Cosney Megundal

**Cosney Megundal** was an extremely rich businessman philanthropist, and was the main suspect in the murder of Morta Milverton, later revealed to be the mastermind behind a plot to leak Ministry of Justice telegrams.

## The Phoney Philanthropist

Megundal worked as a loan shark, and applied extremely high exploitive interest rates he put out on his clients' loans. Such high rates soon propelled him to being the richest man in London, and decided to donate vast sums of this money towards charitable appeals in order to make himself appear as a legitimate businessman. Although many were completely unaware of his true nature.

Looking for a new opportunity for income, he made a deal with telegram operator Robert Milverton to leak government secrets in exchange for large sums of cash. Milverton was able to intercept a telegram from the UKGC to another country and have his father Morta embed the information on two music box discs.

Milverton obtained the first music box disc from Milverton Jr. on board an omnibus.

## Betrayal & Murderer

### Murder of Milverton Sr.

*Main Article: The Runaway Room*

Worried for his son's safety, Morta Milverton instead made the second transaction on behalf of his son, and demanded more money. Enraged, Megundal stabbed Milverton Sr. to death with a knife. At that moment, there was a scream from underneath Milverton's seat, which revealed Penny Pincher, intent on pickpocketing otherwise completely-unaware omnibus passengers.

As two other passengers, Oscar Fairplay and Adam Ladyfirst, ran to fetch a police constable, he asked omnibus driver Beppo Dedriver to deposit the coat into Hatch's Pawn Shop on Baker Street. He then threatened to destroy Penny's home if she told anyone what she had seen or heard. She was then asked to hold the deposit pledge for two years, and if Megundal would be unable to withdraw the coat himself in that time then she would be required to do so on his behalf. Megundal was soon arrested for Milverton's murder by Greg Lestrade.

Three days later, Megundal was put on trial, with Minister for Justice Hart Vortex assigning him Saul Goodman as his defense attorney, seeing as he was unable to hire one to defend him against Barok van Zieks otherwise. The fact that he was offered several quadrillion pounds also helped.

During the course of the trial, Goodman pointed out the possibility of there being a third party potentially involved in the case, which Megundal himself then confirmed. Penny then activated a smoke bomb, which allowed for several of Megundal's hired thugs to tamper with the omnibus carriage while the courtroom broke into a commotion.

Later, when it was revealed that the scene of the crime had indeed been tampered with and the prosecution's evidence had to be reluctantly thrown out, the judge issued a not guilty verdict, much to the protests of the gallery.

### Death

Before Megundal could pay Goodman, he was summoned by a Robert Milverton, disguised as a bailiff, to go and "inspect the crime scene" (implying that he was going to help him to destroy any more incriminating evidence.) Megundal complied, but when he arrived in the courtroom he was instead locked inside the omnibus which was then set ablaze.

Megundal was then burnt alive before anyone could intervene safely.

An investigation into the matter later revealed that the police had made no arrangements of the sort at all.

## Legacy

*Main article: The Unspeakable Story*

Two years later, Penny went to retrieve the coat and the music box discs before they were sold off. But Robert Milverton, under the alias "Eggs Benedict" interrupted and attempted to claim the coat and music box discs for himself. After the murder of the pawn shop's owner, Hatch Windibank, Penny was arrested for the crime.

During the course of the investigation, it was revealed that Megundal's death had been carried out by Robert Milverton in revenge for killing his father. He had used the money gained from the sale of the first music box disc to bribe bailiffs at the Old Bailey to allow him to kill Megundal without any opposition.

## Personality

While Megundal does, on the surface, appear to be a friendly and welcoming philanthropist, this was just a façade in order to hide his true self: a ruthless businessman and philanthropist. To the public, he remained a man of the people, who donated vast sums of money to many charitable causes such as building new hospital wings or homes for disabled elderly children who are orphans, requesting that they only carry his name as a payment in return.