Masks of Nyarlathotep 12

8th February, Sunday

After our excitement of the previous evening, we head down to breakfast to discuss what leads we have.

• There is Madam Shafik, who runs Empire Spices, and possibly managing various Egyptian gangs.
• Photo of Misr House on Gavigan’s desk
• Walk-in safe at Henson Manufacturing in Derby.

I need to go to the Library to try and track down Misr House, and Left wants to go buy a camera. He reckons it will be useful to record some of the evidence that we are finding.

We go down to breakfast and discuss where we need to go next. Lefty comes with me, and we head to the Library.

At the library, I find out that Misr is Arabic for Egypt. In the book Green’s Estates of England, a rather nice book on historical homes, it mentions a mansion named Longed View situated on the Naze in Essex. Built in the 16th century, famous for its elaborate secret room used to hide Catholic priests during Elizabeth’s reign.

It is an estate of 6 thousand acres, most of it marsh. It currently belongs to the Lloyd Price family, according to the book.

There is a Nevil Lloyd Price, an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist and Occultist. I remember that there was a Nevil who vanished from London society about 9 years ago. He’d gone broke after spending the family money on his hobbies. He’d tried to sell his collection to the British Museum, which is where I’d heard of him.

Phoning Chemlsford council, they tell us that the estate was transferred to Edward Gavigan in 1915, and the name of the estate had been changed to Misr.

I get some copies of the maps of the estate.

We book a train to Colchestor for tomorrow.

Monday 9th February

Monday morning, we head to the Army and Navy store on Victoria Street to pick up a camera. They also sell some medical gear, and things like binoculars, which could be useful. We are able to pick up some suitable clothing for wandering around in marshy estates. I pick up a small set of binoculars, and a portable medical kit.

That afternoon, we head to an English sea side resort at Walton-on-the-Naze in February. There is a very tall tower here, and some rather desolate looking beach huts, barely visible in the driving rain.

There is a taxi at the train station, that is able to take us to the George Hotel.

Other than some elderly permanent residents, there is someone in a RAF uniform drinking at the bar.

Speaking with the maid, the guy downstairs is Captain Frazier, a pilot. Apparently he is still affected by the War. He is apparently heading to Edinburgh to see his friend, but he’s been saying that for as long as he’s been here – for the last three months.

We are served pie and mash for dinner. Monty has a talk with Captain Frazier, the rest of us go for a short walk in the rain. Apparently Frazier is planning on going to see his friend, who is buried in Edinburgh. He has been putting it off, because he doesn’t want to make it real.

Tuesday 10th February

We have a cooked breakfast, then head out into the rain. We hire a car, and head out in search of Mirz House, which apparently is on a place named Horsey Island. Lefty seems able to drive, and Monty is able to read the maps. We decide to just drive up to the house. There is a dirt track road, and then a fence and a heavy iron gate. The gate looks quite new, and it is closed. The track and the gate look like they’ve been recently maintained.

There is a gate house, and as we get out the car, an Egyptian gate keeper comes out, carrying a shotgun. He makes it quite clear that this is private property, and that we need to turn around.

We park up some way from the gatehouse, behind a hayrick. We then head into the mire towards the house. It is foggy and raining, so hopefully stealth should be an option.

We get over the wall, and head towards the stables. The grounds are heavily overgrown and badly maintained. What we see of the house though seems to suggest it has intact windows and doors. On the way to the stables, we stumble upon a stele, a four sided Egyptian column, which has shackles on each side. The land around the stele has been cleared and flattened. There are signs of bonfires having been here – which is impressive given the weather.

Wandering up to the Stele, I see there are hieroglyphics on it. The shackles look sturdy and well used. We take photos.

We continue on to the stables. It all seems empty and unused. There is a tarpaulin covering a Bentley . In the boot, there is a robe, which has an upside down ankh on it. Monty disables it by removing the distributor cap.

He head to the back of the house. The ground floor windows are shuttered or curtained, though not all windows on the upper floors are. We get up to a back door, and look inside. There is possibly a breakfast room, which looks a little dusty. The lock on the door looks new and good quality. Monty however finds it really easy to pop open one of the larger windows into the pantry. Lefty climbs in, and but the outside doors are locked and there are no keys. So we all climb in through the windows.

We head into the kitchen, where there are some used pans sitting in the sink. We move carefully through the house. Much of the furniture seems covered in cloth, so it seems mostly deserted. In the dining room, it looks like there are footprints in the dust. They lead to a small, high quality library. One particular shelf seems to have been used frequently recently, and all the books on the shelf are 18th century erotica. The other books are historical, geographical etc.

The next room is a great hall. There is a large fireplace, flanked by two suits of armour. Lefty notices that footprints lead to one of the suits of armour, which also seems bolted together. There is also a brick to the left of the fireplace which looks ‘used’. Except, I remember from the description of the house that a brick to open a priest hole was to the right of the fireplace. Checking there, there is also a brick on the right that could be a button to a secret door.

Lefty presses the left button. The panelling swings open, revealing a narrow and steep set of stairs that goes down into the darkness. Clayton presses the right button, and a similar set of stairs is revealed.

Clayton takes an electric torch from Lefty, switches it on and peers down into what was darkness of the left room. There is a tall brazen statue of a woman. There is a screw mechanism on the statue. There are braziers, a workbench, desks and various tools. There is a rack as well. It seems to be a torture room.

Lefty goes down into the room. He notices a large bunch of keys. Opening up the iron maiden, it is empty apart from stained restraints and an unpleasant smell. There are unpleasant small statues and books. H takes some photos.

Down the second flight of stairs are rats. This is a smaller room which was probably the original priest hole.

We close the doors.