The Faceless Marauder - Part 2

Amassing Clues

Having settled on the task at hand, the Investigators must start following the information and then start making connexions between this situation and others like it. There are recurring NPC names in the documents and discrete locations referenced, all of which may catch your players’ attention; there are also red herrings, however these should be used judiciously and sparingly in a scenario already overburdened with facts.

What Do The Investigators Start With?

This largely depends upon how your players are being hooked in. They will either be presented with some details regarding the discovery of skinned bodies fished out of the Thames, or the information in the case concerning Sir and Lady Pearson’s assault and the abduction of their child. If the Keeper has devised another point of entry for the party, they will have to give the players such information as is pertinent to that angle of attack.

What needs to be reinforced in this matter is that crimes happen all of the time and very few of them are reported. Women getting raped, or otherwise attacked; men being savaged; bodies ending up in the river; children going missing, or being abducted: these are everyday occurrences on the streets of St. Giles and the Seven Dials districts and not a lot of detective work happens to resolve them. For the most part, the police officers will just shrug and say “What can you do?” Hopefully, this negligent attitude will light a fire under your players!

Start your players off with either of these two packs of info (or whatever you’ve put together from this mess!):

Skinned Victims:

In this iteration, the police approach the Investigators for assistance (or vice-versa) having worked successfully with them before, or one of the Investigators is a member of the police force, given this case to try and unravel (at which point they rope in the rest of the party).

A policeman has recently discovered a flayed human leg on a trash heap in Russell Square; an autopsy was performed upon it by the Coroner’s Office. That report - and several other ones of a similar nature - is given to the party for evaluation. Along with them is an old newspaper report about one of the previous discoveries – an example of the kind of media beat-up that the Authorities would like to avoid.

The following list of incidents pertinent to the discoveries is provided, culled from the Police Blotter (see below):

*****

23^rd July 1895: A rag-and-bone man discovers a human leg without any skin in a trash heap on the corner of Russell Square. He contacts PC Warren, walking by on his beat, who orders him to guard the limb while he returns to the police station to secure reinforcements. The severed limb is brought to the station, then moved to the Coroner’s Office for examination.

*9^th July 1893: A much-decomposed human body is pulled from the Thames near Wapping. A general note from the Coroner’s Office to all police jurisdictions upstream of the discovery is logged in the ‘Blotter.

23^rd November 1891: Two legs and an arm belonging to one or several individuals are discovered in a trash-pile in Seven Dials (exact location unknown). Two men bring the remains into the police station hoping to be paid for their efforts – they leave no names. The limbs are in a severe state of decay and all three lack skin. They are despatched to the Coroner’s Office.

10^th July 1890: A flayed human torso washes up beneath a pier near Limehouse. Two Chinese nationals report the discovery and the body is retrieved and sent to the Coroner’s Office. The Coroner informs the Holborn District Police of the incident due to the previous discovery having been found in their jurisdiction.

17^th June 1887: Scavengers on the River Thames find a flayed human corpse floating in the water near Cleopatra’s Needle. They bring it by cart to the police station and an officer returns with them to the site of the discovery to ascertain the exact location. The scavengers, disappointed to find no reward offered for their find, sell their story to the Press and an article appears in The Times the next day. The body goes to the Coroner’s Office for examination.

*****

Pearson Assault:

If the party is being brought in as friends of the Pearsons – or by mutual friends of the party and of the Pearsons – then the information provided is a little different. For starters, there is no need to see Sir Albert’s death certificate as he was clearly killed as a result of being pushed from a hansom cab and driven over by its wheels. Lady Otterline, distraught by the double-blow of seeing her husband die and her child stolen from her arms, has taken to her London house and keeps to her bed, Policemen patrol the vicinity and men from Scotland Yard screen all visitors at the door.

The drama here is intensified by the fact that little Tarquin Pearson was taken alive from the scene of the assault and no-one knows if he still lives or if he has been killed. Time is of the essence.

A Detective Carnaby is in charge of the case and acts as a conduit through which most of the information flows. The Investigators must tread very carefully around him as, with a single wrong move, he can have them cut entirely out of the investigation.

Detective William Carnaby

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	15	POW	15	Age	34
CON	14	DEX	12	HP	16
SIZ	17	APP	10	Magic Points	15
INT	16	EDU	14	SAN	75%

Damage Bonus: +1D4

Weapon:            Fist 75%; .45 Revolver, 60%

Armour:             None

Skills:                  Psychology 70%; Spot Hidden 65%

Spells                  None

SAN Loss           It costs no SAN to see Detective Carnaby

The newspaper article that follows the attack covers faithfully all of the pertinent details of the crime. The cab was leapt upon from above, the driver cuffed to the street, the roof ripped off; the assailant dived in from above, pushing Sir Albert out through the side door onto the street. Lady Otterline was brutally bashed, the child torn from her arms and the attacker leapt out over the back of the cab and away into the night. Detective Carnaby can add few more details to this sparse outline, claiming that he has had an interview with Lady Otterline but that he cannot press her any further, given her frail state. He can reveal that the assailant is probably a street thug, or tramp – possibly foreign – because, according to Lady Otterline, he “stank abominably”. She also told the detective that he wore gloves and a mask and growled at her. More than this he cannot provide until Lady Otterline’s doctor feels that she can withstand the rigours of remembering the horrible events.

The party may well catch glimpses of Lady Otterline as her maids, nurses and doctor pass into and out of her bed chamber. Any party member who questions the house staff about the state of her injuries will see them pale at the thought. One distraught maid tears an advertisement from a nearby newspaper and scribbles on it with a pen; as she hands it over she says “that’s the worst of it, in the main”.

Alternatively, if the party request the same information from Detective Carnaby, he provides the same information in the same manner, visibly disturbed.

The Writing on the Walls

Throughout the area covered by the attacks, notices have been pasted up regarding the outrages which have occurred there. Most prominent amongst these is a notice from the police advising people – especially women – to be on the alert for a “Marauder”, a tall man wearing a mask, who attacks people at night. The notice is signed by Detective Inspector Abbeline who, some people will recall, was a central investigator in the Ripper mystery. The DI has an office a Scotland Yard; however, if the party try to contact him there, they will discover that he has been sent to the coast ‘for his health’. (Detective Abbeline fell into great disfavour after failing to produce a culprit in the Jack the Ripper case and his health suffered greatly due to stress afterwards.) The production of the posters and their dissemination was one of his last duties before leaving Town, and was considered a futile effort by a man at the limit of his powers as a detective.

Along with these posters, the Investigators may spy (on a successful Spot Hidden Roll) chalked messages at various points about the district, asking for people to come forward and be identified. These are either women or men looking for vanished partners, or pleas to the wider populace for information regarding missing children. These will inevitably be poorly spelled and oddly worded; they will generally hang around for a day before rain and fog erase them forever.

If the party needs an extra push forward in their progress, the Keeper may see fit to let them catch one of these writers at work on their notice and allow a conversation to start from that point. Remember that meeting one of the bereaved is a way to connect the party to the street level origins of the many cases involved in this tale.

Depending on the Keeper’s choice, the scrawler can be any of the following:

*****

Bridie Marsh: This mad woman wanders the streets crying out for her missing children and occasionally scribbling their names on the walls – Kitty and Tom. Any approach by the party will be rebuffed and some locals will come to her defence, explaining that she’s mad and that she should be left to her own devices. These citizens will explain that a tall figure in a top hat and cloak snatched her children at the mouth of an alley in Phoenix Street in broad daylight and that they vanished before anyone could help. That was in July of 1891.

Sybil Watts: Sybil’s beau, Dan Prentice, a rowdy costermonger from Seven Dials, went missing one night in April, 1889. He owed many other business men a lot of money and they are hounding Sybil for his whereabouts. She can direct the Investigators to Covent Garden where many witnesses remember him leaving a boozy get-together after a good day’s takings, whereafter he has not been seen since.

Maisie Avery: Her husband Denis never returned from work and she fears for his safety. He vanished one night in April of 1887 and was a nightwatchman at the British Museum. Although she knows deep down that he is probably dead, she still holds out hope that he may yet return. (NB: Here is a direct link to the British Museum and Keepers may wish to hold off on this clue until later in the proceedings.)

*****

Holborn Central District Police Headquarters

The biggest source of information for the party is the Police Blotter. This is a list of activity at the district police stations kept by the Desk Sergeants, who are the first point of call for most activity there. They note the situation on the desk blotter – names, date, time and a summary of the incident – then call for police officers, medics or detectives to intervene and take over the case. These summary details are then written up more clearly and fully in a large ledger, also called the Police Blotter, and stored for future reference at the district’s main station.

The ‘Blotter is not generally available for public consumption; however, if the party has been brought on board by the police, or have the sanction of a notable public figure (a member of the House of Lords, for example), or are police employees themselves, they can access these files. It’s possible to request, say, all child abduction incidents in the district for the last ten years and, in 1D4+2 hours, a list will appear, delivered by police courier. From here, the party can discern the names of victims and witnesses, the various locales involved and can then begin working on a plan of attack.

(NB: police files on open, or unsolved, cases are not available for removal by the Investigators under normal circumstances, as these are considered the property of the Crown and must remain accessible to legitimate police investigators at all times. Some files, like those concerning Jack the Ripper or Spring-Heeled Jack, are considered Top Secret and have been locked away from public access for a minimum 50-year period – any information that the party needs about these incidents must come from public records such as newspaper files, or from people directly involved in the incidents.)

When accessing the Police Blotter, have the party make an averaged Luck Roll. If successful, some apparently unrelated but useful information will be included in the handwritten list that will have unforeseen impact on the Investigators’ progress; if this roll fails, such information is not provided. This extra material is indicated by an asterisk; delete the material before providing it to the players if their roll is unsuccessful.

The characters should be aware also that relying upon the Police Blotter too much and requesting endless lists from the Holborn District police sergeant, will lead to this NPC becoming recalcitrant and relegating these tasks to a very low priority in their typically busy daily round. A thoughtful party will space out their requests and keep them concise and pertinent. Forcing the desk sergeant to do too much in this line will see delivery of the information go from 1D4+2 hours to 1D6+4 hours, then 1D10+4 hours. After this, the sergeant will complain to their supervisor (or their supervisor’s supervisor) and ask to be excused from these extra-curricular tasks.

Sergeant George Billingsworth

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	12	POW	13	Age	44
CON	13	DEX	14	HP	13
SIZ	12	APP	10	Magic Points	13
INT	15	EDU	13	SAN	65%

Damage Bonus: +/-0

Weapon:            Fist 60%; Nightstick 55%

Armour:             None

Skills:                  Law 65%%; Push Red Tape 75%

Spells                  None

SAN Loss           It costs no SAN to see Sergeant Billingsworth

Each time the party comes to the Holborn District Police Headquarters, have them make an averaged Luck Roll. If successful, they will encounter Sergeant Billingsworth having an argument with an irate florid-faced man in shirt-sleeves and an apron. This is Brian Partiger, innkeeper of the nearby Bells tavern. He reports that someone broke into his pub again and disturbed a sack of oyster shells which was destined to be sold off that day. He declares that this is not the first time that this has happened and that the police seem unwilling to do anything about it. Sergeant Billingsworth’s response is along the lines that they have far more pressing things to take care of.

If the party speaks with the innkeeper, they will learn that since August of 1893, there have been repeated intrusions into his establishment for the purpose of overturning the oyster-shell bags and creating a mess – nothing else was disturbed and nothing stolen; obviously it is someone’s idea of mischief.

HM Coroner’s Office

Death certificates and Autopsy reports are available for examination from the Coroner’s Office upon application and copies can be purchased for a shilling each. It will be noted that two doctors are responsible for the production and maintenance of this paperwork – The Coroner, Sir Antony Whitby-Lodge, and Dr. Oswald Taylor, although Dr. Taylor does the lion’s share of the work. While there is plenty of useful information to be gained from the documents themselves, talking to these two medical men is another way of gaining insight into the mystery at hand.

Sir Anthony Whitby Lodge, Coroner

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	12	POW	17	Age	58
CON	14	DEX	13	HP	14
SIZ	14	APP	14	Magic Points	17
INT	18	EDU	20	SAN	85%

Damage Bonus: +1D4

Weapon:            Scalpel 75%

Armour:             None

Skills:                  Dissection 80%; First Aid 75%; Medicine 85%

Spells                  None

SAN Loss           It costs no SAN to see Sir Anthony

Sir Anthony is a member of the House of Lords and the assumption of a certain amount of deference is expected by him. While he is in charge of the work that HM Coroner’s Office produces, and is ultimately responsible for any errors, he allows himself to cherry-pick cases as they arrive, busying himself with only the unusual and strange events. The run-of-the-mill investigations occupy only a small part of his time. Finding him at the Coroner’s Office is fraught with difficulty as he comes and goes as he pleases and often instructs underlings to declare that he is absent even if this isn’t the case.

The autopsies involving flayed victims attracted his attention initially and he will have definite memories of performing those investigations. His theory is that the bodies were first immersed in water to loosen the skin and then deliberately skinned using a very small, very sharp knife. He very firmly rejects the notion that an animal performed the deed: he mentions that he has seen the effects of a lion licking the skin off a human being in order to drink its blood and declares the two sets of phenomena as widely divergent.

Sir Anthony is very easily displeased by shows of familiarity, or disrespect, and the party will have to tread very carefully around him in order to obtain what they need.

Dr. Oswald Taylor, Coronial Chief Assistant

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	12	POW	13	Age	45
CON	13	DEX	15	HP	13
SIZ	12	APP	10	Magic Points	13
INT	16	EDU	20	SAN	65%

Damage Bonus: +/-0

Weapon:            Scalpel 70%

Armour:             None

Skills:                  Dissect 80%; First Aid 85%; Medicine 75%

Spells                  None

SAN Loss           It costs no SAN to see Dr. Taylor

The highly overworked Dr. Taylor is brusque and unwilling to waste time with idle chit-chat. Secretly, he is annoyed that so much of Sir Anthony’s work is offloaded onto his own shoulders and this might be the means of getting him to ‘talk out of school’ as it were.

If the party arrange to meet with him to discuss cases, it will be after hours at the Coroner’s Office, where he sits and signs documents after his busy day before heading home. He well remembers his cases involving flayed corpses and mentions that, even though it was he who performed the surgeries, Sir Anthony was breathing down his neck the whole time. He personally feels that the skinning of the corpses was done with something other than a surgical or flensing knife – perhaps one of those hunting knives which the Red Indians use – but he feels, whatever it was, it was small and very sharp. He thinks that whoever did the deed knew very well what they were doing and had had a fair amount of practise.

If questioned about the deaths of women due to difficult births, Dr. Taylor will claim that he didn’t see all the subjects mentioned in the certificates, and that many of these documents come before him only for his signature, after other examinations and their results have been decided. If Dr. Colfax’s name is mentioned, Oswald will recall that John was very concerned about a series of violent rapes which took place on his beat, and which he felt ought to be looked at more closely. Oswald recalls that he asked Colfax about the “non-viability” of the delivered infants but Dr. Colfax refused to pass on any details saying only that it was “too awful”.

Great Ormond Street Teaching Hospital and the College of Surgeons

This large and imposing structure is where many of the victims of the Marauder’s handiwork were brought for first aid and treatment. The party will find an efficient and dutiful staff at work here, but turnover is high, as doctors move on from here to establish their own practices once they’ve matriculated. Some of the more recent outrages while be recalled by the present incumbents, but the more distant events will ring no bells at all.

That being said, while the doctors come and go, the nursing and administrative staff are more permanent and talking to this level of the institution may reap greater rewards. Ignoring the doctors, though, in favour of the ‘menials’ might cause offence, so the party should tread warily. Nurses, orderlies and porters have long memories about interesting incidents and, best of all, have connexions with the streets, allowing them to piece together bits of information that the doctors are too high-brow and lofty to deal with.

If the party is on the trail of Dr. John Colfax, they will find him here on an averaged Luck Roll at -20%; he spends most of his time in his rooms in Bedford Street. Staff will freely hand out his address if asked.

It should become quite clear to the party that, while emergency cases are readily brought in for treatment at the Hospital, these cases are pushed out as soon as possible if they are unable to pay for further treatment. Space is at a premium and, being a teaching establishment, preference is given to novel or unusual cases over everyday ailments. Prostitutes and destitute women are not welcome to deliver babies and are referred to clinics (such as Colfax’s) or to churches or other charitable institutions; men hurt in fights, or other altercations, will be patched up and sent on their way. Unless the injury is highly unusual or interesting, the victim is given a minimum treatment and then sent packing. Sadly for our party, records are rarely kept or only noted with a minimum of detail; they will be relying heavily on the memories of those involved.

Conversations with the staff should be played out as much as possible. The doctors are over-worked and overly-concerned with their personal careers and projects; the staff are down-trodden, prone to confabulation and often on the lookout for a bribe. Such payments should always earn the payer a snippet of useful information; however other details (or pieces of misdirection) will rely on Luck Rolls (or other interrogative techniques) used by the interrogator. The following useful information is available here:

*****

Matron Tuttworth:

“In June of 1893, Georgina Tuttworth, a nurse a Great Ormond Street, was attacked while returning home from work. She recovered from the assault in a nearby alley and fled back to the Hospital to make her report.”

The redoubtable Georgina is now Matron Tuttworth and works in the College of Surgeons at Great Ormond Street. She can be contacted there but will not discuss the incident on the premises, arranging an appointment with the Investigators to discuss the matter at a later time.

Matron Georgina Tuttworth, Head Nurse

char.	value	char.	value	char.	value
STR	14	POW	16	Age	36
CON	15	DEX	14	HP	13
SIZ	10	APP	14	Magic Points	16
INT	17	EDU	18	SAN	80%

Damage Bonus: +/-0

Weapon:            Fist 50%; Kick 70%

Armour:             None

Skills:                  First Aid 85%; Medicine 65%

Spells                  None

SAN Loss           It costs no SAN to see Matron Tuttworth

Matron Tuttworth directs the party to a tea-shop on Guilford Street. Georgina is a very level-headed person and seemingly fearless, although Psychology Rolls while discussing the events of her attack will show that she is still unsettled by the events that took place. She describes being hit on the head and dragged into an alley off Great Ormond Street shortly after leaving work. She says that she regained consciousness to find herself disrobed, her clothes torn, and the attacker rubbing some foul-smelling substance onto her body. She categorically denies having been raped. She says the assailant wore gloves and was extremely dirty and incoherent, only grunting and moaning at her. She kicked him sharply and eluded him, pulling her torn uniform about her and rushing back to the hospital where she made a full report. If asked, she says the substance he tipped onto her smelt of sour milk. She ends her session with the party by saying she hopes that they will bring the villain to justice.

Thomas Hope:

“A labourer, Hope was attacked in an alley behind Great Ormond Street Hospital and discovered by a policeman walking his beat, who watched the patient die of blood loss. This took place in July of 1892. His throat had been slashed by three parallel cuts, neatly severing the carotid artery and the jugular vein. The incident is of general interest at the hospital and many doctors will recall the facts if asked.”

Margaret Walford:

“This woman was attacked along with her husband in June of 1890 whilst returning to their home in Bedford Square. According to the woman, the man was clubbed instantly into unconsciousness by a shadowy assailant who then dragged her into an alley where she was beaten and raped. She was found two days later suffering from shock and exposure and taken to Great Ormond Street where she died. No sign of her husband has been found.”

Barry Gough:

“A known con-man and burglar, Barry was attacked on nearby Denmark Street in April of 1890 while casing a warehouse with an eye for looting it. His assailant slashed him across the face then closed with him, finally biting him savagely on the neck before being scared off by people attracted by Barry’s yells. He was brought to Great Ormond Street, patched up and sent on his way.”

The party can find Barry Gough through Police channels, residing at Her Majesty’s pleasure in Newgate Prison. He will be willing to talk about the attack in return for a basket of fresh food or a new set of clothes. He has three parallel lines scoring his face and a ring of deep, circular scars puncturing his right trapezius. He recalls that his assailant was “a small, wiry bugger what ‘opped about like a frog”. He admits that, without the help of those coming to his assistance, he wouldn’t be here today.

*****

The hospital staff (not the doctors, who tend to disregard superstition) are of the opinion that the perpetrator of the crimes is none other than Spring-Heeled Jack, returned from hiding. Their reasons for thinking thus derive from the fact that “Saucy Jack” (the Ripper) targeted only prostitutes while Spring-Heeled Jack was more indiscriminate in his choice of victims and claws were his preferred weapon. As well, the staff mention rumours of child abductions, rapes and other assaults against prostitutes and other women and men in the district; they take ghoulish delight in providing nebulous, hearsay details about these incidents, even noting that one attacked prostitute gave birth to a ‘monster’ afterwards in a St. Giles rookery.

To Be Continued...