UN Office of Scientific Investigation and Research

GM's Eyes Only!

A Bell for St Anthony

 

Scene 2: Witnesses

Both Eldon and Armentov are available to be questioned by the characters. Neither has much to add to the account given by Colonel Suhailov. 

Armentov says that Orlov had been rather obsessive recently, working much later than was his normal custom; but otherwise had been his normal friendly self. Otherwise, Armentov came on duty at 6pm as usual, saw most of the staff out of the Institute by 7.30pm, locked up and made his rounds. He then made a pot of tea, asked Orlov and one or two other late workers if they would like some, then settled down at the desk. He made rounds again at about a quarter to nine, by which time all but Orlov had left. At 9.40pm, Orlov had called down to say that Eldon was coming in.

Eldon confesses himself baffled, but can say that he had left for the night about 5.30pm, and had been summoned back by an excited telephone call from Orlov, something about the experiment was growing faster than expected and the call had ended with, "You should come and take a look at this." When he arrived, he'd stopped for a word with Armentov, who had been waiting at the entrance to let him in.

He is somewhat evasive about the research that they are doing. Apparently the American sponsors want it kept confidential and he is reluctant to talk about it before consulting them. He will say that Orlov was attempting to analyse some biological material recovered from an archaeological dig. Once they have finished speaking with him, Eldon leaves. If challenged, he says that he is going to his hotel to catch up on his sleep; and will give police or characters his mobile phone number. He is staying at the Jushnaja Hotel nearby.

If someone thinks of making background checks on the 2 men, this seems unlikely research for either of them: -

Orlov was educated here at Moscow State University, where he specialised in genetic engineering and cloning techniques; having taken his doctorate at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland (the place that cloned Dolly the sheep...), his thesis being about the cloning of living creatures from cultured cells.

Eldon majored in archaeology at Cornell University in the USA, where he also studied theology. After several digs in the Middle East, he returned to Cornell to take his doctorate, his thesis being on the archaeological evidence for early Church history. He is a practising member of the Roman Catholic Church. His published work relates to researching early texts and correlating places mentioned with existing archaeological sites and other physical evidence. He has recently been working on an excavation in the Sinai peninsula, the project being funded by the Butler Foundation.