a Librarian, like his schoolhood friend (sweetheart?) Dorothy.

From a wealthy banker’s family Dorothy looks forward to reading to the children who gather in her local library, just around the corner from her small flat in Notting Hill, which she calls work. Very properly dressed and perfectly happy in her little world Dorothy is at the centre of our soon-to-be-tested group. Her doting parents, Janet and Mark, don’t regard a single shilling of the exorbitant wealth expended on their only child’s education wasted - although they can’t help but try and introduce her to members of the board of directors from the British Library. Fond of both high tea (which always embarrasses Janet) and low tea Dorothy is down to earth and as oblivious to the ease with which her privileged upbringing provides her as a one can be in London, 1921.

 

[Sheelba of the Eye]

This is an entry level campaign for a group of players two of whom have played a little (one 5e a few times, the other Runequest a couple of times), the others are new to TTRPG completely. My games are role-play heavy, more so than the average D&D game, I think. We are playing 7th edition Call of Cthulhu and I have started them off with a London set Mr. Corbitt. Dorothy is house sitting for her parents who live opposite kind Mr Corbitt near Regent’s Park in Central London. They’ve already been to the zoo.

We rolled up characters and then had time for a short session to get the ball rolling...

 

[Sheelba of the Eye]

Thursday, September the First, 1921.

Our adventure starts in Nell’s Teacake and Tea shop on a main street in Camden, London. Dorothy has taken the afternoon off and planed to meet her friend from her book club Yasmine, and an old school friend who she has kept in touch with, Percy. She arrived first and was soon joined by first Percy and then a slightly put-upon looking Yasmine who had a middle aged gent with her, distinctly foreign and too wealthy for the likes of Nell’s. Introductions were made - the interloper was Michel Blabla from France. Apparently a star of the silver screen but neither Dorothy nor Percy recognised the name or the face. Still, he seemed cheerful enough, enquiring after the hot chocolate and apparently finding it delightful. A pleasant couple of hours passed before they decided to move on. Dorothy nearly barrelled into a rotund gentleman standing just out of view to the left of the doorway. Apologising she was slightly taken aback when the gentleman, who was very well dressed, appeared to hardly notice and muttered “Where have I seen...” Squinting int the direction he was looking Dorothy could see the retreating figure of Mr. Corbitt, a neighbour of her parents, 10 years older than she and somewhat aloof, albeit a pleasant sort.

“What, no, the fault is entirely mine” the gentleman relied to Dorothy’s apology, dragging his gaze away from Corbitt. “I shouldn’t be standing in doorways.”

Privately agreeing Dorothy joined the stranger in watching Mr. Corbitt disappear around a corner.

“I’m sure I’ve…” The gentleman shook his head and apologised absentmindedly once more before entering Nell’s.

Percy suggested a stroll through the park and Michel cobbled together enough English to say that he had heard of a famous zoo in the park, perhaps they could visit. And so they went to the zoo.

Come evening and reluctant to go their separate ways Dorothy invited her companions back to her parent’s abode and offered to cook. Arriving they saw M.r Corbitt drive away from his house in a general northerly direction. Dorothy waved but was ignored. She felt a little disgruntled. An enjoyable evening followed a pleasant afternoon and sometime later we see Dorothy in turn seeing off her guests as they looked up and down the road for a cab. As they did so they realised that Mr. Corbitt must have driven up just a few moments before they emerged form Dorothy’s and was extracting from his car boot what was presumably his purchase - a longish object wrapped in a thick canvas. Or perhaps just a bundle of canvas. He didn’t notice his observers and walk to his front door, fumbled with his keys, dropped them, then dropped his parcel when retrieving them. Conversation had turned to Dorothy’s wonderful cooking (passable thought Michel, but the English are so easily satisfied when it came to food) and they were all distracted. Michel found himself feeling a little uneasy but couldn’t quite put his finger, as the English say, on it. After seeing the last of her guests off Dorothy locked the front door behind herself and immediately her gaze fell on Percy’s hat. He always forgets it!

The next morning Yasmine went to work as usual, as did Percy, irritated by his loss of his newest hat, and Dorothy, who as always opened top the library and started re-arranging the books. Michel, however, awoke somewhat troubled. The tiny amount of laudanum which he had quaffed to aid his sleep had instead given him unpleasant dreams and he had risen thinking about the funny little English man Corbitt. But what was it about him? Just as he was combing his moustaches in front of his shaving mirror it came to him. He would bet a guinea to a franc that he had spotted something jutting out of the canvas Mr. Corbitt had been carrying. And that thing jutting out was a human hand! He knew the English were an odd lot but this didn’t feel right even for them. Hmm, what to do. Perhaps Yasmine would know. She was a journalist of sorts, and the only person he was on first name terms with in all of England. Apart from his boot maker, but he didn’t seem like the appropriate fellow to ask to about this. After a fine breakfast Michel requested a cab be called and had a tiny absinthe to aid his digestion before getting into carriage and being driven to Hammersmith.

Yasmine was too busy to entertain a film star, no matter how rich. However, good manners matter and she heard him out.

“You went home, got drunk and imagined it!”

“Pardon, I tell you I did not. The parcel had a hand in it.”

Good grief, thought Yasmine, what do the French get up to think that a suburbanite has a hand in a bag at home? Hmm, unless he’s a doctor, in which case… Yasmine couldn’t remember what Dorothy had said about Mr. Corbitt, being too interested in the fabulous house which her friend had been brought tup in. Dorothy had woke this morning with a determination to reach the top of her profession and own a house like that one day. And now she was having to humour Michel again. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped. He would only go to the police and embarrass himself if she left him to his own devices.

“Let’s go and ask Dorothy about him, she’ll know what’s going on.”

So off they went, back to the hansom cab and the relatively short journey to Notting Hill from Hammersmith. As always on a Thursday morning Dorothy could be found in the children’s section rueing the children’s inability to books back on the shelf they took them from. Too polite to show her surprise Dorothy stoked up the little fire place in the office and placed a small kettle on it.

“Tea, anyone?”

 

[GuyBoy]

Love this story so far.
I'm working on running my first CoC campaign with my face-to-face group (probably in about 4-5 months, after finishing the Vecna game), so this is great inspiration.
I plan to start the game in London and the Home Counties.

 

[Sheelba of the Eye]

Love this story so far.
I'm working on running my first CoC campaign with my face-to-face group (probably in about 4-5 months, after finishing the Vecna game), so this is great inspiration.
I plan to start the game in London and the Home Counties.

Cheers, They are all new but they are throwing themselves into it. They'll be pleased they are encouraging others.

 

[Sheelba of the Eye]

“Let me get this straight. You think my neighbour, Bernard, Mr. Corbitt, was carrying, how did you put it? A hand wrapped up in canvas? Mr. Corbitt? Bernard?”

Dorothy was far from convinced. Things like that just don’t happen on her parent’s road. That’s the sort of thing you might expect in, well, Yorkshire or somewhere. Why would Mr. Corbitt be carrying a hand around anyway? The whole thing smelt funny, no pun intended. Yasmine was somewhat ambivalent. On the one hand (no pun intended) it was obviously ridiculous, on the other, it would be a scoop if it turned out to be real. “Real Live Frankenstein in Regents Park”! Okay, that was a little lurid, but still…

Dorothy reluctantly handed chipped cups to her guests as they mulled over the situation. She couldn’t see any way of avoiding helping the others, at least in disproving this silliness. They arranged to meet once again at Dorothy’s parents’s house and parted.

Percy was not in the best of moods. He had left his hat at Dorothy’s again, and people had been commenting on his wet hair all morning. How did he know it was going to rain? “Yes, I do have a hat.” “No, I haven’t lost it, merely mislaid it.” “No, the lady whose house I left it isn’t a beau.” “No, she wasn’t a flapper, she was a librarian, for heaven’s sake!” Really, what kind of society could be so hat obsessed? It wasn’t even lunch time when Percy spotted the first mistake of the day. Dr. Hirschfeld (no relation to the German sexologist) had prescribed something wholly inappropriate! It didn’t improve his mood to be giggled at by a couple of the secretaries as he walked along a corridor mainly devoted to admin and offices. It took him a good few minutes to explain the inappropriateness of Dr. Hirschfeld’s mistake although the chap was gracious enough when he realised the issue, which went a long way in alleviating Percy’s irritation. Wondering whether the rain had eased up, he barely managed to step aside from a man storming out of an office, looking back into the room he was walking out of.

“Just do it right, next time!” Barked Mr. Corbitt to whoever he had been talking to. Mr. Corbitt appeared to be very angry and didn’t even stop to apologise to Percy, even though Percy had had to side step pretty sharpish to avoid a collision. Percy was aware that “That’s unusual” barely covered it. He had only gone a few steps before he turned around to watch one of the porters emerge for the office looking somewhat abashed. “That’s, hmm, Randolph, Randolph, Randolph Tomaszewski.” What business could he have with one of Dorothy’s neighbours? Randolph worked somewhere in the basement, didn’t he? With the incinerator. How odd.

Dorothy was only a few minutes home that evening when the door knocker was, well, knocked. Mr. Corbitt’s smiling face was revealed by opening the door.

“Hello, Doreen, I thought I spotted you. You must be looking after the house while your parents are away. How are old Martin and Joan?”

Dorothy, sighing inwardly, explained that they were on a cruise to Egypt and wouldn’t be home for some time.

“I often pop over with a box of home-grown vegetables when I have a harvest. As they aren’t here and you are, I thought you might like them.”

He raise the large box of courgettes, tomatoes, runner beans, spring onions and a couple of peaches.

“As you appear to have grown into a responsible young lady,” [“Really,” thought Dorothy, you’re only 10 years older than me] “I wondered if you could do the same for me. I’m away for a few days next week, would you be a dear and pop in, water the plants, that sort of thing.”

Oh, er, I’d be delighted,” replied Dorothy, regretting it instantly. A few more pleasantries were exchanged and they agreed that Mr. Corbitt (“Bernard, please”) would pop back with a key over the weekend.

Before long the usual suspects were sitting around Dorothy’s kitchen table. Michel took over the box of food and started cooking a ratatouille while Dorothy made more tea and everyone settled down to discuss the suspicions of Blabla. Percy had joined them to collect the hat he left the previous night. Percy’s intelligence was curious but it didn’t alter the fact that Dorothy was more suspicious of Michel than Bernard. That Michel turned out to be a surprisingly good cook for someone wealthy enough to have not seen inside of a kitchen for years helped allay Dorothy’s fears. She agreed to look through the newspaper archives at her library the next day. Yasmine had already searched through back copies of The Great Chase to no avail. Michel and Yasmine were to visit Registry House to snoop on Mr.Corbitt’s business interests while Percy was going to check out Randolph a little more.

Back at the library Dorothy was in her element. She soon found a series of press cuttings. There was a short article about the death of Bernard’s father some 14 years ago. They had been in India together when, while trekking, they had been set upon by some bandits [“Bandits? Isn’t this the 1920’s?”] and old Theodore Corbitt had fallen to his death. No body was found. Another article recalled the death of Bernard’s wife and new born, 12 years earlier. He had apparently returned home to find that his wife had gone into labour and, despite the presence of the midwife, both his young (22 year old) wife and son died in childbirth. Funnily enough, the midwife had had a stroke, according to a third article, and had been taken to a local sanitarium following Mr. Corbitt’s discovery of the macabre scene. Dorothy couldn’t but help feeling a little uneasy.

On a whim she looked for anything about Randolph Tomaszewski and found a unsettling piece about him being arrested on suspicion of harming animals. This one was dated a few months ago. Her unease increased…

 

[Sheelba of the Eye]

With a wry grin Percy realised that he was running his thumb along the rim of the pipe in his jacket pocket. He pictured Dorothy's look of exasperation that always accompanied her catching him with his hands in his pockets: "Percival! So uncouth, I really don't know where you pick up these habits. You didn't do that at school!"

"Come on, Percy, focus." Percy had volunteered to investigate Randolph and was hovering by the nearest stairs to the basement area which contained the human-remains incinerator. His job didn't take him this way. He shook himself and started down. No one ever reported liking the basement in the hospital and Percy could see why. Only a few of the gas lamps lining the walls were working. Or at least, only a few were lit. The walls their brackets were attached to looked damp. While it took time to register on the nose, a faint smell of damp permeated the air, making Percy feel in need of a bath. Otherwise, the corridor was the same as the ones above, the same height, width and the same tiled floor. The oversized metal door which led to the incinerator approached. Percy didn't pause. He pushed open the heavy door and peered inside. An orange glow provided scant illumination. With a final glance up and down the corridor he started down the steps. The room was virtually bare apart from the furnace, a small set of lockers, a metal gurney and what appeared to be the opening of a chute. Approaching the gurney first, Percy found its metal upper surface immaculate. A shelf near the base of the gurney had a messy bundle of canvas rags, canvas rags which looked very similar to the one Mr. Corbitt had been carrying. Nothing appeared unusual about the furnace itself and the metal door set in the was was indeed concealing a chute which, Percy accurately speculated, was one of the way which items could be deposited in the room for incineration. Finally he checked the lockers. They were locked and Percy could see no means of opening them which wouldn’t involve breaking their locks in an obvious manner. Pausing long enough to pick up one of the smaller canvas rags he took the stairs two at a time and turned towards his own office when he reached to the top. He only realised that he had been holding his breathe when he entered the corridor.

Meanwhile, Yasmine and Michel paid Registry House a visit. Usually closed to the public on a Saturday Yasmine didn’t take long in talking the archivist into letting her have a look at some records. Official documents showed that Mr. Corbitt owned Corbitt Importers of London, which operates from an address in Limehouse. The company had been set up by his father in the 1800’s and had traded ever since.

Sunday arrived and towards evening Mr. Corbitt knocked on the Miller residence and dropped off the keys. “Just check in the green house and water the house plants. Watch out for the thing in the attic,” he added with a wink, “there’s always something unpleasant in the attic when a neighbour asks a pretty young lady to check on their house, isn’t there?” Other than giving Dorothy the dates he would be away - Monday to Thursday - he didn’t have much else to add.