On the morning of the 8th, he was buried in the grove, and Ensign Platt read the funeral service over his grave.
Mrs.Ravenscroft and her child were taken to Colonel Patton, at Secrora, and soon after sent by him to Lucknow.
On the 10th, he reported the circumstances of this murder to the Resident, Mr.Ricketts; and sent him the narratives of Mosahib and Deena; and his report, with translations of these narratives, was submitted by the Resident to Government on the 12th of that month.
But in these narratives no mention whatever was made of a British officer having been present at the murder and the burial of Mr.
Ravenscroft.

This suppression arose, no doubt, from the apprehension that Government might be displeased to find that the military authorities at Secrora had become aware of Mr.Ravenscroft's residence at Bhinga without reporting the circumstance to Government; and still more so to find, that he had been there visited by a British officer, when search was being made for him throughout India.
In acknowledging the receipt of the Resident's letter on the 23rd of May, the Secretary, Mr.George Swinton, observes, that the Governor- General in Council concludes, that he shall receive a more full and satisfactory report on the subject from Colonel Patton than that to which his letter had given cover, since he considered that report to be very imperfect; that one of the narrators, Mosahib, states, that he himself conducted Mrs.Ravenscroft and her child to a neighbouring village, and yet he brought no message whatever from that lady to Colonel Patton at Secrora; that none of the wounded people or servants of the deceased, except Deena, appear to have found their way to Sacrora, though four days had elapsed from the date of the murder to that of the despatch of the report; that the body seemed to have been hastily interred by the people of the village, without any notice having been sent to the officer commanding the troops at Secrora; that such an atrocious outrage as that described in these narratives, on the person of a subject and servant of the British Government, demanded the exertion of every effort to ascertain the real facts of the case by local inquiry; yet it did not appear that any person had been despatched to the spot to verify the evidence of the two men examined by Colonel Patton, or to clear up the doubts to which all these circumstances must naturally have given rise; nor did it appear that the defects in Colonel Patton's report had occurred to the Resident, or that he had directed any further inquiry to be made.
The Resident was, therefore, directed to instruct Colonel Patton, to depute one or more officers to the place where the murder was said to be perpetrated, with orders to hold an inquiry on the spot in communication with the King of Oude's officers, to take the evidence of the wounded men, and that of any other persons who might have been witnesses to any part of the transaction, and to the burial of Mr.
Ravenscroft; and to examine the grave in which the body of the deceased was said to have been deposited; and further, to call upon Colonel Patton to state whether any information had previously reached Secrora of Mr.Ravenscroft's actually residing at Bhinga, or at any other place within the dominions of the King of Oude.

"His Lordship in Council was," Mr.Swinton says, "satisfied, from the known humanity of Colonel Patton's character, that every possible aid and comfort had been extended to Mrs.Ravenscroft and her child; and the information which that lady and her attendants must have it in their power to give, could not fail to place the whole affair in its proper light." Extracts from this letter were sent by the Resident to Colonel Patton, on the 2nd of June, with a request that he would adopt immediate measures to carry the orders of Government into effect; and reply to the question whether any information of Mr.
Ravenscroft's residing at Bhinga had previously reached him.
A committee of British officers was assembled at Bhinga on the 11th June, and their proceedings were transmitted to the Resident on the 18th of that month; but the committee, for some reasons stated in the report, did not examine "the grave in which the body of the deceased was said to have been deposited." Though in this committee Ensign Platt stated that he was present when the murder was perpetrated; that he attended the deceased till he died the next night, and performed the funeral ceremonies over the body on the morning of the 8th; still he seemed to narrate the circumstances of the event with some reserve, while there was a good deal of discrepancy in the evidence of the other eye-witnesses, as recorded in the report, seemingly from the dread of compromising Ensign Platt.
The Resident did not, therefore, think that Government would be satisfied with the result of this inquiry; and, on the 20th of June he directed Colonel Patton to reassemble the committee at Bhinga, and require it to hold an inquest on the body, and take the depositions of all the witnesses on oath.

On the same day the Resident reported to Government what he had done.

The second committee proceeded to Bhinga, and, on the 13th of July, Colonel Patton transmitted its report to the Resident, who submitted it to Government on the 17th of that month.