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Changed line(s) 78 (click to see context) from:
* SpringHeeledJack: Jack is among the wax statues brought to life for HistorysCrimeWave. [[OccultDetective Edwin]] drops a quick throwaway line about how much trouble he was to put down in real life.
to:
* SpringHeeledJack: Jack is among the wax statues brought to life for HistorysCrimeWave.a HistoricalDomainCrossover. [[OccultDetective Edwin]] drops a quick throwaway line about how much trouble he was to put down in real life.
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Deleted line(s) 13 (click to see context) :
* ArchivedArmy: The villain magically animates waxworks from Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, including Burke and Hare, Dr Crippen, Charlie Peace, George Joseph Smith (the "Brides in the Bath" killer) and -- this being the Diogenes universe -- [[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles Rodger Baskerville]] and Literature/VarneyTheVampire.
Changed line(s) 53 (click to see context) from:
* HistorysCrimeWave: All the villains in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors are magically animated and sent out on a crime spree to serve as a distraction.
to:
* HistorysCrimeWave: All the villains in HistoricalDomainCrossover: The villain magically animates waxworks from Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors are magically animated Horrors, including Burke and sent out on a crime spree to serve as a distraction.Hare, Dr Crippen, Charlie Peace, George Joseph Smith (the "Brides in the Bath" killer) and -- this being the Diogenes universe -- [[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles Rodger Baskerville]] and Literature/VarneyTheVampire.
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misuse
Deleted line(s) 56,58 (click to see context) :
* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY:
** The headquarters of the Undertaking is the Mausoleum -- "by tradition, 'Mouse-o-lay-um' not 'Maws-o-lee-um'".
** Margery Device, the current Witch of London. Edwin makes clear that her name is pronounced more like "Davis".
** The headquarters of the Undertaking is the Mausoleum -- "by tradition, 'Mouse-o-lay-um' not 'Maws-o-lee-um'".
** Margery Device, the current Witch of London. Edwin makes clear that her name is pronounced more like "Davis".
Added DiffLines:
* PronouncingMyNameForYou:
** The headquarters of the Undertaking is the Mausoleum -- "by tradition, 'Mouse-o-lay-um' not 'Maws-o-lee-um'".
** Margery Device, the current Witch of London. Edwin makes clear that her name is pronounced more like "Davis".
** The headquarters of the Undertaking is the Mausoleum -- "by tradition, 'Mouse-o-lay-um' not 'Maws-o-lee-um'".
** Margery Device, the current Witch of London. Edwin makes clear that her name is pronounced more like "Davis".
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None
Changed line(s) 45 (click to see context) from:
* {{Fainting}}: Zenf's female accomplice covers his exit from a meeting with Charles by fake-fainting and knocking Charles over.
to:
* {{Fainting}}: FakeFaint: Zenf's female accomplice covers his exit from a meeting with Charles by fake-fainting pretending to faint and knocking Charles over.
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None
Changed line(s) 24,25 (click to see context) from:
** The guests at Margery's party include a railway magnate named Lord Kilpartinger who appears to be under some kind of curse. His story is told more fully in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train".
** Another of Margery's guests is the notorious [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Colonel Moran]], with Charles remarking that he's surprised Moran's not dead yet. The story of his eventual death is also in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train".
** Another of Margery's guests is the notorious [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Colonel Moran]], with Charles remarking that he's surprised Moran's not dead yet. The story of his eventual death is also in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train".
to:
** The guests at Margery's party include a railway magnate named Lord Kilpartinger who appears to be under some kind of curse. His story is told more fully in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train".
"Literature/TheManWhoGotOffTheGhostTrain".
** Another of Margery's guests is the notorious [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Colonel Moran]], with Charles remarking that he's surprised Moran's not dead yet. The story of his eventual death is also in"The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train"."Literature/TheManWhoGotOffTheGhostTrain".
** Another of Margery's guests is the notorious [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Colonel Moran]], with Charles remarking that he's surprised Moran's not dead yet. The story of his eventual death is also in
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
misuse; replaced with A True Story In My Universe
Deleted line(s) 62,64 (click to see context) :
* LiteraryAgentHypothesis:
** There's a reference to "the biographer" of Mycroft's more famous brother, i.e. Creator/ArthurConanDoyle.
** Winthrop bumps into [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]] unleashing a ClusterBleepBomb and reflects how much Creator/PGWodehouse has to clean up the Earl's language.
** There's a reference to "the biographer" of Mycroft's more famous brother, i.e. Creator/ArthurConanDoyle.
** Winthrop bumps into [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]] unleashing a ClusterBleepBomb and reflects how much Creator/PGWodehouse has to clean up the Earl's language.
Added DiffLines:
* ATrueStoryInMyUniverse:
** There's a reference to "the biographer" of Mycroft's more famous brother, i.e. Creator/ArthurConanDoyle.
** Winthrop bumps into [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]] unleashing a ClusterBleepBomb and reflects how much Creator/PGWodehouse has to clean up the Earl's language.
** There's a reference to "the biographer" of Mycroft's more famous brother, i.e. Creator/ArthurConanDoyle.
** Winthrop bumps into [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]] unleashing a ClusterBleepBomb and reflects how much Creator/PGWodehouse has to clean up the Earl's language.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* SpringHeeledJack: Jack is among the wax statues brought to life for HistorysCrimeWave. [[OccultDetective Edwin]] drops a quick throwaway line about how much trouble he was to put down in real life.
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moved to Shout Out page
Deleted line(s) 79,107 (click to see context) :
* ShoutOut:
** The Undertaking have their base on Egdon Heath, the fictional moorland in the works of Creator/ThomasHardy.
** Mention is made of an operation by the Diogenes Club's American counterparts a few years earlier to clean up [[Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth Innsmouth, Massachusetts]].
** In one of the Literature/SherlockHolmes stories, Watson mentions the unsolved case of "Isadora Persano, the wellknown journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a matchbox in front of him which contained a remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science." In this story, Persano was a Great Enchanter defeated by the Diogenes Club and their allies in 1903, and he and the worm were taken into custody by the Undertaking.
** Charles and Geneviève have a conversation about [[Literature/{{Dracula}} Professor Van Helsing]].
** The warden of the ExtranormalPrison mentions "the Lake [=LaMetrie=] elasmosaur", from "The Monster of Lake [=LaMetrie=]" by Wardon Allan Curtis.
** Geneviève's alias of Geneva Deodati is a reference to the Villa Diodati in Geneva, Switzerland, which holds a special place in the history of horror because it's where Mary Shelley came up with the idea for ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' and Polidori came up with ''Literature/TheVampyre''.
** Literature/CarnackiTheGhostFinder and Doctor Nikola (a supervillain created by Guy Boothby) are named among the people who joined forces to help defeat Isadore Persano.
** Geneviève mentions a gang war between the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang Tong of Weng-Chiang]] and the [[Literature/FuManchu Si Fan]].
** Named associates of the Diogenes Club include [[Literature/TheManWhoWouldBeKing Danny Dravot]], Baroness Orczy's PhoneInDetective known only as "the old man in the corner", Literature/SirHenryMerrivale, [[Creator/AlgernonBlackwood Dr John Silence]], Harry Dickson (the French pulp hero called "the American Sherlock Holmes"), and Morris Klaw (an occult detective, one of the less-known creations of Sax Rohmer, creator of Literature/FuManchu).
** Characters who have been refused association with the Diogenes Club due to being unprofessional and/or excessively violent include [[Literature/{{Dracula}} Abraham Van Helsing]], Literature/BulldogDrummond, and Michael Bellamy (from ''The Green Archer'' by Edgar Wallace).
** Geneviève compares Zenf to Napoleon, Literature/{{Dracula}}, and the Beetle. (''The Beetle'' was a horror novel by Richard Marsh that came out the same year as ''Dracula'' and was initially the bigger hit.)
** Margery Device's surname is a historical shout-out: several women with that surname were among the accused in the Lancashire witch trial of 1612, one of the largest and most famous witch hunts in English history.
** Literature/SherlockHolmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty is mentioned a couple of times, once to compare Zenf to him, and once while describing Sorcerer's professional qualifications as an astronomer; apparently he debunked Moriarty's famous work ''The Dynamics of an Asteroid'', which according to this story predicted that said asteroid was on a disastrous collision course with Earth.
** The list of Zenf's associates includes [[Film/TheMagician Oliver Haddo]], [[Film/RosemarysBaby Adrian Marcato]], Hamish Corbie (from ''The Death of the King's Canary'' by Creator/DylanThomas and John Davenport), Anselm Oakes (from "A Visit to Anselm Oakes" by Christopher Isherwood), [[Film/TheBlackCat Hjalmar Poelzig]], [[Literature/TheDevilRidesOut Mocata]], and [[Film/NightoftheDemon Julian Karswell]]. (As a fun side-note, nearly everbody on this list was a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Creator/AleisterCrowley.)
** The official portrait of Mycroft in Charles's office was painted by Hallward, the artist who painted Literature/{{the picture of Dorian Gray}}. Charles comments that he feels "the artist had not, in this case, truly captured his subject's soul."
** One of the guests at Margery's party is wearing a pair of ruby cufflinks made from the eyes of a golden pagan idol, a reference to "The Green Eye of the Yellow God" by J Milton Hayes, in which an Englishman steals one of the emerald eyes of a pagan idol and suffers a terrible fate.
** The guests at Margery's party include [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]].
** The subjects of Margery's society gossip include, among various real-life figures, [[Literature/TheSaint Simon Templar]], [[Film/PandoraAndTheFlyingDutchman Pandora Reynolds]], [[Literature/JeevesAndWooster Roderick Spode]], [[Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd Roger Ackroyd]], [[Literature/{{Rebecca}} Rebecca DeWinter]], Literature/LordPeterWimsey, Literature/PhiloVance, [[Literature/FuManchu Dennis Nayland-Smith]], Literature/MissMarple, and both Sexton Blake and Sexton Blake's nemesis Zenith the Albino (who Margery claims is not a real albino at all, but dyes his hair for effect).
** The animated waxworks of famous murderers include, among various real-life figures, [[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles Rodger Baskerville]], [[Literature/VarneyTheVampire Sir Francis Varney]], [[Theatre/TheBeggarsOpera Captain Macheath]], [[Literature/TheWomanInWhite Sir Percival Glyde]], [[Film/{{M}} Franz Beckert]], and Theatre/SweeneyTodd.
** Among the acts performing at the same theatre as the Great Edmondo are [[Film/The39Steps1935 Mr Memory]] and a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of comic monologist Stanley Holloway.
** Catriona has written a monograph on Martin Hesselius (a trope-codifying occult detective created by Creator/JosephSheridanLeFanu).
** Geneviève name-drops [[Literature/{{Carmilla}} Millie Karnstein]], [[Literature/TheVampyre Lord Ruthven]], and Literature/{{Dracula}} as vampires she has known.
** There's a mention of a London gang called the [[Literature/SherlockHolmes New Red-Headed League]].
** Dr Chambers' medical supplies include [[Film/TheMummysHand tana leaves]].
** While helping thwart Zenf's demonic summoning, Catriona mentions precedents involving Frank Chandler (from the radio series ''Chandu the Magician'') and the [[Literature/TheDevilRidesOut Duc de Richeleau]], and an incident in [[Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda Strelsau]].
** Geneviève compares a villain to Literature/{{Fantomas}} and Literature/ArseneLupin.
** During a discussion of doorways-between-worlds located around London, Margery says she's heard of one associated with "[[Series/DoctorWho one of those 'not for the use of the public' telephone box affairs]]", adding that it "comes and goes".
** Mycroft's contingency plan for dealing with Zenf has the subtitle "With Notes Upon the Segregation of a Great Enchanter". After his retirement, Literature/SherlockHolmes wrote ''Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen''.
** The Undertaking have their base on Egdon Heath, the fictional moorland in the works of Creator/ThomasHardy.
** Mention is made of an operation by the Diogenes Club's American counterparts a few years earlier to clean up [[Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth Innsmouth, Massachusetts]].
** In one of the Literature/SherlockHolmes stories, Watson mentions the unsolved case of "Isadora Persano, the wellknown journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a matchbox in front of him which contained a remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science." In this story, Persano was a Great Enchanter defeated by the Diogenes Club and their allies in 1903, and he and the worm were taken into custody by the Undertaking.
** Charles and Geneviève have a conversation about [[Literature/{{Dracula}} Professor Van Helsing]].
** The warden of the ExtranormalPrison mentions "the Lake [=LaMetrie=] elasmosaur", from "The Monster of Lake [=LaMetrie=]" by Wardon Allan Curtis.
** Geneviève's alias of Geneva Deodati is a reference to the Villa Diodati in Geneva, Switzerland, which holds a special place in the history of horror because it's where Mary Shelley came up with the idea for ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' and Polidori came up with ''Literature/TheVampyre''.
** Literature/CarnackiTheGhostFinder and Doctor Nikola (a supervillain created by Guy Boothby) are named among the people who joined forces to help defeat Isadore Persano.
** Geneviève mentions a gang war between the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang Tong of Weng-Chiang]] and the [[Literature/FuManchu Si Fan]].
** Named associates of the Diogenes Club include [[Literature/TheManWhoWouldBeKing Danny Dravot]], Baroness Orczy's PhoneInDetective known only as "the old man in the corner", Literature/SirHenryMerrivale, [[Creator/AlgernonBlackwood Dr John Silence]], Harry Dickson (the French pulp hero called "the American Sherlock Holmes"), and Morris Klaw (an occult detective, one of the less-known creations of Sax Rohmer, creator of Literature/FuManchu).
** Characters who have been refused association with the Diogenes Club due to being unprofessional and/or excessively violent include [[Literature/{{Dracula}} Abraham Van Helsing]], Literature/BulldogDrummond, and Michael Bellamy (from ''The Green Archer'' by Edgar Wallace).
** Geneviève compares Zenf to Napoleon, Literature/{{Dracula}}, and the Beetle. (''The Beetle'' was a horror novel by Richard Marsh that came out the same year as ''Dracula'' and was initially the bigger hit.)
** Margery Device's surname is a historical shout-out: several women with that surname were among the accused in the Lancashire witch trial of 1612, one of the largest and most famous witch hunts in English history.
** Literature/SherlockHolmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty is mentioned a couple of times, once to compare Zenf to him, and once while describing Sorcerer's professional qualifications as an astronomer; apparently he debunked Moriarty's famous work ''The Dynamics of an Asteroid'', which according to this story predicted that said asteroid was on a disastrous collision course with Earth.
** The list of Zenf's associates includes [[Film/TheMagician Oliver Haddo]], [[Film/RosemarysBaby Adrian Marcato]], Hamish Corbie (from ''The Death of the King's Canary'' by Creator/DylanThomas and John Davenport), Anselm Oakes (from "A Visit to Anselm Oakes" by Christopher Isherwood), [[Film/TheBlackCat Hjalmar Poelzig]], [[Literature/TheDevilRidesOut Mocata]], and [[Film/NightoftheDemon Julian Karswell]]. (As a fun side-note, nearly everbody on this list was a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Creator/AleisterCrowley.)
** The official portrait of Mycroft in Charles's office was painted by Hallward, the artist who painted Literature/{{the picture of Dorian Gray}}. Charles comments that he feels "the artist had not, in this case, truly captured his subject's soul."
** One of the guests at Margery's party is wearing a pair of ruby cufflinks made from the eyes of a golden pagan idol, a reference to "The Green Eye of the Yellow God" by J Milton Hayes, in which an Englishman steals one of the emerald eyes of a pagan idol and suffers a terrible fate.
** The guests at Margery's party include [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]].
** The subjects of Margery's society gossip include, among various real-life figures, [[Literature/TheSaint Simon Templar]], [[Film/PandoraAndTheFlyingDutchman Pandora Reynolds]], [[Literature/JeevesAndWooster Roderick Spode]], [[Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd Roger Ackroyd]], [[Literature/{{Rebecca}} Rebecca DeWinter]], Literature/LordPeterWimsey, Literature/PhiloVance, [[Literature/FuManchu Dennis Nayland-Smith]], Literature/MissMarple, and both Sexton Blake and Sexton Blake's nemesis Zenith the Albino (who Margery claims is not a real albino at all, but dyes his hair for effect).
** The animated waxworks of famous murderers include, among various real-life figures, [[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles Rodger Baskerville]], [[Literature/VarneyTheVampire Sir Francis Varney]], [[Theatre/TheBeggarsOpera Captain Macheath]], [[Literature/TheWomanInWhite Sir Percival Glyde]], [[Film/{{M}} Franz Beckert]], and Theatre/SweeneyTodd.
** Among the acts performing at the same theatre as the Great Edmondo are [[Film/The39Steps1935 Mr Memory]] and a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of comic monologist Stanley Holloway.
** Catriona has written a monograph on Martin Hesselius (a trope-codifying occult detective created by Creator/JosephSheridanLeFanu).
** Geneviève name-drops [[Literature/{{Carmilla}} Millie Karnstein]], [[Literature/TheVampyre Lord Ruthven]], and Literature/{{Dracula}} as vampires she has known.
** There's a mention of a London gang called the [[Literature/SherlockHolmes New Red-Headed League]].
** Dr Chambers' medical supplies include [[Film/TheMummysHand tana leaves]].
** While helping thwart Zenf's demonic summoning, Catriona mentions precedents involving Frank Chandler (from the radio series ''Chandu the Magician'') and the [[Literature/TheDevilRidesOut Duc de Richeleau]], and an incident in [[Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda Strelsau]].
** Geneviève compares a villain to Literature/{{Fantomas}} and Literature/ArseneLupin.
** During a discussion of doorways-between-worlds located around London, Margery says she's heard of one associated with "[[Series/DoctorWho one of those 'not for the use of the public' telephone box affairs]]", adding that it "comes and goes".
** Mycroft's contingency plan for dealing with Zenf has the subtitle "With Notes Upon the Segregation of a Great Enchanter". After his retirement, Literature/SherlockHolmes wrote ''Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen''.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
* Area51: The Mausoleum seems to be a shout out, rather fittingly considering [[TheMenInBlack whose base it is]]. It's located in rather desolate heathlands, about as close to the Arizona desert as the British Isles can get.
* CoolCar: Beauregard has a Bentley and the Undertaking has a Black Mariah (a contemporary police vehicle, usually used as a hearse).
Changed line(s) 114 (click to see context) from:
** "Witch" is a gossipy high society lady. Her role is to know all the city's stories and secrets.
to:
** "Witch" is a gossipy high society lady.lady who sometimes does [[FortuneTeller tea leaf readings]]. Her role is to know all the city's stories and secrets.
Changed line(s) 116 (click to see context) from:
** "Sorcerer" is the deputy Astrologer Royal (despite Cat's correction, Edwin seems quite sure that "Astrologer" is the appropriate term here, not "Astronomer"). He apparently keeps a tab on various {{Eldritch Abomination}}s who might be roused should the stars become right.
to:
** "Sorcerer" is the deputy [[CourtMage Astrologer Royal Royal]] (despite Cat's correction, Edwin seems quite sure that "Astrologer" is the appropriate term here, not "Astronomer"). He apparently keeps a tab on various {{Eldritch Abomination}}s who might be roused should the stars become right.
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None
Changed line(s) 98 (click to see context) from:
** Catriona has written a monograph on Martin Hesselius (a trope-codifying occult detective created by J Sheridan Le Fanu).
to:
** Catriona has written a monograph on Martin Hesselius (a trope-codifying occult detective created by J Sheridan Le Fanu).Creator/JosephSheridanLeFanu).
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None
Changed line(s) 116 (click to see context) from:
** "Sorcerer" is the deputy Astrologer Royal (despite Cat's correction, Edwin seems quite sure that "Astrologer" is the appropriate term here, not "Astronomer"). He apparently keeps a tab on various EldritchAbominations who might be roused should the stars become right.
to:
** "Sorcerer" is the deputy Astrologer Royal (despite Cat's correction, Edwin seems quite sure that "Astrologer" is the appropriate term here, not "Astronomer"). He apparently keeps a tab on various EldritchAbominations {{Eldritch Abomination}}s who might be roused should the stars become right.
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None
Added DiffLines:
* UnEqualRites: The Ravens all have specific job titles.
** "Witch" is a gossipy high society lady. Her role is to know all the city's stories and secrets.
** "Conjuror" is a stage magician and apparently TheBigGuy of the group. MagiciansAreWizards appears to be the theme, as his predecessor was a carnival performer.
** "Sorcerer" is the deputy Astrologer Royal (despite Cat's correction, Edwin seems quite sure that "Astrologer" is the appropriate term here, not "Astronomer"). He apparently keeps a tab on various EldritchAbominations who might be roused should the stars become right.
** "Wizard" is an old kook who watches the literal ravens at the Tower of London. He can access and protect London's "shadow", a parallel universe where all local legends are real.
** "Witch" is a gossipy high society lady. Her role is to know all the city's stories and secrets.
** "Conjuror" is a stage magician and apparently TheBigGuy of the group. MagiciansAreWizards appears to be the theme, as his predecessor was a carnival performer.
** "Sorcerer" is the deputy Astrologer Royal (despite Cat's correction, Edwin seems quite sure that "Astrologer" is the appropriate term here, not "Astronomer"). He apparently keeps a tab on various EldritchAbominations who might be roused should the stars become right.
** "Wizard" is an old kook who watches the literal ravens at the Tower of London. He can access and protect London's "shadow", a parallel universe where all local legends are real.
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I will grant you that the Witch and Gene are both attractive and at least appear to be young, but Jennifer Shade is fifty years old and her attractiveness is not mentioned. (I assume you don't really mean Jamie Shade, who doesn't appear in this story because he's so young he hasn't been born yet, and also he is definitely not an attractive woman.)
Deleted line(s) 106 (click to see context) :
** A man called "Charles" happens to team up with three attractive young women (the Witch, Genevieve, and Jamie Shade); this is a reference to ''Series/CharliesAngels'' (and Newman pulled this joke with Charles Beauregard elsewhere in his works).
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Added DiffLines:
** A man called "Charles" happens to team up with three attractive young women (the Witch, Genevieve, and Jamie Shade); this is a reference to ''Series/CharliesAngels'' (and Newman pulled this joke with Charles Beauregard elsewhere in his works).
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None
* BleepDammit: [[Literature/BlandingsCastle The Earl of Emsworth]]'s profanity-laced tirade is dashed out, as it would have been in a work of the period if it were included at all. However, the first and last letter of each word is left in, and there's exactly one dash for each omitted letter (e.g. "b[=----=]r") so any reader can fill in the blanks if they have the vocabulary.
Changed line(s) 61 (click to see context) from:
** Winthrop bumps into [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]] unleashing a ClusterFBomb and reflects how much Creator/PGWodehouse has to clean up the Earl's language.
to:
** Winthrop bumps into [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]] unleashing a ClusterFBomb ClusterBleepBomb and reflects how much Creator/PGWodehouse has to clean up the Earl's language.
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None
Changed line(s) 27 (click to see context) from:
* ClusterFBomb: [[Literature/BlandingsCastle Lord Emsworth]] unleashes an expletive-filled rant (dashed out) when faced with somebody who has no interest in pigs. Edwin reflects on how much Creator/PGWodehouse must tone down the language in his books.
to:
* ClusterFBomb: ClusterBleepBomb: [[Literature/BlandingsCastle Lord Emsworth]] unleashes an expletive-filled rant (dashed out) when faced with somebody who has no interest in pigs. Edwin reflects on how much Creator/PGWodehouse must tone down the language in his books.
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None
* AmbiguouslyHuman: TheMenInBlack who work for the Undertaking. They appear to be human, but they all have strange physical or behavioural quirks (not to mention whatever is hidden behind the SinisterShades), and theories about them vary from "they were humans before they were recruited, then something happened during their training" to "new Undertakers aren't recruited, they're grown in vats fertilized by the remains of their predecessors".
Changed line(s) 47 (click to see context) from:
* GadgetWatch: It's strongly implied that there's something interesting about Charles Beauregard's pocket watch "with the intricate crystal workings." The Undertaking refuse to let him into their HQ while carrying it, and he ''certainly'' refuses to let them look after it while he's there. Sadly, the glossary page explaining what it ''does'' has been censored by the current Diogenes chairperson.
to:
* GadgetWatch: GadgetWatches: It's strongly implied that there's something interesting about Charles Beauregard's pocket watch "with the intricate crystal workings." The Undertaking refuse to let him into their HQ while carrying it, and he ''certainly'' refuses to let them look after it while he's there. Sadly, the glossary page explaining what it ''does'' has been censored by the current Diogenes chairperson.
* MissingReflection: The vampire Geneviève appears in mirrors as a shadow or a smudgy and vaguely human-shaped cloud of smoke.
Changed line(s) 66,67 (click to see context) from:
* MissingReflection: The vampire Geneviève appears in mirrors as a shadow or a smudgy and vaguely human-shaped cloud of smoke.
* MythologyGag: This story features the first meeting and team-up of Charles Beauregard and Geneviève Dieudonné in the Diogenes Club timeline, and as such includes several nods to their different history in the ''Literature/AnnoDracula'' timeline, where they met and became friends in the 1890s during Dracula's invasion of England. There are several moments where they ponder what might have been had they met in different circumstances, and a scene where Geneviève talks about Dracula's scheme and how it failed in this timeline. When Charles is going through the Club's collection of contingency plans created by the late great Mycroft Holmes, he finds one labelled "In the event of the marriage of the sovereign to an evil consort with supernatural powers"; just such a contingency occurred in ''Anno Dracula'', and Charles was a key player in Mycroft's plan for dealing with it. Among other protections, Charles carries a silver scalpel in his notecase; a silver scalpel played a key role in the case in ''Anno Dracula''.
* MythologyGag: This story features the first meeting and team-up of Charles Beauregard and Geneviève Dieudonné in the Diogenes Club timeline, and as such includes several nods to their different history in the ''Literature/AnnoDracula'' timeline, where they met and became friends in the 1890s during Dracula's invasion of England. There are several moments where they ponder what might have been had they met in different circumstances, and a scene where Geneviève talks about Dracula's scheme and how it failed in this timeline. When Charles is going through the Club's collection of contingency plans created by the late great Mycroft Holmes, he finds one labelled "In the event of the marriage of the sovereign to an evil consort with supernatural powers"; just such a contingency occurred in ''Anno Dracula'', and Charles was a key player in Mycroft's plan for dealing with it. Among other protections, Charles carries a silver scalpel in his notecase; a silver scalpel played a key role in the case in ''Anno Dracula''.
to:
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* FameThroughInfamy: In a conversation with Geneviève about what the Diogenes Club knows of UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper, Edwin says that this was the Ripper's motivation.
-->'''Geneviève:''' Who was he?\\
'''Edwin:''' No one. That was his problem... A pathetic, vicious little man became a legend.
-->'''Geneviève:''' Who was he?\\
'''Edwin:''' No one. That was his problem... A pathetic, vicious little man became a legend.
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* AFoggyDayInLondonTown: Shadow London, where the mythical places and characters of the city live on, is naturally shrouded in fog. Edwin notes the difference between the fog of Shadow London, "thick mist, odourless but damp, arranged in artful drapes", and the real London's fog, which is "yellow-green and foul".
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"Sorcerer Conjurer Wizard Witch" is a novella in the ''Literature/DiogenesClub'' series by Creator/KimNewman.
It is the 1930s, and dark mutterings are coming from Europe, where Hitler has recently come to power. For the Diogenes Club, however, that's a problem for another day; they're engaged in a covert struggle against Colonel Zenf, the Great Enchanter, a DiabolicalMastermind gathering his forces for a secret Wizarding War.
Charles Beauregard, the Chairman of the Diogenes Club, receives a troubling message from an unexpected source, warning that there is a Rat in the ranks: one of the Ravens, the four powerful magic users who are the linchpins of England's magical defence, has gone bad and sold out to the Great Enchanter. Edwin Winthrop and Catriona Kaye are dispatched to discreetly investigate and identify the Rat: is it Sorcerer, Conjurer, Wizard, or Witch?
----
!!This story contains examples of:
* ActorRoleConfusion: All of Madame Tussaud's waxworks of famous murderers are magically animated and sent out into the city to sow havoc. In a bit of secondary havoc, a drunken man attacks the actor Ivor Novello, mistaking him for a waxwork of the serial killer depicted in the film ''Film/TheLodger''. Novello angrily points out that not only was it only a film, he didn't even play the serial killer, but the innocent man who was falsely accused.
* AllPartOfTheShow: {{Murderous Mannequin}}s attack Margery Device, the Witch, at a cocktail party she's holding. When she successfully fends them off with the help of Edwin and Catriona, most of the guests assume it's one of her famously elaborate floor shows.
* AndImTheQueenOfSheba: Charles says that if Colonel Zenf is really the great peacemaker he's publicly reputed to be, [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Moriarty]] was just a humble professor of mathematics.
* ArchivedArmy: The villain magically animates waxworks from Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, including Burke and Hare, Dr Crippen, Charlie Peace, George Joseph Smith (the "Brides in the Bath" killer) and -- this being the Diogenes universe -- [[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles Rodger Baskerville]] and Literature/VarneyTheVampire.
* ArmyOfTheAges: The armies of Shadow London. The Great Enchanter has all the mythical Barbarians at the Gate: "Vikings, French infantry, Roman legionnaires, ragged cavaliers, fire-spreaders, shaggy Anglo-Saxons, Martian squid-vampires, rowdies from the country and Prussian Uhlans". The good guys have "redcoats with muskets, knights in armour, tommies in tin hats, roundheads and cavaliers shoulder to shoulder, bloods and blades, pearly kings and queens, costers, tarts, loafers, brawlers, football fanatics with scarves and rattles, the ''haut ton'' and the ''demi-monde'', air-raid wardens, firemen, peelers, bobbies, Bow Street Runners, Chelsea pensioners, dandies, strollers and -- yes! -- Dick Whittington's Cat."
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The list of sinister activities Zenf has been associated with includes arms dealing, fascism, riots, scandalous deaths, pornography, ethnic cleansing, and the musical career of Music/GeorgeFormby.
* AsLongAsThereIsEvil: This seems to be the case for the Great Enchanter; whenever one Great Enchanter is killed or incapacitated, a new one arises to take over.
* BatmanGambit: Mycroft's contingency plan to deal with the Great Enchanter Colonel Zenf is based on people doing certain things if they believe certain facts to be true. It proceeds pretty much exactly according to plan, despite the fact that when Zenf emerges, Mycroft's been dead for fifteen years.
* BewitchedAmphibians: Played with -- Margery Device, the Witch, is rumoured to have turned a badly-behaved guest into a toad. Edwin says what actually happened is that he contracted a rare tropical skin condition that gave him a toad-like appearance.
* BookEnds: The story begins with Charles visiting the Undertaking's ExtranormalPrison to question Geneviève, and ends with him visiting the prison to start the questioning of Zenf. It's even mentioned that Zenf has been given the same cell Geneviève was held in.
* CallForward:
** Pondering the history of the Great Enchanters, Charles wonders if they don't "crawl full-grown out of filthy water, bereft of a past". We don't learn if this is true of Zenf, but it's exactly how his successor, Derek Leech, makes his entrance in ''Literature/TheQuorum''.
** The guests at Margery's party include a railway magnate named Lord Kilpartinger who appears to be under some kind of curse. His story is told more fully in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train".
** Another of Margery's guests is the notorious [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Colonel Moran]], with Charles remarking that he's surprised Moran's not dead yet. The story of his eventual death is also in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train".
** One of Margery's bits of celebrity gossip involves vigilante Dr Shade acquiring a new sidekick, IntrepidReporter Penny Stamp. In "The Original Dr Shade", written earlier but set later than this, Penny Stamp is recalled as Dr Shade's sidekick during the Nazi-thumping phase of his career.
* ChekhovsGun: The Diogenes Club has a collection of contingency plans bequeathed to it by the late great Mycroft Holmes. Charles goes through it to see if Mycroft foresaw anything applicable to the current situation, but finds nothing. Much later, it is revealed that Mycroft did write up a contingency plan for just this occasion, but gave it to someone outside the Diogenes Club because part of the plan was [[WeWouldHaveToldYouBut for the Diogenes Club to be caught off-guard so the Great Enchanter would believe things were going his way]].
* CircleOfStandingStones: The Undertaking's headquarters is built in a meteor crater surrounded by a circle of standing stones, "the Neolithic equivalent of the 'Danger--Keep Out' signs put up at the site of a bad fire or a subsidence in the road".
* ClusterFBomb: [[Literature/BlandingsCastle Lord Emsworth]] unleashes an expletive-filled rant (dashed out) when faced with somebody who has no interest in pigs. Edwin reflects on how much Creator/PGWodehouse must tone down the language in his books.
* ContinuityNod:
** During his visit to the Undertaking's ExtranormalPrison at the beginning of the story, Charles recalls the Club's earlier encounters with them in "Literature/AngelDownSussex" and "Literature/TheGypsiesInTheWood".
** The list of Zenf's known associates includes Declan Mountmain, the villain Charles Beauregard tangled with in "Seven Stars".
** There are several mentions of the Splendid Six and their leader Blackfist, who featured in "Literature/ClublandHeroes".
** One of Zenf's and Persano's predecessors was Leo Dare, the villain of "A Drug on the Market". Another was Nicholas Goodman, from "Mildew Manor".
** At a point where all hands are being metaphorically called on deck to help deal with the developing crisis, there's a cameo by the protagonist of ''Literature/TheSecretsOfDrearcliffGrangeSchool''.
* CoolBike: Dr Shade's motor cycle, which Edwin borrows, has built-in boosters, flamethrowers, and flare guns, and is specifically engineered with counterbalance systems and leg protectors and so on to permit extreme leaning turns and other such stunts.
* CreepyCrows: There's a small flock of friendly ravens (the ones who live in the Tower of London) and a much larger flock of murderous crows commanded by Zenf. It's noted that there isn't really an actual difference between ravens and crows.
* DirectLineToTheAuthor: At least one edition of the story includes explanatory endnotes that at one point are blanked out with a note saying that a portion has been omitted by order of the current Chair of the Diogenes Club.
* EnemyMine:
** The previous Great Enchanter was such a grave threat that the Diogenes Club and the Undertaking formally joined forces, with the lead MIB being temporarily inducted into the Ruling Cabal of the Club and Charles temporarily serving as an MIB himself, and at the final push "no fewer than fifteen of the world's premier magicians, occult detectives, psychic adventurers, criminal geniuses and visionary scientists set aside profound differences" to work together and defeat him.
** In the current crisis, the Diogenes Club and the Undertaking again pool resources, though the crisis is averted before it gets serious enough for the same degree of formal alliance.
* ExternallyValidatedProphecy: One of Margery Device's items of gossip involves Wallis Simpson's relationship with the Prince of Wales; at the time this story is set, it's just getting off the ground, but Margery correctly predicts its future course.
* ExtranormalPrison: The Undertaking's Mausoleum, originally founded during the reign of Elizabeth I to house a couple of evil magicians who refused to go quietly even after their heads were cut off. They're still in residence, along with the other prisoners the Undertaking have acquired in the subsequent centuries.
* {{Fainting}}: Zenf's female accomplice covers his exit from a meeting with Charles by fake-fainting and knocking Charles over.
* FiveSecondForeshadowing: Played for laughs. Colonel Zenf, at a gathering of underground figures, reaches into his pocket for his cigarette case and casually remarks that some pickpocket seems to have triggered the poisoned blade booby trap built into it. At that exact moment, the poison takes effect and a man standing nearby collapses, foaming at the mouth.
* GadgetWatch: It's strongly implied that there's something interesting about Charles Beauregard's pocket watch "with the intricate crystal workings." The Undertaking refuse to let him into their HQ while carrying it, and he ''certainly'' refuses to let them look after it while he's there. Sadly, the glossary page explaining what it ''does'' has been censored by the current Diogenes chairperson.
* {{Ghostapo}}: There's a passing mention that Hitler has revived the Thule Society, an occult group that often features in this trope.
* HistorysCrimeWave: All the villains in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors are magically animated and sent out on a crime spree to serve as a distraction.
* IndyHatRoll: Edwin escapes under a lowering portcullis in the nick of time ''on a motor cycle'', leaning over so far to fit under that he'd certainly have fallen off if it hadn't been a CoolBike borrowed from [[TheCowl a sinister vigilante]] who had it designed specifically to be able to pull off stunts like that.
* InspirationNod: The fellow cabal member Charles butts heads with over the future running of the Diogenes Club is named Tarr, which is also the name of the character in ''Literature/TinkerTailorSoldierSpy'' who brings the warning that one of four highly-placed people is a double agent.
* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY:
** The headquarters of the Undertaking is the Mausoleum -- "by tradition, 'Mouse-o-lay-um' not 'Maws-o-lee-um'".
** Margery Device, the current Witch of London. Edwin makes clear that her name is pronounced more like "Davis".
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Edwin is perplexed that Dr Shade is so paranoid as to have "an ingenious hobbling device" padlocked to his motor-cycle, as if something so hard to fence would be stolen.
* LandmarkingTheHiddenBase: It is mentioned that one of Dr Shade's secret lairs is in the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster.
* LegacyCharacter: The Ravens -- Sorcerer, Conjurer, Wizard, and Witch -- the mystic guardians of London, are the latest to stand in roles that have existed since the 11th century.
* LiteraryAgentHypothesis:
** There's a reference to "the biographer" of Mycroft's more famous brother, i.e. Creator/ArthurConanDoyle.
** Winthrop bumps into [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]] unleashing a ClusterFBomb and reflects how much Creator/PGWodehouse has to clean up the Earl's language.
* MagiciansAreWizards: The Great Edmondo, "Conjurer", is a stage magician who also possesses real and powerful magic.
* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: One of the Men in Black, under attack by murderous crows who have already torn a strip of skin off his face, merely comments, "Ouch."
* TheMenInBlack: The agents of the Undertaking dress all in black and always wear dark glasses. It's rumoured that they're not entirely human, and on at least some of them the glasses hide something horrible. They monitor paranormal activity and maintain an ExtranormalPrison.
* MisterStrangenoun: The agents of the Undertaking include Mr Hay, Mr Bee, Mr Eye, Miss Jeye, Mrs Elle, Mr Arrh, Mr Esse, and Master Wuh.
* MurderousMannequin: A group of wax figures from Madame Tussaud's is magically animated and sent out to cause trouble as a distraction.
* MissingReflection: The vampire Geneviève appears in mirrors as a shadow or a smudgy and vaguely human-shaped cloud of smoke.
* MythologyGag: This story features the first meeting and team-up of Charles Beauregard and Geneviève Dieudonné in the Diogenes Club timeline, and as such includes several nods to their different history in the ''Literature/AnnoDracula'' timeline, where they met and became friends in the 1890s during Dracula's invasion of England. There are several moments where they ponder what might have been had they met in different circumstances, and a scene where Geneviève talks about Dracula's scheme and how it failed in this timeline. When Charles is going through the Club's collection of contingency plans created by the late great Mycroft Holmes, he finds one labelled "In the event of the marriage of the sovereign to an evil consort with supernatural powers"; just such a contingency occurred in ''Anno Dracula'', and Charles was a key player in Mycroft's plan for dealing with it. Among other protections, Charles carries a silver scalpel in his notecase; a silver scalpel played a key role in the case in ''Anno Dracula''.
* NinjaBrat: Master Wuh is the Undertaking's British-style version of one.
* NotWhatItLooksLike: Geneviève, a vampire suspected of being in the service of the Great Enchanter, is found by Edwin and Catriona kneeling over a man they've come to interview, liberally splatted with the blood spurting out of his neck. "You probably think this looks suspicious," she says. She's actually trying to save his life.
* OmnicidalManiac: Isadore Persano, the previous Great Enchanter, was planning to destroy time and space itself. It's not clear what he expected to get out of it, and after the plan was thwarted he wasn't in a condition to answer questions.
* PoisonIsCorrosive: A poisoned drink is knocked out of the hand of the person about to drink it, and the liquid starts eating into the floor.
* RampJump: During the pursuit in Shadow London, the antagonists start raising Tower Bridge to block the motor cycle with Edwin and Geneviève on it, and Edwin does a ramp jump to clear it. Because Shadow London is a realm of myths and legends, it's taken to an extreme where the ramp is up nearly vertical when the motor cycle's wheels grab air, and it still clears the distance and sticks the landing.
* SecretWar: The various Weird Wars. Every so often an evil Great Enchanter arises, and it's the Club's job to put him down again.
-->If won, it would only be written of in the secret histories. If lost, there would be no more histories, secret or otherwise.
* ShoutOut:
** The Undertaking have their base on Egdon Heath, the fictional moorland in the works of Creator/ThomasHardy.
** Mention is made of an operation by the Diogenes Club's American counterparts a few years earlier to clean up [[Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth Innsmouth, Massachusetts]].
** In one of the Literature/SherlockHolmes stories, Watson mentions the unsolved case of "Isadora Persano, the wellknown journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a matchbox in front of him which contained a remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science." In this story, Persano was a Great Enchanter defeated by the Diogenes Club and their allies in 1903, and he and the worm were taken into custody by the Undertaking.
** Charles and Geneviève have a conversation about [[Literature/{{Dracula}} Professor Van Helsing]].
** The warden of the ExtranormalPrison mentions "the Lake [=LaMetrie=] elasmosaur", from "The Monster of Lake [=LaMetrie=]" by Wardon Allan Curtis.
** Geneviève's alias of Geneva Deodati is a reference to the Villa Diodati in Geneva, Switzerland, which holds a special place in the history of horror because it's where Mary Shelley came up with the idea for ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' and Polidori came up with ''Literature/TheVampyre''.
** Literature/CarnackiTheGhostFinder and Doctor Nikola (a supervillain created by Guy Boothby) are named among the people who joined forces to help defeat Isadore Persano.
** Geneviève mentions a gang war between the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang Tong of Weng-Chiang]] and the [[Literature/FuManchu Si Fan]].
** Named associates of the Diogenes Club include [[Literature/TheManWhoWouldBeKing Danny Dravot]], Baroness Orczy's PhoneInDetective known only as "the old man in the corner", Literature/SirHenryMerrivale, [[Creator/AlgernonBlackwood Dr John Silence]], Harry Dickson (the French pulp hero called "the American Sherlock Holmes"), and Morris Klaw (an occult detective, one of the less-known creations of Sax Rohmer, creator of Literature/FuManchu).
** Characters who have been refused association with the Diogenes Club due to being unprofessional and/or excessively violent include [[Literature/{{Dracula}} Abraham Van Helsing]], Literature/BulldogDrummond, and Michael Bellamy (from ''The Green Archer'' by Edgar Wallace).
** Geneviève compares Zenf to Napoleon, Literature/{{Dracula}}, and the Beetle. (''The Beetle'' was a horror novel by Richard Marsh that came out the same year as ''Dracula'' and was initially the bigger hit.)
** Margery Device's surname is a historical shout-out: several women with that surname were among the accused in the Lancashire witch trial of 1612, one of the largest and most famous witch hunts in English history.
** Literature/SherlockHolmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty is mentioned a couple of times, once to compare Zenf to him, and once while describing Sorcerer's professional qualifications as an astronomer; apparently he debunked Moriarty's famous work ''The Dynamics of an Asteroid'', which according to this story predicted that said asteroid was on a disastrous collision course with Earth.
** The list of Zenf's associates includes [[Film/TheMagician Oliver Haddo]], [[Film/RosemarysBaby Adrian Marcato]], Hamish Corbie (from ''The Death of the King's Canary'' by Creator/DylanThomas and John Davenport), Anselm Oakes (from "A Visit to Anselm Oakes" by Christopher Isherwood), [[Film/TheBlackCat Hjalmar Poelzig]], [[Literature/TheDevilRidesOut Mocata]], and [[Film/NightoftheDemon Julian Karswell]]. (As a fun side-note, nearly everbody on this list was a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Creator/AleisterCrowley.)
** The official portrait of Mycroft in Charles's office was painted by Hallward, the artist who painted Literature/{{the picture of Dorian Gray}}. Charles comments that he feels "the artist had not, in this case, truly captured his subject's soul."
** One of the guests at Margery's party is wearing a pair of ruby cufflinks made from the eyes of a golden pagan idol, a reference to "The Green Eye of the Yellow God" by J Milton Hayes, in which an Englishman steals one of the emerald eyes of a pagan idol and suffers a terrible fate.
** The guests at Margery's party include [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]].
** The subjects of Margery's society gossip include, among various real-life figures, [[Literature/TheSaint Simon Templar]], [[Film/PandoraAndTheFlyingDutchman Pandora Reynolds]], [[Literature/JeevesAndWooster Roderick Spode]], [[Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd Roger Ackroyd]], [[Literature/{{Rebecca}} Rebecca DeWinter]], Literature/LordPeterWimsey, Literature/PhiloVance, [[Literature/FuManchu Dennis Nayland-Smith]], Literature/MissMarple, and both Sexton Blake and Sexton Blake's nemesis Zenith the Albino (who Margery claims is not a real albino at all, but dyes his hair for effect).
** The animated waxworks of famous murderers include, among various real-life figures, [[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles Rodger Baskerville]], [[Literature/VarneyTheVampire Sir Francis Varney]], [[Theatre/TheBeggarsOpera Captain Macheath]], [[Literature/TheWomanInWhite Sir Percival Glyde]], [[Film/{{M}} Franz Beckert]], and Theatre/SweeneyTodd.
** Among the acts performing at the same theatre as the Great Edmondo are [[Film/The39Steps1935 Mr Memory]] and a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of comic monologist Stanley Holloway.
** Catriona has written a monograph on Martin Hesselius (a trope-codifying occult detective created by J Sheridan Le Fanu).
** Geneviève name-drops [[Literature/{{Carmilla}} Millie Karnstein]], [[Literature/TheVampyre Lord Ruthven]], and Literature/{{Dracula}} as vampires she has known.
** There's a mention of a London gang called the [[Literature/SherlockHolmes New Red-Headed League]].
** Dr Chambers' medical supplies include [[Film/TheMummysHand tana leaves]].
** While helping thwart Zenf's demonic summoning, Catriona mentions precedents involving Frank Chandler (from the radio series ''Chandu the Magician'') and the [[Literature/TheDevilRidesOut Duc de Richeleau]], and an incident in [[Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda Strelsau]].
** Geneviève compares a villain to Literature/{{Fantomas}} and Literature/ArseneLupin.
** During a discussion of doorways-between-worlds located around London, Margery says she's heard of one associated with "[[Series/DoctorWho one of those 'not for the use of the public' telephone box affairs]]", adding that it "comes and goes".
** Mycroft's contingency plan for dealing with Zenf has the subtitle "With Notes Upon the Segregation of a Great Enchanter". After his retirement, Literature/SherlockHolmes wrote ''Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen''.
* SilverBullet: Edwin is armed with silver bullets in case Geneviève is less friendly than she appears. He's told that in field tests the bullets have been demonstrated to stop "vampires, zombies, your common shapeshifters, ghouls, sundry revenants, and some of the more physical species of ghost" -- not to mention normal people.
* SinisterShades: The agents of the Undertaking all wear dark glasses. Charles has seen what they're hiding behind them, and has no desire to see it again.
* SomeoneHasToDoIt: This appears to apply to the Great Enchanter -- whenever one Great Enchanter is incapacitated (not necessarily killed -- the Great Enchanter who was defeated in 1903 is still around, but incurably insane), another one soon appears to take his (or occasionally her) place. When the heroes manage to capture Zenf alive at the end of the story, they decide to try keeping him in a comfortable cell in the ExtranormalPrison in the hope that along as he's alive and well they won't have to deal with a successor. (A later story in the series reports that Zenf lived on for another thirty years before peacefully popping his clogs, and that the next Great Enchanter showed up immediately afterward.)
* StockUnsolvedMysteries: During a discussion of Shadow London, where the mythical places and characters of the city live on, Edwin says that not only does UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper live on in Shadow London, but it's actually the man himself, who used his murders as part of a ritual that gave him immortality as a legend. When the ritual succeeded, Jack [[RetGone ceased to exist as a real person]], all evidence of his existence disappearing. Mycroft had apparently figured out who he was, but failed to prevent him completing the ritual, and now nobody else will ever solve the mystery because there's literally nothing to go on.
* TWordEuphemism:
** [[Literature/BlandingsCastle Lord Emsworth]] has a lengthy dashed-out complaint about a fellow guest at the party who "shows no f----n' interest" in pigs.
** The Great Edmondo also has a bit of a mouth on him off-stage (though nothing like Emsworth's level), letting out a "b----r" and referring to his predecessor as a "slippery b----d".
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Colonel Zenf has a public reputation as an international diplomat and philanthropist, with honors from several nations including Great Britain, which limits what the Diogenes Club can do openly to act against him.
* WeDidntStartTheFuhrer: Nodded to and averted; Zenf has nothing to do with Hitler, although when Edwin tells Catriona the Great Enchanter is an Austrian former soldier, she thinks at first he means Hitler and asks if that isn't a bit obvious.
* WeWouldHaveToldYouBut: When the existence of Mycroft's contingency plan to deal with Zenf is revealed at the end, it includes a letter to be delivered to Charles after it's all over, apologising for leaving him out of the loop and explaining that the Diogenes Club's part of the plan was to be genuinely caught off-guard so that Zenf would believe things were going his way and not anticipate an attack from the people to whom Mycroft entrusted the active part of the plan.
* WholePlotReference: To ''Literature/TinkerTailorSoldierSpy''.
----
It is the 1930s, and dark mutterings are coming from Europe, where Hitler has recently come to power. For the Diogenes Club, however, that's a problem for another day; they're engaged in a covert struggle against Colonel Zenf, the Great Enchanter, a DiabolicalMastermind gathering his forces for a secret Wizarding War.
Charles Beauregard, the Chairman of the Diogenes Club, receives a troubling message from an unexpected source, warning that there is a Rat in the ranks: one of the Ravens, the four powerful magic users who are the linchpins of England's magical defence, has gone bad and sold out to the Great Enchanter. Edwin Winthrop and Catriona Kaye are dispatched to discreetly investigate and identify the Rat: is it Sorcerer, Conjurer, Wizard, or Witch?
----
!!This story contains examples of:
* ActorRoleConfusion: All of Madame Tussaud's waxworks of famous murderers are magically animated and sent out into the city to sow havoc. In a bit of secondary havoc, a drunken man attacks the actor Ivor Novello, mistaking him for a waxwork of the serial killer depicted in the film ''Film/TheLodger''. Novello angrily points out that not only was it only a film, he didn't even play the serial killer, but the innocent man who was falsely accused.
* AllPartOfTheShow: {{Murderous Mannequin}}s attack Margery Device, the Witch, at a cocktail party she's holding. When she successfully fends them off with the help of Edwin and Catriona, most of the guests assume it's one of her famously elaborate floor shows.
* AndImTheQueenOfSheba: Charles says that if Colonel Zenf is really the great peacemaker he's publicly reputed to be, [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Moriarty]] was just a humble professor of mathematics.
* ArchivedArmy: The villain magically animates waxworks from Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, including Burke and Hare, Dr Crippen, Charlie Peace, George Joseph Smith (the "Brides in the Bath" killer) and -- this being the Diogenes universe -- [[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles Rodger Baskerville]] and Literature/VarneyTheVampire.
* ArmyOfTheAges: The armies of Shadow London. The Great Enchanter has all the mythical Barbarians at the Gate: "Vikings, French infantry, Roman legionnaires, ragged cavaliers, fire-spreaders, shaggy Anglo-Saxons, Martian squid-vampires, rowdies from the country and Prussian Uhlans". The good guys have "redcoats with muskets, knights in armour, tommies in tin hats, roundheads and cavaliers shoulder to shoulder, bloods and blades, pearly kings and queens, costers, tarts, loafers, brawlers, football fanatics with scarves and rattles, the ''haut ton'' and the ''demi-monde'', air-raid wardens, firemen, peelers, bobbies, Bow Street Runners, Chelsea pensioners, dandies, strollers and -- yes! -- Dick Whittington's Cat."
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The list of sinister activities Zenf has been associated with includes arms dealing, fascism, riots, scandalous deaths, pornography, ethnic cleansing, and the musical career of Music/GeorgeFormby.
* AsLongAsThereIsEvil: This seems to be the case for the Great Enchanter; whenever one Great Enchanter is killed or incapacitated, a new one arises to take over.
* BatmanGambit: Mycroft's contingency plan to deal with the Great Enchanter Colonel Zenf is based on people doing certain things if they believe certain facts to be true. It proceeds pretty much exactly according to plan, despite the fact that when Zenf emerges, Mycroft's been dead for fifteen years.
* BewitchedAmphibians: Played with -- Margery Device, the Witch, is rumoured to have turned a badly-behaved guest into a toad. Edwin says what actually happened is that he contracted a rare tropical skin condition that gave him a toad-like appearance.
* BookEnds: The story begins with Charles visiting the Undertaking's ExtranormalPrison to question Geneviève, and ends with him visiting the prison to start the questioning of Zenf. It's even mentioned that Zenf has been given the same cell Geneviève was held in.
* CallForward:
** Pondering the history of the Great Enchanters, Charles wonders if they don't "crawl full-grown out of filthy water, bereft of a past". We don't learn if this is true of Zenf, but it's exactly how his successor, Derek Leech, makes his entrance in ''Literature/TheQuorum''.
** The guests at Margery's party include a railway magnate named Lord Kilpartinger who appears to be under some kind of curse. His story is told more fully in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train".
** Another of Margery's guests is the notorious [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Colonel Moran]], with Charles remarking that he's surprised Moran's not dead yet. The story of his eventual death is also in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train".
** One of Margery's bits of celebrity gossip involves vigilante Dr Shade acquiring a new sidekick, IntrepidReporter Penny Stamp. In "The Original Dr Shade", written earlier but set later than this, Penny Stamp is recalled as Dr Shade's sidekick during the Nazi-thumping phase of his career.
* ChekhovsGun: The Diogenes Club has a collection of contingency plans bequeathed to it by the late great Mycroft Holmes. Charles goes through it to see if Mycroft foresaw anything applicable to the current situation, but finds nothing. Much later, it is revealed that Mycroft did write up a contingency plan for just this occasion, but gave it to someone outside the Diogenes Club because part of the plan was [[WeWouldHaveToldYouBut for the Diogenes Club to be caught off-guard so the Great Enchanter would believe things were going his way]].
* CircleOfStandingStones: The Undertaking's headquarters is built in a meteor crater surrounded by a circle of standing stones, "the Neolithic equivalent of the 'Danger--Keep Out' signs put up at the site of a bad fire or a subsidence in the road".
* ClusterFBomb: [[Literature/BlandingsCastle Lord Emsworth]] unleashes an expletive-filled rant (dashed out) when faced with somebody who has no interest in pigs. Edwin reflects on how much Creator/PGWodehouse must tone down the language in his books.
* ContinuityNod:
** During his visit to the Undertaking's ExtranormalPrison at the beginning of the story, Charles recalls the Club's earlier encounters with them in "Literature/AngelDownSussex" and "Literature/TheGypsiesInTheWood".
** The list of Zenf's known associates includes Declan Mountmain, the villain Charles Beauregard tangled with in "Seven Stars".
** There are several mentions of the Splendid Six and their leader Blackfist, who featured in "Literature/ClublandHeroes".
** One of Zenf's and Persano's predecessors was Leo Dare, the villain of "A Drug on the Market". Another was Nicholas Goodman, from "Mildew Manor".
** At a point where all hands are being metaphorically called on deck to help deal with the developing crisis, there's a cameo by the protagonist of ''Literature/TheSecretsOfDrearcliffGrangeSchool''.
* CoolBike: Dr Shade's motor cycle, which Edwin borrows, has built-in boosters, flamethrowers, and flare guns, and is specifically engineered with counterbalance systems and leg protectors and so on to permit extreme leaning turns and other such stunts.
* CreepyCrows: There's a small flock of friendly ravens (the ones who live in the Tower of London) and a much larger flock of murderous crows commanded by Zenf. It's noted that there isn't really an actual difference between ravens and crows.
* DirectLineToTheAuthor: At least one edition of the story includes explanatory endnotes that at one point are blanked out with a note saying that a portion has been omitted by order of the current Chair of the Diogenes Club.
* EnemyMine:
** The previous Great Enchanter was such a grave threat that the Diogenes Club and the Undertaking formally joined forces, with the lead MIB being temporarily inducted into the Ruling Cabal of the Club and Charles temporarily serving as an MIB himself, and at the final push "no fewer than fifteen of the world's premier magicians, occult detectives, psychic adventurers, criminal geniuses and visionary scientists set aside profound differences" to work together and defeat him.
** In the current crisis, the Diogenes Club and the Undertaking again pool resources, though the crisis is averted before it gets serious enough for the same degree of formal alliance.
* ExternallyValidatedProphecy: One of Margery Device's items of gossip involves Wallis Simpson's relationship with the Prince of Wales; at the time this story is set, it's just getting off the ground, but Margery correctly predicts its future course.
* ExtranormalPrison: The Undertaking's Mausoleum, originally founded during the reign of Elizabeth I to house a couple of evil magicians who refused to go quietly even after their heads were cut off. They're still in residence, along with the other prisoners the Undertaking have acquired in the subsequent centuries.
* {{Fainting}}: Zenf's female accomplice covers his exit from a meeting with Charles by fake-fainting and knocking Charles over.
* FiveSecondForeshadowing: Played for laughs. Colonel Zenf, at a gathering of underground figures, reaches into his pocket for his cigarette case and casually remarks that some pickpocket seems to have triggered the poisoned blade booby trap built into it. At that exact moment, the poison takes effect and a man standing nearby collapses, foaming at the mouth.
* GadgetWatch: It's strongly implied that there's something interesting about Charles Beauregard's pocket watch "with the intricate crystal workings." The Undertaking refuse to let him into their HQ while carrying it, and he ''certainly'' refuses to let them look after it while he's there. Sadly, the glossary page explaining what it ''does'' has been censored by the current Diogenes chairperson.
* {{Ghostapo}}: There's a passing mention that Hitler has revived the Thule Society, an occult group that often features in this trope.
* HistorysCrimeWave: All the villains in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors are magically animated and sent out on a crime spree to serve as a distraction.
* IndyHatRoll: Edwin escapes under a lowering portcullis in the nick of time ''on a motor cycle'', leaning over so far to fit under that he'd certainly have fallen off if it hadn't been a CoolBike borrowed from [[TheCowl a sinister vigilante]] who had it designed specifically to be able to pull off stunts like that.
* InspirationNod: The fellow cabal member Charles butts heads with over the future running of the Diogenes Club is named Tarr, which is also the name of the character in ''Literature/TinkerTailorSoldierSpy'' who brings the warning that one of four highly-placed people is a double agent.
* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY:
** The headquarters of the Undertaking is the Mausoleum -- "by tradition, 'Mouse-o-lay-um' not 'Maws-o-lee-um'".
** Margery Device, the current Witch of London. Edwin makes clear that her name is pronounced more like "Davis".
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Edwin is perplexed that Dr Shade is so paranoid as to have "an ingenious hobbling device" padlocked to his motor-cycle, as if something so hard to fence would be stolen.
* LandmarkingTheHiddenBase: It is mentioned that one of Dr Shade's secret lairs is in the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster.
* LegacyCharacter: The Ravens -- Sorcerer, Conjurer, Wizard, and Witch -- the mystic guardians of London, are the latest to stand in roles that have existed since the 11th century.
* LiteraryAgentHypothesis:
** There's a reference to "the biographer" of Mycroft's more famous brother, i.e. Creator/ArthurConanDoyle.
** Winthrop bumps into [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]] unleashing a ClusterFBomb and reflects how much Creator/PGWodehouse has to clean up the Earl's language.
* MagiciansAreWizards: The Great Edmondo, "Conjurer", is a stage magician who also possesses real and powerful magic.
* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: One of the Men in Black, under attack by murderous crows who have already torn a strip of skin off his face, merely comments, "Ouch."
* TheMenInBlack: The agents of the Undertaking dress all in black and always wear dark glasses. It's rumoured that they're not entirely human, and on at least some of them the glasses hide something horrible. They monitor paranormal activity and maintain an ExtranormalPrison.
* MisterStrangenoun: The agents of the Undertaking include Mr Hay, Mr Bee, Mr Eye, Miss Jeye, Mrs Elle, Mr Arrh, Mr Esse, and Master Wuh.
* MurderousMannequin: A group of wax figures from Madame Tussaud's is magically animated and sent out to cause trouble as a distraction.
* MissingReflection: The vampire Geneviève appears in mirrors as a shadow or a smudgy and vaguely human-shaped cloud of smoke.
* MythologyGag: This story features the first meeting and team-up of Charles Beauregard and Geneviève Dieudonné in the Diogenes Club timeline, and as such includes several nods to their different history in the ''Literature/AnnoDracula'' timeline, where they met and became friends in the 1890s during Dracula's invasion of England. There are several moments where they ponder what might have been had they met in different circumstances, and a scene where Geneviève talks about Dracula's scheme and how it failed in this timeline. When Charles is going through the Club's collection of contingency plans created by the late great Mycroft Holmes, he finds one labelled "In the event of the marriage of the sovereign to an evil consort with supernatural powers"; just such a contingency occurred in ''Anno Dracula'', and Charles was a key player in Mycroft's plan for dealing with it. Among other protections, Charles carries a silver scalpel in his notecase; a silver scalpel played a key role in the case in ''Anno Dracula''.
* NinjaBrat: Master Wuh is the Undertaking's British-style version of one.
* NotWhatItLooksLike: Geneviève, a vampire suspected of being in the service of the Great Enchanter, is found by Edwin and Catriona kneeling over a man they've come to interview, liberally splatted with the blood spurting out of his neck. "You probably think this looks suspicious," she says. She's actually trying to save his life.
* OmnicidalManiac: Isadore Persano, the previous Great Enchanter, was planning to destroy time and space itself. It's not clear what he expected to get out of it, and after the plan was thwarted he wasn't in a condition to answer questions.
* PoisonIsCorrosive: A poisoned drink is knocked out of the hand of the person about to drink it, and the liquid starts eating into the floor.
* RampJump: During the pursuit in Shadow London, the antagonists start raising Tower Bridge to block the motor cycle with Edwin and Geneviève on it, and Edwin does a ramp jump to clear it. Because Shadow London is a realm of myths and legends, it's taken to an extreme where the ramp is up nearly vertical when the motor cycle's wheels grab air, and it still clears the distance and sticks the landing.
* SecretWar: The various Weird Wars. Every so often an evil Great Enchanter arises, and it's the Club's job to put him down again.
-->If won, it would only be written of in the secret histories. If lost, there would be no more histories, secret or otherwise.
* ShoutOut:
** The Undertaking have their base on Egdon Heath, the fictional moorland in the works of Creator/ThomasHardy.
** Mention is made of an operation by the Diogenes Club's American counterparts a few years earlier to clean up [[Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth Innsmouth, Massachusetts]].
** In one of the Literature/SherlockHolmes stories, Watson mentions the unsolved case of "Isadora Persano, the wellknown journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a matchbox in front of him which contained a remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science." In this story, Persano was a Great Enchanter defeated by the Diogenes Club and their allies in 1903, and he and the worm were taken into custody by the Undertaking.
** Charles and Geneviève have a conversation about [[Literature/{{Dracula}} Professor Van Helsing]].
** The warden of the ExtranormalPrison mentions "the Lake [=LaMetrie=] elasmosaur", from "The Monster of Lake [=LaMetrie=]" by Wardon Allan Curtis.
** Geneviève's alias of Geneva Deodati is a reference to the Villa Diodati in Geneva, Switzerland, which holds a special place in the history of horror because it's where Mary Shelley came up with the idea for ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' and Polidori came up with ''Literature/TheVampyre''.
** Literature/CarnackiTheGhostFinder and Doctor Nikola (a supervillain created by Guy Boothby) are named among the people who joined forces to help defeat Isadore Persano.
** Geneviève mentions a gang war between the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang Tong of Weng-Chiang]] and the [[Literature/FuManchu Si Fan]].
** Named associates of the Diogenes Club include [[Literature/TheManWhoWouldBeKing Danny Dravot]], Baroness Orczy's PhoneInDetective known only as "the old man in the corner", Literature/SirHenryMerrivale, [[Creator/AlgernonBlackwood Dr John Silence]], Harry Dickson (the French pulp hero called "the American Sherlock Holmes"), and Morris Klaw (an occult detective, one of the less-known creations of Sax Rohmer, creator of Literature/FuManchu).
** Characters who have been refused association with the Diogenes Club due to being unprofessional and/or excessively violent include [[Literature/{{Dracula}} Abraham Van Helsing]], Literature/BulldogDrummond, and Michael Bellamy (from ''The Green Archer'' by Edgar Wallace).
** Geneviève compares Zenf to Napoleon, Literature/{{Dracula}}, and the Beetle. (''The Beetle'' was a horror novel by Richard Marsh that came out the same year as ''Dracula'' and was initially the bigger hit.)
** Margery Device's surname is a historical shout-out: several women with that surname were among the accused in the Lancashire witch trial of 1612, one of the largest and most famous witch hunts in English history.
** Literature/SherlockHolmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty is mentioned a couple of times, once to compare Zenf to him, and once while describing Sorcerer's professional qualifications as an astronomer; apparently he debunked Moriarty's famous work ''The Dynamics of an Asteroid'', which according to this story predicted that said asteroid was on a disastrous collision course with Earth.
** The list of Zenf's associates includes [[Film/TheMagician Oliver Haddo]], [[Film/RosemarysBaby Adrian Marcato]], Hamish Corbie (from ''The Death of the King's Canary'' by Creator/DylanThomas and John Davenport), Anselm Oakes (from "A Visit to Anselm Oakes" by Christopher Isherwood), [[Film/TheBlackCat Hjalmar Poelzig]], [[Literature/TheDevilRidesOut Mocata]], and [[Film/NightoftheDemon Julian Karswell]]. (As a fun side-note, nearly everbody on this list was a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Creator/AleisterCrowley.)
** The official portrait of Mycroft in Charles's office was painted by Hallward, the artist who painted Literature/{{the picture of Dorian Gray}}. Charles comments that he feels "the artist had not, in this case, truly captured his subject's soul."
** One of the guests at Margery's party is wearing a pair of ruby cufflinks made from the eyes of a golden pagan idol, a reference to "The Green Eye of the Yellow God" by J Milton Hayes, in which an Englishman steals one of the emerald eyes of a pagan idol and suffers a terrible fate.
** The guests at Margery's party include [[Literature/BlandingsCastle the Earl of Emsworth]].
** The subjects of Margery's society gossip include, among various real-life figures, [[Literature/TheSaint Simon Templar]], [[Film/PandoraAndTheFlyingDutchman Pandora Reynolds]], [[Literature/JeevesAndWooster Roderick Spode]], [[Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd Roger Ackroyd]], [[Literature/{{Rebecca}} Rebecca DeWinter]], Literature/LordPeterWimsey, Literature/PhiloVance, [[Literature/FuManchu Dennis Nayland-Smith]], Literature/MissMarple, and both Sexton Blake and Sexton Blake's nemesis Zenith the Albino (who Margery claims is not a real albino at all, but dyes his hair for effect).
** The animated waxworks of famous murderers include, among various real-life figures, [[Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles Rodger Baskerville]], [[Literature/VarneyTheVampire Sir Francis Varney]], [[Theatre/TheBeggarsOpera Captain Macheath]], [[Literature/TheWomanInWhite Sir Percival Glyde]], [[Film/{{M}} Franz Beckert]], and Theatre/SweeneyTodd.
** Among the acts performing at the same theatre as the Great Edmondo are [[Film/The39Steps1935 Mr Memory]] and a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of comic monologist Stanley Holloway.
** Catriona has written a monograph on Martin Hesselius (a trope-codifying occult detective created by J Sheridan Le Fanu).
** Geneviève name-drops [[Literature/{{Carmilla}} Millie Karnstein]], [[Literature/TheVampyre Lord Ruthven]], and Literature/{{Dracula}} as vampires she has known.
** There's a mention of a London gang called the [[Literature/SherlockHolmes New Red-Headed League]].
** Dr Chambers' medical supplies include [[Film/TheMummysHand tana leaves]].
** While helping thwart Zenf's demonic summoning, Catriona mentions precedents involving Frank Chandler (from the radio series ''Chandu the Magician'') and the [[Literature/TheDevilRidesOut Duc de Richeleau]], and an incident in [[Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda Strelsau]].
** Geneviève compares a villain to Literature/{{Fantomas}} and Literature/ArseneLupin.
** During a discussion of doorways-between-worlds located around London, Margery says she's heard of one associated with "[[Series/DoctorWho one of those 'not for the use of the public' telephone box affairs]]", adding that it "comes and goes".
** Mycroft's contingency plan for dealing with Zenf has the subtitle "With Notes Upon the Segregation of a Great Enchanter". After his retirement, Literature/SherlockHolmes wrote ''Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen''.
* SilverBullet: Edwin is armed with silver bullets in case Geneviève is less friendly than she appears. He's told that in field tests the bullets have been demonstrated to stop "vampires, zombies, your common shapeshifters, ghouls, sundry revenants, and some of the more physical species of ghost" -- not to mention normal people.
* SinisterShades: The agents of the Undertaking all wear dark glasses. Charles has seen what they're hiding behind them, and has no desire to see it again.
* SomeoneHasToDoIt: This appears to apply to the Great Enchanter -- whenever one Great Enchanter is incapacitated (not necessarily killed -- the Great Enchanter who was defeated in 1903 is still around, but incurably insane), another one soon appears to take his (or occasionally her) place. When the heroes manage to capture Zenf alive at the end of the story, they decide to try keeping him in a comfortable cell in the ExtranormalPrison in the hope that along as he's alive and well they won't have to deal with a successor. (A later story in the series reports that Zenf lived on for another thirty years before peacefully popping his clogs, and that the next Great Enchanter showed up immediately afterward.)
* StockUnsolvedMysteries: During a discussion of Shadow London, where the mythical places and characters of the city live on, Edwin says that not only does UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper live on in Shadow London, but it's actually the man himself, who used his murders as part of a ritual that gave him immortality as a legend. When the ritual succeeded, Jack [[RetGone ceased to exist as a real person]], all evidence of his existence disappearing. Mycroft had apparently figured out who he was, but failed to prevent him completing the ritual, and now nobody else will ever solve the mystery because there's literally nothing to go on.
* TWordEuphemism:
** [[Literature/BlandingsCastle Lord Emsworth]] has a lengthy dashed-out complaint about a fellow guest at the party who "shows no f----n' interest" in pigs.
** The Great Edmondo also has a bit of a mouth on him off-stage (though nothing like Emsworth's level), letting out a "b----r" and referring to his predecessor as a "slippery b----d".
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Colonel Zenf has a public reputation as an international diplomat and philanthropist, with honors from several nations including Great Britain, which limits what the Diogenes Club can do openly to act against him.
* WeDidntStartTheFuhrer: Nodded to and averted; Zenf has nothing to do with Hitler, although when Edwin tells Catriona the Great Enchanter is an Austrian former soldier, she thinks at first he means Hitler and asks if that isn't a bit obvious.
* WeWouldHaveToldYouBut: When the existence of Mycroft's contingency plan to deal with Zenf is revealed at the end, it includes a letter to be delivered to Charles after it's all over, apologising for leaving him out of the loop and explaining that the Diogenes Club's part of the plan was to be genuinely caught off-guard so that Zenf would believe things were going his way and not anticipate an attack from the people to whom Mycroft entrusted the active part of the plan.
* WholePlotReference: To ''Literature/TinkerTailorSoldierSpy''.
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