The Blog of Roon

Shirley has a few things to be happy about in this week’s Times. He doesn’t know about them yet in his personal timeline (we’re roleplaying a dinner party in Madras), but I can still talk about them.

Public Enemy Number Two, Herbert Addison, is in custody. This is a tremendous relief. Certainly it would be nice to know the identity of Public Enemy Number One (somebody has to have hired Addison), which will probably have to wait for a molasses-slow extradition process. Even so, getting PE#2 out of circulation ought to make Shirley’s journey rather safer, given that PE#2’s flunkies have thus far been pretty ineffectual.

(Assuming that the AlexandriaDamascus, duh gunman was in fact PE#2, an assumption as yet unproven.)

Not that Shirley is letting down his guard much, if at all. PE#1 is still out there. Somewhere. At least Addison’s capture, unlike Finnegan’s, can’t remotely be blamed on Shirley.

(And either I am getting better at figuring Li out or she stole the extradition idea from an email I sent. I should learn to keep my mouth shut, I should.)

So little Libby Wells was not sufficiently bribed, or something. (Can’t see why she would be in any actual danger. Lady Davies and her solicitor don’t play those games, or straight-arrow Shirley would have nothing to do with them.) Spirited off to Essex or France, perchance? I can’t otherwise explain Mr. Carter’s curious invasion plans.

Speaking of which, there is one thing I want to know. Rather urgently, in fact. Exactly when did Roland Carter, who only happens to be Vroomfondel’s solicitor, become a devoté of the Rusty Nail tavern, which appears also to have been the dive of choice for the Finnegan gang?

Hey, I have been very good about not blaming everything on Vroomfondel. This, however, is a considerable coincidence to explain away.

Shirley feels sorry for Carter, though. Judge Remington strikes again. And it’s an open question whether the judicial-bribery inquest goes ahead after Wilcox’s death. If it does, Carter may be in deep water indeed. If Shirley were asked—though there’s no reason he should be—he’d advocate for letting the whole thing go. Wilcox is dead, the defamation lawsuit is in good hands—there’s no need to shame Wilcox’s family further.

Still no word on the Mongols. I am sure all will eventually become clear.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 30th, 2002 at 10:00 am and is filed under Grand Ellipse. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.