THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1934: Having taken some time to recuperate and study, the Investigators decided to return to UCLA. Having delivered, a very large donation to UCLA, they borrowed its copy of Unaussprechlichen Kulten. (It is ordinarily kept under lock and key.) They also questioned HAMISH MACDUNN, head of the UCLA History Department, about PROFESSOR GEORGE AYERS. They confirmed that Ayers departed for the area of Dallol in Abyssinia in 1924. While abroad, he contacted MacDunn and convinced him to buy up a lot of books, belonging to the recently deceased RAMON ECHAVARRIA. That lot of books, includes the volumes studied by Luke and Dorothy, as well as Unaussprechlichen Kulten.
MacDunn said that Ayers disappeared while in Abyssinia, some time in 1925. He gave the Investigators a box of Ayers’ effects, including Ayers’ research notes, a travel itinerary for his trip to Abyssinia, and a signed photograph from movie star OLIVIA CLARENDON. Previously, the Investigators had linked the actress to Echavarria and deceased movie star RICHARD SPEND. Clarendon’s signature did not match that of a woman the Investigators met at the Joy Grove Asylum in Savannah, who claimed to be Olivia Clarendon.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1934: Despite a dramatic wardrobe failure, Tick Tock arranged the purchase of 3 doses of Nectar from a Hollywood dealer. He decided to hang onto them and possibly use them later that night.
The Investigators made their way to the Los Angeles office of ABRAHAM BUCHWALD, Echavarria’s former attorney and collaborator in the Nectar trade. Dorothy and Luke engaged in a classic Good Cop/Bad Cop questioning of Buchwald, who revealed that he was an adjunct member of Echavarria’s “druidic” cult. He was ignorant of the details of that cult’s practices, but he attended sex parties, at which he encountered Olivia Clarendon and Richard Spend.
Buchwald admitted he had coordinated the Nectar trade, along with other business for Echavarria. He mentioned that Echavarria had told him to avoid the cult’s final gathering on the fateful night when Echavarria perished, along with many of WALTER WINSTON’S 1924 group of occult investigators. He told Buchwald to prepare himself for “the end.” Buchwald said that, at the time, Echavarria also told him he was deceiving those in his cult—that his “work went deeper than Gol-Goroth.”
Buchwald also acknowledged that he’d done some bookwork for sSAMSON TRAMMEL, who he believes has spearheaded the expansion of the Nectar trade. Trammel offered him a bribe to handle the transfer of Echavarria’s property, but Buchwald declined. The person offering the bribe, on Trammel’s behalf, was a CAPTAIN HECTOR WALKER—perhaps the same man Tick Tock played cards with on his first night in L.A.