# Tales of the Sunlight Scoop (CoC)



## Wicht (Jan 5, 2003)

This is the start of a new story-hour/project/excercise/campaign for me.  Like my Servants of the Swift Sword campaign, it will feature both stories and pre-written adventures.  However the story updates for this one will be shorter and therefore occur more often.  The CoC adventures will also be as polished as I can make them.  I am also going to try and keep a table of contents here.  

As a bonus, expect to find periodical "Tabloid articles" interspersed amongst the chapters

*Table of Contents:*
Episode 1:  

Coming soon:  Chronicles of the Sunlight Scoop: CoC adventures in a world of Tabloids.


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## Wicht (Jan 5, 2003)

*Episode 1 
Chapter 1:  On board the Sunlight!*

“You’re new here so I’ll go over a few things with you,” said Hugh Rogers, editor-in-chief and sole owner of the Sunlight Scoop.  He was speaking to Andrew and James Sharpless, identical twin brothers, fresh out of college and eager to prove themselves as journalists.  The Sharpless twins were twenty years old with brown hair, light blue eyes, freckles and a pair of winning smiles, complete with dimples.  They stared in rapt attention 

“We are not a newspaper!”  shouted Rogers as he slammed his fist down on the table, making both his mug of coffee and his audience jump.

“We are a Tabloid!  We do not print News! We print Sensation!  The more sensational the better.  Last week, a dog bit the hand off of his owner.”

“Really?” said one of the two twins, a bit surprised.  He had not, apparently, read that story in any of the papers he was accustomed to reading.

“Yes!  And do you know what story the other papers ran?”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you James…”

“I’m not James.  I’m Andrew.  He’s James.”

Hugh Rogers stopped, his thunder momentarily stolen. 

“Andrew.  Right.  James has the camera and you have the notebook.”

“Right.”

“Well, I’ll tell you Andrew.  ‘Biting the Hand that Fed It’ was their headline.  You know what story we ran?”

The twins both shook their heads.

“We ran, ‘Nazi Brain Control Causes Canine Cannibalism!’  That’s the sort of story that readers of the Sunlight Scoop want to read.  Look at our other headlines from last week.  ‘Martians register as Republicans in Wisconsin!’ ‘Two headed Cat saves its Family!’ ‘Goldfish Diet works Miracles!’ ‘Rock Star Revealed to be a Clone!’  Sensational, every one of them.  I guarantee you that if you find yourself a sensational headline the story will write itself!”

Rogers paused for a moment and then continued.  “I am going to give you two Fred Hampton’s old gig.  Poor Fred.  I’m going to miss that old coot.  He was a good writer.  Now Fred tended to do disappearances and…”

“What happened to Fred,” asked James, interrupting.

“The poor guy went completely insane.  He’s gibbering away in an Asylum in Texas.  He was doing some story on a Wendigo cult in Alaska and completely lost it I’m afraid.  But we can’t live in the past, no profit in it!  He’s out and You are in!  Onward and Upward!  Fred tended to do Disappearances and true crime and you two are taking his place.  I have two airline tickets for you.”

“Airline tickets?” said James.

“Right. Two airline tickets because there are two of you.  They’re for a small chartered plane to Virginia.  A little place by the ocean called Cape Truman.  The crew of a ship there has disappeared and I want you to get a story out of it.  It may be the work of the Neptunians but we can’t tell for sure.  You are responsible for getting to the bottom of things.”

“Where are we going again?” asked Andrew.

“Cape Truman.  It’s in Virginia.  On the Coast.”

“Okay.”

“Now make sure to get me three things,” said Rogers and he turned and stared at Andrew, “Good Quotes!”

He turned his attention to James, “ Good Pictures!  Good pictures of blood.  Good pictures of bodies!  Good pictures of Neptunians.  And Finally, Real Sensation!  The stories need to be sensational!”

“Excuse me,” said Andrew, “But what does a Neptunian look like?”

“Tall, bug-eyed and green.  They come from Neptune.”

“Are they friendly?”

“No! They are here to take over the world!  And I want pictures of them!”

“Right,” said James and Andrew together as they turned and gave each other a questioning look.

“Now, are you clear on my criteria?  Good Quotes, Good Pictures and Real Sensation.  Don’t let me down boys.  Your flight leaves in an hour.  You can stay as long as needed provided you keep turning out stories for me, but I do have to have your first story in three days.  As of now you are both on a bi-weekly salary of $500 each but if you turn in good stories you had better believe I’ll put a few bonuses into your checks.  Any questions?”

“I don’t know if I have enough pages in my notebook for more than one story at a time,” said Andrew.  

“Buy a bigger notebook!” snapped Hugh Rogers, “Now the both of you get out of here and catch that flight.  I’ll keep in touch, you can be sure of that!”


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## Wicht (Jan 6, 2003)

*Chapter 2:  Hello Cape Truman*

The plane was small and cramped.  Every little bit of turbulence caused it to bounce and jolt.  But other than the constant shaking the flight was uneventful and the two young journalist soon found themselves taxiing into the small airport just outside of Cape Truman.  As they walked out of the airport, looking for a taxi, Andrew called Hugh Rogers on his cellular phone to let him know that they had arrived.

“Great!  Great!  This is going to be big!  Real Big!  I can tell.  Now listen, I am working on reserving hotel rooms for you in a place near the shore.  I’ll call back in a couple of hours to let you know more.  Right now just make sure you get down to that ship."

They hailed a taxi and in minutes were standing near Pier Two, at the Cape Truman Docks.  The ship, The Bouncing Skipper, was anchored at the pier.  It was a 300 foot long cargo vessel, featuring a single crane.  And it was crawling with police.  

The local police had cordoned off an area around the gangplank and appeared not to be letting anyone through.  Just past the cordoned area was a press of reporters, cameramen and photographers.  Overhead a pair of helicopters were circling the area.  A constant buzz of voices filled the air as shapely faces talked into the camera’s

“I gotta get a picture of that,” said James, looking at the ship.  He immediately strolled off as he pulled out his camera.
Andrew surveyed the scene and decided to try the police officer standing near the cordon.

“Hello,” said Andrew as he strode briskly over, “I was wondering if I could look around the ship.”

“I’m sorry sir, but no one is allowed on board at the moment except for law enforcement personnel.  They are searching the ship for clues as to what happened and we can’t allow anyone to mess up a potential crime scene.”

   “It’s just that my editor wanted me to look for aliens on board.”
The police officer looked at Andrew dryly as he repeated,  “I’m sorry sir, but law enforcement is searching for clues to a potential crime and we cannot allow anyone else aboard yet.”

“Can I quote you on that?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” said Andrew and turned to walk away.  

“Bumblebee’s knees,” he cursed to himself as he walked away.

Meanwhile James had finished snapping off pictures of The Bouncing Skipper and was surveying the scene.  There were, he noticed, policemen in rowboats peering down into the water around the ship.  He walked over to the officer by the cordon.  The man looked at James in exasperation.

“I told you sir, no one is allowed on board.”

“You didn’t tell me,” said James, “You told him.”  James pointed over to Andrew who was walking away, dialing on his cell phone; “We’re twins.”

The officer looked over at the back of Andrew and then again at James, “Sorry sir, my mistake.”

“That’s alright, I just wanted to know if you thought your fellows on board might need a hand looking for clues.  I wanted to help.”
The officer face turned red with frustration and his eyes bulged slightly as he shouted, “Do you want me to arrest you?  Only Law enforcement officials are allowed on board at the moment!  Do I make myself clear?” 

“Sorry,” said James and he rolled his eyes as he turned to walk over to Andrew, “Some people just don’t want others to help them.”

Meanwhile Andrew had just reached Hugh Rogers on the phone, “Hey Boss, we’re at the pier but they won’t let anyone on board the ship, sorry.”

“Of course they won’t let you on board,” snapped Rogers over the phone, “It’s a crime scene.”

“I thought maybe we could sneak on later, after the police are done.”

“Good thinking James.”

“This is Andrew.”

“Oh right, notebook.  Well, good thinking Andrew.  Try to get aboard after dark.”

“After Dark!” said Andrew loudly, “You want me to sneak aboard when it’s dark!?”  

The voices around him stopped and a chorus of faces turned to look at Andrew.  Andrew saw that he had suddenly become the center of attention in a sea of reporters.  He smiled weakly and then turning his back to his audience he lowered his voice and repeated, “After dark?  But that will be when its, well, dark?  You sure you want us to wait that long?  We could do it sooner.”

“What are you?  Scared of the dark?  And you have three days before I need your first story.  You have plenty of time.  Now stop arguing and just plan on doing it.  And make sure your brother gets me good pictures!”

“Yes sir,” sighed James as his boss hung up on him.


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## Wicht (Jan 7, 2003)

*Chapter 3: Questions Must be asked!*

Andrew and James talked it over for a bit and decided they could do more damage if they split up.  James went in search of legal information regarding The Bouncing Skipper and Andrew went to ask questions of the locals.  

It took James a couple of hours to find where in town to go and he had to wait his turn due to the other reporters all wanting to look at the same documentation.  But eventually James  managed to see for himself that the Bouncing Skipper was owned and captained, or at least had been owned and captained, by a local named Walter Matthias.  

Andrew managed to find out a bit more on the subject.  His winning smile and disarming innocence worked in his favor and soon several of the local sailors were confiding in him at a local bar.  There had been only two ships enter the harbor in the last 36 hours.  The first had been the Bouncing Skipper, captained by Walter Matthias.  It had arrived from Boston with a nearly empty hold.  About twelve hours later a second ship had anchored, The Hydra Queen, also out of Boston and also with a nearly empty hold.  

“Walter Matthias was a scared man,” one of the men told to Andrew.

“Scared?” said Andrew.

“Yeah,” agreed another “He was scared, but it wasn’t until that other ship, The Hydra Queen arrived in port.”  There was a chorus of agreement from the rest of the men.

“Did he say what he was scared of?”

“I asked him that in this very room,” said the first speaker, “He muttered something crazy and left.  He said something was coming after him out of the sea or something like that.  Made no sense.  Then he walked out of here and I never saw him again.  Poor guy’s probably dead now and at the bottom of the sea, God rest him.”

“I wonder if we will ever know what happened?” asked Andrew with a sigh and a shake of his head.

“I know who might have seen something if anyone would think to ask him,” chuckled a big brawny man, on of the dock workers.

“Who would that be?”

“Fred Jenkins, a local lad.  I do believe I saw him earlier that night with Tracy, his girl.  Walking the piers they was, holding hands.  I’ll bet they was still around when it happened.”

“Fred Jenkins, you say,” said Andrew pulling out his notebook, “You know where he lives?”

The Jenkins house was not hard to find.  Fred jenkins, the oldest child in the family, Andrew had been told, was seventeen.  He was supposed to be in school but fortunately for Andrew he was not.  He was at home.  Alone.  And hiding something.  Or at least that was the impression Andrew received when the door opened and he first saw the young man’s face.

“Can I help you?” 

“Are you Fred? I just wanted to ask you a few questions,” said Andrew with a smile, “I understand you might have been walking along the docks last night?”

The young man started and then said quickly, “I am sorry.  I don’t know what you are talking about.  Please excuse me!” And then he slammed the door shut.  There was the sound of a bolt being slid home.

“Hmm,” said Andrew to himself, “Well perhaps Tracy will be more help.”

Tracy Penny was also home alone and by the look of her face she had been crying.  She was a sixteen year old girl and proved to be much more receptive to Andrew’s dimpled smile and consoling words.

“You have to promise you won’t tell anyone,” said Tracy.  They were sitting in the living room.  She was rocking in her seat slightly.

“Tell anyone what?”

“You see,” she said with a bit of a sniffle into a paper handkerchief, “We weren’t either of us supposed to be out last night.  We snuck out you see.”

“Ohh.”

“We didn’t do nothing, just walked and held hands, but we heard things.  There was shouting from that ship and someone screamed and it looked like there was a funny looking man aboard.  He threw something in the water that looked like a body.”

“What did you do?”

“We ran.  Both of us but we ran right into an ugly old man.  He had these huge staring eyes and was bald all over his big head.  He was walking funny and he had a cane, a cane with a golden head.  He scared us half to death!”

“Was he green or something?”

“What,” said Tracy with a blink, like she almost remembered something she didn’t want to, then she laughed, as if the question was a joke, “No.  He wasn’t green.  But… But there was something… He did smell sort of funny…”

“He smelled funny?”

“Yes, like rotting fish…”

There was not much more to be learned from Tracy Penny and soon Andrew found James who, in fact, had in turn been searching for Andrew.  They traded stories.

James, listening to Andrew’s account of Tracy’s story.  When Andrew got to the part about strange and ugly man, James thought of Hugh Roger’s Neptunians and asked with a smile, “Was he green?”


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## Capellan (Jan 7, 2003)

Well of course he was green!  Neptunians are green! 

Entertaining stuff, Wicht.  I've always wanted to see how a _Tabloid!_ style campaign would actually go.

Are these (some of) the same players from your Kalamar game?


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## Wicht (Jan 7, 2003)

Capellan said:
			
		

> *Entertaining stuff, Wicht.  I've always wanted to see how a Tabloid! style campaign would actually go.
> 
> Are these (some of) the same players from your Kalamar game? *




I just bought _Tabloid!_ about a month ago and was inspired to use the concept with Call of Cthulhu.  

As to the identity of the players... I'm using my two boys as guinea pigs.  Most of the lines attributed to them in the story are actually theirs so they are doing a great job of role-playing (The exceptions are with interviews in which I am fictionalizing to account for whatever they rolled for Gather Information).  I figure its good for certain real-world social studies lessons (i.e. don't annoy the police) and later for creative writing excercises when I force _them_ to write up real articles for the tabloid themselves.


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## Wicht (Jan 7, 2003)

*Chapter 4: The Hotel Renard*

Hugh Rogers called them to let them know he had a room reserved for them.

“The Hotel Renard,” he said, “It’s some fancy place near the waterfront.  It will be Great!  I’ve got you one room, I assume you two don’t mind sharing a room?”

“Did you get two beds?” asked Andrew skeptically.  

“Yeah, yeah, of course!  Two beds, one room!  The paper’s picking up all the expenses so you guys can focus on work!  You’re big time now boys!  No more of college interning for you!”

“That’s great.”

“Yeah, you two check in, get your room and then as soon as its dark you get on that ship for me and get pictures!”

The Hotel Renard, was, as Hugh Roger’s had promised, close to the waterfront.  But it did not look either fancy or great.  From outside it was apparent that the place was a dump.  The walls were chipped and cracked and one of the windows on the second floor of the three floored hotel was obviously cracked and duct-taped over.  

The twins entered the lobby with some hesitation. 

The man at the front desk was hispanic, over-weight and had a slack-jawed expression.  He seemed to move with all the speed of a tranquilized turtle.  His name tag read Ramone.  

“Hello,” said Andrew approaching the front desk.

“Ho-la,” said Ramone, “Can… I…”

There was a bit of a pause and then Ramone finished his sentence, “help… you?”

“We have reservations,” said Andrew.

“Si,” said Ramone.

“Do you have our room?”

“What is… the…,” another pause, a blank stare, and then, “the.. name?”

“Sharpless.”

“Sharpless…, si…”

Ramone moved slowly over to look at the book of reservations and looked.  There was a single name written on the page   He looked at it closely and slowly to make sure it said, “Sharpless.”

Then, having satisfied himself that indeed, he had, just a half an hour before laboriously recorded the name Sharpless as having a Reservation for a room, he turned and moved to the back wall on which hung several keys in a tribute to good old fashioned traditions.  He reached up and slowly unhooked one.

Ramone looked at the key and then back up at Andrew and James who were waiting patiently and expectantly.

“You…have… room number thirty…,” he looked back down at the key,  and then back up, “…seven.  One of… our… best.”

He slowly moved over and hand the key to Andrew, “Third floor… amigos.”

Andrew took the key and the twins climbed the stairs, due to the fact that the elevator was not working, to the third floor where they easily found the room.  The peeling paint in the hall did not encourage them and the room lived down to their lowest explanation.  The walls were chipped, the air stank of fish, the sink in the bathroom was dirty and the television had been stolen.  The only bright spot in the whole room appeared to be the two beds which looked fairly clean and comfortable.

“The sink is dirty!” said Andrew.  

James made a face, “I thought this was one of their best?”

“Maybe they made a mistake,” shrugged Andrew.

They went back down and complained to Ramone.

“The Sink is Dirty!” complained Andrew.

“The room smells like fish!” complained James

Ramone slowly apoligized and ended up giving them the key to room twenty six.  The process took a few minutes, requiring Ramone to walk back to the keys twice.  Finally though the two tromped back up the stairs to the second floor.  The hall outside the rooms was in a condition identical to that of the third floor.

They entered their new room and looked around.  The air in twenty-six smelled just as strongly of fish and the room was, if anything, in worse shape than the first they had received.

“The hot water handle is missing from the sink,” noted Andrew.

“The bed is comfortable,” said James, sitting on it and surveying the hole in the wall, the busted lamp and the stains on the rug.  

In the end they went back and took room thirty-seven again.


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## Wicht (Jan 8, 2003)

*Chapter 5: A Midnight Search*

Danny Smith was a good cop.  But he had also pulled a double shift each day for the last four days.  Which is why, when Andrew and James Sharpless arrived to sneak aboard The Bouncing Skipper, he was asleep in his car.  

“Is he asleep?” said James peering across the dock area to the squad car. 

“Yeah,” whispered Andrew, “I think so.”

They crept along to the gang-plank and then, seeing as how they were not about to be stopped, they made their way on board.  The Bouncing Skipper was a single crane cargo ship.  The crew’s quarters, helm and engines were all at the back of the ship and the majority of the deck was empty.  Seeing nothing that grabbed their attention they made their way to the rear to look through the quarters.  There were three floors of rooms, not counting the engines below deck, with the helm and the captain’s rooms at the top.  The kitchen and mess hall was on the first floor and it looked like the crew bunked on the second floor.  

“Where should we go?” asked James.

“I don’t know,” said Andrew, “Let’s look through the different rooms and see what we can find.”

Before they even began looking they heard a crash of something being thrown to the ground sound from above them.  Immediately the twins turned to look and see if the noise had awaken the cop but as he did not stir from his car they assumed that he was still asleep.  

“Let’s go up there,” said Andrew, “see who it is.”

“But quietly.”

“Right.”

Quietly and stealthily they sneaked up the first flight of steps and then they stopped and listened, unsure of where exactly the noise had come from.  They heard the sound of something moving overhead.

_Schlurp, schlurp, schlurp_, came the sound of wet footprints moving away from them.  

“Perhaps it’s a zombie,” whispered James jokingly.

“Let’s rush up there and surprise them.”

The sound of the wet footprints turned a corner above.  The Sharpless brothers leaped into action and ran up the rest of the stairs to the top floor of the deck.  They ran across the walkway and around the corner to the front and froze.

The figure before them ran awkwardly and then leaped off the deck.  There was a splash from the ocean below.  Each stood still for a moment, unsure of what they had just seen.  There was a funny smell in the air, a mixture of rotting seaweeds and dead fish.

“That was a weird costume,” muttered Andrew.

“Who would be sneaking around at this time of night in a fish mask?” asked James, and then added, “I should have taken a picture.”

“Bumblebee’s knees,” said Andrew, “We should have questioned him.”

James ran over to the side and snapped off a picture of the water below.  

They hurriedly looked over the rest of the ship.  There was little of interest for them.  Blood stains where indeed in various places, but the police had already taken most of the things that might have been pertinent to the investigation.  In the quarters of Walter Matthias they did notice two pictures hanging on the wall that they decided to take with them.  The first was a photograph, 8 by 11.  It featured two men, one of them in a seaman’s uniform with his arms around the shoulders of the other.  They appeared to be standing on the deck of The Bouncing Skipper.  The other was a charcoal sketch on rice paper, behind glass.  It was a crude outline of some sort of half-man, half-fish creature of immense size.  Something about the picture rang a bell in their minds and then the feeling was gone.  They took it down off the wall, along with the photograph, and carried them both off the ship.

“James,” said Andrew as they walked past the car containing the still sleeping police officer.

“What Andrew?”

“I thought of a story, but we’ll need to make a few phone calls before I write it up tonight.”


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## Wicht (Jan 9, 2003)

*Article: Does Fisherman’s Ghost Haunt Historical Hotel?*

When one walks into almost any room in the Historical Hotel Renard in Cape Truman Virginia, they will almost immediately be struck by the smell of fish.  The odor permeates every floor.  What is the reason for this peculiarity?  Some experts believe it to be the only one of the physical manifestations of the ghost of Captain Jeremiah Troutsnape, a seaman who died in 1965 in room 33.

“It is quite possible for a spirit to manifest itself through odors,” comments Dr. Hi-lo Lee, chinese parapsycholigist and an expert on ghosts, “There have been many documented cases of it all over the world.  I once personally encountered a ghost in Hamburgst, Germany who whilst never seen with the eye smelled strongly of Saurkraut and sausages.”

There are other signs of an otherworldly entity in the Hotel Renard.  It is a well known fact that the walls in room 33 continually exhibit a slimy, oily substance on their surfaces and then there is the handprint.  A black handprint that some think might be of blood has been on the ceiling of room 29 for years.  

One resident of the hotel complained of the noises that awoke him each night.  

“It’s horrible,” said the hotel guest, who wished to remain unnamed, “I can’t hardly sleep.  This voice starts singing a horrible off-key song about fish every night and it echoes through the whole room.”

Another guest speculates that perhaps it is the ghost that is responsible for the hot water shortage experienced each morning at the hotel.

Dr. Lee agrees, “The drop in ambient temperature around a spiritual manifestation is a well known phenomena.  If this ghost takes to dwelling in the water pipes out of a life-association with the water, then it is entirely likely that the water would be cooled by the presence of the spirit.”

While Rachel Wilkenson, the young lady who works the front desk at night refused to comment on the ghost of Jeremiah Troutsnape, her employer Douglas Johnson, a native of Cape Truman, was very vocal in his denial of the ghost’s existence.  He refused to comment or speculate on the reasons for the handprint, the odors or the hot-water problem but he did acknowledge that there was often singing to be heard in the hotel at night.

“But I don’t believe it is a ghost,” he was quick to clarify, “Probably just one of the other residents who had too much too drink.”

Though Mr. Johnson was understandably quick to argue that there was no ghost in his beloved hotel, others are not so sure.

“Captain Troutsnape was an ornery old fisherman,” said one long-time resident of the small Virginian port, “It would be just like him to stink up a hotel out of sheer meanness after he was dead.  We was all surprised when he died so sudden like when he did.  We thought he was so mean he would be sure to outlast the rest of us.  He always thought he would too”

 The Hotel Renard, from the outside, looks as peaceful as the rest of Cape Truman.  But inside its walls, there is the possibility that the restless spirit of an angry fisherman walks the halls in a ghostly and ghastly effort to outlast the rest of the small sea-side community.


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## Wicht (Jan 16, 2003)

*Chapter 6: A little more legwork*
Early the next morning, Andrew sent their first story back to Hugh Rogers, via email using his laptop and then went to take a bath.

“Brr…,” he said to James with a smile as he stepped out drying himself off, “still no hot water.  Isn’t it great.”

“Lovely,” said James with a grimace.

After they were bathed and dressed and ready to go, they reviewed briefly the leads they could follow.  There was the mysterious Hydra Queen, the photograph taken from Walter Matthias’ cabin, and the old art-piece depicting the strange aquatic creature.  

“I want to look into that drawing,” said James.

“I think I will find out what I can about the Hydra Queen.”

James headed off to the library and Andrew to the dock registry.
Twelve hours later, James was being turned out of the Library having discovered absolutely nothing about the strange piece of artwork.  He met up with Andrew briefly and found out that his brother had been slightly more successful, but only just.  The Hydra Queen was owned by Elias Sluce, its captain, and was out of Boston.  Sluce himself was a native of Massachusetts.  They dined briefly on tacos and hot-dogs at a local all-night diner and then James decided to head off to try and get some more pictures aboard the Bouncing Skipper.  Andrew, not wanting to bother with the ship again, decided to ask more questions of some of the locals and told James he would meet him back at the hotel room.  

James had no luck at the Bouncing Skipper.  The policeman was not sleeping this time, in fact, when James arrived at the pier, the officer was talking to another man by the ramp leading onto the boat.  James decided not to try sneaking aboard just at that moment and instead lurked around, out of sight, in the shadows, waiting for an opportune moment.

Andrew meanwhile was finding out little new.  Asking discreet questions about the Hydra Queen did let him discover that many of the locals had a small opinion of the sailors aboard that particular ship.

“A bunch of pirates they are,” said one man, “I wouldn’t trust the lot of them as far as I could pitch ‘em.”

“Pirates?” Andrew had asked, surprised.

“Well, they act like they’re up to no good.  I wouldn’t put anything past them.  Came into town with scarcely anything in their bay.  You can tell by the way it rests in the water.  Sure would like to know what they are up to.”

Andrew decided he would like to know too, but it didn’t seem as if anyone in town really knew, at least not in the dives Andrew was asking around in.  Disappointed not to learn more, Andrew returned to the hotel room where he discovered James was already in bed.

“The policeman watching the ship was too alert tonight,” said James disgustedly when Andrew asked him if he had gotten any more pictures.

“We’ll do better tomorrow,” said Andrew as he started to get ready for bed.

As he laid down, a loud, drunken voice in the next room started to sing an off-key song about fish, drink and drowning.  Andrew closed his eyes.


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