Just checked, and I’m afraid not. 
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Hmm… I guess we can give it more time. I would send something else but I don’t want him to feel like we are bombarding him ^^;
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Hopefully he’s just busy? Apparently things aren’t going well for him if the email is any indication. Actually, now that I think of it, hopefully he hasn’t been bumped off by whoever his enemies are. 
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I’m sure he’s focused on whatever his current crisis is. Responding about a 30 year case might take him some time to refresh his memory what we’re even talking about. Still, this is a decent enough attempt to contact him without giving away how we know about him. I’d say hang in there and wait a few days more.
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So I got a response from Marty today… 
Do you know that cult still has gullible folks emailing me this same thing every year? let it go. A kid died. End of story. There’s nothing else down there now but grief and misery.
Trying to figure out what to say to him. Guess he’s had at least minor encounters with the Devoted… I wonder what they’ve said to him.
Also, there are two new emails in the Cagliostro web server. One about Lauren’s home life, that she accidentally sent to C. Unsurprisingly, her family doesn’t know anything about her real job. Also, she’s still really interested in that illiomancer book, seems to have some magical pull to it, which is interesting.
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Geez. Marty don’t play. Sounds like a pretty big meanie, I guess the Devoted really hammered him about the whole ordeal. All I could think you could say to him is something quite rude… 
I kinda feel bad for Lauren, I hope she’s gonna be okay. Hopefully the magical pull of the book doesn’t get to her too much and drive her nuts or something else out of a horror movie.
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@Revenir Well on the plus side, he knows there’s a cult. On the down side he either believes or convincingly lies about there being nothing unnatural about the case.
On one hand, we could just let him go now as he probably knows nothing.
On the other hand…having a New York Times journalist with 25+ years of experience and contacts could be handy to have access to.
I’d say it’s your call ultimately, but we could cut straight to the chase. We have access to something he would want. We could hand him the RSVP list today and it’d give him a lot of what he’s looking for to either get the pressure on him elevated, or at least use it to get that interview with AC. Of course, doing that would alert AC that someone is in their email. So I wouldn’t hand him the list until after we had all the fragments we wanted, but it’s an option.
The question is, does he have anything we want? He may not know what we know, but I’d wager he can find out a lot when he’s so inclined.
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I dunno, I think you’re right that having an experienced journalist on our side could be beneficial. And I suspect he knows at least a little bit about Cagliostro and people similar to him. Plus, his name has come up twice in our journey - I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Here’s what I’m thinking of sending him:
Mr. Rank,
Ah, so you know about the Devoted. Don’t you think it’s odd that a cult has been built from the death of a boy? Surely you’ve wondered why this case has brought in so much interest, after so many years. There’s more to the story than a simple missing persons case.
There are strange things happening in New York. Not just in the subway station where Brandon disappeared, but other places too. Places like a magic show for the obscenely wealthy and powerful.
As I understand it, you’re interested in gaining an interview with Cagliostro. However, he’s a busy man, I doubt you’d get it without leverage. I can give you that, in the form of an RSVP list for his next performance. I’m sure that would be enough to get the pressure on you elevated, or at least gain you an interview with Cagliostro. All I ask for in return is the use of your skills as a seasoned journalist.
So, what do you think? Are you interested in a mutually beneficial exchange?
Sincerely,
A not-so-gullible person
Do you think it’s coming on too strong? I don’t want to scare the dude off, but I also want to make sure he doesn’t ignore me. 
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I don’t think it’ll scare him off, from the looks of it he really needs a story to help boost his career, I don’t think you’ll make him go away so easily. The only concern of mine is that if Marty tells Cagliostro about him having the RVSP list, it may compromise both the site, the file index, our ability to get the information from the book, and the email. They’re smart enough people, with an extremely underground organization to protect, they’ll change passwords, if not literally everything. I personally am against taking that risk, but I’m not the one making the decision. Just make sure to weigh everything up, and make the decision you think is right. We mountaineers gots 2 trust each otha, thems da rules. 
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I say it’s a reasonable gamble to take. It’s not like we are trying to blackmail him or anything. We just want to find a way to work with him. Maybe we can help each other.
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I’m leaning towards sending it, reason being we haven’t offered him anything yet. I have no idea if he’ll just tell me to bugger off or if he’ll actually want to make a deal with me. The major risk would be if we send him the RSVP list.
But…that leads me to two questions I have. The first being - well, the Book has protected us from detection thus far. I feel like, given the security of this group, we would have been found pretty quickly without magic protection. So, with that in mind, would the Book guide us back to where we need to be, if they changed the passwords?
The other thing - Martin’s been a journalist for a long time, so he’d know how to protect his informants, right? I assume he’d know not to say anything that could lose us access. I’m sure the Times has gotten info via hackers before and we’re kinda sort magical hackers…so he’d probably know what to do?
I feel like it’s worth it to try, anyways. Worst case scenario, either one of us could say no to the other and we walk away, no damage done.
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Hmm… I suppose you are right. I mean even after the Devoted abandoned us (kind of our own fault but hey) we still were able to figure out the fourth fragment without them, so it seems legit. I didn’t really even think about the book and its role in all this, and I trust the book. The person I don’t trust that much though, its Mr. Rank. He may not even care about us after he gets what he wants, I’m not sure we have much leverage over him after we give him the list, so he could rat us out any minute after we hand over the document. However, since the book probably will guide us into the right direction, it should be okay even if he does. Go head and send it bud, unless anyone else has some other objection to it other than what I said 
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Hey everyone, once again life got busy. But when reading through everything that has happened the past few days, I got really hesitant about sending Mr. Rank anything about the RSVP list. I am much more “Lets stay as under the radar as we possibly can”. But the fact that we could literally just say “jk lol… no” as @Revenir pointed out, makes it a much more enticing option for us. What do we feel as though Marty can provide for us?
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Yeah, at this point, I think we’re okay to at least see if he’s amenable to some kind of deal. At the very least, it’s another option for us to explore. But I will drop it like a hot potato if he seems sketchy or if it just doesn’t seem worth it.
There are a couple things I think we could learn from him. I’d like to find out what he knows about Cagliostro, as well as the magic shows. Like, who are these people attending it and such? Doesn’t seem totally above-the-board.
There’s also another thing I’m wondering if he could help us with - Sacha. This one’s a bit of a reach, but I wonder if he could help us track her down, somehow? He must have learned about her when researching the Lachmann case, right? Maybe he could help figure out more about that mysterious group that took over the Devoted. I dunno how much he could help us with all that, though.
Of course this is all assuming he doesn’t just tell me I’m bonkers and to leave him alone. We’ll have to see.
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AC has finally responded to Lauren today.
Miss Ellsworth,
Thank you for your continued efforts and organisation for January.
•The change in the pages is wonderful news and confirms my suspicion that our practitioner was advanced. As to the catalyst, I would doubt that heat or light would contain sufficient power. If you continue to find yourself drawn to its unique mysteries please feel free to continue your research. You may segment some space on the secured index for your notes and thoughts if you’d like.
•I am familiar with the work of Mr Rank. You can ignore his request.
•Regarding the guest list, please remove Patron 349.
My time in Scotland has been fruitful. Carfax will be sending some of the artifacts that I’ve collected to the loft. Please do not open any of them and store them directly in the library. I depart for Varanasi tomorrow and then will make a small return to Turin before leaving for Morocco. Carfax has the details of flights in the event you need to reach me.
Lastly, please tell me about Jen.
Yours faithfully,
AC
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You got any response from Mr. Rank?
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Not yet, but it did take him a few days to respond to my first email.
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Posting here as well about Lauren’s email. Again, here it is.
Good evening.
I wanted to let you know that the two pages have “unfaded” even more. I’ve updated your file index with the current versions. The painter page now was the words Wallasey and Sleigh at the bottom. Was the “illiomancer” perhaps Bernand Sleigh, the painter and craftsman?
And I think the symbol on page seven is the pagan Yule, or winter solstice. Researching it I realized that the symbol on page one is most likely a cryptic version of The Wheel of The Year, a sort of pagan calendar.
So this is a book that reveals different pages as the year passes? That’s the premise of the “magic trick” I suppose, but I’m trying to figure out how it really works, assuming you don’t mind. I know there are codes of honor among professional magicians.
It seems to connect to temperature (getting closer to winter) and possibly uv light (our location around the sun?) but there’s something I’m missing that makes sense of it. Some method that connects them.
I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for the deliveries. I’ll coordinate with Carfax to make sure I’m here when they arrive, no matter what time they come in.
Jen’s my younger sister. There was an accident when we were young and she’s been catatonic since then so my mom takes care of her at home. Once again, I’m so sorry about that email mix up.
I didn’t realize it was almost 9pm. I completely lost track of time. I’m heading home now, but believe me, I’m going to get to the bottom of this book.
LE
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New email and updated index:
Good evening,
I just wanted to send you a quick update on a few things…
An enormous wooden crate arrived today. It’s the size of a small car. The delivery company had to use the freight elevator to bring it up (I remembered where the key was) and I had no choice but to let them in the entryway so they could bring it in. I’m not sure if this is one of the “packages” I was expecting from Carfax, but obviously it won’t fit in the library. Let me know if there’s anything further I should do with it.
Martin Rank has emailed again, following up on his previous email. I’ll ignore unless you tell me otherwise.
Also, the Yule journal page had unfaded more and revealed another drawing at the bottom. It’s just ten circles in a pattern. So far I haven’t found anything season-related that looks like it. I’ve updated the index. I spent the weekend working on this thing, I’m determined to get to the bottom of it. It’s frankly all I think about!
I’ve also updated the RSVP list. I find it fascinating some of them seem completely convinced that what they’re going to see is real.
Have a wonderful evening,
LE
Here’s the updated page and symbol:
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…That new symbol on the Yule page looks way too familiar to me but I can’t remember where I might’ve seen the possible symbol it might make.
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