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Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Session Fourteen, Dirty Deeds Part I

New month, new case!

Agnew Uptil (Tori) Joshua H. Headlam (Nick) Irwin Madlock (Gareth)

A week or so has passed since the events of Death of a Draper, the Runners have been keeping themselves busy with organising the Thresh Street archives and pounding the beat. Magistrate Cathmore called them into the office and informed them that he'd been called in to meditate and come up with a settlement after the will of a recently deceased gentleman called Elrich was destroyed in a fire before it could be read. The details were as follows;


 * Elrich has two nephews, both twins, who are the closest to heirs he had.


 * His business partner, Mr Foran co-owned a business with Elrich that rented out various properties.


 * A company, Henshaw & Co acting on behalf of a railway company has made a claim on land owned by Elrich, but the business partner disputes this.

So the Runners are tasked with gathering all the facts and doing some record checking to allow the Magistrate to come to a judgement regarding the case. First port of call was the nephews who explained that their late uncle had a copy of the will in a small chest, but the chest has gone missing. They were aware that they stood to inherit their uncle's estate and knew of some of the business with the railway company, but did not know whether a decision had been made on the matter. Their butler took the Runners up to the uncle's study and allowed them to look around under the butler's watchful glaze, the butler also answered a few questions that the Runners had. Irwin checked the locks on the balcony doors and that on the cabinet where the chest was kept, discovered that both had been picked. Joshua also noticed that somebody had climbed up to the balcony and only the chest had been taken, the butler stated that none of the staff knew what it contained. Agnew searched the desk, finding a letter from the railway company that stated 'a generous offer' for the land and some documents regarding the rents of the properties owned by the gentleman. But some of the drawers of the desk were locked and the butler believed the keys might be in the personal effects kept by the city morgue after Elrich's untimely death (a road accident whilst in his carriage), but Agnew did manage to find a safety deposit box key.

With the possibility of another copy of the will, the Runners set off to find the safety deposit box and found that it contained a hand-drawn map. The two nephews, after wracking their memories, said that the map might be some ruins near Whitecliff that their uncle took them to some years ago. Their uncle and his brother (their father who passed away some years ago) once sought shelter in their younger years during a rough period before they came to Dunwall, so it made sense for the uncle to had hidden something there like another copy of his will for example. The Runners decide to pursue their other leads in Dunwall before visiting the ruins, so made for the family's lawyer Arnold Timsh whilst Joshua worked the streets on finding out who may had stolen the chest. After greasing a few palms he spoke with an information broker and then onto one of the broker's minions, after a rather liberal amount of palm greasing Joshua managed to greet a possible meeting arranged with a contact for the job that involved the chest.

Irwin and Agnew visited Timsh's office, found some extensive fire damage that workmen were clearing up and repairing. They spoke with Timsh, whom stated that he was only aware of one copy (other than the one he'd held until the fire) of the late Elrich's will and the railway company business had been delegated to one of his staff. The staff who'd been dealing with it was a young man called Sebastian Weatherspoon who left a couple of days after the fire to return to the market town of Lydsworth to attend to a family matter, but it was possible he knew of the copy of Elrich's will. He wasn't aware who Henshaw & Co's lawyers were, but they had been buying up land over the past few months on behalf of the railway company and had approached Elrich but he wasn't sure whether a decision had been reached. Though before his untimely demise Elrich had made plans to change his will, but Timsh did not know what the changes were. But he was able to confirm some details about the will that the nephews had already suspected.

After meeting up with Joshua and getting each other up to speed the Runners decided to head to Rudshore's Chamber of Commerce to check the records there, but swung by Thresh Street to see about getting a message sent to Lydsworth enquiring about Sebastian Weatherspoon. At the Chamber of Commerce they looked through the records and found that Henshaw & Co had listed a 50,000gc payment to E&F and the entry was made on the same that they recorded wages being paid, but the entry was in a different hand writing to all the others. Elrich & Foran did not list the payment, though they had yet to file the month's ledgers. They checked the personal records of Elrich, Foran and the Elrich nephews but found no mention of the large payment. With an even bigger mystery at hand they made plans to visit Mr Foran, Henshaw & Co and the city morgue before we called it for the night.