A quarryman named Samuel Holt reported seeing a light beneath the old workings shortly after midnight.

He believed somebody was carrying a lantern underground.

The quarry had been closed for years.

Cryer accompanied Holt the following evening.

Deep beneath the quarry they found an old passage partly collapsed by a fall of stone.

There was indeed a lantern.

It stood upon a ledge.

It was still warm.

Beside it lay a man's coat.

The coat belonged to William Sykes, a labourer who had disappeared from the district fourteen years earlier.

Cryer searched the passage.

There was no body.

No second entrance.

No fresh footprints.

Only the lantern.

He ordered the passage sealed.

Three nights later, the lantern was seen again.

This time from the road above.

Cryer returned with two constables and found nothing.

Before leaving, however, he noticed a trail of wet footprints leading away from the sealed entrance.

They stopped abruptly halfway up the passage.

No footprints led towards them.

The lantern was never recovered.