Chapter XI

**Chapter XI** is the eleventh chapter of *The Case of the Golden Idol*. The date of the occurrence for this chapter is May 15, 1795; sometime afternoon. The preceding chapter is Chapter X and the succeeding chapter is Chapter XII.

## Main Plot

**Note:** The plot is split up into three major plots, to make it easier to understand

### Plot 1

• Walter Keene, enraged over losing 32 years of his life, blackmails Lord High Arbiter Lazarus Herst to get his lost years back. Walter is threatening to expose Lazarus’s past. He orders to meet him alone at the Little Mermaid Inn at 11:30AM on May 15, and give a personal belonging of theirs to “the veiled woman.”

• Lazarus to ties his response to the messenger pigeon. Lazarus replies back, saying that he “may have treated [him] unjustly after our long cooperation.” He also says he will come alone.

• Lazarus orders David Gorran to pose as Lazarus, meet Walter and the veiled woman alone at the Little Mermaid Inn. He was also tasked with killing Walter. With his identify hidden behind the Order helmet, he left the Order Party’s camp at 8:30am on a bicycle. At 11:30AM, he meets the veiled woman, Ada Baker, and gave her a napkin with the “EC” insignia embroidered on it. Ada gives David an instruction slip from Walter, instructing “Lazarus” to meet him at the Cloudsley Cabin. In the afternoon, David arrives at the cabin, and sneakily peers into the window. It’s very dark, but he can see someone with a fashionable hat sitting inside the cabin, and assumes it’s Walter. David shoots Walter in the eye.

• A moment afterwards, David is shot in the back by an old man. It turns out that the person David shot wasn’t a person at all; it was just a scarecrow wearing a fashionable hat; David fell for “the same trap”. The person who shot David in the back was Walter, who was hiding in the water and reeds. As David said his last words, Walter, holding the murder weapon, a musket, realises that the man in the helmet isn’t Lazarus, but David.

### Plot 2

• Lazarus left a note saying that he left for the Cloudsley manor, but he will be back at camp by 10AM for a strategy meeting before they storm the King’s castle. When he does not show up, Alistair Koch and James Turner leave the camp party on horses at 10:15 AM to find Lazarus. When they arrived at the Cloudsley manor, they found the idol, and it’s heavily implied that they figured out what happened.

• On their way back, they fought about the idol. James managed to nick Alistair’s right ankle with a sabre, but Alistair used his sabre to overwhelm James with numerous cuts on his body. James died at the Crossroads, most likely from blood loss sometime before noon.

• Alistair takes the idol, and attempts to use it, but it no longer works due to the explosion breaking the idol’s eye.

### Plot 3

• Before storming the King’s castle with the Order Party, Lazarus first needed to deal with a small but pressing matter.

• In chapter X, Lothar Richards revealed to Lazarus where Peter Battley and Mary Battley are hiding; the Cloudsley manor. Lazarus left the party camp at 8AM with at least two other members on a carriage.

• It becomes apparent to most players at this point that Edmund Cloudsley faked his death, made himself younger with the idol, and is now going by his new identity Lazarus Herst. After all this time, he still wants Mary to be his ideal wife, and will even go as far as to kidnap her, and ship Peter “to the colonies”.

• Sometime early in the morning, the carriage arrived at the manor. Upon entering, Lazarus and his troops were confronted by a drunk Peter and the cannon he had while gambling against John Breage.

• Peter blew up Lazarus and his troops, breaking the idol, and then fled the scene with Mary. They didn’t go far; they laid out a blanket and had a feast at the Lovers Islet. Mary thinks that Peter is brave, but worried about the evil government men, while Peter, drunk off his mind, tells Mary not to worry and vows to kill anyone, no matter where they go.

• In a post-chapter epilogue, we see the fall of the Order Party, and everyone is rejoicing and dancing. Maurice Evans is seen playing music where tribunals take place. The wall of the stage is graffitied with the phrases, “DRINK!”, and “DOWN WITH VIRTUES”. Meanwhile at the Little Mermaid Inn, John and Annie were playing cards. John thinks he recognises a member of the Order Party, Nicolas Maker, but he denies it, saying he was “never part of that ghastly organisation.” Meanwhile, at what seems to be a pawn shop in France, Alistair is seen trying to sell the broken idol for money. The pawn shop owner will take that “gilded brass trinket for scrap mental” for 3 sou, which Alistair should “count himself lucky.”

## Extras

• Peter at this point has multiple places to hide. He has his manor, Sebastian/Rose’s estates and finances, as well as Edmund’s estates. The developers chose the Cloudsley manor to make as many possible call-backs to previous chapters.

• In Lazarus’s safe, a book that has the exact same insignia and design as Edmund’s book in Chapter VI, a clue that Edmund = Lazarus.

• In this book, he thinks that Walter is “ambitious and inventive, but treacherous as many smart people are.” James is “greedy and hedonistic. Requires constant material motivation to cooperate.” David is a “resourceful and discreet professional.” Nicolas is “cowardly but dutiful. Useful up to a limit.”. Alistair is “pompous and vain, but being a military man is ready to obey and ready to kill.”

• There’s a major clue that Edmund is still alive based on Edmund’s letter to Mary, dated March 15, 1795, well after his supposed death.

• After all these years, Annie and John still like playing cards together at the Little Mermaid Inn. It’s also heavily implied that John gambled and lost one of his cannons on his ship to Peter. Oscar Boyton is still the innkeeper.

• Walter was most likely staying at the Little Mermaid Inn under the alias, “Walter Nought.” Ada is staying at the Inn as well.

• Mary Richards changed her legal name to Battley when Mary and Peter married. It’s apparent that Lothar didn’t want Mary to marry Peter considering his substantial amount of legal debts at the time. It’s unclear if Mary eloped with Peter, or if Lothar changed his mind when Peter inherited the Cloudsley manor and valuables sometime after December 10, 1788.

• Mary kept Peter’s love letter from Chapter 5 in her diary. She’s also kept Peter’s letter to marry him (dated December 10, 1788), Edmund’s love letter dated January 5, 1788, and his most recent letter, dated March 15, 1795.

• It’s very clear that Edmund/Lazarus thinks that Peter is unworthy of Mary. Edmund/Lazarus still wants to ship Peter to the colonies, which is what he and Rose Cubert wanted to do in Chapter V.

• Peter drank almost all of the whiskey in his flask.

• It’s possible that Alistair lost standing and money when the Order Party fell.