Saturday, January 17
The next day the group checked out of the Seneca and took a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria , which they deemed more secure. Nell and Lya went to the New York Herald offices to try and find information about Erica Carlyle in the society pages but were unsuccessful. That afternoon, the group met back at the Waldorf. Alisa continued trying to contact the lawyer. Nell called an old fried of her late husband, Niles Jarvis (man-about-town). Niles was delighted to hear from Nell and invited her to dinner and a Broadway show. Nell asked him to accompany them to Harlem on the next day and Niles agreed. Lya tried to call her rum-runner friend Jacques Efrere but he was out.
Nell then went to the New York Times, Lya went to the New York Post, and Alisa went to the fledgling New Yorker magazine, all with the goal of learning more about Erica Carlyle, but with no success.
That evening, Nell and Niles went to Delmonico's for dinner and then a performance of The Student Prince , while Lya, Nell, and Professor Fairwether went to Cowles' lecture at NYU. They saw several slides of cyclopean dressed stone blocks with weathered carvings that had been excavated in the Australian desert. Cowles stated that an expedition would be sent in two years, in conjunction with Miskatonic University .
After the lecture the group continued the discussion with Professor Cowles at a nearby coffee shop. Lya pursued the connection between the "living wind" of Aboriginal legend and the Mountain of the Black Winds in Kenya. Fairwether told Cowles about his inquiry about the lost volume Dark Cults of Africa that had been stolen from Harvard and was also being investigated by Elias. Cowles replied that he was also looking for a manuscript, the Ponape Scriptures, that had been lent to a John Scott of Boston, Mass. and never returned. Alisa immediately recognized the name of John Scott. He was the head of the Silver Twilight lodge, which she had investigated several years ago and had been linked to dark rituals, black magic, and the mysterious disappearance of several prominent businessmen. Professor Fairwether announced that he had papers to grade and would not be accompanying the group for several days.
Sunday, January 18
Nell continued searching newspaper archives, eventually locating several articles in the Arts section of the NY Times, which discussed Miss Carlyle's involvement with the Metropolitan Opera and the Metropolitan Museum of Art .
After attending Mass, Lya telephoned Jacques Frere and he agreed to come down to New York, especially since Lya was being bankrolled by a "cute sugar momma", as he termed Miss Blankstone, and since his rum-running boat was in dock for repairs.
That afternoon, Lya, Nell, Alisa, and Niles took a cab to the Ju-Ju House, near 137th Street in Harlem. They stopped along the way at NYU, where they persuaded Professor Fairwether to lend them a small African woodcarving. Fairwether was relieved to see the group depart and not drag him off to another wild adventure.
The Ju-Ju House was located in a dark courtyard off an alley. The shop was stocked with African art, herbs, and ceremonial weapons. Nell told the proprietor (Silas N'Kwane) that she was looking for a piece to match the one she borrowed from Fairwether. N'Kwane sold her a similar carving of an animal by the Kikuyu tribe. Lya purchased a large, fearsome devil-mask made by the Buganda people, while Alisa purchased an expensive ivory drinking horn made by the Nandi people (a tribe mentioned by Elias in his Kenya notes). Lya also noticed what appeared to be a trap door underneath a rug behind the counter.
On the way back the cabbie deduced that the group were investigators and told a long and pointless story about truck drivers.
After returning to the Waldorf, Niles told the group what he knows about Roger Carlyle: paternity suit at 17 (settled out of court), treatment for alcoholism at 18 and again at 20, extensive sessions with a "shrink", somehow graduated from Groton, then allowed a gentleman's resignation over the next three years from Harvard, Princeton, Miskatonic, Yale, Cornell, and USC. Niles last saw him at a party in the company of a strikingly attractive African women, whom Roger introduced as a "visionary and poetess".
The group then decided to go to the opera and attempt to contact Miss Carlyle. The concierge was able to get tickets to Fedora, with Maria Jeritza and Benjamin Gigli. The group then went to dinner at a chic bistro, again paid for by Miss Blankstone.
At the opera Alisa purchased a program and found that Erica Carlyle will be hosting a gala reception after the performance of Aida next Saturday evening (Jan. 24). Alisa decided to make a major contribution to the Met the next day and get an invitation to this event.
Meanwhile, Rupert Madasheck arrived at the Waldorf and discovered that the group had gone out for the evening. While waiting for them, he sent a telegram to a friend of his, one Harry Letchwell, in Venice, asking him to travel to Trieste. Evidently, much of Sir Richard Burton's library was tossed out or sold upon his death. Many of his personal papers were burned by his widow, but the books may be either in Italian or English used bookshops. Rupert wants his friend to look for any copies of "Africa's Dark Cults" or anything else of relevance.
Earlier that day, Rupert convinced the Boston Keltic Kronikle, New York Lies & Half-Truths newspaper syndicate to foot the bill for an investigative trip to Africa, with the intention of writing up a serialized account of a safari while they are in Kenya. Rupert had made preliminary inquiries into the cost of chartering a boat to Casablanca and then to Cairo and Nairobi. He thought the group should hire a photographer and stenographer to accompany them.
Later that night, Nell, Alisa, and Lya returned to the Waldorf. Rupert recognized Lya from previous collaboration and introduced himself to the rest of the group. They then decided to have a strategy session back in Alisa's suite. In reviewing the information gathered so far about Roger Carlyle, it became obvious that little was known about the other members of the expedition: Sir Aubrey Penhew, Hypatia Masters, Jack Brady, and Dr. Robert Huston. The group decided to spend the next few days learning as much as possible about these people. And who was Fergus?
The group also discussed how to contact Erica Carlyle. Alisa would
use her business connections, while Rupert would use his "journalism" connections
to get an invitation to cover the Gala, with Nell as photographer and Lya
as society reporter.
