16 May 2024
Thursday. The second study opened today, in a basement under Hay Street Mall in Perth. I was there with my duster at nine.
It is the same Doctor, the same last letter and the same unfortunate business with the curse. It is not the same study inside, not entirely. It is larger, it takes up to eight, and it has its own ideas about where things are kept. Manly’s study remains on The Corso and keeps its own counsel, and its own leaderboard.
The first Perth party were all grown up, which they have to be here: thirteen and over, every one of them, and the booking system checks. They read the Doctor’s letters aloud in turns, as if at a funeral, until one of them found the hourglass and they all began to hurry.
Near the end the lights did something they should not, and I heard the Caller moving about. That is what I call the pharaoh. I do not use his name in the study. It only encourages him.
Humphrey did not come to Perth. He says the basement has no room for a camel. I have written to him that it has room for a sarcophagus, and he can draw his own conclusions.
— H. Plumb (Miss), Expedition Secretary
