After visiting the mummy expert, Abu Bin Laden, they headed back to the Old Town of Philadelphia. Juan was feeling ill, so went back to the Khyber Pass Bar & Grill. Ebony and Vince went out to reconnoitre the ley-line intersections from Abu's map.
Sledge & Mort went to hire some diving gear plus a compressor. They planned to suck and bottle the mummy mist if they could get close enough to it. Abu was asked about this (over the phone), but he did not know if it would work. Sledge went over-board and spent $1000 on gear hire (for three days) including a high-pressure air-compressor, a full wet-suit, and full aqua-lung, and the works (spear gun, flippers, weight belt, dive watch, etc).
While they were walking back to Mort's hearse, Mort spotted a cop standing by the hearse, examining it. Mort hid, and Sledge engaged the officer with some cock-and-bull story about Mort being in Chicago and him lending the car to Sledge. The cop asked Sledge to accompany him to the station.
"Am I under arrest?"
"Well, I didn't want to arrest you, but if you won't come, then 'yes'."
"On what charge?"
The officer read from his patrol-car laptop screen: "'Discharging a firearm, multiple times, in the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Radiology lab', 'Assault of a security officer at the Penn Museum', 'Robbery of a priceless Egyptian sarcophagus from the Penn Museum'... shall I go on?"
At the station, a Lieutenant Prospero conducted the questioning. He seemed very reticent to actually lay charges on Sledge, and said he would waive the lot if Sledge brought the rest of his band in for questioning. All of the group: Mort, Ebony, Vince, Theo and Juan were identified quite accurately.
The Lieutenant tried phoning them all. Only Mort and Ebony turned up.
They all denied everything. So the Lieutenant showed the recordings from the security camera mounted in the Penn Museum's loading bay, which showed the group entering and leaving the Penn Museum several times, examining the downed security guard (already down), and carrying the two-ton sarcophagus with the forklift.
The group neglected to ask the obvious question as to why couldn't the police use the recordings to show how the security guard was murdered, so Lt Prospero never volunteered it.
The Lieutenant released them all, but said he still wanted to speak to Juan, Theo and especially Vince (who had also discharged his weapon in the radiology lab).
According to the Lieutenant, the frightened hospital staff had claimed the whole thing was some elaborate prank, with some joker dressed up as a flaming mummy; needless to say, a particularly violent and dangerous prank that involved high calibre pistol discharges in a crowded hospital, and setting of uncontrolled fires.
Evidently, Dr Imelda Hyde had changed her beliefs too, and she now thought the whole thing was some sick prank, or, more likely, an elaborate grift to steal the priceless ancient sarcophagus of Ahmenra. She had laid a complaint along these lines that the party, lead by Mort, had engineered to steal it.
Tuesday Night
Abu's Philadelphia city map had four likely spots where ley-lines crossed.
- Eastern State Penitentiary in Fairmount
- Elfrith's Alley in the Old Town
- The Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Washington Square West
- Fleischer Art Memorial in Queen Village
Ebony and Vince got to the Historical Society building at 11:30pm. Ebony was a dab hand at sneaking, and locks and alarms. She managed to bypass the security system of the building, and her and Vince broke in. Down beneath the cellar, carved into the living rock, was a chamber with an altar, manacles and a cell. It showed no signs of recent use. No-one was there.
Sledge and Mort went to the Fleisher Art Memorial. There was some grand ball in progress here, and the place was full of well-dressed folk. Sledge and Mort walked in, unchallenged, and Mort suddenly realized that the entire crowd was vampires. They beat a hasty retreat and weren't stopped.
They rejoined each other and got to the Old Town district at about 1am. Elfrith's alley itself didn't yield anything suspicious, neither below ground down in the subway station, nor on rooftop nearby. However, perceptive Theo did notice that the "bad vibes" were a little stronger here than they were the other day when he was at this same spot.
They checked some other buildings in the general area: Betsy Ross's cottage (broke in), the Arden theatre (was open) and the Penn View hotel (was open), revealed nothing of interest. The Old Fireman's hall was closed, and its alarm was beyond Ebony's skill, so they left that place planning to visit in the morning at 10am.
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