RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter 2

[ewancummins]

OUTSIDE THE GEHRMAN HOUSE

GRUZ and SMEZEL lead Juergin and the others into a alley on the right of the house, a narrow passage that separates Benn's home from its neighboring house and lets onto the back street at the far end.
The whole party sees movement low on the side of Benn's house. little closer still, and shining a light, and they small legs kicking out from a pipe set low and perpendicular the house wall.
It seems a boogeyman has got himself stuck in a drain.
Muffled curses echoe in the brickwalled passage.

"Chief", says Smezel.

"Too fat",, says Gruz.

[steveflam]

OUTSIDE THE GEHRMAN HOUSE

GRUZ and SMEZEL lead Juergin and the others into a alley on the right of the house, a narrow passage that separates Benn's home from its neighboring house and lets onto the back street at the far end.
The whole party sees movement low on the side of Benn's house. little closer still, and shining a light, and they small legs kicking out from a pipe set low and perpendicular the house wall.
It seems a boogeyman has got himself stuck in a drain.
Muffled curses echoe in the brickwalled passage.

"Chief", says Smezel.

"Too fat",, says Gruz.

Juergin chuckles. "Ah, Chief, you always seem to get into odd binds, ja? Donner, I get you out ..... again." He moves quickly to remove King from the pipe.

"Okay, Gruz, Smezel, King,, what is this evil bad thin you saw or felt?"

[Adam]

Bennedict hops down from the seat of the carriage, adjusting his equipment and preparing to head into the crime scene.

[ewancummins]

OUTSIDE THE GEHRMAN HOUSE

GRUZ and SMEZEL lead Juergin and the others into a alley on the right of the house, a narrow passage that separates Benn's home from its neighboring house and lets onto the back street at the far end.
The whole party sees movement low on the side of Benn's house. little closer still, and shining a light, and they small legs kicking out from a pipe set low and perpendicular the house wall.
It seems a boogeyman has got himself stuck in a drain.
Muffled curses echoe in the brickwalled passage.

"Chief", says Smezel.

"Too fat",, says Gruz.

Juergin chuckles. "Ah, Chief, you always seem to get into odd binds, ja? Donner, I get you out ..... again." He moves quickly to remove King from the pipe.

"Okay, Gruz, Smezel, King,, what is this evil bad thin you saw or felt?"

THE ALLEY NEXT TO BENN'S HOUSE

King, also called Chief, rubs its potbelly.
The boogeyman reaches into the drain and retrieves its dented, muck-smeared tinsel crown. It puts the headpiece on its bulbous, hairless head.
"The Bad Thing is--"

Gruz and Smezel start in talking, too, loudly and half in their gibbering language, half in the common Western tongue. Even Juergin has trouble picking up what the three excited boogeymen are saying, at first.


When Juergin gets his acolytes calmed down and extracts the full story, he and his companions learn:

The boogeymen were lurking in the garden behind the house, looking for treasure and food.
They heard a noise in the alley.
They went to check it out.
In the alley, they smelled blood.
A BAD THING made scary sounds behind them.
They piled into the drain, but King(Chief) got stuck.
From the drain, they entered a crawlspace under the first floor. Breaking through a board, they came up in the pantry.

Only Gruz saw the Bad Thing. It moved fast. Looked like a big hairy beast. Not a dog. Not a rat. Too fast to tell what it was.

[ewancummins]

Bennedict hops down from the seat of the carriage, adjusting his equipment and preparing to head into the crime scene.

IN THE BOARDING HOUSE


BENN takes the lead, heading through the dim interior of the old boarding house toward the garret where the dead woman waits for him.

The only sounds within come from creaking boards, the rasp of shoes, and breathing.
The only light within from the lamp a gendarme has given Benn.
BENN mounts that stairs leading up into the attic.

The attic contains cobwebbed crates and casks, mildewed tapestries, and rusting iron frames.

In the northeast corner, a garret stands seperated from the storage area by a plaster wall, with a flimsy door hanging open on green copper hinges.
Even over the dust and mold smell of the attic, and with no draught, Benn sniffs strong musk from the garret. A little close and he smells blood.

Looking in, he sees a cramped, dingy room. A slim, pale figure stretches out on the low bed, supine. Bed clothes lie in a stained heap beside the bed, on the door side, White skin, red hair and redder wounds. He cut her many times, most of the wounds shallow. Below the navel...that's something even BENN might have trouble looking at too long and too closely.
The bloodstained mattress shows only patches of offwhite; under her lower body it's absorbed a great deal of blood.
The young woman's pretty face remains unmarked, not even a drop of blood shows. Her dead eyes stare at the room's low ceiling.
The victim's long, wavy red hair has been combed out and arranged to form a halo on the bed.

The odor of musk hangs so thick in the air it almost gags BENN.

One of the gendarmes enters and pushes open the shutters of the single window.
"You see why we called you, monsieur."

[VAN]

THE ALLEY

Sara thinks for a moment what the King and the other 2 said.

"Juergin, do you trust your acolytes? This bad thing seems to be a sort of animal, maybe a kind of feline. I'm more considered about the smell of blood though. Maybe this animal attacked someone and now he or she needs help. Lets check for blood trail. Does any of you have any source of light?"

[Brock Marsh Runoff]

BOARDING HOUSE

Dorgio forces himself to look at the corpse. "It...looks like Matyr's work, the obsession with hair..."

He moves closer to examine her injuries in detail, looking for small similarities between her injuries and what he'd seen of Matyr's handiwork.

[ewancummins]

BOARDING HOUSE

Dorgio forces himself to look at the corpse. "It...looks like Matyr's work, the obsession with hair..."

He moves closer to examine her injuries in detail, looking for small similarities between her injuries and what he'd seen of Matyr's handiwork.

There is a lot of blood.
Still sticky, but not fresh. Bruises on her arms, neck, hips.
Only a few of the punctures and lacerations, in her belly and thighs, look deep. Probably made with a small knife.
From the look of the wounds and the sheets, she was still alive for the worst of the cutting.
If her killer did anything else to her...
Well, the damage is too extensive to tell.
It looks familiar.
The gypsy dancing girl, the red-haired whore at Van Diecks' brothel...

Her bloodless face appears strangely calm, almost as if the killer had somehow arranged it along with her hair.
But Dorgio finds no marks of fingers on her brow or cheeks.

The light bruises on her neck look more like a cord or twisted cloth made them.
She seems to have bled out, rather than dying from choking.
This young woman might have been lying helpless for some time before she passed out from blood loss.

Her hair is too artfully arranged to have been combed out like that while she still had power to struggle.

The older gendarme, speaking through a handkerchief pressed to his face, says,

"We found her like this, except those blankets , there on the floor, were pulled up almost to her chin. The landlord says he heard her moaning for a good long while, but though she was servicing a client, so he ignored it. Later, he came up to get some nails out if his attic stores, and looked in on her when he saw the door open. Found her dead, and got scared. Sent his servant boy to us. If you like, you can talk with him. He's downstairs in the kitchen, been drinking strong Valachan coffee. Might be he's a little clearer now, monsieur."


Dorgio finishes his examination by gently rolling her and checking her back. No wounds there, only faded bruises, probably made days ago.

Having looked her over closely, he determines:

She was probably between sixteen and twenty years old.

Almost certainly died of blood loss from injuries, a combination of internal and external bleeding, after being choked intermittently and tortured in the bed.

Her murderer immobilized her by force, possibly using the bedsheets. And some of her injuries look like immobilizing cuts. The killer appears to understand at least basic anatomy.

[Adam]

Bennedict looks down grimly at the scene, eyes narrowed. "The MO fits, of course, but it could always be a copycat. We've had more than a few inspired by your pamphlet..." he drifts off, not wanting to restart an old argument.

"She was killed here, obviously. If the man was downstairs, then the killer must have had some other means of entrance and egress..." he looks around for any obvious windows, doors etc by which the killer may have exited.

[ewancummins]

THE GARRET

Bennedict looks down grimly at the scene, eyes narrowed. "The MO fits, of course, but it could always be a copycat. We've had more than a few inspired by your pamphlet..." he drifts off, not wanting to restart an old argument.

"She was killed here, obviously. If the man was downstairs, then the killer must have had some other means of entrance and egress..." he looks around for any obvious windows, doors etc by which the killer may have exited.

BENN searches the room carefully.

He finds no obvious indication of a forced entry;the shutters appear undamaged and the lightweight door not cracked.
The window glass shows thin spiderweb cracks, but no missing panes.
The hunk of wood that fits the brace on the inside of the door rests against the inner plaster wall.


Under the bed, he discovers a battered chest, latched but unlocked.
The lockplate shows a dab of what might be oil or grease, and some thin scratches.
Inside: three patched and mended gowns, a pair of dainty shoes with frayed pink bows, scuffed leather slippers, a drab woolen shawl, some stale bread and sausage sections wrapped in cheesecloth, a sewing kit, a brown glass phial with a cork in, a folded blanket, flint and steel, a candle, a child's rag doll, a cracked handmirror with a rosewood frame and handle, a moleskin purse, a brazier with old soot stains, and a folding knife.
The phial sloshes when handled.
The purse jangles.

Once he moves the chest, he finds behind it against the wall a dented brass chamberpot with two inches of standing water in it.

The wallpaper hangs in rotted strips on the north wall. Several handbills and pamphlets, cheaply made and obviously water damaged, cover sections of that wall.


The ceiling plaster shows spots of mold.

The only furniture in the room beside the bed is a battered wooden chair with a high back, shoved into the southeast corner. Under the chair, he spots a stuffed (toy) mouse about the size of a large sewer rat.

[ewancummins]

THOM


BENN and Dorgio left with hardly a nod of acknowledgement, moving with haste in the company of two men dressed as gendarmes.

There's some sort of animated conversation going on inside the Gehrman house, and clattering sounds.

What does THOM do?

[Adam]

"Must have been invited in.." he mutters to himself.

[steveflam]

THE ALLEY

Sara thinks for a moment what the King and the other 2 said.

"Juergin, do you trust your acolytes? This bad thing seems to be a sort of animal, maybe a kind of feline. I'm more considered about the smell of blood though. Maybe this animal attacked someone and now he or she needs help. Lets check for blood trail. Does any of you have any source of light?"

"I don't tink for a cat they would be afraid. Dey vorked for Dodds before I came along, so a cat is not sometink I tink dey is afraid of."

[Adam]

He looks around the room again. "Clearly an experienced killer, as there's no trace evidence left behind. Probably posed as a client to get in with the girl..." He shakes his head, passing a hand over his eyes.

"I don't want to jump to conclusions, of course, but this dose fit fairly well with what we know of Jon."

He sighs and turns to the gendarmes. "I'd like to speak with the landlord, now."

[ewancummins]

He looks around the room again. "Clearly an experienced killer, as there's no trace evidence left behind. Probably posed as a client to get in with the girl..." He shakes his head, passing a hand over his eyes.

"I don't want to jump to conclusions, of course, but this dose fit fairly well with what we know of Jon."

He sighs and turns to the gendarmes. "I'd like to speak with the landlord, now."

A SHORT WHILE LATER, IN THE KITCHEN OF THE BOARDING HOUSE


The landlord, a scrawny middle-aged man with a three-day beard, sits slumped in a chair under a hanging lantern in the dingy kitchen.
He rises from his chair as BENN and Dorgio enter with the gendarmes at their backs.
The man tosses back the dregs of his ceramic cup, grimaces, and then coughs.
" Messers?"
He sounds as rough as he looks.