The Gazers' Perspective

The Gaze of Azathoth

THE GAZE OF AZATHOTH

Eternal Lies - The Gaze of Azathoth

Bound in black, brain-tanned leather, this book tells the tale of a nameless man (who is also sometimes described as “faceless”) who lives amidst the “dying lights” of the end of days. Blessed with the “thrice-cursed immortality” this man nevertheless feels as if a creeping doom has crept into his bones. His dreams are slowly filled by the recurring image of a great and terrible Eye which “gazes down upon the world”, and he is disturbed to find that many others among his friends and acquaintances have begun to share these dreams.

At last this “gnawing Eye” – belonging to the “dread amorphity of Azathoth” – manifests itself and its horrible gaze is “turned upon the last, burning days of his twilit world”.

Rather than embracing or accepting the doom of his world, however, the man seeks an escape. He finds it in the “flesh of Yog-Sothoth”, creating a gate which allows him to escape to another world.

Unfortunately, the “gaze of Azathoth” had become “locked upon him” through the “barbs which bear the runes of Nyarlathotep”, and the Eye follows him to the new world and turns its destructive force upon it. The man escapes again, using the same gate as before. And, once again, the Eye pursues him.

The man skips from one world to the next, watching as the stars he had doomed wink out one by one from the many skies above him until his nights are marked only by a “haze of unseen red”. But still he runs, carrying with him the curse of Azathoth’s gaze.

At the end of the story he makes the decision to stop running and throws himself prostrate upon the ground. But as he does so, he finds that he has landed “at the feet of the Herald”, who reveals to him a great truth: That the worlds he has left in his wake have not been burdened with destruction, for as long as Azathoth’s gaze is fixed upon the man, he will carry that destruction away with him and spare the worlds behind.

The Herald’s words, however, come too late, for the mind of the man has been consumed by his “gibbering madness”. And neither he nor any of the worlds he has saved will ever know his sacrifice.

Azathoth and Other Horrors

AZATHOTH AND OTHER HORRORS

Eternal Lies - Azathoth and Other Horrors

Published in 1909, this collection of Edward Pickman Derby’s nightmare-lyrics was printed by the Miskatonic University Press when he was a youth of only 18 years. The forward describes Mr. Derby as “the most phenomenal child scholar I have ever known. At seven he was writing verse of a somber, fantastic, almost morbid cast which astonished the tutors surrounding him. In the scant few years which have passed since those early gropings, he has flourished into a sensational talent.”

Included in this collection are the poems “Azathoth” (which occupies fully half the book), “Nemesis Rising”, “Charnel House”, “Dead But Not Gone”, and “Medusa’s Kiss”, among others. These works draw heavily upon the local legendry of Arkham, Massachusetts, and combine startling insights with verse of surprising power.

This particular copy has been annotated with extensive marginalia in a cramped hand. These notes draw copious comparisons between Derby’s work and Justin Geoffrey’s The People of the Monolith, alleging that there was a close correspondence between Derby and that notorious Baudelairean poet. The scholarship seems half-crazed, but through a composite of the two poets’ imagery it creates a strong correlation between the omni-present “gaze of the blind idiot” from Derby’s “Azathoth”, the “skipping ebon stones” that “dance across the skim-skein haze” of reality, and the “mastodonic horror” of Geoffrey. One facet of the “compound gaze” is fixed upon the “land beyond the stone” and some solace could be taken from that “plenipotent distance” if a “ladder of faith” had not been built between that land and this.

Session 03 - Carter Sloane

November 3^rd 1934 CON'T

With a couple of hours still left before the plane was due to leave for Los Angeles, I was determined to make our new found friend’s stay in Savannah interesting. Using the airfield phone I made a call to the police and reported that I had witnessed a woman being abducted and believed murdered, at the Adelphi Hotel, identifying myself as the occupant of room 16, one John Smith. Having satisfied my petty need for revenge, me and Marcus boarded the Silver Saber.

November 4^th 1934

HOLLYWOOD HILLS

The flight to LA was long and it was midday before we touched down. The Grand Central Air Terminal was in Glendale, north of LA proper and we caught a cab to a hotel downtown. It was a Sunday and little was open, even in this bustling place, so we organised a hire car, then rested and planned our next moves. I rang Mrs Winston Rogers and told her what we had found and warned her that someone was invested in ensuring we stopped snooping around.

November 5^th 1934

In the morning we were determined to get an early start. Our destination was the First Bank of Long Beach, a trip that would take us the best part of a day, where we believed we held a key for a safety deposit box there. Marcus suggested a change of clothes, something that would allow us to blend in a little better and we stopped at a department store on the way. Marcus decided to take off his cleric's collar, a decision that surprised me, but one I  agreed with. We left LA, heading south.

THE LONG BEACH OIL FIELDS

Los Angeles was a sprawling place, its building height limit enforced due to the area’s frequent and devastating earthquakes. With a population of over a million, the city was booming, a result of her finance, real estate, and tourism, and a growing film and entertainment industry. As we traveled further south we found ourselves surrounded by towering derricks, ceaselessly pumping oil; producing the wealth that LA had grown fat on.

LONG BEACH IN RUINS

When we finally did reach Long Beach, to our surprise, we found the city in a state of ruination, caused by a nasty quake that had struck in March of last year. Despite some restoration, many buildings were still in a state of disrepair or collapse. The First Bank of Long Beach was not spared the destruction and we located it near the city centre, a boarded up shell, whose broad stone steps were badly cracked and occupied by an assortment of vagrants, squatters, and drunks. It was quite clear that no banking was done here anymore, and that this had been the case for some time.

A pockmarked vagrant called “Boils”, in exchange for a buck, was happy to direct us to an entrance into the derelict building, where we would find a squatter, Jim Olson, who used to work at the bank. We found Mr Olson inside, where he and some other hobos had taken up residence. He was invectively bitter about his predicament, but more than willing to share his knowledge of the bank’s misfortunes. When we told him we were after a safety deposit box, he told us that he assumed it was with the FDIC, as they had taken over the books and whatnot.

We paid Jim Olsen a ten dollar bill for his troubles and started making some enquires into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, eventually reaching an Irving Hoff, the head of the LA FDIC, who proved to be a stiff and by the books egg. He couldn’t process our request over the phone, so we were forced to race back into downtown LA before the department shut for the day.

Reaching the FDIC just before closing, Hoff’s direct report, a Marv Burlington, was the staffer with the First Bank of Long Beach on his plate. We convinced Marv of the urgency of our case, and in exchange for dinner, he was willing to call ahead to the warehouse and arrange to have the safe deposit box delivered to our hotel. 

November 6^th 1934

When we went downstairs for a late breakfast the concierge informed us that something had arrived. It was the safety deposit box. We skipped breakfast, Marcus opting to secure us two cups a joe instead.

THE DEPOSIT BOX

We locked the door to our room and sat the box on the table, opening the curtains wide for light. The old key we had found inside Douglas Henslowe’s notebook thankfully fit and gave a satisfying click when Marcus turned it. He opened the box and pulled out two items; the first a bulging yellowing envelope, the second a large worn ledger. Marcus passed me the book, while he opened the envelope and begun thumbing through what appeared to be a dozen or so fading photographs. The look of disgust on his face and the way he crossed himself held my attention firmly and I quickly learnt the cause behind his revulsion.

The photographs were perverse and disturbing to say the least. They each showed between three and a dozen people engaged in depraved sex acts in a variety of interior and exterior locations. When I got over the initial shock I could clearly tell that the photographer had taken them from concealment. I had taken pictures like this myself, when spying on cheating lovers, but never anything like this. Not like this.

Most of the pictures were taken in an opulent residence, rich and tastefully furnished, the others outside in private gardens. Two photos were taken in the same working-class apartment, maybe a servant’s room. When they wore clothes at all, those in the photos wore robes and went hooded. Some wore elaborate jewellery.

ECHAVARRIA

There was one man, a Latin American, who was in all of the photos. He had the biggest perverse grin out of all the degenerates caught on film; he looked like he had been enjoying himself the most. We established he could only be one man, the mysterious Echavarria, we had heard about. And there was Edgar Job too; the sick bastard. Now I knew why I had the urge to punch him in the face back at Joy Grove.

RICHARD SPEND

I thought I recognised one of the women in the photos too, but couldn’t quite remember who she was or how I knew her face. Her face although, did lead me to recognise another man, Richard Spend, an actor I had seen in a film called The Man in the Forest, who I had remembered hearing somewhere, had died in 24’ in some kind of incident. I thought I knew the details of that “incident in 24’”. He had been on the up until his untimely death.

Marcus put the photographs back into the envelope and stored them in the deposit box. The ledger we had almost forgotten and I now flipped through its pages to discover it was a book of accounts of some sort, written in a code that neither Marcus nor I had any chance of deciphering. Tucked into the back cover was a hotel buck sheet, with the words Echavarria = “Black” and Buchwald = “Towncar” written on it, in what I deduced to be Henslowe’s handwriting.

THE BUCK SHEET

We sat for a while after that. Our coffees had gone untouched and were cold. The contents of the deposit box weren’t what I had expected. I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t that. When we left the room we locked the photos in the box, I wasn’t getting caught with those on us, taking the coded ledger with us and headed for the City Hall.

The records from Los Angeles City Hall provided us with some further information. We confirmed that Richard Spend had passed away in 1924, aged 32, leaving his sister, a Yolanda Spenzel, still a resident of LA. We also found the address and phone number of Edgar Job’s professor at UCLA, George Ayers. Echavarria came up with little, as we still hadn’t discovered his first name.

Marcus made some enquiries at the university, securing an appointment with a certain Dr. Hamish MacDunn, at twenty past five sharp, who would discuss Professor Ayers, while I contracted a clipping agency to look into articles on Richard Spend.

THE HOUSE OF DONALD MAGWOOD

Our best lead was Spend’s sister and following the address we drove north into the affluent suburb of Wilshire. The house was a gated mansion, surrounded by other gated mansions. Miss Spenzel had obviously done well. The doorman at the gate almost turned us away, he didn’t know of any, Yolanda Spenzel, and this was the home of a Donald Magwood, but then recollection registered on his face and he directed us through the gate and along a short service road to a coach house.

 Yolanda Spenzel would have been pretty in her younger years but time had not been altogether kind on her. She made us wait outside the carriage-house apartment where she lived while she obviously attempted to dull herself up. Yolanda told us that after Richard’s death she’d been forced into taking a job as a domestic servant, a job she neither particularly liked nor was good at.

YOLANDA SPENZEL

She wasn’t especially pleasant to talk to, but was more than happy to discuss her brother. “Not too many people coming around asking about Ricky these days. He got mixed up in some stuff; which it sounds like you already know. For a couple of months before he died, he was going to these parties that his friend Echavarria was throwing at his mansion. Did I say parties? I meant ‘parties.’ Did he ever invite me? No. Probably for the better. He never admitted it, but I think they were filming pornography up there. Nasty stuff, I’m sure, which is probably why he was always sneaking around about it, coming in at all hours, missing his calls for his real work.”

“I confronted him about it. I wasn’t scared of him. I never was. I told him he was being stupid. Putting everything we had worked for at risk like that. And for no reason. He laughed at me, laughed right out loud. Who’s laughing now? Nobody, that’s who. Later on, I did kind of start to get scared of him. He was moody. Sometimes he got violent. Sometime he just sat in a chair until he started, you know, drooling out of his mouth.”

When we pushed her for more information about this Echavarria, she told us what she knew. She told us his full name. Ramon. Ramon Echavarria. She knew his address too, in the hills of Highland Park. She knew the address of the barn as well, where the incident of 24’ had occurred, somewhere outside the city.

“You know, now that I think about it, the police came around once, asking about Ricky, before he died. There were plenty of people asking after he died, but now that we’re talking about it, there was this pair of detectives that came around before he died. They were asking about Echavarria, too. Weird questions, too — what was Ricky reading, did he take any drugs, did I know anything about ‘honey.’ No, that’s not it, not honey. ‘Nectar.’ They asked about ‘nectar.’ I’m sure that was the name of some perverted movie he was working on. Or the name of a hooker.” 

We left Wilshire with some good leads and drove straight to the clipping agency office downtown. They had already found quite a few articles relating to Spend, mostly surrounding his death. We asked them to continue and added the names Ramon Echavarria and Donald Magwood to the list. We would come back tomorrow.

OLIVIA CLARENDON

The articles they had were of two camps; tabloids relayed he had been stabbed to death at some crazy party in a barn in the north country, while mainstream papers reported he had died peacefully in his sleep from natural causes. I knew which I believed. Of the most interest to us from the articles, was a name, Olivia Clarendon, the name of the face, of the women in the sordid photos I thought I had recognised. Olivia Clarendon was once a B-grade movie star, who was now in the big time. She had certainly moved up in the world and it seemed that Spend and Clarendon had been friends. Special friends.

UCLA

It was getting close to the time for Marcus’ appointment at the university and we made the trip out to Westwood just as it was starting to get dark. I had decided to seek out a cryptologist while we were there, to help decipher the ledger, so we parted ways and agreed to meet back at the car.

I was directed to the Mathematics Department and to seek out a Ronald Schroeder, the university’s resident cryptographer. Ronald was a very studious looking kid, thick glasses, cardigan, the works, but was obviously quite brilliant. He did this stuff as a hobby on the side, in between doing proper maths stuff. He didn’t blink an eye at the coded ledger, told me to give twenty minutes and got to work. When I returned he was beaming like a school boy. He handed it over and gave me a quick rundown on what he had found.

THE CODED ACCOUNTS BOOK

The book of accounts recorded information about the inventories and sales of a product identified by the letter “N”. “N” was tracked in very small volumes of liquid ounces. I instantly related this “N” product to be the “Nectar” that Yolanda Spenzel had spoken about. The distribution occurred through a network of anonymous retailers identified by code names like “Slick”, “Moses”, and “Umbrella”. A single unit of “N” appeared to have fetched roughly 3 bucks. The code names “Black (Echavarria) and “Towncar” (Buchwald) appeared throughout the book, with “Towncar” clearly being the code name of the accountant who kept the books.

I told Ronald how impressed I was and promised to make a donation to the Mathematics Department in his name. When I asked him about an old fellow maths student of UCLA named Edgar Job, the name did not ring a bell with him, but he directed me to Stewart Tichener, the graduate advisor.

Professor Tichner confirmed that Edgar Job was a memorable but not particularly good student of mathematics at UCLA, who was an undergraduate from 1918–1922. His grades were mediocre and he focused on math coursework. Job applied and was admitted to a graduate program of mathematical study in 1923 and Tichener remembered Job for his desperate need to be better than he actually was, pulling all-night work sessions whose triumphant output was often completely wrong. The professor was quite clear — Job was simply not a very good student, despite desperately wanting to be so. Tichener recalled that Job up and disappeared in the middle of a semester and assumed that Job had finally realized that his pursuits were largely pointless.

When I finally found Marcus waiting at the car he told me that he hadn’t had much luck with Dr. MacDunn of the History Department. The man had momentarily showed the Father a telegram from Professor Ayers, who was apparently in a dig in Africa, which mentioned Echavarria and some important volumes, but had revealed little else. Marcus was convinced that MacDunn was lying.

When we pushed past MacDunn’s uptight secretary and let ourselves into his office, Dr MacDunn was more than a little taken aback. He started to protest but I threatened him with evidence that his wayward Professor Ayers had been philandering with his under aged students and he quickly sat down and shut up. It was obvious he did not want any bad publicity for his Department.

We demanded the telegram along with anything else on Professor Ayer’s resent exploits. MacDunn reluctantly retrieved a box from Ayer’s old office, which strangely still had his name on the door, ten years since he’d occupied it. The box was filled with documents, newspaper clippings and books.

Session 03 - Marcus Black

Session 3

In the final hours of our time in Savannah, Carter was troubled by the encounter we had been part of with the characters who had threatened the diner patrons.  He came up with the idea of reporting them to the police, expecting that once they were discovered living in the disgusting surroundings of his Oriental counterparts, surely they would be slowed down in their pursuit of us.

After a rather brief phone call to the police we boarded the Silver Sabre on our journey to Los Angeles.  The ride was long yet I had no trouble occupying myself, pouring over the books and journals written by Douglas Henslowe, his mind was clearly broken, yet his words made sense in some strange way.

November 5th 1934.

Los Angeles was an entirely different landscape, the city was buzzing with life and activity, something we had been void of for some time.  We decided to try to blend in as best we could, our first day started early, Carter and I decided to invest in some new clothes, our current appearance made us somewhat out of place, even in this booming town surrounded by tourists.  Our first obvious stop was to the First Bank of Long beach, where the safety deposit box was located, a long day’s work, the drive from Central LA to Long beach taking all morning.

To our surprise, the bank was merely a ruin, its doors boarded up, windows barren of glass replaced by timber planks.  Its steps littered with the homeless who had lost work during the major earthquake of 1933.

We wandered close to the door, our rented car appearing out of place parked against the once centrepiece of the street.  We engaged one of the men located on the steps of the bank, ‘Boils’ as he was known, he told us about a former employee named Jim who resided inside.  We payed him a couple of dollars to watch the car as we ventured inside.

It wasn’t hard to find Jim, he was still wearing his Sunday best, it didn’t take much to find out that what we had been travelling to find was no longer here, the disappointment on Carter’s face was obvious, this was clearly a man who had no patience.

We discovered that the FDIC had taken possession of all the deposit boxes that were once stored in the bank.

Cater made the call, phoning the LA branch of the FDIC, he went into a fuming argument with what I can only assume was a very unhelpful employee on the other end of the phone.

Carter drove us back to central LA, confessing to him that his driving was making me nervous, his speed bordering on insane as he informed me that we had little time to catch the FDIC office before closing time if we ever wanted to see the safety deposit box.

We arrived with just enough time to spare, we were able to secure the services of one Marv Burlington, an older gentleman, easily able to be convinced to help us locate the box.

Marv stated that the box was still in Long beach, at this news, Carter nearly lost his head, he was fuming, not only had we spent the whole day driving, but we have very little time as we were both keenly aware that we were being watched in Savannah and possibly here too.

Marv agreed to contact the warehouse in Long beach to get the box brought to us overnight, in exchange for dinner and a few drinks, and with Carter buying, a few was not the correct term.

We spent the night in our new hotel, a nice place, somewhere that peace could be found, and the opportunity to not worry about those following us for at least one night.

November 6th 1934.

We left the room late in the morning, breakfast was something that we didn’t take for granted as our exploits so far had made meal times unpredictable.  We were notified that a large package had been delivered to us in the night, breakfast was put aside in lieu of this, what could only have been the safety deposit box.

We returned with the box to our room, Carter as if it was Christmas morning was nervously impatient to see what was inside.

I took the key that we had received through Douglas Henslowe’s belongings and sighed in relief as it unlocked the large metal box.

Inside were two items, a large yellowing envelope and a large leather bound ledger.

I passed the ledger to Carter, thinking that it might be more to his liking, I emptied the contents of the envelope, finding within several photographs within.

The photographs were in a word, repulsive, I felt my face shrivel and my hands shake at the images I was looking at.  Without warning my instincts took over and I began to cross myself at the sight of them.

The Photographs were within a wealthy residence, the participants numerous of all ages and genders.  They were engaged in the most fowl and gratuitous acts of sexual depravity I have ever witness and hope never to witness again.  I could not go on, the images were too disturbing, my lack of breakfast did not serve me well as I began to dry heave.

I passed the stack of photos to Carter, his reaction while equally as shocked, seemed less sickened at first glance.

After we had taken a few moments to compose ourselves, we began to analyse the images, the setting was decadent, clearly the home and gardens of a wealthy, high society individual.  Further more we noticed that Edgar Job appeared in some of these images, the same man who had attacked Douglas Henslowe and landed in the Sanatorium in Savannah.

Another man was prominent, a Latin American, a man we could only assume to be Echavarria.

We put the photos away promptly, both of us were unsettled, it was obvious to us both that breakfast would not be eaten.  Carter picked up the ledge we had nearly lost track of, he began trolling through it and discovered it was an encrypted record of accounts, something I knew very little about.  I could see his eyes scanning back and forth over the pages, searching for clues.

As the sun moved towards the sky we decided that our best way to discover any information on these people, as strangers here, the records at City Hall would be the perfect place to start.  Carter mentioned to me that he recognised other people in the photos as famous actors, something I knew very little about, a man named Richard Spend was the first name he said.

I decided that my priority in this was simple, the books and teachings.  Something about the photos had left a horrid feeling in my stomach, I couldn’t focus well on what we needed to give our attention too, my mind disturbed by the images that had made a home behind my eyes.

We received assistance from the records clerk, we discovered the life, death and living family of Mr Richard Spend, very little could be discovered on Echavarria, it was as if he was nothing but a ghost.

I also enquired regarding Edgar Job and his time in Los Angeles, discovering that he was a student at UCLA and that his professor, a Mr George Ayers was still employed there.

That was my new focus, something to take my mind off the vulgarity of the mornings discoveries.

I made some phone calls at the closest phone booth, UCLA was a strange place via telephone, I asked for Professor Ayers and within minutes I had spoken to the Heads of the Mathematics department, the history department and the administration assistants.  After several strange conversations I had managed to make an appointment with Dr Hamish McDunn, the head of the History department and George Ayers superior.

Carter’s first decision was to head to the home of a Miss Yolanda Spenzel, the sister of Richard Spend.  Her address for a short drive away, Carter was convinced that she would know about her brother’s death in 1924 and was wanting to press her hard on the issue.

I put up little resistance, my appointment at the university was not until 5:20 in the afternoon, plenty of time to see if we could piece together what Richard Spend’s involvement was.

We drove to Wilshire, the suburb in which Ms Spenzel was residing, it was a pleasant neighbourhood, filled with the classic large homes no doubt belonging to the LA high and mighty.  Our first reaction was that Ms Spenzel was living well of her deceased brothers fortune.  We reached the address provided by the records clerk and Carter began his routine of investigation and interrogation.

It took us by surprise that this was indeed her residence, a large manor house in suburbia Los Angeles, yet she was allocated to the coach house in the far back corner, she was the cleaner.

Carter did most of the talking when we arrived, all I could take in was that she was of very little information regarding the activities of her brother and Ramon Echavarria.  I was still a bit preoccupied with my own thoughts, still unable to focus.

The drive from Ms Spenzel’s home was a strange one, I was still distant in my mind from the events at present.  Carter seems to be going in all the right directions, I however have not felt this lost for some time.

We drove back to the Centre of LA, Carter had previously engaged the services of the local newspaper clipping agency to do some digging into the demise of Richard Spend and Echavarria.

They had discovered numerous articles on the rising movie stars sudden death, all pointing to the farm, the infamous farm where the nightmare for Douglas Henslowe reached its climax.

The most fascinating of facts that we were able to determine amongst the mainly glorified ramblings of the tabloid press was the relationship Spend had with a woman by the name of Olivia Clarendon, a former low level actress who had risen to huge fame in recent years.  Carter and I both recognised her from the vulgar photographs located within the safety deposit box, the sight of this beautiful actress tainted by the derogatory actions I had witnessed her performing within the images.

Carter was convinced that she needed to be questioned, but how, we would never gain access to one of LA’s biggest stars.

The time of my appointment at the University was upon us, we made our way to the huge Campus of UCLA.  Carter, ledger in Hand decided that he would look into an expert in deciphering the book while I tracked down Dr Ayers.  We agreed to meet back at the car once we were done.

I made my way to the offices of Professor MacDunn, his secretary seemed very strict and bound to her schedule, I was early so she instructed me to wait for the seven minutes I had to spare.  I wandered the corridor vaguely before discovering a large office door with the plaque “Professor Ayers” on the front.  I knocked on the door to discover a voice inside enquiring as to who I was, unable to gain access to the office and the man within insisting he was not Dr Ayers, curiously I withdrew and returned for my appointment.

I made my way into Dr MacDunn’s office, a funny sort of man, his background clearly academic, his eyes busy scanning me as I’m sure he had no idea what to expect as his gaze focussed on my scarred face.

I discussed with him the whereabouts of Professor Ayers and to my interest he produced a telegram that had been sent from Africa, Dr Ayers had been on a self-funded expedition in search of academic promises of great things.  I believed his journey to be funded by Echavarria, however I was not getting any helpful answers from Dr MacDunn.  I asked as to why Dr Ayers still has an office on the premises, only to be occupied by another rather secretive professor.  Again MacDunn’s lack of information and clear distain for my questions was beginning to frustrate me.  The telegram he produced regarding the expedition was odd, it was sent the MacDunn, yet addressed for the attention of Ramon Echavarria, he had discovered volumes of something that were of great importance, something he was sending back to the University.

Again I enquired of the professor as to the where about of the shipment, at this point MacDunn had grown weary of my questions and insisted I leave, much to my dismay, I withdrew to the car in wait for Carter to return.

I informed Carter that MacDunn was not forthcoming and that I was sure he was refusing to tell me what he knows about Ayers.  That seemed to be all the information that Carter required, without waiting, he marched us both past the secretary and into MacDunn’s office, shocked, MacDunn attempted to call security only to find Carter’s fist slamming him in the face.  We also slung false allegations about Ayers at MacDunn, his only reason for keeping Ayers on the books we discovered was to continue the funding to the University that Ayers employment provided.

After Carter was finished with MacDunn, he produced a large archive box from Ayers’ office, filled to the top with paper clippings, note books, journals and all manner of material.  I had my work cut out for me, as I know Carter was not a fan of the written word.

What peeked my interest were the books located in the “Volumes of urgent importance” as described by Ayers in his telegram, the “Lot 18” was here, being handed to us, these books that resided within were going to be my first endeavour, the lavish leather bindings calling me to read them.