V THE LONG VERSION
Wednesday 6th February 1923
Part man-part gorilla: We recognise the fallen enemy as one of the three men we met here yesterday. Then he had a missing right arm. Now his arm is that of a primate. Ludwig used a scalpel to cut away the man’s sleeve. The primate arm had been grafted onto the man’s body with the most exquisite skill. We drag the body into the bushes. Ludwig, being an excellent rifle shot from the time of his military training, takes the man’s carbine. Checking to ensure no other guards are approaching, we head further into the compound.
Quietly does it: We sneak around the back of the building where we met Belanzada yesterday, seeking to gain access via the rear door. We are disturbed by the approach of footsteps along the path to the front of the building. We recede into the shadows. Voices of at least two men come nearer, they patrol between the buildings close to us, trying doors to ensure they’re locked. When the footsteps move away again and the voices fade, we emerge from the shadows. Letty picks the rear door lock and we quickly file inside, making certain to fasten the door again behind us.
The admin building: The admin building is the only two-storey building in the compound—all other structures being converted barns and sheds. The downstairs is dominated by just two rooms and a staircase. The admin office to the rear and the meeting room to the front are furnished simply. We search by the aid of our flashlights, being careful not to attract attention from outside. Numerous records populate the shelves and cabinets, but everything is written in Croat. Upstairs we find a bathroom, a modest living space and a bedroom. We deduce that the bedroom is for temporary use, perhaps by Belanzada himself? We discover nothing of interest.
Ready, aim, fire! Peering out through the upper window at the front of the building, we overlook the path that divides the compound. Patrolling along it, a guard steps into view. Like the previous guard, this one too has a deformed arm; this time a disproportionate left arm. Ludwig levels his carbine to take aim. Pierre raises the sash window. The guard looks up and sees us, but before he can react, Ludwig pulls the trigger. The guard sinks to the ground.
Cartwright, what are you doing? We hasten to evacuate the admin building before anyone else comes. Exiting the rear door we dash into the shadows behind the opposite building. Cartwright unwisely decides instead to enter directly into the opposite building. As he opens the door however, he is immediately confronted by a gun-wielding enemy with an over-sized eye who snorts with anger. The enemy is none other than the man we met yesterday with a missing eye and wheezing chest. Cartwright reacts impulsively to retreat from the doorway, throwing himself to the ground outside. A burst of bullets rips through space vacated by Cartwright.
Ludwig Bad Ass: The enemy (with suspected ape’s eye and lungs) steps out from the building. Cartwright lies prone, at the mercy of our enemy, still snorting with haughty anger; a madness burning in his simian eye. Pierre doesn’t hesitate to shoot. Despite being hit, the madman barley flinches. Then Ludwig, in a moment of blood-lust, steps into the light, strikes a dramatic pose, and with a primal scream of Teutonic rage, goes full auto*, pumping lead into the enemy. Cartwright is saved from the clutches of one mad-man by another.
*Actually the Keeper wouldn’t allow full auto but nevertheless, after superb dice-rolling, around the table we imagined Ludwig looking momentarily like Arnie Schwarzenegger with biceps rippling and gun blazing—spraying an arc of bullets.
Interlude: Talking of mad-men. Back at the Lodge, the sedative administered by Ludwig is wearing off. Hubert awakens. The hotel staff, deeply disturbed by the outburst of blood-curdling screams echoing down the corridors ask one of their guests, who professes to be a medical man, to attend to a deranged Hubert.
Meanwhile, back at the compound: Entering the building from which our last enemy had emerged, we discover a large open space arranged in the fashion of a barracks. There is nobody left inside. Passing through and exiting through the front door we cross to the far side of the compound. Two converted barns stand next to each other. To the right, we enter a maintenance shed of sorts: there is a generator, a multitude of tools and oddly—an incinerator.
The zoo: Opposite the maintenance shed, the bigger of the two buildings looms ominous. As soon as we open the door, we smell the pungent odours and hear the sad whining of animals. The barn is filled with cages of various sizes containing a menagerie of animals: dogs, wolves, cats, pigs, sheep, mouflon, chimpanzees and even a bear and a lynx. The floor is awash with urine and faeces. We cover our mouths and noses. There is a door to an enclosed room. Pierre attempts to shoot the lock, but succeeds only in blowing a hole in the door. Letty decides on a more subtle method and opens the door with the deft use of her lockpicks. She smiles at Pierre and steps inside the dark room. We hear her scream and a dull thump as she faints to the floor. Cartwright takes a deep breath and rushes in, quickly emerging again, dragging Letty’s unconscious form out by her ankles. Cartwright looks pale and visibly shaken. Ludwig brings Letty to her senses with the use of smelling salts. Asked if she is okay, Letty just stares into space and doesn’t utter a word. It is Cartwright who describes the disturbing scene within the room. More cages, but these are populated with abominations: a dog with a pig’s head, the body of a sheep with three cat’s heads grafted to it, a chimp’s head on a pig’s body and a pig with the hind quarters of a sheep and the head of a bear.
Ready or not, here we come: Before exiting the nightmare building, Ludwig frees all of the harmless animals from their cages—leaving only the wolves, the lynx and the bear as prisoners. Nobody dared return to the room of abominations. Letty fully opened the valves of all the gas lamps in the barn but left them unlit. There remained only one unexplored building. We make our way over and push open the door. We enter a corridor, Pierre leads the way. There is a room around the corner at the far end of the passage. A light is on. As we progress, the stench of rotten flesh grows stronger. We are not put off from our mission and dash into the room. We are halted in our tracks, not by physical hindrance, but by the horrifying scene with which we are confronted.
Dr Goran Belanzada: Belanzada doesn’t notice our entrance at first, so pre-occupied is he in his monstrous work. He wears a surgical gown, gloves, a leather apron and a surgeon’s head-mirror. Behind him, lying on mortuary-style trolleys, are the fresh twitching cadavers of a human, a gorilla and a pig. The cadavers are carved open; flesh and organs have been plundered from them and discarded on the floor—pulsing and bleeding. Belanzada is grafting stolen pieces of the victims onto another body, lying on an operating table in front of him; combining body parts to create an abomination. Instead of a surgical implement, he wields a curved knife which exudes a soft purple glow. When finally he becomes aware of our presence he shouts at us maniacally.
The laboratory: “GET OUT!!!! MY WORK! I AM CONDUCTING CRITICAL RESEARCH! GET OUT!!” Ludwig prevents Cartwright from drawing his sword-cane Perhaps a different tact is called for? Ludwig appeals to Belanzada: “This is not how to conduct such work meine freunde. There must be a better way to apply genius such as yours. To alleviate suffering, not to be its cause.” Several moments of reasoning and pleading pass until a moment of clarity overtakes Belanzada. In a sudden fit of revulsion, he throws the knife away and breaks down in tears. “My god! What have I done?! Those poor men. These poor creatures. And my friend too. Moric! I killed Moric! He came to me for help and I killed him! What have I done? I implore you to destroy the knife, like Moric wanted!”
Moric’s fate: We speculate that Belanzada must have misappropriated the knife from Dr Dragomir Moric’s dig and that Moric must have discovered what Belanzada was doing. We know as the tale unravelled, Moric went from suspicious, to morose and to angry departure from Belanzada’s house. Moric must have implored Belanzada to destroy the knife, a demand that precipitated his murder.
The end of Dr. Freak: Before we can intercede, Belanzada retrieves a pistol. He summons forth two unseen creatures skulking in the corner of the laboratory. Hideous, yet pitiful abominations, one with the face of a boar. They whimper as Belanzada presses the gun in turn to each of their heads. Belanzada first shoots the creatures and then turns the gun against himself, blowing his own brains out.
Mims Sahis: Ludwig picks up the knife—the Mims Sahis. Its curved blade, carved from stone, has an impossibly sharp edge and its bone handle is wrapped in blue-green leather. He feels its power in his hand. It feels amazing. It is unfathomably ancient, a Voorish blade, older than history, yet it shows no signs of age. Forbidden knowledge rushes up from some repressed recess of the mind, and Ludwig knows that this blade is connected intimately with the Skinless One—a shadowed god—an avatar of Nyarlathotep.
Let’s destroy the knife, or not? We should go the cement factory and grind the knife into dust. But what if we chose to keep it instead? Ludwig refused to let it out of his possession. Everyone knows of Ludwig’s aichmomania– his overwhelming fascination for sharp objects. Ludwig is unyielding; he informs everyone we’re keeping it. Pierre agrees with Ludwig. Pierre, a dealer of fine and rare antiquities was resolute, the blade is too important to be destroyed. Besides, he mused, why could it not be used to do great good, eh mes amis? Cartwright remained open-minded. And Letty? Well, Letty was busy dousing the laboratory with a jerry can of petrol she’d retrieved from the generator in the maintenance shed. She wasn’t joining conversation anyway—she’d still not spoken a word since her experience in the room of abominations. That’s it, we’re keeping the knife. Time to get out of here before Letty strikes a match. We quickly depart and dash over to the wall behind which we parked our hire car. We look back to see flames rising into the sky. As for the barn full of abominations, Letty had left all the gas valves open. As we drove away in our car, there was an almighty explosion.
Hubert’s attendant: On our arrival back at the lodge its quite late, staff beckon us to the reception desk. We’re informed that our friend Mr Black has had a most unfortunate turn and a doctor is currently attending to him. We rush up to Hubert’s room to find him sleeping in his bed. A stern-looking gentleman with unkempt white hair stands in vigilance over him. We recognise the man as a fellow passenger from the Orient Express, though we have not had the pleasure of introduction. The man is holding Hubert’s notebook from which we must assume he has been reading. The mind-bending particulars of a terrible reality hidden to most men are contained within its pages. The white-haired man snaps the book shut and looks us each in the eye; “Guten abend” he says, and proceeds to name us all as if he knew us intimately. He continues: “Ah, but forgive me meine damen und herren, mein name ist Father Michael Dhole, a man of the cloth and a medical doctor in equal measure. I am most pleased to make your acquaintance”.
The twins: Ludwig grinned, tipped his top hat and cast a polite nod in Dhole’s direction, “Herr Doktor” he said. Dhole stroked his wild hair in an apparent attempt to tidy his appearance and mirrored the nod, “Herr Doktor” he answered. They stood facing each other, both sucking in their bellies and plumping up their chests like a couple of strutting pigeons. Dhole enquired: “I detect from your speech that you are perhaps German? Ludwig replies: "Ja, richtig. Ich komme aus München, weil ich whone in Berlin". Dhole continues, “Ah, ausgezeichnet. Ich bin also Deutsche von meine elten, aber ich komme aus Tanzania, in Ostafrika. I am an itinerant priest, although before entering the priesthood I was a doctor of medicine."
Whose patient is it anyway?
MD: “I have administered a sedative and so the patient is now resting."
LVB: “But I also administered a sedative, earlier this evening!”
MD: “Well it was obviously ineffective. I was called to the patient when he started screaming the place down His heart rate was unstable and he is suffering from delirium”.
LVB: “Ja. I know all this. I am a doctor!”
MD: “Well it fell to me to stabilise my patient and I will need to refer him for further assessment”.
LVB: “I think you’ll find this is my patient. And anyway, I am making arrangements for the patient to be returned to England for specialist care”.
MD: “I have already contacted my clerical order to take care of the patient”.
LVB: “This man needs professional help, not the last rites!”
MD: “My order is very professional in its care, Herr Doktor!”
LVB: “Harrumph!”
MD: “Harrumph!”
LVB: “Outrageous.”
Back on track: We decided we must break the news to Jazmina about Belanzada being her father’s murderer. We comforted her. We, each for our own reasons after a traumatic day, proceeded to console ourselves in an excess of alcohol in the hotel bar. While drinking, word reaches us that repairs to the railroad signals are complete. The Orient Express is due to arrive at Vinkovci at 6.35 tomorrow morning. We ask Jazmina if she’ll accompany Hubert, to take him back to England. She agrees and we provide sufficient funds for their journey. Jazmina informs us that before she departs Croatia she must attend to her father’s affairs and arrange for his funeral. She’ll arrange too for the casket of objects currently secured at the bonded warehouse to be forwarded to Dr. Jordanov in Sofia, as per her father’s wishes.
A late night experiment: Before retiring to bed, the investigators urge Ludwig to conduct an experiment. Will the Mims Sahis harm the Sedefkar Simulacrum? In his room, Ludwig draws the knife across a leg piece of the simulacrum, but instead of marking it, it almost seems to caress it. An ill-omen?
Thursday 7th February 1923
Final parting: The investigators rise and breakfast early. Each bids farewell to Hubert in their own manner. Hubert dribbles. Jazmina will take care of him and, when ready, will escort him on his journey home. The Express is already at the station when we pull up by taxi. Father Dhole, in broad understanding of what lies ahead of us, has agreed to accompany us on our way. No time is wasted in arranging for the luggage to be taken on board. We thank Jazmina for everything she has done for us and offer our condolences for the passing of her father. Unexpectedly she kisses Cartwright hard, with true passion. If only there was time for Cartwright to enjoy Jazmina’s company for a few hours, but unfortunately he has an appointment to keep with almost certain death on the path ahead, and the train cannot wait.
As we pull out from the station. We wave to Jazmina, and cannot help but notice the outbreak of violence behind her. Policemen suddenly start beating civilians with drawn batons. Slowly chugging out of the station, we see a police van driving on the road parallel to us, in the direction of the road to Belgrade. In the rear of the van, looking across at us, are four dour-faced prisoners.
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