Jago is drunkenly reminiscing about an old act he hosted at the New Regency Theatre. Little does he realise that Litefoot and Ellie are desperately trying to keep the door to the apartment closed as something inhuman is trying to force its way inside. All of a sudden, their old friend Leela materialises in the room and offers assistance, but her behaviour is rather reserved and calm for someone who is usually mentally prepared for battle. Nonetheless, she helps to hold the door closed. Leela mentions that she came to earth in search of a deadly creature and believes she may have found it. Interestingly, she wishes to know what the creature is rather than kill it immediately. After a short moment, the creature’s struggling on the door stops and seemingly leaves. Leela notes that the creature is hungry and will most likely return…
Once the perilous situation calms down, an inebriated Jago continues to bemoan the loss of his beloved theatre and voices his intention to visit and take in a show. Clearly being a wanted criminal has taken its toll on him. His friends bar his exit, with Leela warning him not to open the door for fear of the monstrous creature waiting outside. To satiate each other’s needs, Leela offers to put on a show to distract Jago. Jago offers to host the show as it will distract him from going out. This would work for Leela as it would help her pass the time so she can study their quarry.
In the style of a theatre host, Jago introduces an act that he dubs ‘The Magic Lantern’, a device that can show images, or quite simply a projector. Leela shows Jago a picture in the ‘Magic Lantern’ – an image of a typical busy London. She explains the photograph had been taken at some point in the future. She tells him to focus on what shouldn’t be there. The picture has captured the image of a member of the Sevateem, Leela’s clan, in the background. More specifically, the man was Leela’s first kill. She explains that this man stole from her clan, so she fought and killed him in an honourable duel. Litefoot deduces that this picture must be able to photograph the victims a person has killed in their lifetime, but Leela refutes this by stating that her picture would be more crowded than this – a sentiment that unnerves her friends. But what she tells her friends afterwards alarms them further, while they can see a busy London photograph, Leela can only see the Sevateem warrior she killed and no one else. She implores the group to look again at the photograph. All three friends recoil in horror at what they each see individually. Ellie saw a man called Peter, but doesn’t believe it to be him as he’s dead. Litefoot saw a woman called Elizabeth, but fails to recall her surname. The sight of her causes Litefoot visible distress, and he explains that she was a patient of his while he was a medical student. What should’ve been a routine operation lead to serious complications that lead to her death. Litefoot was distraught at causing the death of an innocent woman and ultimately decided to take up a career as a pathologist as he couldn’t bear to operate on living people in risk of losing their lives.
Jago is asked as to who he saw, but he is reluctant to do so. He relents and states that he saw a woman of no importance to him. Leela presses further and Jago gives in and reveals that he saw a chorus girl from the Palace Theatre called Matilda Vain. The girl fell pregnant so to keep his Theatre’s staff record spotless, Jago fired her with full pay to keep her afloat. Unfortunately, a few days later, Jago learned that Vain was found drowned in the Thames. The fact the girl had died because of his haste haunted Jago ever since…
As the group continues to look at the projector’s pictures, they begin to see more faces that they wish they hadn’t seen. Jago turns off the projector and Leela assumes that the picture is a part of the creature’s essence – the creature called Remorse. Remorse feeds on guilt and self-loathing until its victims eventually die, and London will become its new feeding ground if its not stopped…
In the style of a theatre host, Jago introduces Ellie to tell the group what she saw. She recalls the night before that she was cleaning the bar just before closing time when she noticed one of her regulars called Old John slumped dead in the corner of the Red Tavern. She explains that he was a lush who continuously drank alcohol to never face the truth of his wife and children dying in a house fire. He was the reason why Ellie sought Litefoot today because his dead eyes were wide with fear and his arms were stretched out as if he was warding something off.
Jago once more introduces ‘the next act’, Litefoot to the stage. Litefoot recalls how Ellie summoned him to the Red Tavern to examine Old John’s corpse. At the time, Litefoot deduced that John had died of fright. Nonetheless, he and Ellie visited John’s squalid residence to search for possibilities as to what could have killed him but learned nothing. The two investigators returned to the Red Tavern to examine John’s body further. While Litefoot was unable to perform a full autopsy due to lack of proper medical equipment, he learned that nothing out of the ordinary was present aside from liver inflammation from heavy drinking – John simply died suddenly…
Leela confirms that this is Remorse’s modus operandi, as she explains it makes the victim feel the weight of their sins before their eyes before they die. Litefoot continues by stating that if he wished to discover what truly happened to John, he needed another corpse that had died in similar circumstances, which would have been difficult as Litefoot didn’t have access to the morgue. Thankfully, Ellie had bribed a local undertaker with a few free beers in exchange for access to a few corpses. He found a body with similar circumstances to John who had only died two days before John – a woman named Eliza. Eliza’s husband had died in a railway accident years prior. At the time, she was also expecting a baby. Unfortunately, the stress of losing her husband caused her to suffer a miscarriage. As such, she spent her final few years of life in solitude until she passed away from grief. Looking at Eliza’s body caused the horrific memories of losing Elizabeth come flooding back into his mind, at which point Remorse took advantage and pursued Litefoot and Ellie like a shadow slinking after them. In the chaos, all Litefoot could hear was Elizabeth’s voice laughing menacingly…
Jago offers Litefoot a drink to calm his nerves, but Litefoot suddenly accosts Jago and calls him a raving alcoholic. The drink has clearly gotten the better of Jago and he and Litefoot come to blows with each other. Leela and Ellie restrain the two investigators, and they both immediately regain their composure and apologise. Leela is concerned as she has never known Jago and Litefoot to resort to fisticuffs. She believes that Remorse is much closer than anticipated. Jago however decides to continue with the show and believes that they all need cheering up. It’s his time in the spotlight!
Jago grandiosely introduces himself to his ‘audience’ and proceeds to perform a juggling act. Unfortunately, he drops all three balls and reality begins to hit Jago as he’s still rather inebriated. To compromise, Jago decides to juggle just one ball, which doesn’t impress his friends in the slightest. Jago refuses to accept his incompetence at juggling and blames Remorse for interfering with his act and stating that it has somehow gained access to the flat. He begins to wallow in despair at the situation that they’re in, stating how he, Litefoot, Ellie and Leela have been reduced to hiding when the bad guys should be hiding from them. He commends Ellie for her bravery and heroism during the battle with The Colonel…but also reminds her that she herself got captured, the Queen’s spy Agatha Worthing was killed in action and the outcome of the factory attack had put Litefoot on trial for murder. He turns to Litefoot and reminds him of the time when he was possessed by the soul of a dead woman during the events of ‘Jago in Love’, much to Litefoot’s chagrin. Finally, he turns to Leela and reminds her of the time she helped him and Litefoot defeat Warren Gadd, but also getting herself trapped in his infinite library. He reflects on how he seems to catch the eye of the ladies at his advanced age, but they always seem to be a part of a grand evil scheme – possibly referring to Abigail Woburn, but he can’t seem to fault himself whereas he’s just stated faults in his friends. On the subject of love, he ponders whether or not he’ll die alone. But he quickly cheers up and states that despite their circumstances, they’re all healthy and alive…but with no positive reputation, money or security…
In order to take his mind off the depressing situation, Jago tries to juggle once more and fails. Ellie takes a ball and begins to show off sleight of hand tricks with it, much to the groups amazement. Jago is so impressed that he decides to introduce Ellie as the next act, much to her hesitation.
Jago gives Ellie an unflattering introduction, particularly emphasising her bodily proportions. Ellie decides to show the group some sleight of hand tricks she learnt behind the bar at the Red Tavern. She takes Jago’s handkerchief from his breast pocket and pulls on it to find several world country flags attached to it as she continues pulling on it, much to the amazement of everyone watching. She continues by performing the ‘coin behind the ear’ trick on Jago, producing a dove from Litefoot’s top hat and conjures a rabbit from Jago’s trousers. While Litefoot and Leela are astounded, Jago, being a seasoned theatre empresario, isn’t impressed. Ellie states that because of his theatre upbringing, Jago’s lost the wonder of seeing such tricks as he’s seen all the setups and knows how they work. Jago despairs how out of all the acts, illusionists and magicians he’s hosted, he was the greatest of them all – having to pretend to be amazed and agape with astonishment while his acts performed. His friends try to bring him out of his slump as Leela warns him his depressive mood is empowering Remorse. Jago cries out that there is no escaping Remorse. Leela decides to cheer Jago up and asks him to announce her to the stage…
Jago introduces Leela to the stage, but as ‘the dog-faced boy’ freakshow. Leela is upset by the description and demands Jago to explain what makes her like a freakshow act. After all, she’s tried her best to fit into Victorian society by dressing in something other than her hunter skins and has learned a great deal from The Doctor. Jago explains that out of all the assembled friends in the flat, Leela has seen and done a lot of horrific things in her life and doesn’t seem the least phased by any of it, even the notion of killing someone comes to Leela quite naturally. Leela responds that while she has done a lot of deplorable acts in her life, she feels a great amount of regret for them.
In order to turn their attention, Leela brings up the Magic Lantern once more. She explains how it showed her the image of the first man she killed. She felt powerful and strong, but once the euphoria passed, she felt sadness and regret as to her tribe, it was her final day as a child…
Ellie’s vision in the Lantern was of her ex-lover Peter, or better known as Black Peter as he was a violent drunk when he had a few to drink. Ellie explained that Peter would only get drunk and violent when he had finally received his pay, so for six days of the week he was an amicable man until the payday. She felt obligated to stay with him as his violent side only showed once a week. Eventually, Peter never came home and Ellie was left waiting night after night. She eventually realised that Peter had left her with all his debts and disappeared without a word.
Litefoot opens up on his vision of Eliza and confesses a rather disturbing truth…he killed her. He explains that Eliza was a medical student and colleague of his during his formative years. One day, Eliza fell ill and Litefoot was eager to impress and gain some credibility by carrying out her operation. Unfortunately, whilst carrying out the routine procedure of sedating Eliza with opiates, Litefoot accidently sedated her with too much opium and she died of an overdose. While his professors reassured Litefoot that he wouldn’t be scandalised, Litefoot himself couldn’t forgive his own arrogance and swore from operating on living people again, thus turning to pathology.
Jago decides to talk about his vision, a showgirl from his theatre called Matilda Vain. Vain was a woman who slept her way through life with various men of ill repute, which Jago felt was bad for the theatre’s reputation should word of it spread. He decided to take her backstage and offered to marry her to keep her from straying off the good path and keep her in check. Vain simply laughed at him stating that he was too old for her. Jago felt disheartened as this was the first time he was starting to feel his age. Weeks later, Vain had asked Jago for help with her personal problems, but Jago was embittered by his previous conversation with her and fired her in front of his performers. That evening, snow had fallen on the city. Jago reminisced about how he would be delighted at the sight, but that evening, he was depressed and couldn’t see the joy in it anymore…
Leela deduces that not only does the lantern show them visions of their regrets, but also of when they each grew exponentially as people, for better or worse. Jago brings up the comment about the dog-faced boy analogy he used on Leela earlier – commenting on how he used that description because she looked sad. Leela questions why she should have any reason not to be sad: Her family are all dead, she’s been exiled from the Sevateem, she keeps company with people who think very little of her and her husband Andred is dead. Ellie breaks the tension by asking Jago to introduce her to the stage once more.
Jago once more introduces Ellie to the stage. Ellie opens her set by asking the ‘audience’ a simple question – ‘What is truly going on?’ Leela summarises the situation for Ellie by stating that she has returned to Earth to hunt Remorse, Jago wishes to return to his theatre, but Remorse could be stalking outside the building, and so they are putting on a pretend theatre production to distract him. Ellie has her own theory, ever since they’ve convened inside to hide from Remorse, they’ve all been under the assumption that Remorse is outside, but what if it somehow got in…and took the form of one of their friends? Ellie immediately accuses Jago of being Remorse in disguise or possessed by Remorse as he’s been constantly bringing down everyone’s spirits. Jago desperately tries to stand up for himself, but Leela needs no further explanation and pounces on Jago demanding to know where the real Jago is before she slits his throat. Litefoot isn’t taking chances and believes that Jago may have been infected by Remorse’s influence without realising. Jago bites back at his friend and accuses Litefoot of leading Remorse to the house after it chased them from the undertaker as it was attracted to the scent of death on him, as he handles corpses as a profession. Litefoot takes offense to this accusation and accuses Leela as she reeks of death more than he does as she has killed many foes herself. Leela angrily accuses Ellie of being Remorse as she has surrounded herself with lowlifes at her pub who would make excellent hosts for Remorse, plus the corpse of Old John would’ve made an excellent reason for Ellie to bring Litefoot around to infect him…
With tensions running high, Leela challenges Ellie and the two come to blows. Litefoot desperately tries to break the two women up and eventually does so by banging a gong. The sound resonates and the two women stop fighting and apologise. Jago deduces that the infighting is the machinations of Remorse to try and weaken their resolves further. Litefoot ponders the true form of Remorse and wonders if the creature was really just a figment of their collective fears and imagination? After all, there’s no definitive proof that Old John died at the hands of Remorse. Litefoot decides to open the window to allow some air into the room, but everyone else restrains him in fear of allowing Remorse access into the room. Litefoot reasons that Remorse doesn’t exist because each person aside from Litefoot has a reason to believe its real – Leela because she was raised to be aware of supernatural beings, Ellie simply follows and trusts what everyone else believes and Jago is too drunk to think sensibly, whereas Litefoot isn’t under any form of malign influence. Jago drunkenly stands up and tries to explain his plan to defeat this malevolent force manipulating the group. He asks that they all join hands and that they all trust him. It’s now time for the final act…
Jago introduces the final act – a sing along! He starts off by slovenly singing the opening verses of Joseph J. Sullivan’s ‘Where Did You Get That Hat?’. Litefoot and Ellie eventually join in and once they finish, they all laugh at their poor rendition, but nonetheless Jago has managed to lift everyone’s mood. Leela is confused and asks what the point of the singing was. Jago explains that Remorse worked by influencing their moods and extracting information to use against each other. By forcing them to dwell on their sordid pasts, it grew in power and influence. He explains that they all need to forgive themselves, move forward and accept that they can’t change the past. He explains that all this fear and paranoia of the creature lurking outside manifested precisely and coincidently…when Leela materialised in the room as Litefoot and Ellie were trying to force the door shut...
Leela stands up for herself and reasons that they accuse her because she’s an outsider in their lives. But Jago continues his explanation by stating that when Ellie stated that Jago lost his sense of wonder thanks to the theatre, he realised she was right in saying so. Ellie didn’t try to manipulate his feelings, she was stating the facts. So that left Leela as the only other suspect. Jago had tried to warn the group beforehand, but no one listened as they had assumed he was drunk. After all, Leela was the one who brought the Magic Lantern into the flat and explained what they were seeing. Leela accuses everybody of being misled by Remorse again, but Jago isn’t fooled, as he explains that the real Leela would’ve killed them all by now for their accusatory remarks – a simple trait that Remorse didn’t account for…
With the ruse over, Leela transforms into Remorse’s true form and gloats that it has done its bit. It has proven that their lives are worthless and will bring them to an end. The three friends join hands once more and sing ‘Where Did You Get That Hat?’ once more in order to block out Remorse, which seems to work. Remorse dissipates into nothingness, but warns them that the people they’ve betrayed and wronged will be waiting for them…
The three friends breathe a sigh of relief as they’ve survived another infernal encounter. Litefoot explains to Ellie that they accidently led Remorse to the house. When it tried to gain physical access, it faced resistance at the door. So it adopted a more sophisticated approach and took on Leela’s form manifested from Jago’s memories and manipulated them that way. Litefoot states that if anything is to be learned from this encounter is that its not healthy to dwell on bad memories. As optimistic individuals, they should all look to the next day. Even if the next day is another day of hiding from the law…
