No, Leeana, I believe the baby was James and Catherine's, she taking the Thalidomide during her pregnancy to ease morning sickness or to help her sleep....AND I believe the doctor could not bring himself to destroy the newborn infant, deformed or not, because he is a doctor and took the Hipocratic Oath, and really believed in it - "first, do no harm" was engraved on his soul, so to speak. Does that make sense? I did not get the feeling at all that the doctor and Catherine had had an affair or that the doctor was in love with her or she him - wonder why so many others got that impression.... and the doctor also agonized over the fact that he let James go to prison for a murder he did not commit, and James was his good friend and he promised to 'take care' of the disposition of the deformed, monstrous child but then could not make himself kill it and dispose of it for James. So he did the only thing and the best thing he could, he fed it and kept it alive and away from the outside world for as long as he was mentally able to do so.....then took up drinking to ease his mental and emotional pain. Does all that make sense to you?
Love, Betty Lou :kiss:

Betty Lou, I thoroughly enjoy your theories and am more intrigued by the game because of them. However, all that being said, who has been feeding the "thing in the basement"??? (The meat is reasonably fresh!) That seems to be be a key question if we're going to keep the entire explanation rational and assume that there are no supernatural elemnets here.

That is a good question, Haze. And I am not sure I can come up with an answer only some speculation. Let's see, the house has been 'empty' for several years since the good doctor left the area or died from his alcoholism....another family owned it for a while but did not live in it (?) and the construction that was begun was never finished by anyone. The house was put on the market so the 'baby' lived there down below all by himself. Maybe he found a way up through the house to what food was there, then started wandering around the 'estate' eating small animals? It is never said if he was spotted in the area or if other pets or people went missing during all that time, so I am not sure just how that works out. What do the rest of you think? Since we do not actually know what happened to the doctor, maybe he died there and was 'food' for that creature. Did you notice the perfectly clean bones in that awful refrigerator? They were cleaned off pretty good to my way of thinking. Interesting to see what you all come up with too.
Love, Betty Lou :kiss:

A couple more things I have 'discovered' or am paying more attention now to what I read and see - in Catherine's bedroom dresser there is a picture of Catherine, pregnant, the glass is cracked...and in another drawer there is a pocket watch you can look at and the time is 4 o'clock, don't know what that means. Also, realize I did not pay careful attention when I read the newspaper dated May 25 1963, Catherine and James were married 30 years or more when she was killed - I just assumed (first time I played) she was killed at a much younger age....so the 'baby' was 'full grown' when he killed his mother! Sure fills in the story for me now a bit.
Love, Betty Lou

Thanks Betty Lou I do now understand it took a while but I pieced it together

Well done Betty Lou! I had come up with the same idea that the creature was Robin and that he had killed Catherine, the doctor and, I believe, James. I thought he was the way he was due to the curse of the mask not being trapped again due to the amulet ceremony not being performed and because James had stolen the mask.

I missed seeing the Thalidomide label on the medicine bottle. That explains the whole mystery in my book.

I need some help now figuring out this part of this mystery - according to the newspaper from 1963, the year Catherine was killed, she and James had been married 30 years...assuming she was about 20 years old when they married, that would mean she was about 48 years old when she had her first and only child - I know this is not impossible TODAY but in the 60's? Almost unheard of.....how does that fit with this story? Did the 'story-writer' mess up on this? Even assuming Catherine was only 17 or 18 in 1933 it is not likely she married at that age in those times, is it? This is totally confusing to me. What do you all think?
Love, Betty Lou :kiss:

Hi all--

finished this yesterday and I'm supposed to be cooking breakfast, but I need to make a few comments:

Betty Lou: good eye spotting the thalidomide. I couldn't make out the lables at all. That was one of my complaints about this game: the writing was all too small. And I think you should have been able to examine those bottles mroe closely.

If you look at the dates on the plaques in the crypt, you will see that Catherine was born in 1910. That means she became pregnant at the age of 50 (the baby was born in 1961). I don't think this works for me. She looked much younger in the picture. James's dates are 1908-1963, BTW.

I think you're supposed to get that the monster child ripped her throat out, but he would have been only 2 at the time, so that also doesn't make sense to me.

I actually think the doctor and Catherine knew about concealing the child, but James didn't, at least not at first. Because in the letter, the doctor talks about "what we did" and seems to imply that knowing about it would send James further round the bend.

BUT I don't think enough of a connection was drawn between the mask and the monster. Or, too much was and then it didn't play out. Was it 2 separate issues? Did the presence of the mask actually have anything to do with the child's being born strange? Or did being locked up in the house alone (for how long? the date on Jerry's letter to Michael is 1976, btw, so the kid would only be 15 at that point. How long had the dr. been missing?) with the mask drive Robin crazy? Or what? You're led to a correlation, but then they almost seem different. dunno. I have to eat.

WW

okay, I'm back. I spent breakfast discussing this with my husband; both of us ended up feeling very unsatisfied with this game, and it mostly had to do with the two storylines not coming together adequately. Was the story "the evil god in the mask?" or was it "the monster in the cellar?" I'm not saying it couldn't be both. Just, as things turned out the two were discursive.

Another thing that bothered me was, there were so many contrived dificulties that didn't really tie into the plot. Like the whole candle business. It was so glaringly obvious that there were NO CANDLES anywhere. Particularly with the hoards of candleabra in every room. I really thought there should have been some significance to this. But as it turned out, the only reason for it was so that you wouldn't go into the cellar the first night. Michael made such a huge deal about not wanting to wander around in a dark unfamiliar place. But then, absence of light didn't really prevent him from doing so at all! So what was the point? I think it would have been much spookier if he could have lit a single candle. You could easily have prevented him from going into the cellar with a draft that blew the candle out--after all, the whole place was virtually open to the outside. Then he could have decided he needed to wait until he could light his shielded lantern.

The absence of candles made it seem that there should have been some huge significance when you finally made it into the chapel and found that one stub on the altar, too. But there was nothing in it.

There was really nothing in the story to convince me that James was mad at all. The doctor thought he was, because of James's insistence on the evil of the mask. But if you take away the a priori assumption that buying into African cultism indicated madness, the whole thing falls apart. And I think the way the story played out, you're almost supposed to come to the conclusion that James WASN't mad. I mean, the doctor's journals indicate that he eventually understood that there was something evil about the mask. So James was just doing what was necessary to avert the evil. Or would have if he hadn't died.

I guess I would have liked it better if Michael had made some mention, at the end, like, "The scratching noises are still going on even after I used the amulet! There's more here than I thought!" Or something. As it was, the cellar bit just kind of seemed tacked on. Back to the question of, two stories or one story? There was too much implied connection for me to think of them as truly separate, but not enough for me to think of them as related.

picky detail: why could you only look at the details of those two Bosch paintings in the upstairs hall? I kept expecting that to be relevant, hold a clue to something. Because every other picture in the place, you could zoom in on the whole thing. Why not those two?

blah blah blah,

WW

A real interesting catch on the thalidomide, Betty Lou.

As far as the "child monster" ripping the throat out of the mother at the tender age of 2, I suppose one could swallow that if one were to believe that the spirit of the child was imbued with the powers of the evil entity of the mask and thus had superhuman abilities. But if we are to believe that, it doesn't mesh very well with the thalidomide explanation of how they ended up with a beastly baby.

Hmm.....

I know for a fact that it is possible. My childhood friend was born in 1953 --- her mother
(an Italian nurse) was 51 when she gave birth to her. So it is definitely possible -- a rare possibility, I will grant you, but possible none the less.

inferno

As I said earlier, if you check Catherine's dates in the crypt, she would have been 50 when she became pregnant and 51 when the child was born. I think it's totally possible and not too unusual. After all, Eleanor of Aquitaine was 46 when she gave birth to Prince John. And her age would have explained why they took extra care with her pregnancy (the thalidomide), why it was difficult and also possibly why the child might have had some birth defects (even without the thalidomide).

But the question remains for me: Does one believe that Catherine had a beastly baby and the whole thing was covered up (like Rochester's mad wife in the attic), that James just supposed it was the curse operating, and that the baby got more beastly as time passed through neglect or imprisonment? Or was it the curse of the mask playing out?

WW

I'm replaying this again to try to pick up on more hints. Someone mentioned here James went to prison, but he didn't. Remember, there was no autopsy and the police were not allowed to dig in the yard.

Also, reading the flyers in the attic, the doctor bought 3 pieces of meat from a butcher shop in 1970, so he was around at least 7 years after Catherine died. Also, why was his bank account still open and being used? I wonder who was using it?

Jean

Betty Lou: that was very impressive. Congratulations! I never thought anyone would ever bump into that clue, but you did it and neatly explained its relation with the story. Bravo!

For those who want to believe into something supernatural and how the mask ordeal ties with the story: watch the ending sequence again. Carefully.

Having this discussion has made my enjoyment of the game itself so much better. A couple of points - the meat that was ordered in 1970 could and probably was ordered by the doctor since James died of a heart attack in 1963 before he was arrested - and yes you are right, James was not incarcerated, his death came before the authorities had time to pursue him as a suspect, remember, they were not allowed access to the house and grounds and never did see Catherine's body and no autopsy was performed. Another thing I know (now) is that Catherine and the doctor kept the baby's survival of birth a secret from James as he was in an emotional state over what he perceived as the African curse-of-the-mask. However, I deduce that James became aware of the child at the time of his wife's death, hard for the doctor to explain that away to James otherwise. So maybe it was the doctor who was seen burying Catherine in the garden, not James - sounds like James was in a fragile mental state and not able to function well enough to bury his wife and continue to conceal the child. However, what I don't understand is this: from the phone call Michael makes to the bank to determine if James Blackwood's accounts were still active, he finds out they were but never does find out who is accessing those accounts, i.e., withdrawing monies from time to time (perhaps to buy more meat for the 'monster'?). Something I missed the first time I played this was at the very end in the basement near that hole in the wall, I totally missed seeing the half gnawed fresh meat lying there, saw it this time, so the 'monster' is getting his meals from somewhere - wonder if any of the neighbors are missing? Oh, and the 'speculation' that James was still alive when his body is actually in the crypt and Catherine is buried in the garden without a coffin, guess that played out correctly and fits OK. Can't say I am totally satisfied with the ending, unless it is 'dangling the carrot' that there could be a sequel of the creatures further 'adventures'
Love, Betty Lou :kiss: