The Terrible Old Bookshop
Peter F Jeffery

	The Terrible Old Bookshop is situated on Darker Street. The 
once green (or perhaps grey) paintwork is peeling, the windows are 
filthy. Inside, the shelves are stacked high with dusty books, more 
are in heaps on the floor and in rotting cardboard boxes. It will 
take several hours of careful searching to realise that there is 
nothing of interest to investigators. There are, however, plenty of 
novels by Ethel M Dell and Marie Corelli, school texts on geometry, 
latin grammar, and other such.
	The proprietor sits on a high stool behind a small counter, 
bent over a large leather covered volume. He appears to be in his 
thirties and is strikingly handsome in a Saturnine way. He has a neat 
goatee beard and if he was an actor he could make a career out of 
playing the devil.
	As strangers approach he hurriedly stuffs his book under the 
counter. He will answer no questions about the book and will refuse to 
let investigators see it.

	Breaking into the shop is quite easy and is the only way to 
gain access to the books. Behind the counter are two books, Magna 
Mysteriis and Mysteriis Mundi. They are handwritten in an 
unrecogniseable script. Also behind the counter is a cupboard with a 
good, strong, lock.
	The proprietor is very furtive when he leaves the shop, taking 
a devious and tortuous route that doubles back several times. A 
careful investigator will be able to tail the man until he lets 
himself into a house on Coven Lane.

Possibilities
1       The two books are written in english using an alphabet of the 
shopkeepers own devising. Given time, it can be cracked. One is a 
racy, partially fictitious novel, the other a diary and ideas book. 
The house on Coven Lane belongs to a married lady who supplies him 
with practical experience to write his novel.

2       The locked cupboard contains hard-core pornography. The books 
are ledgers containing accounts and the house on Coven Lane is a place 
where young children are kept after being abducted. The children are 
sold to various unsavoury individuals throughout the country. They are 
never seen again.

3       The books are mythos tomes, rare, original copies. The 
proprietor is compiling several lesser works (kept in the cupboard) 
into one big volume. The house on Coven Lane is a meeting for a group 
of black magicians. Currently they are harmless, with only the 
proprietor knowing of the power of the mythos. That might change, in 
time.

Copyright (c) 1990 Peter F Jeffery