[IC] Act One: Savannah

"Yes sir, you did make it clear," Samuel says, holding up both hands (the note pinched between two fingers) as he is holding his hands wide open in what he believes is a non-confrontational gesture. "However, Mr. Henslowe gave me this note to give to you, and insisted we speak with one Mr. Frank Hickering."

Samuel will hold the note forward and approach the gate slowly to pass it to the groundskeeper. "I assure you, we are only here again at his behest."

"Frank who? No-one here o' that name." His face crinkles in puzzlement and distrust, but he does edge forward and reach for the note through the gates with his left hand, then retreats to a safe distance and reads it, his lips loving along as he slowly reads the note. After he finishes reading it, he turns it over to see if there's anything on the other side, then reads it again, his lips moving in the same rhythm as before, before looking up at Samuel as if trying to see if he matches some invisible description within the note.

Eventually he sighs, says "Looks like Mr Henslowes's hand, all right. Guess you'd better come in then. and produces a large key, with which he opens the lock and chains around the gate, and with a loud screech of unoiled metal, opens the gate enough for you to come in. "Lucky, Bullet, Spike, mind now. No eatin' 'em unless they do somethin' bad." He doesn't smile as he says this last, and you aren't sure whether he has a sardonic sense of humour, or means it.

"You want to leave your car there, or bring it in?" he asks, and does whichever you prefer.

"I'll lock 'em up in my house" he says, and you aren't sure if he's talking to you or the dogs, "That way you don't get bit. Less'n you come across the gators. One o' 'em got Bluster, and he was my best dog till then. You need me, I'm in the house behind the big house. It'll be the one with dogs barking when you come near. An' don't go botherin' Ol' Mother Henslowe, less'n you want the dogs set on you."

That seems to be all the instructions he has for you right now, so he wanders off, the dogs in tow, watching you carefully as they go towards the left of the large antebellum mansion you see ahead through the trees. The earth here is the same claggy clay that sticks to your shoes, and as you walk closer towards the building, you see that what you took for painted white magnificence is more run down, the white paint peeling, striped with mud and moss, and the wooden veranda sagging in places.

"Thank you sir," Samuel replies to Carruthers after pulling the car in and parking. After watching the man leave, he turns to his companions. "Is it possible Frank Hickering isn't a person? It sounds like a detective novel, but what if Frank is dead and buried? Or the artist who painted a painting? Or there's a statue of him? Mr. Henslowe seemed sure he was at the estate... but clearly not in the capacity we believed."

He will walk in silence, and allow the others to contemplate the situation and offer their own (probably far more accurate) insights.

"That's very strange, yes. That Carruthers strikes me as the kind of man who definitely knows who comes and goes in the estate. Could Hickering be a fabrication of Henslowe's mind? Or maybe, as you say, he used the expression talk to figuratively, to mean read Hickering's journal, for instance. Maybe a book... " he speculates.

Looking at what's visible of the mansion, he adds, " and the brute is preventing access to Mother Henslowe... Hmm. "

Eventually, he points in the opposite direction to where Carruthers and his puppies went. " We might as well explore the grounds. Maybe there are other buildings. Servants' quarters of old, stables... That kind of thing. Just hope Hickering isn't a horse..."

He steps at 90 degrees from the mansion and starts walking.

"Well, Mr. Henslowe did make reference to his journal in his letters. It seems probable that it could be here somewhere," Lillian ventures.

"Hope Frank isn't an alligator. I'd rather stay away from water, I think," she says, her voice low.

As you make your way around to the right of the house, you see that it really is in quite a state - there's obviously been no upkeep of the property for years, other than maybe a few patchwork repairs here and there that have themselves fallen into disrepair.

As you walk around the mansion, and through the grounds generally, you notice several things:

The back of the property doesn't end in a wall, but in swampland, the land gradually giving way to swamp and water, dotted here and there with the odd tree sticking out of the morass, and tall grasses in clumps. You can also see an abandoned car half submerged in the swamp, as well as what could be either logs or alligators. The sounds of insects are constant out towards the swamp, and only slightly less prevalent elsewhere in the estate.

There are the remains of crumbled walls in the swamp and more hidden behind some of the several clumps of trees in the grounds that are still formed of firm clay, reeds poking out through gaps in the cracked walls.

There are a few other outbuildings, mostly sheds that you can see near Carrother's cottage, a wooden shack.

In the deeper parts of the swamp, you can see a large chimney jutting out - presumably the remains of a large house that has been overrun by the swamp.

Behind the house, near the edge of the swamp, is what appears to be a small family cemetery, you can make out several tomb stones, large crosses, and a weeping angel statue.

And of course, there's the house itself.

"Well damn. There's a lot to cover. Perhaps we should have packed lunch?" Sam shifts in the humidity as his eyes scan the grounds. Eventually, he grunts a bit.

"Alright, well... I think we have to acknowledge that making our way into the swamp is at least a potential requirement for our day. The house and car could belong -- or could have belonged, really -- to this Hickering fellow. That said.... I think the graveyard is a good starting point. Fewer gators at any rate."

His eyes sweep the grounds again. "I hope."

What on earth? The swamp is swallowing this place inch by inch...

Glad to turn his gaze away from the encroaching swampland as Sam points at the graveyard, he answers, "Seems like a sound idea to me, Sam. Could Hickering be buried there, I wonder?"

He follows Weston towards the cemetery, watching his step, careful to walk on solid ground.

The cemetery is small, and abuts the swamp - so much so that you feel the bodies interred here will be in danger of disappearing into the muck within a few years. There are 22 markers in total, but many are worn with age and almost unintelligible. Only 8 are still legible:

• David (1856-1921) and Virginia (1854-[blank]) Henslowe; tall stone cross
• Jonas Douglas Cokeridge (1897-1917); modest stone cross
• Grant Henslowe (1880-1917); modest stone cross
• Douglas Henslowe (1882-[blank]); modest stone block
• Mary-Margaret (1880-1882) and Anne Mary (1882-1883) Henslowe; weeping angel
• John (1873-1929) and Mary (1873-1929) Cokeridge; tall stone cross
• James (1831-1879) and Mildred (1834-1881) Jones; modest stone slab
• Zachariah (1830-1862) and Millicent Henslowe (1832-1899); modest stone slab

"What? they have a ready grave for Douglas... and one for Virginia, more understandably, seen her age."

He looks eagerly around in search of clues.

Dr Walker, as he is closely inspecting the grave markers in hope of trying to discern whether Frank Hickering is one of them (he isn't), discovers that several of the graves have faded blue ink marks on them.

He points out the ink marks to the others. "How strange... what do you make of this, Mrs Blakey?"

"Not sure, Doctor. Only, I wouldn't be surprised if the those who passed in 1917 are in reality still lost in France. John and Mary Cokeridge's grave seems to be a tragic story too; they were both born in the same year and passed in the same year. 1929."

Lillian considers if it is worth following up and then swats at an insect.

Gabriel leans closer to the ink marks. "Has someone written over these? Or used ink to trace from the grave markers?"

He tries to see if anything legible can emerge from closer scrutiny.

It's impossible to say. It's not on all of them, and even then only faintly on some of them, and doesn't appear to be where something was traced or written.

Walker inspects the grave destined to Douglas. "Why on earth would one do something like this? It's not like they had to reserve a plot of land... With so many acres of estate. Nor it is a place in a family mausoleum..."

He leans closer.

Samuel will insoect some of the stones where the writing has been lost to the ages and the elements and attempt to discern if a rubbing might provide anything legible.

Nothing unusual about Douglas' grave marker. It was a fairly common thing to do, to have your marker already bought and placed, just ready for the body when they did die. It's the same thing with Virginia's.

Samuel finds nothing that would really help - there might be "18" in there as a date perhaps, but even that's pretty sketchy. He can maybe work out a letter or number or two here and there, or at least guess what they might be, but as for actual names or dates, it's impossible to say. A rubbing might help a little, but they're so far gone (even the legible ones listed above are based on guesswork here and there) that it probably wouldn't reveal anything.