West Coast
Devonshire, Dartmoor
St George, Chapel of St George
4 November 1898, 1:46 p.m.

"Excuse me. You want WHAT?!"

The priest's voice rolled over and echoed off the walls of the chapel like a roll of thunder. Kyle couldn't quite escape the surprise. During the hours he had been cooped up with this man, he had never struck such a tone or even seemed as if he could. He seemed like a soft-washed wimp from an abbey somewhere in the middle of nowhere, following in his father's outsized footsteps because he had to. And not because he wanted to. After all, his words in the carriage had confirmed that. But now his face had not taken on an ashen hue like a sheet that had been bleached too often, but rather a smooth transition of different shades of red. Blanched indignation bubbled out of the priest with every word and could easily have filled an entire holy water font.

Kyle pursed his lips, shifted his weight from his left leg to his right, and tried not to let on HOW uncomfortable he felt. Not because of the priest. He looked more like a gangly penguin trying to stamp his clumsy feet angrily. Dr Archer seemed to take all the time in the world, equally unimpressed by the outburst of the man of God regarding their request. The constable, on the other hand, reached for the collar of his coat to loosen it a little. As if it had suddenly become tighter. Kyle almost felt sorry for Baltimore, trying to rebel here in this nest against the gullible people who were as deeply entrenched in their traditions as the turf ditches in their fields. Unable to see beyond the edges.

"Father, this is a potential murder investigation. We need to consider..." put in Kyle magnanimously, coming to the poor village beadle's rescue.

"I thought you were a writer?!" the young village preacher said, lowering his gaze like the sword of Damocles at Kyle's lie. The imaginary head rolled off Kyle's shoulders and came to rest at everyone's feet. But instead of buckling, the accused remained standing as if he were a new Störtebeker and at least managed to shrug his shoulders.

Kyle didn't have the nerve for the pastor's evil shame-on-you look right now and instead grabbed his own hand behind his back to distract himself. He couldn't stand churches. And that wasn't an exaggerated expression. He really did. As soon as he had entered the chapel, his nerves had frayed into thin threads and were far too much under tension to be accountable to a priest. Even more so to one who had almost made a mess of his nicely pressed robe on the outward journey. But as soon as he was no longer in a misty, eerie forest but in the safety of his chapel, the little puppy turned into a cheeky yapper.

"Undercover investigation Father," explained Kyle therefore so curtly that he almost rivalled Dr Archer in his dismissive manner.

Father pushed his lower lip forward and pulled a pinched face like an offended child who had seen through Santa's lie. A mixture of reproach and his own criticism hid behind it because he realised that he had fallen for the hoax too easily.

"Well." his voice took on a serious tone and he straightened to his full height, still failing to tower over the constable and Dr Archer. "I will not have a couple of private investigators disturbing the peace of the dead!" he clarified. "These poor souls and the community have had to endure enough already. To scrape a man from his grave is blasphemy." Father raised his hand and crossed his chest as if he must already be asking his God for forgiveness for the very thought. Kyle closed his eyes and prayed for patience instead. His hands behind his back tightened and clenched as he took a deep breath.

"Father. Should it have been a murder..." The constable tried this time.

"Constable. An exhumation needs permission from a judge or a bishop. Nothing more, nothing less. Moreover, the relatives must consent. Anything else is a filthy grave desecration!" the Father now jutted his chin up. "I may have only been in the parish for a short time. But on my watch, I'm not going to let some private snoop from London desecrate a grave!" he breathed so hard that the rosary around his neck rattled as he did so. To Kyle's ears, it sounded like the clatter of thousands of forks falling over each other in a great hall.

"If we have the consent of the widow and the mayor, would you agree?" the doctor now tried to interject and negotiate further. Kyle credited him with backing the constable.

The priest, on the other hand, pursed his lips as if deeply disappointed in Baltimore, as a sheep of his new community. "I will not, right at the beginning of my responsibility, allow such ungodliness to be practised in the parish!" he repeated firmly. "Either you bring me an exhumation order from an official body or the grave will remain as it is."

"As you think Father. After all, you will have to answer for it in the highest court, should a murderer get away with it." A muscle under his eye twitched. His patience teetered near the precipice. "Good day Father." Kyle turned on his heel, not wanting to spend any more time than necessary in this place.

"That was a waste of time," grumbled Kyle as they walked swiftly out of the chapel again. He led the way, slowing down only when they had left the outer fence around the partially crooked graves of the cemetery behind them. Annoyed and frustrated, he pushed away an innocent pebble with the toe of his boot, which bounced in clicking leaps and then lost itself in the grass. Around the chapel, the field of stone tombs stretched like a flower bed. Between partly overgrown blades of grass, the grey-black slabs stood out. Some were visibly old, some no more than a few misshapen stones with already faded engravings and overgrown with moss. Some hung askew, pieces were chipped and only in a smaller section had newer memorials to the dead been arranged more neatly in rows. The narrow path led from the stone steps and the gate of the church past the iron fence that more or less encircled the chapel. Some of the pointed steel posts were already bent, wantonly bent or missing completely at one point or another on the fence. Rust had spread on it, and tendrils of rampant ivy and weeds had used it as a climbing aid, blurring the rusty steel with nature's greenery.

"So, what now?" the constable asked, pulling the helmet from his head. Sobered and tense, he wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

"What are the possibilities for an exhumation permit?" asked Kyle seriously and the constable puffed out his cheeks.

"Not very well, I'm afraid," said Baltimore. "We could ask one of the lads from the village to go straight to Exeter for a bit of money. That would take a day, he might be back by this evening. But in Exeter, a police station would have to check the facts of the case, a judge would have to approve it and then a doctor would have to be appointed, who would then still have to travel here," he enumerated the official route full of bureaucratic hurdles. "Not to mention, we only have suspicions and no proof of alleged murders."

"And by the time all that happens, the body would probably be so badly decomposed that we wouldn't be able to determine much. Not to mention..." Dr Archer gave Kyle a meaningful look, unable to speak the truth, "... that perhaps other eventual evidence would be lost."

Or the opposite: something discovered that shouldn't be out in the open. The Order of Seekers was not only founded to find supernatural occurrences but also to cover them up before they made waves or could even cause panic among the population. If official police officers and another doctor came here, it would make their investigations much more risky and difficult."What other options do we have?" Kyle looked from the doctor to the constable, hoping to get an answer there that he couldn't find himself.

"With the widow's consent, we might be able to persuade the Father." the constable mused, running a hand through his hair. The curls puffed out around his fingers, lying like a shapeless mess on his mop of hair, the perfect image of the tangle that had formed in this case.

"If Ms Andrews did poison her husband, or was involved in these incidents, I don't think she'll permit to dig her husband up again. Let alone investigate him." Kyle grumbled blackly.

"Are there any accurate accounts of how Marie Mosten came to her death?" asked Dr Archer as they walked past the few trees down the slight hill on which the chapel was perched and at whose feet St George's stretched. Colourful leaves lay on the muddy path, making it slippery. One of the sailing leaves got caught in Kyle's hair. Dr Archer took the pity to reach out and pluck it out without the victim noticing.

"I'm afraid not." declared Baltimore, not only regretfully but already frustrated. "The site was already deserted when Marie came to her death. It was late evening and the girl was probably on her way home when..." he faltered, searching for the right words. Then he restarted. "Well, apparently a tether broke. The hot contents of the pitch pot spilt onto the path and caught Marie before it snapped completely, killing the poor girl." The constable swallowed once dryly at the memories. One did not forget the sight so quickly. The smashed body, the sticky black pitch everywhere among the blood, burst flesh and bones...

"What made you think there might have been something strange about it?" asked Dr Archer, untouched, directly. "Up to then, only the Father had died and the girl, but the two incidents seemed far more like accidents. Other than the death of Mr Andrews?"

The constable cleared his throat to dispel the lump of memories in his throat. Then he finally nodded, as if he had to confirm the doctor's words. The helmet with the conspicuous police star on the front slid back and forth slightly on his curly hair.

"That's right. At first glance, it looked like a tragic accident. But at that time of day, there was no one left on the site. All the workers and Mr Mc Hoon too have alibis." Baltimore ran his fingers over his moustache and down his chin. "The strangest thing was that they all agreed on one thing: Bad luck shouldn't have been hot. None of them had cooked it that day. The rope was quite new and not pitted or frayed by the weather. No other part was dragged."

"None of this makes sense so far," Kyle voiced the bitter thoughts. That didn't mean nothing might be going on. In fact, after last night's incident, he was sure of it. But how was it all connected? What did the animals have to do with the incidents in St. George? Or WAS there a connection at all? Kyle wanted to pull his hair out. There HAD to be one!

"Do you think there's any truth to the rumours?" asked Kyle thoughtfully, going over the few clues they had found so far. But the Beadle immediately shook his head.

"Elly's a good girl. She's just very friendly, some people just misinterpret that. None of the visitors to the pub dislike her. Mr and Mrs Andrews tried to have a child for a long time.... unfortunately without success." He narrated as they reached the first houses. "She's like a daughter to the Andrews. The only child they had. This talk is most impious." Baltimore spoke about it as if he had to spit out these words and finally stopped. "Nor could I for the life of me imagine that Arabella should have poisoned Walter. She loved him very much and, as far as I could tell, always did everything he wanted her to do." He continued. "In my opinion, it also doesn't make sense in relation to the other deaths so far. The other cases don't seem to be connected. Marie in particular has no connection to Mrs Andrews, Elly or the Father. Even with her, I don't see any reason why anyone would want to murder her. She may have been a little self-absorbed, but she wasn't unpopular with the villagers."

"Then we have no other option for now. We'll ask Mrs Andrews about the permit and see if we can maybe find out more." Dr Archer cast a sidelong glance at Kyle as if he had guessed his thoughts. They both had very different views and theories of poison murder. There was no way it was as simple as a jealous wife mixing arsenic in her husband's tea. 

What if the host showed the same signs as the animals in the forest? Could the widow have something to do with it? There were such things as witches or herb women. So far they only possessed a few pieces of the puzzle and too much was missing for them to see the whole picture. 

"If she refuses, it reinforces our suspicions and justifies our next move to approach officials in Exeter."