Having left Professor Wells and Arthur Flatt to their studies, Sullivan Quinn and Jake Morris drive to the Lower East Side, soon arriving at the neatly manicured expanse of the Stanton Street Cemetery. The sun is low in the sky when the investigators arrive and both men’s attention is briefly drawn to the western end of the graveyard, where a small graveside service is being conducted by a bearded Orthodox priest.

Aside from the service, the graveyard is without visitors. The groundskeeper, Carlos Cortes, can be seen at the war memorial in the center of the cemetery’s oval drive, watering the flower beds and pulling weeds.

"So, what's the plan, Sully?" Morris settles down in the driver's seat of his 1923 Dodge 116, tipping his hat forward so the brim covers his eyes. The glow of his cigarette as he puffs creating a ruby highlight in the shadow.

"We going to wait for dark and go in over the fence again, or do we push our luck with the roles we played yesterday and ask for a better price for Aunt Matilda?"


This message was last edited by the player at 20:29, Thu 30 June 2022.

Sully explained what he's learned about the Bishop family's origins on the way over--the witchcrafte, the attempts at immortality, and so on. As they sit near the gates, Sully takes a last drag from his cigarette and drops the butt out the car window into the gutter.

"I think we should try to avoid Bishop and the house and mortuary. Let's see if we can get the location of the Bishop family plot or of Agatha Bishop's monument from our friend Carlos and get a look at it, see if there's anything to be learned there. Then we can look around while the light lasts and see if there's anything else to learn."

Sully gets out of the car and approaches the groundskeeper: "Hello. Donde is el monumento Agatha Bishop por favor? Her burial place?" He looks to Jake for help bridging the language barrier.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:24, Fri 01 July 2022.

Jake shrugs back at Sully. He speaks only American.

Cortes halts his work as the investigators approach. Listening closely to Sully, he nods in apparent understanding.

”Senora Agatha,” he answers with a nod, “Ella está allí. En el pequeño grupo de ves cerca de la casa.”

He indicates a small grouping of headstones a short distance east of the gambrel-roofed residence, covered by the long shadow cast by the two story structure. Sully and Jake can both see that the monuments there appear to be weathered and quite old.

Sully circles toward the spot indicated by Cortes, trying to use the contours of the area and the trees and bushes to screen their progress from anyone who might be looking out from the house.

Jake walks along with Sully. If they pass a grave with flowers on it it he will snatch them up (after checking no one is looking) and carry them prominently as if looking for Aunt Matilda's grave to put them on.

Approaching the cluster of headstones from a point opposite the house, Sully takes out his notebook to sketch the arrangement of the graves. He peers at the inscriptions on the stones, writing down any names he can decipher.

Is there a large monument to Agatha or just gravestones?

Agatha Bishop’s monument proves easy for the two men to locate, primarily because it seems to sit alone, somewhat isolated from the group of older gravestones that occupy this corner of the cemetery.

The headstone is simple, clearly carved in the style that was in common use during the late Colonial period, the top portion of it etched with lines that evoke thoughts of the spread of branches of a great tree in wintertime. Although weathered, the monument appears to have been well cared for.

The inscription reads: Agatha Patience Bishop 1677 - 1770.

"Ninety three," murmurs Jake, managing to do the math in his head without counting on his fingers. "She was a game old biddy -- especially for back in those days. I reckon most ladies didn't make it much past fifty or so. My own grandmother died in childbirth at forty two."

He places the flowers on her grave and makes a circuit, noting the names and dates on nearby tombstones as he does.

"Well, nothing like a mausoleum or even a sarcophagus here," Sully says, disappointed, "You want to look at anything else while we're here? Maybe Art and the Prof are done with that book and can tell us what they think." He looks toward the setting sun and feels that he'd like to be away before dark.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:47, Tue 12 July 2022.

Mindful of the partially collapsed tunnel they discovered in the crypt the night before, Jake eyes up the orientation of this grave with that crypt top estimate if the tunnel might have been coming this way, or going that way. The idea makes him shiver, and he nods in agreement with Sully when he suggests they be out of the cemetery before sunset.

Jake glances at the neighboring gravestones, surmising that everyone who is buried in this section of the cemetery primarily passed away in the late seventeen hundreds. The latest date of death that he is able to locate is 1802.

Studying the ground, Jake has the sense that if there were any underground passage connecting Agatha Bishop’s grave with another location in the cemetery, it would almost certainly have to pass under the nearby two story residence. Somehow, that understanding does not give the detective any comfort.

A brief wind stirs the nearby trees as the two investors depart the Stanton Street Cemetery. As they carefully make their way back to Jake’s parked Dodge, each has the brief impression of a figure passing by one of the first floor windows of the Bishop residence, a tall individual wearing something like a top hat.

Reaching the car, Sully and Jake notice Carlos Cortes departing the graveyard, hurrying toward the nearby Essex Street subway station.

OOC: Jake and Sully can rejoin the Professor and Arthur at Columbia University.