Investigator's name: Paul G. Polebrook

Sex: Male
Age: Around 34 years old, maybe a bit older
Occupation: Antique Dealer
Nationality: English
Born: London, United Kingdom
 

Background:

Born late into the Victorian era in London, England. PaulÇs family was middle class his father owning a small monumental masonry company in North London. Paul's mother was a schoolteacher before she was married and took care of her childrens early schooling. Paul has an elder brother (Frederick) and two younger sisters (Violet and Emily). War broke out when Paul was 18 and he enlisted into the army, he was fed up with working in the family business (through his teens in the workshop and later as a clerk).

He was soon posted to France/Belgium after basic training (if they did that in those days) and became batman to Captain John Forbes-Swithen. He survived the war more or less intact and even managed to save Captain Forbes-Swithen life one night when the Hun broke through and into their trench, taking a bayonet wound to the left arm (which healed more or less OK à slight loss of movement perhaps). Captain Forbes-Swithen was in the fine art/antiques business in Ipswich and out of gratitude offered Paul a job in the family business.

After the war Paul moved to Ipswich, leaving his brother to run the business and started to work in the antiques business. Paul took to the trade like a duck to water, he seemed to have a knack of telling whether an object was truly an antique or not when he touched or held the item. After a couple of years attending the auctions, etc. he became fairly well known in the trade. It was then that he was approached to authenticate some items that were not truly antique (silver with forged hallmarks), the threats and promise of money lured him into doing this. Once he had agreed he was snared, pulled into a network of antique forgers.

Very quickly Paul realised that he had to get out of the ring as their demands became more and more dangerous. It would only be a matter of time before the Police were alerted to the situation and he was arrested. So Paul planned his exit. It soon became apparent that the forgery ring had contacts in Europe so he would be unable to flee to the continent. Slowly he began to take a more active role building up his status in the organisation.

Paul decided that his best bet was to swap some pieces with his own and send them to a contact in New York, that way he would have some capital so fall back on when he managed to get away and America seemed the ideal destination. Then his substitutions were discovered à although not tracked back to Paul he had to act! He made a phone call to Scotland Yard informing on the forgers and left for London. The next day the papers carried stories about the police operation that smashed a forgery ring in East Anglia, two days later Paul was on his way to America.

On his arrival in New York Paul looked up his contact (Forbes-Swithens cousin) who advised Paul that he had been implicated in the forgery racket and was now a wanted man in England. Paul explained his actions and it was agreed that he should get away from New York. Liquidating the antiques in New York gave him enough money to buy Petersons Curios (lock stock and barrel) a small antique shop in Arkham.

Paul settled into the shop six months ago.