At the Harrogate Infirmary, under the healing ministrations of Dawn D’Aosta, Hank "Raygun" Radshaw wakes to painful consciousness. He remembers that he was driving to the Monster Hunters’ meeting when his car’s engine died. The scientist alighted from his automobile on a lonely country lane around 2.10pm (today, Monday 25^th June 1951), and was examining the engine when he was approached by a gaunt man with a briar walking stick. This man spoke to Radshaw, but Radshaw does not recall the nature of the conversation. He does remember asking the man not to beat him with the stick, but he did nothing to resist it. He remembers the man scratching him with the stick’s ferrule to write the message, which was inscribed on an index card from Radhsaw’s pocket. Radshaw’s injuries are consistent with being hit with a thin blunt object and scratched with a sharp metal point.

Radshaw does not appear to have any magical dweomer on him. He does however have a lot of contusions. His car has not been found. His handkerchief is missing.

Radshaw was discovered unconscious crushed inside a pillar box in central Harrogate when the mid-afternoon mail collection was taken at 3.25pm. He had to be cut out of the pillar box as it was not physically possible for him to get into the box through the hatch.

Some of the Monster Hunters interview the postman who discovered Radshaw at the time for the 3.15pm collection. Even under ESP the postman seems genuine, and tells the same account of being rather surprised at finding a large man stuck inside his pillar box. An aficionado of American gangster movies he was convinced that this is a mob rub-out.

Keys to the post box are held by the postman collecting the letters, by his supervisor in the Harrogate Central Post Office, and in the Post Office vault. A fair number of postal staff could plausibly have got their hands on the keys or made copies. Revell can easily open the postbox using thieves’ tools – er, that is, locksmith’s equipment. However, this may be moot since Radshaw does not fit through the postbox door. A number of letters had been pushed into the box after Radshaw was placed inside.

One interesting feature of this assault is that Radshaw was placed in the box within roughly an hour of his attack some twenty-five miles away. The street is a busy one yet so far there is no indication that anyone noticed anything amiss.

A range of detects on Radshaw, the pillar box, and the postman all come up with negative results. Given the time between any possible spell usage and the time of the detection magics it is entirely plausible that any magical dweomer or aura of evil would have dispersed beyond trace [in game terms, a residual aura has a percentage chance of being detected proportional to the level of the spell and the amount of time since its expiry].

The toad in the stone is a standard male Green Toad, of considerable age. It appears to have died because of repeated impacts from a blunt instrument. It has a thin mucous film over its mouth and eyes. The allegedly sky-fallen toad is an immature male Bufo Americanus, which is not native to England. It appears to be in good health and is enjoying the fountain pond in the indoor floral gardens at the rear of the Monster Hunters’ Edward Endelby Memorial Library.

The dead toad does not have any insects or other food in its digestive tract. The Club will have to decide whether to dissect the living toad. Neither toad has any magical dweomer.

On the day of the alleged rain of toads the wind was light north-westerly (from the sea), and the day was expected to be warm and clear with a light breeze, turning to moderate later in the day. An early morning sea-fog cleared shortly after dawn on the morning of the 23^rd. A storm-warning was issued to shipping off the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts by the BBC at 3.30pm, and it began to rain in King’s Ducarnain around 5.15pm. By 10pm the storm began and raged until around 11.10pm, with heavy rain. There was a light drizzle intermittently for the rest of the night, clearing up by dawn. The MHC note that the fall of toads was attributed to the storm, but seem not to have been observed until the following morning (the 24^th). The lintel splitting took place after the first toadfall was spotted.

Crannog is interested in the fall and distribution patterns of the fallen toads, but this will require some fieldwork interviews to have a chance of determination.

Falls of toads and frogs are commonly reported items in books going back to Pliny, and appear in several mediaeval woodcuts. They continue as an intermittent phenomenon in modern times. The two favourite explanations are that heavy rainfall encourages the animals to migrate across the wet landscape, making it appear as if they had fallen from the skies, or that a freak waterspout snatches them from their habitat to deposit them later. The first theory fails to account for frogs or toads being found on house roofs and other inaccessible places. The second lacks an explanation for the lack of pond debris and other pond denizens in the vicinity of the fall.

A Toadstone is a legendary object said to reside in the brain of certain ancient toads according to some mediaeval bestiaries. It was believed to have the virtue of changing colour when it came into contact with poison, and to be generally lucky.

There is no particular body of lore about toads in lintels, but there is much about the burial of sacrifices in the foundations of buildings. Many old houses and barns have been found to have cats or dogs interred beneath the doorstep, presumably as guardians. Discoveries of human bones are much rarer, but have been known.

There is a fascinating academic discussion at the Endleby Memorial Library that evening on the kind of magics needed to preserve a toad in stone. Passwall, stone shape, sepia snake sigil, imprisonment, and others are all considered. Of these, the first has a limited duration, and the latter usually places its victim in the core of the Earth. Sepia snake sigil preserves its victim unchanged until the magic is dispelled or the caster releases him, but does not account for appearance within a sealed stone block. The conversation finishes inconclusively when Selkirk drops his ginger-biscuit into his tea.

Dulcarnain is a corruption of an old word meaning twin-horned. The vestigial village was in important town in the thirteenth to fifteenth century. A port charter issued in 1512 was revoked in 1744 when the harbour was lost in a storm. It still forms a very small parish (population 124), still having part of the graveyard of the old St Nicholas’ church intact on the cliff’s edge, but it shares a parish priest with the larger inland parish of Chalfont Didbury.

The oldest buildings are the public house, parts of which date back five hundred years or more, and several barns, including the one which was recently partially lost to the sea.

The Horne estate has largely vanished into the sea, with the old manor house disappearing sometime before the census of 1871. The barn from which the toad appeared has not been officially used since that time, since the remaining lands now belong to another local farm estate and it is more convenient to use buildings attached to the central farm complex. The only other Horne estate building to remain are now ruins, a shepherd’s cottage and another barn further along the coast. An eighteenth century tomb in the Chalfont Didbury Parish Church also remains.

It is difficult to find out much about the history of other local buildings without some first hand field work.

The last Horne to live and die in King’s Dulcarnain was Ezra Horne, 1812-1866. Upon his death his nearest relative, a nephew, sold the estate and moved to Norwich. The Hornes were an important local family during the days when the parish was prosperous, and once owned a number of trading ships back in the days when it wasn’t piracy if you took it off the Spanish or the French.

The inhabitants known to the Monster Hunters are:

• Dr David Mummer, local GP and amateur naturalist
• Mr Walter Wode, retired fishermen and oldest inhabitant
• Mr Charles Bellnichol, landlord of the George and Dragon

A little research turns up a local constable, William Cundy.

Customs and Excise are aware that a modicum of illegal importing goes on along the Suffolk coast, mostly by fishermen smuggling cigarettes, alcohol, and rationed items. A little prodding from retired Commissioner Lancett turns up an unofficial view that Mr Bellnichol has been observed and investigated by revenue officers several times with no result.

The most local newspaper, the weekly East Suffolk Advertiser, has little to say about King’s Dulcanain outside the births, deaths, and marriages section in recent years. A more thorough newspaper search will take considerably longer.

The only places to stay within the actual parish are the George and Dragon pub or at some of the small farmhouses. The pub is also known for its home-brewed mead and its ploughman’s lunch.

A more general search under cults, frogs, and East Anglia only turns up the Cthulhic problems the Club faced in Starkesborough back in 1908-1911, which are hopefully not connected with this case.