SALEM – (Tursey Trunk, Morning Oracle Political Bureau) Senator Oswald Kensington (GOM-PA), who conceded to Polonius Aberfoyle in last April’s Special Election to succeed Secretary Greywolf, seems to have survived a possible second assassination attempt last Spring, the Oracle has from multiple sources inside the Aurors’ office and in spite of a complete silence on the subject from Kensington and his immediate staff.
Just after the election, sources say, four men posing as his usual bodyguard ambushed and bound the Senator as he left his Salem office on his usual walk down to the pier opposite where his yacht, the Kensington Cruiser, has been anchored since his election to the Senate in 1996. Polyjuice vials were found in an alley nearby, as well as the normal bodyguards, who appear to have been left stunned and stripped in an abandoned Muggle discount store on a nearby cross street.
Witnesses reported that the Senator was rendered unconscious by some means. His cane and signature top hat were found on the street immediately after the apparent attack. The Senator was bound by his attackers and hustled aboard a large flying carpet concealed in the alley. The five men then took off and headed directly out to sea.
Several Aurors apparated into the scene in the minutes afterward who secured the area and freed the Senator’s bodyguard. All press and other civilians were barred from the area for the next three hours, until Senator Kensington himself walked into the midst of the crowd and retrieved his hat and cane from Michael Apseward, Auror Superintending at the scene.
After a few words of conversation, the Senator led the Aurors to a neighboring apartment building some blocks off, to the roof of which the carpet was seen by several onlookers to return. Sources at Alcatraz confirm the arrival in late April of four men on Federal charges, and that the men soon confessed under Veritasserum interrogation to accepting a commission from an unknown source to take Senator Kensington twenty-five miles out to sea and ‘deep six’ him there.
A source present during the interrogation has just come forward to confirm the attackers’ amazement at Kensington’s survival and return before them to their hideout, which they acknowledged mentioning in Kensington’s presence. ”He begged, screamed, and struggled,” one said. ”But just as we rolled him over, he said something about a briar patch… and smiled.”
This reporter managed to ask Senator Kensington himself what happened last Spring during the Senator’s morning news conference today. Saying he would take no questions at all upon the attack while it was still under investigation, the Senator concluded, ‘I’m sure it was a pathetic robbery attempt and no more… These are unsettled times, and I can merely say that I am grateful and lucky to have been spared. Our concern these days is to re-establish order in the light of Secretary-Elect Aberfoyle’s situation.’
Since interposing himself before an apparent earlier attack by an unknown force against Kensington, Polonius Aberfoyle has remained under heavy guard at St. Meliora’s Hospital for Supernatural Afflictions, where he is listed as in serious-but-stable condition.