15th December 2002
Cast List: Richard O'Neary (Lexicographer, 28): Tommy
James Hogshead (Freelance Journalist & Writer, 31): Mel
Leonard Scapp (Photographer, 24): Graham
Hargreaves & Leopold Perrin (Butler & Twerp, 27): Mark
Music: The bells start ringing. Footsteps approach, and pass.
The plot starts with Gerald Pearce (27), history fellow at Magdalen.
The characters are all members of the Society for Observation of Arcane Phenomena, which meets at 59 St. Giles, above the Society of Friends.
Gerry is rather excited, and has summoned them for a briefing. As an alderman of the society, he has the authority to commission an investigation.
He's got some curious events concerning Richard Goodwin, who sounds familiar to O'Neary. He has some poltergeist activity, and his terrier has been killed.
The family is now living in digs at 113 Banbury Road, and has asked Gerry if he can help. The house is on Juxon Street, and Gerry hands over a key.
Hogshead supposes that poltergeists might be associated with teenage girls, and Gerry informs that there is a 13 year old daughter, Rachel.
They head to sleeping establishments (home, the Eagle and Child or Randolph as necessary).
Hargreaves phones Goodwin, who requests a meeting before noon, as he's departing on a work trip.
Richard checks into work, and determines that Goodwin works in the OUP sales department. At 11, the foursome meet Goodwin at the guest house desk. He's in his late 30s, and takes them through for tea.
Leonard and James lead the conversation.
Goodwin moved in in March, and the problems were originally blamed on his daughter being upset by the move. He's evidence is based on witnessing something on the previous Tuesday: he was in Rachel's room, and the girl was thrown across the room, whilst asleep. He felt a pair of icy hands around his neck whilst picking his daughter up. It was like nothing he'd felt in his life before. It felt as though the life was being choked out of him, and was accompanied by a damp, rotting smell. The effects disappeared a few seconds after his wife switched on the electric light. The next morning, they found that Nipper had been killed, and "I will have vengeance on you" written on the wall in blood. They moved to the hotel immediately, and have had peace subsequently. They've checked back briefly since, and nothing untoward has been noticed.
They ask to speak to Rachel, and Goodwin agrees, but suggest that his teenage daughter may not be entirely taken at face value.
The house is owned by Goodwin, purchased through a local estate agent, from a man called Hall. He suggests that Rachel may be somewhat to blame, although he doesn't believe that she'd have killed the dog.
Goodwin departs, and Mrs. Goodwin (thin and nervous looking, also in her late thirties) and Rachel appear. Leonard asks for the text of the message. It was "By the seven hells, I wil have my rvenge, and time agen" [sic] Richard agrees that it sounds like poor spelling, rather than archaic. Rachel tutts of into a corner. Mrs. Goodwin offers a list of previous events. At first they thought it was "little Rachel" playing around (Rachel complains). She saw a chamber pot smash against the wall in Rachel's room. Rachel subsequently shared the parental bed (Goodwin was away), and they woke to find their hair being tied to the bed posts. Mrs Goodwin asked Rvd. Thomas Wenderby (from St. Barnabus) to perform an exorcism, but to no effect. And now (to Rachel's distress), Nipper's dead.
20th March: move in.
12th April: Vase broken in Rachel's room.
18th April: Painting taken from wall in palour.
Other dates in April: stuff
2nd May: Chamberpot smashed in Rachel's room.
8th May: Rachel & Mrs G. have hair tied to bed.
18th May: Exorcism attempted.
29th May: Rachel thrown out of bed.
30th May: Nipper killed.
[See handout].
They found some odd bits and pieces when they moved in, but don't know what Goodwin would have done with those. They suggest that the 'party' might wish to stay i the house overnight. And the military gentleman in room 2 is a little odd…
She'd spoken to Mr. Hall, who now lives at 13, Daubeny Road, North Oxford, with his wife. They have grown up children. Mr Goodwin thinks that Hall is a forthright gentleman, who wouldn't have lied about the absence of any ghosts.
Mrs. Goodwin asks Scapp about portrait photographs of Rachel (for her grand-mother in London). None of the Oxford photographers will allow her to sit for a picture, as she's capable of being "a little bit naughty" (Rachel objects). Scapp offers to take a couple of quick pictures of her, to allow him to set up lighting subsequently.
They lunch at Browns, and then head off to Juxon Street. The house is about 50 years old, in a terrace. It's been cleaned since the dog died. A quick look around follows. They find the restored picture of St. Marks. There's a cellar off the kitchen, full of boxes, a mixture of new and old, full and empty. The attic is full of new boxes. Exploring the boxes in the cellar reveals clothes, memorabilia, papers and such like. O'Neary and Hargreaves fight over the best way of sorting the junk out, but gradually get on with the job. The others explore the rest of the house, and find broken china in the bins. Scapp finds something strange: a small straw donkey in Rachel's bedroom, but nobody knows what to make of it.
Perrin finds Nipper's grave in the garden, which is rather marshy. As they mill around this, Hogshead realizes that they're being watched by the old lady next door.
Scapp goes around to talk to her, and after some minutes, hears the little old lady demanding to know who's there. He pushes his card through the letter box, and she tells him to go away. She says that she's called the police, and Scapp explains they've got the owners' permission. She opens the door, and says she knows what he's up to. Scapp respectfully disagrees, and explains that he's an investigator. She says she didn't like the look in Goodwin's eye, and generally screeches about their assorted unpleasantness. The Halls' were busy socially, and she didn't think they were quiet either. Before that was old Miss Chavers, who was ideally quiet. Mrs Screecy neighbour has been there for 15 years. Scapp runs for his life, and the police arrive. Scapp attempts to explain away his presence as doing a survey of the property, and opens the door with the keys. Eventually the policeman leaves.
The two sorting through the junk in the basement, determine it to the property of a Chavers family, including some stuff documenting life in a medieval Benedictine Abbey, which O'Neary snaffles for taking back to work.
Scapp tries to organise booking a photographic studio for the next day, develop his existing pictures, and inquire about the reasons that nobody will allow Rachel into the studios. He books space at Gilbert and Soames on St. Michael Street, and enquires elsewhere about Rachel. The general description was stroppy and obnoxious. The picture doesn't appear to be out of the usual.
Hargreaves whips up a light supper, and they prepare for the night.
The cellar has kitchen access and a coal hatch (locked).
The ground floor contains a parlour, dining room, kitchen and scullery.
The first floor has a master bedroom, Rachel's room, spare room and a bathroom (including toilet). Access to the attic is from the landing.
Hargreaves dosses down in the parlour, and Perrin goes for the spare bedroom. O'Neary takes the master bedroom, Hogshead the kitchen. Scapp sets up in Rachel's room, with multiple cameras. At some point, he spots a hand mirror dragging across the dressing table. He takes a flash photograph, and dodges the bedside lamp. Scapp dodges a flying table lamp, and calls for the others. O'Neary rushes in, and looks around, and slams to door shut on a flying stool. Scapp feels a cold veil drag across his face, and twitches in horror. He draws his knife, and starts parrying flying objects. O'Neary reopens the door, and waits to flick on the light switch.
Hogshead checks the adjacent rooms, and Scapp hears an eerie voice "Blood, blood", but ignores it. He grabs a camera and runs for the door. O'Neary hits the light switch and gets out of the way. Suddenly all becomes quiet.
O'Neary suggests stripping the room before repeating the experiment. Scapp points out that they won't detect anything if there's nothing to throw. Hargreaves suggests pillows. Scapp runs off to Hogshead's room in the Randolph to develop his pictures. Unfortunately, they show nothing except flying furniture, so he borrows the bed for a decent nights sleep.
O'Neary has a look around in the loft above Rachel's room, but doesn't find anything particular. He heads into work with the Benedictine paperwork. Hogshead looks into the newspaper records for the property, and births marriages and deaths for Chavers. Hargreaves go to visit Hall. He explains that there's a ghostly problem with the Juxon Street house. Mrs Hall is somewhat appalled, and denies any such occurrence whilst they were there. Hargreaves asks about Miss Chavers, and is told that the house was bought from her estate, after Miss Chavers death. Hall lavished love on the house, and had mentioned that the drainage was somewhat bad. She says that Christopher Hall is at work, and invites them back at 8pm. As he departs
O'Neary is aware that Jericho was the heart of the Jewish community, and gets the paperwork checked out. Most of it relates to Godstow Abbey, and the paperwork should be held by the Church Commissioners. Reginald Chavers was a name in the field (died in 1903), but it's not clear how he got hold of it.
There were two Chavers in Oxford: Reginald and Angela, of the same parents. Reginald died in approximately 1902, but there's no record of Angela's death. The house was built in 1872, and first owner by Reginald. In 1903 it was inherited by Angela. It was bought by Christopher Hall on 4th April 1921, and then by Richard Goodwin on 20th March 1923.
About four o'clock, Rachel is dragged along for her photographic session. Scapp tries to propose a modern, contemporary dress rather than a shepherdess's outfit. He fails miserably. Rachel wants a flapper dress, but Scapp doesn't have any in her size. An assistant offers a cut-out board to pose her in. In the end, he finds a dark purple gown, and adds some costume jewellery. Finally, (thankfully,) the photographs are taken. Scapp reports progress in the house, witnessing the "phenomenon." Mrs Goodwin realises that Rachel can't be the cause, and the girl glowers "I told you so!"
At 8 o'clock all five are at the Halls' residence. The door is opened by Christopher Hall, who immediately informs them that there's no chance of Goodwin getting his money back. Perrin leaps forward into the conversation, and asks about the improvements that Hall did to the house, particularly papering over pentagrams. Hogshead attempts to clear things up, and points out that Hall only owned the property for two years. Hall explains that he made partner in his insurance firm, and that he's replaced the outside toilet, and installed a new water closet. The old lady on one side was a bit quirky, but the other neighbours. They enjoyed their time at the house, and his wife sang at St. Barnabas. He says the land was derelict before the house was built, and an earlier attempt to build on the site failed, despite attempts to drain the area.
Scapp almost gets a job photographing Annie (the daughter), and her third sprog.
They discuss possible theories of activities in the room. O'Neary's curious about the electric light dissipating the mysterious effects. Hargreaves offers to sleep in Rachel's room, with the light on. The others spread around the house. Hogshead stays in the living room, and wakes up to a cold stabbing pain in the abdomen. He's got a kitchen knife embedded in his stomach, screams bloody murder, and is hit in the back of the head by a small occasional table. The rest rush toward the room, and O'Neary turns on the lights. Next to Hogshead written on the wall in his blood is "blo".
O'Neary telephonically contacts his physician, and asks him to attend an emergency. Whilst they wait, the healthy people move a dresser across the blood stain on the wall (Hargreaves determines it was written using a finger). The doctor arrives and attempts to stitch up Hogshead. On further examination of the wall, Scapp thinks the writing is quite well formed (as from an educated hand). Perrin wants to put more blood out for the poltergeist to write with.
Morning arrives (Friday 8th). Hargreaves, being unable to dissuade Perrin, goes to get some blood. O'Neary goes to research the monastery and Jewish stuff in the Bodleian. Hogshead rests, and Scapp heads to the site of the Godstow Monastory. He gets a general overview: it's where Henry's mistress Rosamund the Fair was hidden. O'Neary determines that the "seven hells" was in use by London traders in the 1830's, and "agen" is a fairly common, if uneducated, spelling. Scapp checks with the purchase of the house by the Halls. He gets the name of Angela Chavers's solicitors: Frewin's. He heads off there, and they claim they can't inform about their client's business. He asks if they were the executors and, after some haggling, they agree that they were. Angela's will left the value of her estate to a cats' home. This was the only property that she owned, and was in a residential home in Dorchester when she died.
O'Neary, on checking with Goodwin's colleagues at the Press, finds that Jessica Goodwin is of Jewish descent, although not practising.
Perrin points out where he's left the blood and rat-poison mixture. Just in case anybody tries to drink it. Hargreaves collects, and locks up, all the sharp implements in the house.
Scapp goes to talk to the Goodwin's again, about the photographs. They're to be delivered to Rachel's maternal grandmother: Mrs Sylvia Wasserstein, Golders Green, London. Scapp suggests they could have got a rabbi to perform the exorcism, but Jessica doesn't have much confidence in him, whereas Father Wenderby is a very good man.
Hogshead goes to the library to research dybbuks [Editor: In Jewish folk-lore, the malevolent spirit of a dead person that enters and controls the body of a living person until exorcized. 1903 Jewish Encycl. IV, Dibbu{kdotbl}im, transmigrated souls. ?Dibbu{kdotbl}?..is a colloquial equivalent, common among the superstitious Jews in eastern European countries, for a migrant soul. 1926 ALSBERG & KATZIN tr. ?S. Ansky? (title) The dybbuk. 1929 T. WOLFE Look Homeward, Angel (1930) xxx. 431 An old Jew who muttered jargon into a rabbi's beard as if saying a spell against Dybbuks. 1959 Times 30 Dec. 9/1 The Tenth Man is about a Jewish girl who thinks she is possessed by a dybbuk, or demon.]
Wenderby is a portly man with a beatific expression. His professional opinion is that is was probably Rachel's fault. Miss Chavers was very assiduous church goer, and very fond of cats.
Whilst fetching the jar of blood from the cellar, Perrin realises that the back wall is older than the other walls: probably from the 19th century, and not square with the adjacent walls. O'Neary checks to see that it runs on past the edges of the cellar.
Over night, nothing happens.
Extra, extra! 'Orrible murder at University Press.
Daniel Leighton, medieval scholar, has throat slashed at desk, and blood splattered
on walls.
"Blood blood blood"
O'Neary scoots back into the press: Leighton was the person he'd given the papers to. Whilst he's retrieving the paperwork (which is still boxed up), a professional graphologist comments "strange hand: that of a poorly educated woman of the 1830's". He was working on a list of monks at Fountain's abbey in the 14th century.
Hogshead and Hargreaves go to check the land records. The area was previously owned by the council.
They find:
1242 given by King to Jewish community
1261 synagogue on site
1586 synagogue burnt down
1842 purchase by Rouse & Clark for housing development
1843 Rouse & Clark go bankrupt
In the offices of the Oxford Times, they find a report of the bankruptcy on
the 14th September, 1843. They also locate a related article:
October 2nd 1843, horrible death at building site.
Mrs Adelia Simms drowned by own hand. Had given money towards building construction,
and was poorly educated.
Hargreaves finds a church with the record of her death. She lived in Henley Street. A church near there has a record of Henry Simms dying in 1841. They then find a newspaper report of horrific railway construction accident, with large compensation being paid out. The surmise is this was the source of Adelia's investment.
O'Neary returns the papers to the Juxon Street house, where they spread everything out, and look through it. There is a rare illuminated missal, which Hogshead picks out. Scapp photographs it for posterity.
Night falls. The weapons are in the spare room. Hogshead and the missal are in Rachel's room. Everybody else in the master bedroom. The blood and sheet are in the parlour.
All the lights go out. Something whips past Perrin in the darkness. Paper rustles in Hogshead's room. He lights his torch, and realises he's in a storm of paper. He grabs the missal from the floor. It's warm, with an "inner life." There's a shriek in a loud woman’s voice. They rush downstairs, to see a storm of furniture being thrown around. O'Neary toggles the light switch in the master bedroom, to no effect, but spots a spark igniting in the middle of the bed, which rapidly turns into a larger fire. Hargreaves rushes to the bathroom to find some water.
Downstairs, Scapp keeps taking photographs. Perrin, trying the blindingly obvious, tries talking: "Hello Mrs Simms!". The shrieking stops, and words appear on the sheet (by the 7 hells, etc. I will have my revenge , Frederick Clark!). Perrin is getting choked. Hogshead brings the missal downstairs, and a shadow form starts solidifying around Perrin's neck. Scapp attempts to thump it, but misses. Hogshead starts performing an impromptu exorcism, using the house doorbell. When this doesn't work, he tries using "In nomine padre...". At this, the book bursts into light, and the ghost evaporates.
On the Sunday, they meet up at the club again. They brief Gerald. Scapp suggests that Goodwins had moved the documents down from the attic into the basement, where the spirit of Adelia was laying in wait, and that it was this conjunction which caused the haunting to begin.