With the guardian defeated the investigators moved into the room and began to search. The C23 operatives searched the room with their customary skill and, within a few short moments, they discovered a mysterious statuette beneath the bed. This could be nothing other than another of the Faerie's Three Treasures. The key to unlocking the Trod and rescuing Mr J. and Langton was now much closer. All we needed to discover now was the jar of rare oil.

The two groups met up outside one of Cheltenham's charming eating establishments; it must have been around ten o'clock as the street was filling with participants of the Anglo-German conference. We shared our information, informing the others of our encounter with the Fey while they told us what they had learned from their search of Prudence's domicile. We didn't have a great deal of time to ponder the implications because we were already late for our appointment with the mystic Madame Arcana.

After a short journey we found ourselves outside the imposing door of Arcana's suburban villa, we were ushered in by one of the fortune teller's acolytes who led us into a darkened room with a central table surrounded by low chairs and seats. We all took our places around the table and explained that we wished to contact the spirit of the long departed and much lamented nobleman, Robert De Langton. Our hope was that, if this women could genuinely reach the shades of the past that we could learn from him the what he knew about Prudence and the Faeries and if he could tell us something that would help us free our imprisoned friend.

Unfortunately it seemed that in order to contact the spirits of the dead Madame Arcana needed two things, firstly we had to cross her palm with cupro-nickel (money) before she could perform and secondly, she would need a sprig of yew from the grave of the man in question. That of course meant that we'd have to go to the burial place of Langton's ancestor in the nearby village of Prestbury.

With grim determination to see this thing through to the end the crack investigators of C23 set off for Prestbury. We sped through the night beneath a bloated, midsummer moon, through the car's windows we could see only the placid suburban landscape of Gloucestershire could be seen, the prim and proper faces of the houses offering a bland reassurance of normality in this night turned so strange and fearful. After a short journey the C23 convoy pulled into Prestbury. Although we looked no different than the other groups of Saturday night revellers whom we encountered on the village's lamplit streets I still felt conspicuous, almost as though the insanity which surrounded us somehow marked us out to the oblivious innocents whom we passed.

In order to get to the village's church we had to turn down a small alleyway, poorly lit and narrow. Before joining the ranks of C23 I would have been unworried by such a passage but now I found myself jumping at shadows, continually casting glances behind me to see if we had acquired any unwanted attention.

At the end of the alley we arrived at our objective, Prestbury church. The local streetlights threw weak pools of light across the church's boundary walls, creating deeper shades of black where shadows darkened the night. While Mortimer and I hung back the bolder members of our group pressed on into the graveyard, looking for the last resting-place of the fallen Templar, Robert De Langton. I could see little from where I was hidden, masked by the foliage of a verdant churchyard tree but it was difficult to miss the signs of damage that this hallowed ground had suffered, broken grave stones and other markers scattered here and their. Despite the importance of our mission I was worried by the everyday proprieties, what would anyone think of an eclectic group such as ours, strangely dressed and loitering in the shadows, amid these scenes of vandalism and destruction. My reverie was disturbed by the others, who come hurrying back. Apparently they had found the sprig of Yew from De Langton's grave but, while they were engaged in this, an apparition had appeared.

I do not have the full details but apparently this spectre was clad in the accoutrements of a monk or Abbott, possibly of the late twelfth century. Was this the spirit of Langton, aroused by the attention being paid to his final resting-place and being drawn back to the mortal world to defend his last resting-place?

Actually I needed no encouragement to leave that place and joining the others left the grave of De Langton and the restless spirit of the Templar far behind.

In order to open the Trod we needed to have all three keys in our possession by midnight and time was, as always, marching on. We therefore made our way back to Madame Arcana's as quickly as we possibly could.

NEXT...