Dr. Barbus

A name the crew turned up by looking up the phone number on the Zielony invitation — (617) 218-2099 — which connects to a Dr. Barbus (Session 7, on-screen). Further research fills him in.

Who He Is (Kip's research)

Kip found fingerprints on the invitation paper that match Dr. Barbus — he handled the document.
He was a popular administrator at the Massachusetts Crime Lab.
He was within five years of retirement before a sudden withdrawal from his work.
The end of his personnel/police file is a string of complaints, hearings, and a call to examine his mental health.
The phone number in the police file on him is the same number printed on the invitation.

A Forensics Man Handled a Handwriting Exemplar — but Didn't Write It

Barbus ran a **crime lab** — the institution that deals in **handwriting exemplars and fingerprints** (The Zielony Invitation). His prints are on a document whose real content is **a handwriting sample**. But analysis **excludes Barbus as the author** (the writer is **male, calligraphy-trained, right-handed**), so his role is **examiner, not author**: he **collected or processed** someone else's exemplar — then, near retirement, **withdrew and was hauled through mental-health hearings.**

He Broke the Way They Break

"Sudden withdrawal, five years short of retirement, complaints and hearings, questions about his mind" is the **case's signature damage** — cf. Alan Ladd cracking after touching the night floors ("I know what I saw. I quit."), the fogged Thomas Manuel, the trapped David. Barbus is a Boston forensic official who **saw something and came apart** — and his number is now a lure on a birthday card.

The Boston Stakeout (Session 7)

The crew traveled to Boston a day before the party and surveilled his home (see Dr. Barbus's House). Findings:

He is alive and deteriorating. Neighbors say he's "losing his marbles"; one reports seeing a naked woman in his backyard. Others have heard machinery running inside the house.
The backyard is overgrown — but only from a couple of months of neglect, not years.
Spoken to briefly when he arrived: frazzled, smelling of oil and machinery; the crew learned little.
Under overnight watch, Barbus stayed up all night, moving room to room.
The neighbors are wary and watchful of the investigators' presence.

The Forensics Man Is Running Machines Now

A retired **document examiner** who processed a clockwork-adjacent case now **smells of oil**, runs **unseen machinery** in his house, and **paces all night.** Machinery + oil rhymes with the clockwork marionettes (gears and flesh), the scissor-lift "LEÃO" mechanism, and the night-floors mannequins. Is Barbus **building** something? And the **naked woman in the yard** — a hallucination, an intruder, or an **undressed mannequin** like the one behind the smoking-lounge bar?

The Meeting — He's the Client (Session 8)

The Zielony party was a cover; there was no birthday. Barbus pulled up around 7, took a table, waited, and hired the crew directly for Operation India Moon — finding the group's missing operatives. Up close he sounded crunchy, as if stuffed with paper, and smelled of gasoline and motor oil. Pay: +10% over their normal fee.

Dressed in the Case's Own Materials

Barbus **rustles with paper** and **reeks of fuel and oil** — the newsprint that backs the wall message, the clockwork and lift-machinery of the night floors. He hires them to recover *the book that must not be read* — which Beckett read on the plane last session. Host, bait, and broken man may all be the same rustling figure.

Open Questions

What machinery is he running, and what is he making with it?
The naked woman — real person, mannequin, or delusion? (Cf. Abigail Wright; the night-floors mannequins.)
Whose handwriting did he process an exemplar of — and for what case? (Author profile: male, calligraphy-trained, right-handed — not Barbus.)
Is he the party's host, its bait, or another person it broke?