Wedding Mischief

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Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts

Act I: The Headlines Thicken

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The Foghorn Afloat

July 29, 1898

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ROMANTIC AIRSHIP-BOARD WEDDING

Photo: Sir Ambrose Peacock and his beautiful bride On his recent trip to Egypt, Sir Ambrose Peacock lost an uncle but gained a bride. Meeting her on a stopover in Venice, the English knight lost no time in winning the fair lady’s hand. They were married aboard an airship en route back to London. “Lady Peacock knew my uncle in Cairo,” said Sir Ambrose, when the pair disembarked from a small commercial airship at the Jamaica Inn in Cornwall, the closest regular stop to Boddy Manor. “He spoke of me so frequently and warmly that she fell half in love with me before we ever met. No, he didn’t tell her where he was going.”

Sir Ambrose’s uncle, Baron von Boddy, was on a quest for a fabled Nubian treasure when his airship was found adrift over the English Channel. In response to questions directed at his lovely new wife, Sir Ambrose replied for her. “Yes, I’m sure she will enjoy living in my uncle’s isolated manor in Cornwall. No, I’m sure she won’t find Bodmin Moor in the winter at all uncongenial. I hope my uncle gets declared dead soon so I can sell off a few things.” As this reporter turned away, Sir Ambrose grasped my sleeve. “I don’t suppose you could lend me a fiver? My wife and I have excess baggage charges and the airship won’t unload our trunks until we pay up.”  Photo: mine house on moor, with airship overhead, reputed to be the Jules Verne

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A Contretemps in the hallowed halls

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Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts

Act I: The Headlines Thicken

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The University Times

July 27, 1898

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INDY BROWN’S CASE AGAINST PROFESSOR PLUM

Photo Indiana Brown and Professor Plum nose to nose in Balliol Fellows dining hall A new wrinkle arose in the mysterious case of the missing baron, when American adventurer Henry “Indiana” Brown levelled a public accusation at Professor Polonius Plum for the theft of his research into the fabled Eye of Africa mask. “We both attended the annual meeting of the Association for Archaeology in Academia a couple months back, in New York City. We came on to England on the same trans-oceanic airship,” said Brown. “I showed him the map. I put it into my book trunk right in front of him, and next day the whole trunk vanished.

“As soon as I heard that Baron guy was on the trail of the Eye of Africa when he got lost , I knew the Professor had shanghai’d my research for him. And I’ll prove it, by gum, or my name isn’t Henry Walton Brown, Junior.” In terms not suitable for newspaper publication, Brown expressed his intent to follow the professor to Cornwall, where the latter hopes to curate Baron von Boddy’s papers for the Balliol Library. Said Brown, “And when I catch up to him, I’ll punch him right in the schnoz!”   Hand-drawn facsimile of mask Brown claims to have researched thoroughly

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A Mysterious woman...


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Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts

Act I: The Headlines Thicken

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London Fog and Cog

July 27, 1898

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LAST LADY LOVE OF BARON VON BODDY?

Do you recognize this woman, seen in intimate proximity to Baron von Boddy at the Cairo Aerodrome shortly before his departure for parts unknown? Hercule Hornblower, investigating the last days of Baron von Boddy in Egypt, has learned he was often in company with a lovely young widow whose name, as given at her hotel and to the English community in Cairo, was proved fictional. This woman was seen weeping at the aerodrome as Boddy departed on his ill-fated treasure hunt into the Nubian desert.  An airship captain who witnessed the tearful parting had no information to share on her identity beyond, “A demmed fine woman, sirrah. Demmed fine.”

Hornblower has appealed without success to the English community in Cairo for the woman’s actual name and whereabouts, and now seeks the same information from the Fog’s loyal readers. If you know this woman by any name, please fill in the Fog and we will ensure the information reaches Monsieur Hornblower. Below: a wider view of the mystery woman at the aerodrome, being consoled or cajoled by the baron while an incidental airship captain resolutely keeps his eyes on the skies.

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Beauty and Danger...

Here is the next post of Jayne Barnard's "The Evil Eye of Africa."

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Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts

Act I: The Headlines Thicken

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The Social Steamer

July 22, 1898

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AMERICAN HEIRESS BADGERED FOR BATTY BARON’S BILLS

Mrs. Medusa Midas-White in her parlour at Claridge’s Hotel. Following the discovery of the abandoned Jules Verne, the expeditionary airship of Baron von Boddy, Mrs. Midas-White, the only surviving heir to Atlantic Airship Industries in New Jersey, America, and now resident in Claridge’s Hotel, London, is being urgently billed by merchants who supplied the missing adventurer’s expedition in search of Nubian treasures. Mrs. White’s patronage of Baron von Boddy was widely known in England, and doubtless contributed to the merchants’ willingness to advance goods to the latter. On being informed the baron had not paid his bills before departure, her shock seemed genuine. How much the heiress had already advanced in support of Boddy’s latest whacky dream is unknown. A few inquiries would have revealed the venturesome baron’s English investors were long since embittered by his unfruitful quests for legendary treasures.

Notable detective Hercule Hornblower is on the case.   Mrs. White dispatched a notable British detective, Hercule Hornblower, to Egypt in hopes of determining whether Boddy found the treasure and, if so, where she might lay claim to her contractually guaranteed portion of the trove. “If I must, I will take my money stick by brick from his property in Cornwall,” she said, frowning severely. “I am going there immediately to make sure it is not tampered with until I’ve got my pound of flesh.”

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Served with Distinction...

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Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts

Act I: The Headlines Thicken

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The Floating Fortress, England’s Aeronautical Weekly

July 21, 1898

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CARDSHARP COLONEL EJECTED FROM ST. JAMES CLUB

Colonel Bilious Mustard, long an habitué of the fashionable gaming clubs of London, was escorted from the premises of The Royal Air Arms recently. Rumours fly of cheating at piquet and failure to pay his club dues. Creditors are encamped outside the veteran officer’s lodging, where the landlady said his rent is also in arrears. Colonel Mustard inside his club, The Royal Air Arms, caught in a candid moment during a card game. The Colonel’s downfall is all the more shocking as his service record is filled with battle honours. His earliest post was with the high-altitude scouts, who spend many hours aloft in tethered balloons to report enemy troop movements to the ground forces. These daring aeronauts were constantly at risk from enemy snipers and vagaries of weather, with only a canvas canopy to drop them gently to Earth should their balloon be ruptured.

A high-altitude scout training with his canopy by leaping from scaffolding. Mustard earned three valorous medals aloft before returning to the Airship Marine Corps for many further years of honourable service. He has not been seen in his usual haunts lately. The recent disappearance of his good friend, Baron von Boddy, weighed on his mind, and some club members suggest he has taken the “honourable way out,” ie self-termination with his service pistol, a long tradition for disgraced military men.

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Academics behaving badly!


Here is the next post of Jayne Barnard's "The Evil Eye of Africa."

The first post is here.
A list of all the characters is here.

You can get all the posts by clicking on the mystery tag.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts

Act I: The Headlines Thicken

---

The University Times

July 18, 1898

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AMERICAN LECTURER LAUGHED OUT OF OXFORD

Professor “Indy” Brown addressing the Annual Fellows Dinner at Balliol College in Oxford Henry “Indiana” Brown, a scholar visiting from a middle-American “university,” gave a detailed description of a fabled proto-Nubian mask, The Eye of Africa, at the Explorers Club dinner in Balliol College last week.

He embellished the telling with apparently erudite and convincing detail. But, when asked to produce evidence of his conclusions, Brown claimed his research was all lost on his voyage across the Atlantic. The White Star Line denies any claim was made by Mr. Brown for lost luggage, casting his research into grave doubt and resulting in prompt termination of his visiting-professor status at Oxford. An American, Professor Brown did not depart with the dignity of a British don. After confronting an esteemed Oxfordian in the dining hall with accusations of theft, Brown was escorted from the Sacred Halls of Academe. At the university gate he yelled back, “I’m right and I’ll rub all your noses in it.” As this is the widely preferred form of teaching puppies not to do their business indoors, the egregious insult has further cast doubt on the recent policy of treating America’s fledgling academic institutes as in any way on a par with those venerable universities of England. Look for sparks to fly at next month’s meeting of the Oxford Universities Guild.

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Suspects!

To make it easier to keep track of who is who, here is the list of characters in "The Evil Eye of Africa".
The next part of the Mystery will be posted shortly.
The first post is here.

You can get all the posts by clicking on the mystery tag.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts

Dramatis Personae:

Baron von Boddy – a Cornish adventurer better known for his failures than his successes, and his idiosyncratic single-hander expeditionary airship, the Jules Verne. His present quest for the Eye of Africa began in London amid fanfare but degenerated into bragging for drinks around the British haunts in Cairo.
 (Andrew Nadon)

Colonel Bilious Mustard – Boddy’s long-time, stalwart friend, recently retired from an upstanding military career that left him showered with medals but holding few saleable assets.
(Grant Zelych)











Sir Ambrose Peacock – heir to Baron von Boddy’s title and whatever is left of his estate, this feckless fop has never worked at anything more challenging than the tying of his cravat nor made a more weighty decision than the placement of a jeweled pin in said cravat.
(Jessep Crossfield)

Lady Peacock – an undeniable beauty, of whom little is known prior to her recent airship wedding – some say hasty, others romantic – to Sir Ambrose.
(Raven Hawthorne)










Professor Polonius Plum – an Oxford scholar of no particular note, until he came to frequent the company of Baron von Boddy last winter.
(James Prescott)

 

Henry “Indiana” Brown – an American, professor of Archaeology at a little-known Midwest university, he has made a lifelong study of ancient African relics of power. (Andrew Nadon)








Mrs. Medusa Midas-White – an American industrial heiress with pots of money and a thirst for more.(Karen Siemens)

Hercule Hornblower – a notable British-Belgian detective whose forays into undercover surveillance are thwarted by his excessively large and recognizable moustaches.
(Stewart McPhee)



 

An Incidental Airship Captain of No Particular Importance.
(Me)



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