A quick glance at Janet's expression showed me that she had dropped out. When she has decided that someone is talking nonsense she makes a quick decision to waste no more effort upon it, and pulls down an impervious mental curtain. I went on pondering, looking out of the window.

'I feel, I think,' I said presently, 'rather like a chameleon placed on a colour it can't quite manage. If I have followed you, you are saying that in each of these two groups the minds are in some way – well – pooled. Would that imply that the boys have, collectively, a normal brain-power multiplied by thirty, and the girls have it multiplied by twenty-eight?'

'I think not,' said Zellaby, quite seriously, 'and it certainly does not mean normal abilities to the power of thirty, thank heaven – that would be beyond any comprehension. It does appear to mean multiplication of intelligence in some degree, but at their present stage I don't see how that can be estimated – if it ever could be. That may portend tremendous things. But what seems to me of more immediate importance is the degree of will-power that has been produced – the potentialities of that strike me as very serious indeed. One has no idea how these compulsions are exerted, but I fancy that if it can be explored we might find that when a certain degree of will is, so as to speak, concentrated in one vessel a Hegelian change takes place – that is, that in more than a critical quantity it begins to display a new quality. In this case, a power of direct imposition.

'That, however, I frankly admit is speculative – and I can now foresee a devil of a lot to speculate about and investigate.'

'The whole thing sounds incredibly complicated to me – if you are right.'

'In detail, in the mechanics, yes,' Zellaby admitted, 'but in principle, I think, not nearly so much as would appear at first sight. After all, you would agree that the essential quality of man is the embodiment of a spirit?'

'Certainly,' I nodded.

'Well, a spirit is a living force, therefore it is not static, therefore it is something which must either evolve, or atrophy. Evolution of a spirit assumes the eventual development of a greater spirit. Suppose, then, that this greater spirit, this super spirit, is attempting to make its appearance on the scene. Where is it to dwell? The ordinary man is not constructed to contain it; the superman does not exist to house it. Might it not, then, for lack of a suitable single vehicle, inform a group – rather like an encyclopedia grown too large for one volume? I don't know. But if it were so, then two super-spirits, residing in two groups, is no less probable.'

He paused, looking out of the open windows, watching a bumble-bee fly from one lavender-head to another, then he added reflectively:

'I have wondered about these two groups quite a lot. I have even felt that there ought to be names for these two super-spirits. One would imagine there were plenty of names to choose from, and yet I find just two, out of them all, persistently invading my mind. Somehow, I keep on thinking of – Adam – and Eve.'

Two or three days later I had a letter telling me that the job I had been angling for in Canada could be mine if I sailed without delay. I did, leaving Janet to clear things up, and follow me.

When she arrived she had little more news of Midwich except on a rather one-sided feud which had broken out between the Freemans and Zellaby.

Zellaby, it appeared, had told Bernard Westcott of his findings. An inquiry for further particulars had reached the Freemans to whom the whole idea came as a novelty, and one which they instinctively opposed. They at once instituted tests of their own, and were seen to be growing gloomier as they proceeded.

'But at least I imagine they'll stop short of Adam and Eve,' she added. 'Really, old Zellaby! The thing I shall never cease to be thankful for was that we happened to go to London when we did. Just fancy if I'd become the mother of a thirty-first part of an Adam, or a twenty-ninth part of an Eve. It's been bad enough as it is, and thank goodness we're out of it. I've had enough of Midwich, and I don't care if I never hear of the place again.'

During the next few years, such visits home as we managed were brief and hurried, spent entirely in dashing from one lot of relatives to another, with interludes to improve business contacts. I never went anywhere near Midwich, nor indeed thought much about it. But, in the eighth summer after we had left, I managed a six-week spell, and at the end of the first week I ran into Bernard Wescott one day, in Piccadilly.

We went to the In and Out for a drink. In the course of a chat I asked him about Midwich. I think I expected to hear that the whole thing had fizzled out, for on the few occasions I had recalled the place lately, it and its inhabitants had the improbability of a tale once realistic, but now thoroughly unconvincing. I was more than half-ready to hear that the Children no longer trailed clouds of anything unconventional, that, as so often with suspected genius, expectations had never flowered, and that, for all their beginnings and indications, they had become an ordinary gang of village children, with only their looks to distinguish them.

Bernard considered for a moment, then he said:

'As it happens, I have to go down there tomorrow. Would you care to come for the run, renew old acquaintance, and so on?'

Janet had gone north to stay with an old school friend for a week leaving me on my own, with nothing particular to do.

'So you do still keep an eye on the place? Yes, I'd like to come and have a few words with them. Zellaby's still alive and well?'

'Oh, yes. He's that rather dry-stick type that seems set to go on for ever, unchanged.'

'The last time I saw him – apart from our farewell – he was off on a weird tack about composite personality,' I recalled. 'An old spellbinder. He manages to make the most exotic conceptions sound feasible while he's talking. Something about Adam and Eve, I remember.'

'You won't find much difference,' Bernard told me, but did not pursue that line. Instead, he went on: 'My own business there is a bit morbid I'm afraid – an inquest, but that needn't interfere with you.'

'One of the Children?' I asked.

'No,' he shook his head. 'A motor accident to a local boy called Pawle.'

'Pawle,' I repeated. 'Oh, yes, I remember. They've a farm a bit outside, nearer to Oppley.'

'That's it. Dacre Farm. Tragic business.'

It seemed intrusive to ask what interest he could have in the inquest, so I let him switch the conversation to my Canadian experiences.

The next morning, with a fine summer's day already well begun, we set off soon after breakfast. In the car he apparently felt at liberty to talk more freely than he had at the club.

'You'll find a few changes in Midwich,' he warned me. 'Your old cottage is now occupied by a couple called Welton – he etches, and his wife throws pots. I can't remember who is in Crimm's place at the moment – there's been quite a succession of people since the Freemans. But what's going to surprise you most is The Grange. The board outside has been repainted; it now reads: "Midwich Grange – Special School – Ministry of Education." '

'Oh? The Children?' I asked.

'Exactly.' He nodded. 'Zellaby's "exotic conception" was a lot less exotic than it seemed. In fact, it was a bull – to the great discomfiture of the Freemans. It showed them up so thoroughly that they had to clear out to hide their faces.'

'You mean his Adam and Eve stuff?' I said incredulously.