After a lull of ten months since the dastardly vandalism in the Weeden lot at the North Burial Ground, a nocturnal prowler was glimpsed early this morning in the same cemetery by Robert Hart, the nightwatchman. Happening to glance for a moment from his shelter at about two a.m., Hart observed the glow of a lantern or pocket torch not far to the northward, and upon opening the door detected the figure of a man with a trowel very plainly silhouetted against a nearby electric light. At once starting in pursuit, he saw the figure dart hurriedly toward the main entrance, gaining the street and losing himself among the shadows before approach or capture was possible.

Like the first of the ghouls active during the past year, this intruder had done no real damage before detection. A vacant part of the Ward lot shewed signs of a little superficial digging, but nothing even nearly the size of a grave had been attempted, and no previous grave had been disturbed.

Hart, who cannot describe the prowler except as a small man probably having a full beard, inclines to the view that all three of the digging incidents have a common source; but police from the Second Station think otherwise on account of the savage nature of the second incident, where an ancient coffin was removed and its headstone violently shattered.

The first of the incidents, in which it is thought an attempt to bury something was frustrated, occurred a year ago last March, and has been attributed to bootleggers seeking a cache. It is possible, says Sergt. Riley, that this third affair is of similar nature. Officers at the Second Station are taking especial pains to capture the gang of miscreants responsible for these repeated outrages.

All day Thursday Dr Willett rested as if recuperating from something past or nerving himself for something to come. In the evening he wrote a note to Mr Ward, which was delivered the next morning and which caused the half-dazed parent to ponder long and deeply. Mr Ward had not been able to go down to business since the shock of Monday with its baffling reports and its sinister ‘purgation’, but he found something calming about the doctor’s letter in spite of the despair it seemed to promise and the fresh mysteries it seemed to evoke.

10 Barnes St

Providence, R.I.

April 12, 1928

Dear Theodore

I feel that I must say a word to you before doing what I am going to do tomorrow. It will conclude the terrible business we have been going through (for I feel that no spade is ever likely to reach that monstrous place we know of), but I’m afraid it won’t set your mind at rest unless I expressly assure you how very conclusive it is.