The fact that Langton resorted to blackmail became far less surprising when we made a detailed inspection of his diary, which Jones and the others also found when they searched his rooms. It seems that blackmail was Langton's profession and that he was extorting money from dozens of people. This, however, was the least of the revelations that were forthcoming from the erstwhile nobleman's diary. Most disturbing of all was a number of reference to a girl called Prudence who, it seems, was the witch who had be threatening 'San Graal'. The reference to Prudence indicated a girl of Near Eastern extraction who had made references to Langton's crusader ancestor, as if she had known him! It appeared that this witch wanted Langton to return a tiara he had recently purchased. She stated that he had stolen it from her and it must be returned.

Surely this wasn't the Prudence the legend referred to, a princess of the Fey from a fable appearing in the mundane surroundings of Brichester. Before I joined Cassandra 23 I would have dismissed such thoughts as ludicrous flights of fancy, now I wasn't so sure. A slightly less far-fetched surmise was that the tiara mentioned was the one that we had discovered in Mr J's briefcase.

A number of curious objects were also turned up during the search, including a lump of what appeared to be Iron Pyrites (Fools Gold) and an account of the doings of Raymond's ancestor during the Crusades. This tale filled out the details that were missing from the Gloucestershire folk fable, which Mortimer had stumbled upon. This more complete tale had many references that chilled my blood as I read it – the city that it alluded to, . . . Irem of the Pillars? And the King and Queen who had a thousand children, was this a reference to the Dark Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, dread Shub Niggurath, a suspicion heightened by the mention of the Garden of the Goat later in the text. I hoped that all of this was mere coincidence but, in my heart, I knew it wasn't so.

Once again a visage of horror and madness peered through the façade of drab normality that we take to be the real world.

They also found a card giving the telephone number of Madame Arcana, the mystic who Langton had contacted earlier. After a little discussion we decided to make an appointment to meet Madame Arcana, possibly she could throw some light on the matter. Hammer spoke with the strange mystic and managed to arrange a meeting for ten that night.

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