Wednesday 14 March 2012

Background Information

Larksley County of the United Kingdom is a peaceful, rural territory that is a good day and a half marching out of London.  There is a large road running north by south, with York another long bit of travel from here.  The region is dominated by farms, undergrowth and scrub, and some seven villages, only one of which, Gulliton, is a harbor village looking out over the North Sea, flanked by impressive cliffs.  

The lay of the land is hilly, with cut roads connecting each of the villages.  News travels, but the hilly condition of the territory makes it an athlete’s workout to run from one village to the other, making sure that each village focuses first on its own problems and only secondarily on the bigger threats.  When the Sun shines in the county, there is glowing green everywhere, but more often the county is rainy, as it is in much of Britain, but here it can become a deeper, duller grey.

Extract from Henfield’s Guide to the Counties, published 1862

To the Chief Inspector, Alexander Dennis Knox

I write to you, Chief Inspector, with two requests.  One I think that you shall find modest, which I make on behalf of the villagers and common folk of Larksley County.  I ask you to request the Queen’s Rangers for assistance in tracking wolves, and the details of the request follow. The other is my own personal request, which I make because Chief Inspector, I fear that there is more here than wolves.  All of the dangers seem to surround the Manor of Baron Larksley, and so I digress and beg permission to repeat that which you know, but which may be necessary to know the nature of my fears.

The Baron of Larksley’s house has been in decline for decades, but friends of the peerage would still sometimes call at his ancient manor house in the center of the county.  Most of his servants live on the premises and kept the house in order by running errands out to the villages.  A delivery of fresh milk to the Baron’s door was contracted, and the milkman ever found the empty bottles waiting for him the next day.  Servants fetched the newspapers, shopped at the butchers in town, and collected special ordered cakes and pastries for special events.  These are the good times, and all held Larksley Manor a godly place and the master a good man.

Recently all of these things have been missed.

No one has seen or had news of the Baron, or his in-house servants, since last Easter at least.  Guests and workman with business with the Baron have reported a terrible smell of rot in the air, and most, with the luxury of time at least, have left the scene untampered.  The milkman, better exposed to foul air, reports likewise approaching the door and finding the empty bottles smashed.   When he called at the door, he received no reply, and the invoice he left with the mail has been left, with the mail, accumulating through the weeks.  The postman has so far had no need to collect, but likewise reports the scene worrisome.

Even his friends in the peerage outside the county have come calling, but each reports getting no nearer the door than 100 paces before stumbling back for air, so terrible is the scent.  The Duke of Cornwall was last, and after beating a hasty retreat from his old friend’s, stayed in Fullerton for the night while sending servants to inquire at latter hours.  Finding no one home, he thought it odd, but recalled some long forgotten youthful escapade where Baron Larksley would be out for a week and left no forwarding address.  The Duke could not stay in Larksley forever, for as you know his services are ever in demand.  He left instructions for a 120 shilling prize to be paid to the first man with news of the Baron’s whereabouts.  That prize is still unclaimed.

I mentioned the stench, and I mention now that we in the boroughs are assaulted by the odor every time the wind shifts towards us.  Our only and best relief is when the wind should shift again, moving the rankness to the noses of our neighbors, a most ungodly relief indeed.  Over these three weeks the entire county reports smelling the scent, and bemoaning terribly the rottenness of it all. 

I write now confessions and news that may be seen as more conjecture than true fact, but there is a terrible queerness in the county these days, or rather, these nights.  When good folk sleep these past four nights, some small and loudly cursing character is heard to be droving a carriage.  The second night he was reported by passersby on the roads who say the coach is dressed as a hearse.  It is all well and good for an undertaker to ply his trade at night, but why pray should he venture up the hill to Baron Larksley’s manor night after night?  I, having had the report of his passing up by midnight and catching him on his return journey in the early morn.  Both I and others of the county constabulary have cornered him for inquiry, but he reports only that he works his master’s work and to address questions to the Baron himself, which he should say if only the Baron answered such questions.  Against his loud and profane protests, I search his hearse, but I regret the findings are more strange yet.  He was carrying empty coffins, down from the mansion.  Why should he do so, except by the Baron’s orders, and then, why should the Baron order it?  The whole county whispers of what transpires up there, but I don’t trust this creature or his papers from the Baron.

But that is not yet the whole of it.  Indeed, dear sir, I must proceed to ask you to forward a serious request to the Queen’s rangers.  Traveller’s bodies have been found by the roads, mangled and mauled.  Each of the villages dismiss this as queerness, stating with doubtlessness that the culprits are wolves, long absent from the county’s borders.  While none like the prospect of wolves roaming the county, I find the lack of farm stock killings peculiar.  I have chosen not to disclose such doubts to the villagers, lest they prove too true for comfort.  In any case, please relay my request for the Queen’s own to take up this cause, so that expertise and not doubt shall rule the day.

Indeed, with such queer things happening, I have no doubt at all that it is safe for no one to travel at night, and have issued peculiar instructions of my own, notably that constables under my watch serve armed.  As is customary they should keep their arms hidden from the general populace at all times, and use them only under duress, but I would rather know some man out there can chase off wolves, or worse, before great harm is done.

But that brings us back to the crux of the problem, doesn’t it?  Great harm could have already befallen the Baron, and the odious man who would be his nocturnal servant could be carting his master’s body, or his guests and servants, to some secret burial each of these past four nights.  Such an undertaking would be large indeed, but his excuse, and travelling papers signed by the Baron himself, keeps us from molesting him unwarrantedly.  More to the point, there could still be evidence up in the manor now, should we act now to seize it.

I do not know what I ask of you, Chief Inspector, but this.  Let us assemble and prepare an expedition.  Our constabulary has not many resources, but we could turn out each uniformed man in the county should it come down to it.  Let us arm and supply them for the worst, then send them to the door expecting the best.  Let them knock, and demand an answer, more than milkmen and postmen could.  If a resident or servant answers, let us ask what is happening up there, and more importantly, to speak with the Baron himself and confirm his wellbeing. 
If there is no answer, let us force the issue.  I have no more taste than you for home invasion, least of all a Peer’s, but we have let propriety shackle us when there is good cause to say that evil is afoot!  At the least, if we could but obtain a fellow Peer’s letter containing his concern for his friend.  I know well what that is asking of you chief inspector, but by God’s grace, there must be a way to get it done.

I leave all of this to you Chief Inspector, and shall take no further action without your approval. 

For the Queen

P.C. Horace Starling
Larksley County Constabulary

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