Of the Disposition of the Dead, and the Vicar at Garway
The papers from the second day at Garway are brief, and the Editor has assembled them from such fragments as survived. The substance, however, may be set down.
Captain Leighton persuaded his Lordship to return with him to the local inn, to allow Spencer and Tomlinson to clean up after the skirmish in the grove.
Much to the Sergeant's shock, the butler stripped himself naked and started butchering the burnt corpses of the cultists by the light of the storm lanterns. After emptying the contents of his stomach, Tomlinson spotted a good place in the woods to deposit the body parts — the Sergeant somehow managing to square his moral accounts, and hang on to his manly dignity. Who can speak to the inner workings of the inscrutable Spencer? The Editor certainly cannot.
After the deed was done, the men returned to the inn, where Arbuthnott, Leighton and Clarke awaited with plates of cold cuts and warm beer. A plan was formed: on the morrow they would investigate the grove anew, examine the church of St Michael, and speak to the vicar.
The Following Morning
The Professor made some sketches of the bas-relief carvings on the sides of the ancient stone altar in the grove, while his Lordship and the others searched the woods. Both Tomlinson and Spencer spotted a recent track, which they followed to a recent and very primitive campsite. The Sergeant suggested that the men who'd camped there were members of the Johnstone Cabal who had become trapped after Chief-Inspector D'Eath removed the strange markings on the wall of the Ghost Station. Nobody within the party found it within themselves to disagree with a notion that forty-eight hours earlier would have seemed the ravings of a lunatic.
On the way back, they stopped at the presbytery, where they took tea and brandy with the Rev. Penderel Moon, who showed them around the church and allowed the Professor to peruse the parish records. Although there was much to excite the Professor from an historical perspective — including his observation of additions to the original Temple by the Knights Hospitaller — there was nothing he felt directly related to the matter at hand. After sharing his thoughts with the rest of his associates, they decided to return to the capital post haste.
The papers note the hour of the party's return to London: late evening, Monday the ninth of October, 1893.