SPOILERS BELOW - SPOILERS BELOW
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This is David's work, to which I have added only one detail, which I recall and which seems to have been overlooked...
Monday, September 12: Sophie Leroux is back in
town after cavorting with Charles Chaplin and friends down south in Niles. She
gets a phone call from old school chum Leland Cort, who has risen to the lofty
position of Mayor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph’s Secretary and society liaison.
Leland has heard all sorts of things about Sophie and friends’ recent
investigations. He’d like to meet with them to catch up. He sure seems to know
a lot already! Sophie agrees to stop by his office later.
Sophie calls Sarah and Tom and the three plan to
meet up at low-key South of Market speak The Blue Garter. Leaving her house for
the assignation, Sarah immediately spots a ruddy-faced man in a black sedan
across the street who definitely has the eye on her. Not wanting to lead him to
her friends, she hails a cab and directs the driver to Coffee Dan’s, a somewhat
rougher speakeasy, but not before taking down her stalker’s license plate
number.
Ensconced in Coffee Dan’s, Sarah’s able to phone
Sophie and Tom at The Blue Garter, and the three rendezvous.
Sarah and Tom catch Sophie up on the goings on
at the Old Drood Place. Everyone is concerned that they haven’t heard from Dr.
Marsh. They also want to go to Myrtle’s later in the day to attend a wake for
doomed artists Wendell Schank and Johnathan Colbert. When they exit Coffee
Dan’s, Sarah’s pursuer is nowhere to be seen.
The trio goes by the Doctor’s house and surveys
the damage done by a mysterious intruder the night before. Dr. Marsh is still
in Oakland, getting his wife situated with relatives. The only lead about the
break-in is the presence of surgical tape on the bottom of the Doctor’s
overturned desk.
· *
Round about midday, Tom stopped by
his apartment and discovered signs of a burglary… in which nothing had been
taken.
Before Myrtokleia’s party, Sophie heads over to
City Hall while Tom goes back to Red Rock Hill to spy on Old Man Gonzalez’s
shack.
Leland tells Sophie he’ll be at Myrtle’s
tonight, along with a “young friend”, Patrick O’Hara. Leland is able to give
Sophie the name of the detective on the Marsh case. She heads over there for an
interview.
The detective seems a bit cagey, and doesn’t
have much more information on the break-in, though he does give Sophie access
to the file on the case. As she leaves, she notes with concern that the
detective is eyeing her as he picks up the phone.
Over near the Drood place, Tom follows the
younger Gonzalez leaving his house and tails him to his presumed place of work,
a stone mason’s shop near Perry & Third, abutting a Gray Bros. Construction
yard.
The wake at Myrtle’s is as lively as one would
expect. Leland is there with Patrick, a rather burly fellow. When Leland spots
the three investigators, he nudges Patrick, who gives Tom a distasteful look
and stuffs an envelope he’s holding into his inner jacket pocket. Patrick
buttons up tight.
Leland and Patrick greet the group and proceed
to question them rather aggressively about their opinions on secret societies
and the occult. Everyone is evasive. Sarah immediately pegs Patrick as police,
triggering Tom’s memory that yes, this guy is a cop.
Finally able to detach themselves from their
interrogators, Sarah, Sophie and Tom concoct a plan to adulterate Patrick’s
drink, with a little help from Myrtle, so that Tom can fish out that envelope
despite Patrick’s obvious vigilance. “Just a little prank,” they assure Myrtle,
and she’s quite delighted to play along.
Having procured Patrick’s envelope, along with
an unfamiliar “Reconstituted Committee of Vigilance” medallion. The
investigators think it best to say their goodbyes for the evening. But who is
waiting in a black sedan outside of Myrtle’s but a man with physiognomy
redolent of the fake reporter who Milo at Lukas Sanderson’s warned them about.
They duck back inside and find a different way out. Instead of going back to
their homes, they catch a cab to a modest hotel in Daly City. A black car
follows them part of the way there.
The envelope from Patrick’s pocket contains a
detailed and disapproving report on the investigators’ activities, going all
the way back to their initial visit to Lukas Sanderson’s Fine Furnishings in
early April! Everyone is paranoid; are Patrick and Leland working with the
surviving remnant of the Chapel of Contemplation? Is this Committee of
Vigilance a potential ally against the Chapel? Is it another nefarious
organization, opposed to investigators and Chapel alike?
Tuesday morning, Sarah wakes from another nightmare,
an afterimage of the mysterious eye symbol fading before her. She tearfully
confides in Sophie the psychic anguish she’s suffered from recent events.
Sophie calls Leland to plan a meeting in a
public place that evening, where she intends to come clean and hopefully enlist
the aid of the Committee of Vigilance. Leland agrees to the meeting. His tone
indicates he’s quite cross with Sophie and he warns her strongly about
continued association with Tom Holub. “What do you really know about him?” her highschool
friend asks.
During the day, while Sarah goes home for some
domestic time, Sophie and Tom decide to check out the Laurel Cemetery, near the
Richmond District, where Drood and several of his Chapel of Contemplation
brethren are interred.
The pair learns from a groundskeeper that the
Chapel mausoleum caps a shockingly-extensive underground structure. They decide
they’ll have to return some evening to break in and investigate.
