Egypt Information
1.
BIG APPLE DATELINE
ROGER CARLYLE, the playboy whom everybody knows – or knows about – is quietly leaving New York tomorrow to check out the tombs of Egypt! You’ve seen the cuties ROGER has found in the nightspots. Who can doubt he’ll dig up someone – er, something – equally fabulous from the Egyptian sands?
---NEW YORK PILLAR/RIPOSTE, April 4, 1919
2.
CARLYLE EXPEDITION EMBARKS FOR ENGLAND
Led by the fabulously-wealthy playboy Roger Carlyle, the Carlyle Expedition departed this morning for Southampton aboard the crack British steamship Imperial Standard.
Contrary to earlier reports, the expedition will perform researches in London under the auspices of the Penhew Foundation before continuing to Egypt next month.
Readers may recall the enormous party which Mr. Carlyle, now 24, gave at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel upon reaching his majority. Since then, scandals and indelicate behavior have become Carlyle’s trademark, but he never has become tarnished in the eyes of Manhattanites.
Members of the expedition have been reluctant to reveal their purpose in Egypt.
OTHER EXPEDITION MEMBERS
Renowned Egyptologist Sir Aubrey Penhew is assistant leader of the team, and in charge of excavations.
Dr. Robert Huston, a fashionable ‘Freudian’ psychologist, accompanies the expedition to pursue parallel researches into ancient pictographs.
Miss Hypatia Masters, linked in the past to Carlyle, will act as photographer and archivist.
Mr. Jack Brady, intimate to Mr. Carlyle, accompanies the group as general factotum.
Additional members may be secured while in London.
---NEW YORK PILLAR/RIPOSTE, April 5, 1919
3.
CARLYLE DEPARTS EGYPT
CAIRO (AP)---Sir Aubrey Penhew, temporary spokesman for the Carlyle Expedition, indicated Monday that the leaders are taking ship to East Africa for a “well-earned rest.”
Sir Aubrey debunked rumors that the expedition had discovered clues to the legendary wealth of the lost mines of King Solomon, maintaining that the party was going on safari “in respite from our sandy labors.”
Roger Carlyle, wealthy New York leader of the expedition, was unavailable for comment, still suffering from his recent sunstroke.
Discussing that unfortunate incident, local experts declared Egypt entirely too hot for Anglo-Saxons at this time of year, and suggested that the young American had not been well-served by his democratic enthusiasm, rumored to have led him to personally wield pick and shovel.
---NEW YORK PILLAR/RIPOSTE, July 3, 1919
4.
IMPORTANT VISTORS
MOMBASA (Reuters)---Leading members of an American archaeological expedition arrived here on holiday from digs in Egypt’s Nile Valley.
Our Under-Secretary, Mr. Royston Whittingdon, held a welcoming dinner for them at Collingswood House, where the wit of Sir Aubrey Penhew, expedition co-leader, was much in evidence.
Accompanying Sir Aubrey are two Americans, youthful financier Roger Carlyle and medical doctor Robert Huston.
The party leaves inland tomorrow, for Nairobi and hunting.
---NEW YORK PILLAR/RIPOSTE, July 24, 1919
5.
CARLYLE EXPEDITION FEARED LOST
MOMBASA (Reuters)---Uplands police representatives today asked for public assistance concerning the disappearance of the Carlyle Expedition. No word of the party has been received in nearly two months.
The group includes wealthy playboy Roger Carlyle and three other American citizens, as well as respected Egyptologist Sir Aubrey Penhew of the United Kingdom.
The expedition left Nairobi on August 3, ostensibly on camera safari, but rumor insisted that they actually were after legendary Biblical treasures.
Carlyle and his party reportedly intended to explore portions of the Great Rift Valley, to the northwest of Nairobi.
---NEW YORK PILLAR/RIPOSTE, Oct. 15, 1919
6.
ERICA CARLYLE ARRIVES IN AFRICA
MOMBASA (Reuters)---In response to clues, Miss Erica Carlyle, sister to the American leader of the lost Carlyle Expedition, arrived in port today aboard the Egyptian vessel Fount of Life.
Several Kikuyu-villager reports recently have been received concerning the putative massacre of unnamed whites near Aberdare Forest.
Miss Carlyle declared her intention to find her brother, regardless of the effort needed. She brought with her the nucleus of a large expedition.
Detaining agents to coordinate supply and other activities with Colony representatives, Miss Carlyle and the remainder of her party depart for Nairobi tomorrow.
Her companion, Mrs. Victoria Post, indirectly emphasized Miss Carlyle’s purposefulness by recounting the rigors of the voyage aboard the Semite ship.
---NEW YORK PILLAR/RIPOSTE, March 15, 1920
7.
CARLYLE MASSACRE CONFIRMED
NAIROBI (Reuters)---The massacre of the long-missing Carlyle expedition was confirmed today by district police representatives.
Roger Carlyle, New York’s rollicking playboy, is counted among the missing.
Authorities blame hostile Nandi tribesmen for the shocking murders. Remains of at least two dozen expedition members and bearers are thought found in several concealed grave sites.
Erica Carlyle, Roger Carlyle’s sister and apparent heiress to the Carlyle family fortune, led the dangerous search for her brother and his party. She credited Kikuyu tribesmen for the discovery, though police actually found the site.
Among other expedition members believed lost are Sir Aubrey Penhew, noted Egyptologist; New York socialite Hypatia Masters, and Dr. Robert Huston. Many bearers also are reported dead.
---NEW YORK PILLAR/RIPOSTE, May 24, 1920
8.
MURDERERS HANGED
NAIROBI (Reuters)---Five Nandi tribesman, convicted ringleaders of the vicious Carlyle Expedition massacre, were executed this morning after a short, expertly-conducted trial.
To the end, the tribesmen steadfastly refused to reveal where they had hidden the bodies of the white leaders of the expedition. Mr. Harvis, acting for the Colony, cleverly implied throughout the trial that the massacre was racial in motivation, and that the fair-skinned victims were taken to a secret location, there to suffer the most savage treatment.
Miss Erica Carlyle, defeated in her efforts to rescue her brother, left several weeks ago, but is surely comforted now by the triumph of justice.
---NEW YORK PILLAR/RIPOSTE, June 19, 1920
. LETTER FROM JACKSON ELIAS TO JONAH KENSINGTON, SENT FROM NAIROBI
August 8, 1924
Nairobi
Dear Jonah,
Big news! There is a possibility that not all the members of the Carlyle Expedition died. I have a lead. Though the authorities here deny the cult angle, the natives sing a different tune. You wouldn't believe the stories! Some juicy notes coming your way! This one may make us all rich!
Blood and Kisses,
J.
P.S. I'll need some advance money to follow this up. More later.
2. The Nairobi Notes of Jackson Elias. Sheathes of paper stapled together in 8 paper-clipped sets, covered in one side in neat block handwriting.
SET ONE of the Nairobi notes sets forth the offices, officials, and tribes which Elias visited in Kenya, searching for material concerning cults and cult rituals. Nothing conclusive was learned, though Elias discounts the official version of the Carlyle massacre.
SET TWO describes his trip to the massacre site. He notes particularly that the earth there is completely barren, and that all the tribes of the region avoid the place, saying it is cursed by the God of the Black Winds, whose home is the mountain top.
SET THREE is an interview with a Johnstone Kenyatta, who says that the Carlyle murders may have been performed by the cult of the Bloody Tongue. He says that the cult reputedly is based in the mountains, and that its high priestess is a part of the Mountain of the Black Winds. Elias is politely sceptical, but Kenyatta insists upon the point. In quotes, Elias records that regional tribes fear and hate the Bloody Tongue, that tribal magic is of no protection against the cult, and that the cult's god is not of Africa.
SET FOUR follows up on the Kenyatta Interview. Elias confirms from several good sources that the Bloody Tongue exists, though he finds no firsthand evidence of it. Tales include children stolen for sacrifice. Creatures with great wings are said to come down from the Mountain of the Black Winds to carry off people. The cult worships a god unknown to folklorists, one fitting no traditional African pattern. Elias in particular cites 'Sam Mariga, rr-sta.'
SET FIVE contains a single page reminding Elias that the Cairo-based portion of the Carlyle itinerary must be examined carefully. He believes that the reason which prompted Carlyle's Kenyan side trip is on the Nile.
SET SIX is a long interview with Lt. Mark Selkirk, leader of the men who actually found the remains of the Carlyle Expedition, and a Kenya hand since the Great War and the fight against the resourceful von Lettow. Importantly, Selkirk says that the bodies were remarkably undecayed for the length of time which they lay in the open - "almost as if decay itself wouldn't come near the place." Secondly, the men had been torn apart, as if by animals, though what sorts of animals would pull apart bodies so systematically he could not guess. "Unimaginable. Inexplicable." Selkirk agrees that the Nandis may have had something to do with the episode, but suspects that the charges against the ringleaders were trumped-up. "It wouldn't be the first time:" he says cynically. Finally, Selkirk confirms that no Caucasians were found among the dead - only corpses of the Kenyan bearers were scattered across the barren plain.
SET SEVEN is another single page. Elias ran into Nails Nelson at the Victoria Bar in Nairobi. Nelson had been a mercenary for the Italians on the Somali-Abyssinian border, and had escaped into Kenya after double-crossing his employers. Nelson claimed to have seen Jack Brady alive (March of 1923) in Hong Kong, less than two years before Elias was in Kenya and long after the Kenyan court declared that Brady and the rest of the expedition were dead. Brady was friendly, though guarded and taciturn. Nelson didn't press the conversation. From this report Elias deduced that other members of the expedition might still live.
SET EIGHT discusses a possible structure for the Carlyle book, but is mostly featureless, with entries like "tell what happened" and "explain why."
3. COMMENTS BY JONAH KENSINGTON, PROSPERO PRESS OWNER AND JACKSON ELIAS' PUBLSHER
"Gavigan? That's not ringing any bells. Penhew... isn't that those people in London that fund archaeological work? Maybe he mentions them somewhere in his notes; he sent me a big batch from Nairobi...
"As you know, Jackson had this idea of doing a book about the Carlyle Expedition massacre. I'm his publisher, so of course he kept me appraised of developments...
"He sent me this letter in August. Here, let me read it to you...
"I received those notes a bit later...
"Yes, he came in by steamship from London on the 13th, to my knowledge.
"Jackson sent me the notes, and a bit later I received a wire from him from Hong Kong -- he really was travelling a lot -- asking for an advance, which of course I sent.
"The next I heard from him was in the middle of December. He wired from London.
"The wire said he'd been to China -- I knew this already from the Hong Kong telegram -- to Africa of course, and to London for a few days, where he'd dug up a lot of material...
"Jackson said he'd seen unbelievable things, and mentioned some kind of plan or conspiracy of global proportions. He said there was a timetable for this, er, plot, and that he needed to find the missing pieces. But he didn't say anymore, just that he would be in New York soon.
"The last I saw him was on the 13th, when he dropped by...