A Residence at the Bay 04: Stitched Up like a Kipper

### Players

Joseph Chance as Dr. Henry Carrig-Muir, Dan Wheeler as Rev. Peregrine McCutcheon, Dominic Allen as Lady Helen Marjorie Bjalmier Potts

### Podcast Link

https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-qbsx7-12d2286

## Synopsis (Spoiler Warning)

The episode begins with a monologue from Dr Henry while he's under the effects of opium in which he speaks of fossils and trig points, after which there is a second monologue from Peregrine, who reminisces about the adventure he went through in East Anglia with Edward Caister and Sidney Wagner; he also remarks upon how the scarecrow on the trig point reminded him of Leaf. He concludes his stream of consciousness by saying he'll make an effort to be strong for his new friends, then, the intro begins.

The characters wake up in their beds at 1:00pm, after sleeping for approximately 18 hours. Once they've all completed their ablutions, they meet up in Dr Henry's room: he tells Lady Marjorie about the scarecrow he saw in the upstairs bedroom, and the group wonder if they should take up Peter's offer of kippers for lunch. Peregrine wonders if Dr Henry drugged either him or Lady Marjorie, which she begins to genuinely have suspicions about (thanks to a fumble), and he and the Doctor then notice a map of the area pinned on the wall: it shows a local church, which catches the Reverend's eye. Dr Henry then wonders whether or not Robert was ever even *at* the guesthouse in the first place. Once Peter asks once again about kippers, the group decides that only one of them, namely Lady Marjorie, should eat said meal out of fear of being drugged.

Once they head downstairs and June brings them the fish, Lady Marjorie asks about their son, Billy, who seems to have died out to sea in a storm when he was in his 20s; Peregrine says a prayer for the young man, and proposes to light a candle for him in church, but once he does June's attitude becomes slightly more hostile and he gets the impression that she dislikes the local Reverend. Lady Marjorie has meanwhile finished her meal, and soon enough the three exit the house while they discuss a possible plan: eventually the consensus is that they'll visit the nearby church. Before they leave, however, the characters decide to take a look at the trig point in front of the guesthouse, which seems to be a whitewashed block of stone with a square hole up top; it also has some carvings, one of which looks like some sort of strange owl. Dr Henry then begins to scrape away the the paint and reveals another owl-like figure but suddenly gets the feeling that he's being watched, which prompts him to look up towards the ridge and notice several scarecrows which seem to be almost glaring at him as he digs into the stone.

The group then begins to walk inland, towards the church, and Lady Marjorie takes the opportunity to share her worries about the Doctor with Peregrine, and after all of them notice two kennels (with nearby collars and chains) in the house's back garden and keep walking onward, they eventually reach the church and adjacent building, presumably the Reverend's home. Peregrine and Lady Marjorie head towards the rectory, knock on the door and receive no reply, but Peregrine does notice that the surrounding ivy and honeysuckle seem to be growing back at an alarming rate, and that all the pruned flora in the general area seems to be slightly mutated. As he walks round the perimeter, Dr Henry notices a 10ft deep, semi-circular pit in the ground, which reminds him painfully of his military service in Sudan, and which seems to stop once it meets the church's wall. In front of the church, Lady Marjorie and Peregrine see some owl grotesques, and a helm, a chess piece and a sword, respectively at the northern, western and eastern point of the archway. The door then opens and a young man, presumably the Reverend, steps out and after confirming it was him who wrote their postcards is immediately slapped by Lady Marjorie; he obviously apologizes but also reveals that he has no idea where Robert is as he guides the group into his own house. The Reverend then says that there was a secret code to decipher within the postcards by reading the first word of each sentence: with this in mind, the postcards read "I fear your friend is in danger, I await you, Robert". He then begins to cry, explain that he can't trust the locals and that he's been trapped in this parish for some time now; recently he'd met Robert, who'd pass by the rectory very often and tell him about his finds, but one night he simply stopped coming which motivated the Reverend to seek help, and write to three of the people whose addresses were written down in Robert's journal.

## Important NPCs

* Peter Crowe
* June Crowe
* Reverend James Blackwell

## Places

* Boggle Hole guesthouse
* Boggle Hole's local parish

## Quotes

* "The problem is that Lady Marjorie takes a long time to get anywhere." (Dan) "I have move rate of 3, more than enough for a lady." (Dom as Lady Marjorie)
* "Are you suggesting that they put an effigy of him on the bed and it is filled with rats? Why would they need to chain it down?" (Dom as Lady Marjorie) "Well, I don't think the rats were intentional..." (Joseph as Dr Henry)
* "When i die, lay an effigy of me on my bed and fill it full of rats. That’s all I ask. It’s a simple request, I’m a simple man" (Dan)

## Trivia

1. ↑ This NPC is possibly inspired by the Reverend mentioned in M. R. James' *Rats*.
2. ↑ This structure is also present in *Rats* (“[Thomson] found himself looking at a square block of white stone fashioned somewhat like the base of a pillar, with a square hole in the upper surface.”, “[…] up where you see that stone what the gallus stood in.”), and might also have been inspired by the gallows in M. R. James' *A View From a Hill*.
3. ↑ The relation between owls and the Crowe family isn’t clear, however, these are relevant in several M. R. James stories such as *After Dark in the Playing Fields* ("I have a kindness for owls. This one was evidently very near: I looked about for it. There it was, sitting plumply on a branch about twelve feet up. I pointed my stick at it and said, "Was that you?" "Drop it," said the owl."), *An Episode of Cathedral History* ("The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.") and *The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance* ("There was one long, loud, shuddering scream, and I awoke to find myself looking straight into the face of—what in all the world do you think? but— a large owl, which was seated on my window-sill immediately opposite my bed-foot, holding up its wings like two shrouded arms.") and in the author's favorite weird tale, J. S. Le Fanu's *The Familiar*.