ENTRY 11: THE BOAT (PART ONE)
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We join our friends on the morning of Wednesday, 4 February, 1925, at
the docks for the Mauritania. Elizabeth, Jim, Adrian, and two new
characters (Mr. Donald Renfield Cartwright III, of the Providence
Cartwrights, and Dr. George Smythe, an archaeologist).

Our friends' baggage was taken, and Elizabeth had an idea. She thought
it would be a good thing if the group arranged to send regular reports
to a trusted third party in New York, so that in case they died, new
players..... I mean characters.... I mean *somebody* could follow
their work without having to start from scratch. Jonah Kensington,
Jackson Elias' publisher, was decided upon as the appropriate
choice. So Jim and Elizabeth went to visit him.

In addition to setting up an arrangement with him (they would send him
a report once a month, and he would open them after three months of
silence), Mr. Kensington gave our friends money ($1000, an advance on
the completion of Jackson's/ their book), and a contact in London
(Mickey Mahoney, a friend of Jonah's who worked on a paper called "The
Scoop").

Before boarding, Elizabeth sent her father a telegram notifying him of
her imminent (well, 2+ week hence) arrival, and Jim sent a telegram to
our contact in Cairo preparing them for our arrival. (He requested
camels and supplies for 6 to 8 people, with arrival date
indeterminate; he'd write more later.)

Waiting to board the boat (which is huge and luxurious), the group
noticed three people in particular: a dignitary, surrounded by a bunch
of goons, acting very rude and mysterious; a priest, looking more
disheveled than any priest ever should, acting nervous; and a bookish
small man, who dropped all of his books, and acted bumbling like a
professor. Our friends were shown to their state-rooms, which were of course
beautiful.

***Adrian immediately got *VERY* sea sick for 3 days, so until I
mention otherwise, assume he's not part of this.***

The group went to dinner the first night, and noted that the room was
only at around 2/3 capacity. They got seated with Dr. Smythe, a *tiny*
archaeologist with a bull-whip, a businessman (the aforementioned
Mr. Cartwright), a professor, and 2 college students.

Jim noted that the strange dignitary they saw on the gangplank was
sitting alone, with his henchmen at a nearby table. He is Caucasian,
very well dressed, and the others are obviously bodyguards. Jim also
noted that the dignitary wasn't served the same food as the rest of
the travelers.

The college professor introduced himself as Professor Felix Fuda from
Miskatonic University, and his students as Hargrove Thorpe (a
beautiful blonde guy right out of a brochure) and Richard Black (who
had dark circles under his eyes and looked downright withdrawn). He let
out that they are students of archaeology, and were headed to the
British Museum to do some research.

Elizabeth noted that the priest wandered in and sat down, looking as
scruffy as she remembered.

After dinner, the men retired to the smoking lounge and Elizabeth
retired to the women's lounge, where nobody believed she had a career
of her own.
 

On the second day......

.....the purser went around and personally introduced himself to
everyone (Malcom Pinkham). He was extremely nervous, and everyone was
left with a very unsettled feeling. Elizabeth checked some jewels into
the ship safe.

The group notices that the dignitary always has at least 5 guards with
him, and never talks to anyone. Don talked to the purser, and discovers
his name: Carusof. The purser believed that he was a European
dignitary of some kind.

At dinner that night, the room was much more full, and our friends sat
with a captain of the steel industry in America and his pretty but
vapid wife, an athlete, and a shopkeeper who seemed as though he'd
been saving his whole life for this one trip. Elizabeth noted that the
priest was looking cleaner when he entered.

The day passed pretty uneventfully, though Elizabeth and Jim were both
trying to get to know the college students.
 

On the third day.....

.....someone (sorry, can't remember who!) noticed the priest reading
the same newspaper article repeatedly on several parts of the ship,
always with the dignitary nearby.

In the Turkish baths, the following happened: Professor Fuda was
talking with the bookish man our friends saw boarding about a
spell. The man turned out to be named Dr. Patterson (history), and had
reproduced a magical glass that allowed one to perform a divination
spell. He invited Professor Fuda, Don, George, Jim, and anyone else
who wished to come along, to his stateroom the following night to view
a demonstration of this spell. He then proceeded to bore the pants off
of Jim, Don, and George talking about magic for a few hours.

In the women's lounge, the following happened: women giggled;
Elizabeth died of boredom.

That night at dinner, Jim and Elizabeth (and I don't remember who
else) sat with the priest, who turned out to be Russian. He was
handsome, and in his late 20's. Jim let the priest know that he had a
lovely young Russian female friend who was in dire need of
confession. If only Katya had been there....

After dinner, Don (because he's cool like dat) gets a tour of the
kitchen. The outrageously French Chef insults (as only the French
could) the dignitary for not eating his (the Chef's) food. Don
placates the chef and secures an appointment the following day to
watch dinner being prepared.

Also after dinner, Elizabeth, Jim, Smythe, and (I think?) Adrian took
a walk outside for about 30 seconds, realized it was freezing, and
then retired to the Solarium for sherry and conversation. After that
broke up, Smythe caught Elizabeth aside and mentioned that he'd had an
interesting conversation with Professor Fuda. Apparently Fuda and
the students are headed to Jerusalem after London, to do some
work. The interesting part was that Fuda had said some things about
archaeology and Jerusalem that were just plain inaccurate. Smythe was
concerned about this. Elizabeth promised to talk to Jim about it.
 

On the fourth day........

.....the ship was abuzz with the rudeness of the dignitary, who had
reserved the billiard room for the entire day.

Patterson bored poor Adrian nearly to death, but Adrian, in return for
his perseverance, managed to borrow an interesting book (_Nameless
Cults_) from him. Jim and Elizabeth decided to test the college
students' knowledge of Jerusalem, with a properly obscure to most
question. Hargrove looked charming while he said he'd have to look it
up, and Blocke came up with the appropriate answer right
away. Hargrove was very friendly and offered to escort Elizabeth
inside. He didn't give her much information other than that they were
going to Jerusalem, and Blocke was younger and had had an 'unfortunate
past'. But he looked charming while he did so.

Don was ingenious and used a funnel and a piece of rubber tubing to
eavesdrop on the sound of pool balls cracking in the billiard room.

After dinner, the gang all went to Patterson's room to see this
ritual. It was a typical seance scene: smoke rolling out from under
the door, heady incense. It took about an hour and did absolutely
nothing. Patterson lets on that he will be repeating the experiment
for the next few days, and invites everyone to return.
 

On the fifth day.......

.....the dignitary again caused a stir, this time by reserving a
private dining room for the entire day. Otherwise, nothing happened.
 

On the sixth day........

.....the dignitary required private use of the shuffleboard
court. Someone noticed a yacht alongside the ship, and Elizabeth, Jim,
and Smythe went out to investigate. It was too far away to discern the
name. Elizabeth, Jim, and Smythe notice that they are standing near
the shuffleboard court, and that Thorpe (Hargrove, the all-American
college brochure) was sitting, talking to the dignitary on the court.

Just as they were recovering from the shock of seeing Thorpe there,
they noticed the priest walking very quickly, with an intense look,
toward the shuffleboard court. The priest talks to a steward, the
steward makes negative motions with his hands and then falls over,
shot in the stomach.

Elizabeth and Jim tried to make it a little closer to the steward to
help while the priest started shooting more stewards. The priest
climbed over the ropes, heading towards the dignitary. He pulled a
grenade out of his jacket, shouted something in Russian, and more
shots were fired.

By this time, Elizabeth and Jim had seen the grenade and hence were
scurrying away from the dignitary. The priest threw the grenade at
Thorpe and the dignitary, and got attacked by a guard. They wrestled,
and then Thorpe made his big move. He picked up a shuffleboard stick,
and threw the grenade out the window (what a hero!), where it blew up
and sprayed the room with shrapnel and glass.

The priest got away from the guard and used the fresh hole in the wall
to jump overboard. Jim shot at the priest, but missed. Someone shot at
Jim, and didn't. Elizabeth then came in and healed everyone who could
be healed before handing those still wounded off to the ship
doctor. Jim looked overboard and noticed two bodies swimming towards
the yacht, which came out and picked them up before leaving the area.

The dignitary was extremely grateful and introduced himself as Count
Mikhael Andrevich Corasov, and proposed a toast to the
Bolsheviks. Elizabeth winced at what Katya would say if she ever found
out. The Count invited our friends to dinner, where everyone had a
wonderful time and got tipsy.

After dinner, Thorpe put the moves on Elizabeth, and Richard Blocke
(the other student) interrupted at an inconvenient time. Blocke
informed Thorpe that Patterson had succeeded, and Thorpe, Elizabeth,
and Jim (who had been following Elizabeth) all went running down the
hall to see. Patterson and Fuda were the only ones in the room,
looking stunned. Patterson and Elizabeth both asked questions, then
saw answers in the smoke. Fuda got frightened and tried to put out the
fire, and was stopped by Thorpe, who pulled he and Blocke out of the
room. Adrian asked a silent question ("What will protect us from the
CoBT?"), and only he saw an answer ("to flee"), and then he got quite
shaken. Patterson then put out the candle, getting a little spooked
himself. He pushed everyone out nervously. As our friends were leaving
the room, they saw Fuda and the students whispering in a hushed little
huddle. They managed to catch the words "The Order" before moving too
far away.

Most people went to sleep; however, Jim paced all night. Around 3 in
the morning, he heard a hub-ub back in the state cabins. Further
investigation provided the answer: Malcom Pinkham, 2 stewards, Thorpe,
and Fuda outside Patterson's room, and Patterson dead of blunt trauma
to the head and massive hemorrhaging and blood loss. Blocke was not
present. Thorpe was explaining that he had found the body after a
discussion with a colleague, and had called the steward. Jim gave
Pinkham a list of names of the people who had been there earlier. Fuda
claimed to have spoken with Patterson after the experiment, but then
to have left. Jim poked around in the room a bit and noted that all of
the occult artifacts were gone.

Pinkham then ushered everyone away, and Jim had some words with Thorpe
and Fuda, who claimed that Blocke was asleep before retiring.