The Porcelain Dolls: Session 38 (October 20 2016)
A newspaper article on the front page reveals that a Lieutenant in the Bluecoats and a member of the City Council were found dead in Nightmarket last night. Gears recognizes the names as two of Ellsworth’s blackmail victims.
Gears gets the idea to approach the remaining victims and attempt to rally them against Ellsworth, but Constance is reluctant to assume that Ellsworth is behind it. Constance suggests that she and Gears sell the blackmail evidence back to the rest of the victims, while Kamali and Shade investigate the murders.
Door to Door Salesmen:
There are nearly a dozen people in Ellsorth’s files, but the following names stand out:
* Ridwaan Jaffer: Associate in the Iruvian Consulate. Blackmailed for taking bribes.
* Ettore Rodia: City Council member. Blackmailed for monkeying with local elections.
* Luther Curtis: Wealthy merchant. Blackmailed for bucking import tariffs.
* Lady Drake: Local Magistrate. Blackmailed for association with local gang members.
Constance and Gears speak to Lady Drake, as she’s the only one they already know. They offer her folder to her for free, but they ask for assistance in contacting the others on the list, for the purposes of letting them sort out amongst themselves how best to deal with Ellsworth. Lady Drake is grateful to be out from under his thumb, and says she will coordinate everything and send them info on times and places.
Law & Order: Doskvol
Shade goes to see Inspector Woll to try and get a copy of the crime scene report. Woll knows the Inspector on the case (Ingrid Frantzen), and gets a copy of the report to give to Shade the next day.
That evening after dinner, Fitz brings McDonough to the Bucket. He’s considerably cleaned up, and quite grateful for his new lease on life. Constance asks about Ellsworth, he tells them about Ellsworth’s ruffian friends that used to hang around the factory. Kamali brings a message from a crow, stating that Col Adams of The Lost wants to speak to Constance about an urgent matter.
Flashback to earlier in the afternoon: Shade hands off the report to Kamali, who brings it to Darmot that evening. They review the report together over some curry. The victims were Lt Stevens of the Watch, and Councilor Bollen. They were found together under a bridge in Nightmarket, each shot once in the head with a pistol at close range. The circumstances are suspicious, because the two men didn’t have any particular reason to be together, and neither of them had any particular reason to be in Nightmarket. Darmot sees a description of several suspicious individuals with distinctive tattoos that were seen in the area, and based on the tattoos he identifies them as members of the Strays, a small gang based on Coalridge. He notes that it’s only a matter of time before Ingrid figures out who they are and rounds them up, but Kamali has a bit of a head start. Kamali brings the info back to the Factory, where she finds a crow waiting on the roof with a message for Constance.
Constance heads to The Cat & Cradle in Charterhall. The Lost want permission from Constance to hunt down a serial killer they’ve tracked to Crow’s Foot. His name is Ulstano, and the bodies of several children were found in his basement. He’s currently hiding out in a tenement building in Crow’s Foot, waiting for a friend of his to bring enough cash to get him onto a ship. Constance agrees to have her people apprehend him and bring him to The Lost, as she’s concerned about the public’s perception of an unknown gang coming into Dolls territory and meting out justice.
Notes:
Things are starting to come together for our second arc. The Dolls are established now, and starting to branch out, and we’ll see their friends and enemies grow accordingly.
#dontmesswiththedolls