On the 21st, the day after Gresty's letter arrives, Ludwig receives a letter from Dr Highsmith. Alexander Roby's release hearing is scheduled for November 30th. Does he have a recommendation that Dr Highsmith can present?  Also enclosed is a transcript of Alexander's writings, with apologies from Dr. Highsmith's secretary for the delay. Things have apparently been rather hectic recently. They seem to fragments of a poem or poems. There are frequent references to Carcosa, but the writings are fragmentary and the investigators can make little sense of them. 

Alex, Aubrey and Ludwig travel to the East Anglian village of Clare Melford, where Alexander Robey attended some kind of ceremony nearly three years ago. The village is small, and there are only two trains a day from London: it will be necessary to stay overnight. Snow starts to fall as they leave London, and there are several inches on the ground by the time they reach the village. Arriving in the early evening, they take rooms at the local pub, The Railway. The landlord is Dick Blair, a cheery if none-too-bright Londoner who used to run a pub in Bethnal Green. He has only been in the village a few years and still gets chaff from the locals as a "rich Londoner" who was bilked by the pub's previous owner.

Conversation with the regulars that evening reveals a few interesting facts. There is an old burial mound - Springer Mound - on Harold Jennings' farm. Some archaeologists came down from Oxford ten or fifteen years ago to dig it, but didn't find any treasure. Three years ago, a big group of Londoners came down in cars and paid Harold do something on his land, but they didn't stop in the village. Harold was pleased with the money at first but later complained that they brought him bad luck. If they want to take a look at the mound then the investigators should be careful - Harold's not a friendly type and he doesn't like strangers on his land.

The next morning, the investigators set off for Jennings' farm. They decide not to call at the farmhouse, and instead take the public footpath that runs through a copse of elm trees and around the side of the mound. The day is clear and cold, with about six inches of snow on the ground; no one is out and about.

In the copse, they see some regular shapes among the trees: stone markers, lying on their sides among the trees. They are granite obelisks of recent manufacture, nine in all, each about nine feet long and two feet across at the base. There is writing on them, carved in a neat but dull modern style:

Expectant we raise our muzzles to smell the air for hatred,

we strain our ears for the sound of love.

we turn our blind eyes to the red star and the black constellations

Nine teeth jut up lining the maw of living earth.

Return Hastur! Heed us!

Your star steeds, lord, the black night sky

Lo! Great One! Lo! Great Hastur! Lead Us!

Two stones are unmarked - it is possible that the writing is simply on the side they are lying on.

As they examine the stones, the sound of a barking dog is heard from the directions of the farmhouse, followed by a door slam. Emerging from the copse, they see a man and two dogs approaching over the field. It is Harold Jennings, shotgun in hand, and he seems to have mistaken the investigators for someone else. He is angry and expecting a confrontation. They should take the stones away. They've had their guinea's worth and it's brought him nothing but bad luck. Aubrey is able to calm him down long enough to explain that he's made a mistake. Still angry, Jennings explains that he was paid to keep the stones by the people who came down from London three years ago, but it's not been worth it - whatever they did brought him bad luck and spoiled his crops; he had to stop planting the field next to the mound. In a fit of anger, he fires his shotgun at the stones.

Suddenly, there is an unpleasant musty smell in the air that makes the investigators think of pain. A jet-black thing plummets down from the sky, so quickly that only Aubrey sees it arrive. It attacks Jennings. There is an impression of a body with long limbs, claws, wings, a head with teeth, but nothing connects or moves in an expected way. Worse, the shapes that it makes seem almost to have meaning, as if they were ideograms or characters in an unknown language. The investigators scatter, with sounds of tearing and cracking behind them.

When everything is quiet again they return to the scene. Jennings is dead, along with one of the dogs. There is some blood but most of it is from the dog, which shows the marks of great claws. Jennings' body has been drained of blood and shows a great puncture-wound by the collar-bone; it matches the description of the wound that killed Alexander Roby's father. There is no sign of the thing, but Aubrey notices a speck high in the sky that could be a bird of prey or something else entirely.

After a brief pause to get their stories straight the investigators head back to the village, keeping a nervous watch on the sky. They need to find a telephone; the police must be called. There will be no mention of the thing they saw; no one would believe them if they did.

Back at the pub, Blair serves them stiff drinks and informs them that the only telephone is in the station-master's office. Aubrey is dispatched to make the call. As soon as he leaves, Blair excuses himself and goes upstairs. A minute later, Alex and Ludwig hear a whistle, followed by breaking glass and the sounds of a struggle. They remain frozen for some time after the sounds cease. When Aubrey returns, a quick survey of the outside of the pub reveals that an upstairs window has been torn out and lies in pieces in the garden. It appears to be the window of Blair's room. The high-flying speck that Aubrey noticed is no longer visible.

Venturing upstairs, they find the door to Blair's room open on a distressing scene. Blair appears to have been torn apart and the upper half of his body is entirely missing; there is blood everywhere. Alex's nerve breaks and he flees the scene, falling down the stairs in his haste. Aubrey and Ludwig attempt to search the room, but are hampered by the blood. They do not want to leave traces that they might have to explain to the police. They spot a familiar-looking black whistle in a pool of blood on the floor, and a copy of Roby's book on the bed. The book is open to the endpapers, where a long passage has been written in pencil. The details are obscured by more blood.

Leaving the pub they find Alex cowering in the porch of the church where the kindly Vicar is attempting, without much success, to find out what is wrong. They spend the rest of the day and the following night at the vicarage, telling their story to the police and being offered endless cups of tea. They return to London on the Friday, badly shaken, to find that Vincent Tuck has returned from Oxford and is ready to make his report.

Tuck's lack of an academic background hampered his investigation, but by hanging around the "Eagle and Child" pub he was eventually able to talk to Malcolm Quarrie's former tutor, a professor Tolkien. The professor describes Quarrie as a sound scholar and historian with a particular interest in Roman and pre-Roman influences on Anglo-Saxon religion. He describes Quarrie's book ("British Gods: Religion and Myth in the Western Kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon Britain", OUP, 1924) as "an excellent treatment". He also believes that Quarrie was married, unusually for a graduate student. He has no idea what Quarrie did after leaving Oxford or where he is now.

After showing him Gresty's letter, the investigators have little trouble persuading Tuck to accompany them as a bodyguard when they follow Bacon. He also agrees to find Aubrey a gun and some basic instruction in how to use it. Alex will make his own arrangements.