The car, a small, open two-seater, was not travelling fast, but it happened that just round the corner, and shielded from sight by it, the Children had stopped. They appeared, still strung out across the road, to be debating which way they should go.

The car's driver did his best. He pulled hard over to the right in an attempt to avoid them, and all but succeeded. Another two inches, and he would have missed them entirely. But he could not make the extra inches. The tip of his left wing caught the outermost boy on the hip, and flung him across the road against the fence of a cottage garden.

There was a moment of tableau which remained quite static in Zellaby's mind. The boy against the fence, the three other Children frozen where they stood, the young man in the car in the act of straightening his wheels again, still braking.

Whether the car actually came to a stop Zellaby could never be sure; if it did it was for the barest instant, then the engine roared.

The car sprang forward. The driver changed up, and put his foot down again, keeping straight ahead. He made no attempt whatever to take the corner to the left. The car was still accelerating when it hit the churchyard wall. It smashed to smithereens, and hurled the driver headlong against the wall.

People shouted, and the few who were near started running towards the wreckage. Zellaby did not move. He stood half-stunned as he watched the yellow flames leap out, and the black smoke start upwards. Then, with a stiff-seeming movement, he turned to look at the Children. They, too, were staring at the wreck, a similar tense expression on each face. He had only a glimpse of it before it passed off, and the three of them turned to the boy who lay by the fence, groaning.

Zellaby became aware that he was trembling. He walked on a few yards, unsteadily, until he reached a seat by the edge of the Green. There he sat down and leant back, pale in the face, feeling ill.

The rest of this incident reached me not from Zellaby himself, but from Mrs Williams, of The Scythe and Stone, somewhat later on:

'I heard the car go tearing by, then a loud bang, and I looked out of the window and saw people running,' she said. 'Then I noticed Mr Zellaby go to the bench on the Green, walking very unsteadily. He sat down, and leaned back, but then his head fell forward, like he might be passing out. So I ran across the road to him, and when I got to him I found he was passed out, very near. Not quite, though. He managed to say something about "pills" and "pocket" in a sort of funny whisper. I found them in his pocket. It said two, on the bottle, but he was looking that bad I gave him four.

'Nobody else was taking any notice. They'd all gone up where the accident was. Well, the pills did him good, and after about five minutes I helped him into the house, and let him lay on the couch in the bar-parlour. He said he'd be all right there, just resting a bit, so I went to ask about the car.

'When I came back, his face wasn't so grey any more, but he was still lying like he was tired right out.

' "Sorry to be a nuisance, Mrs Williams. Rather a shock," he said.

' "I'd better get the doctor to you, Mr Zellaby," I said. But he shook his head.

' "No. Don't do that. I'll be all right in a few minutes," he told me.

' "I think you'd better see him," I said. "Fair put the wind up me, you did."

' "I'm sorry about that," he said. And then after a bit of a pause he went on: "Mrs Williams, I'm sure you can keep a secret?"

' "As well as the next, I reckon," I told him.

' "Well, I'd be very grateful if you'd not mention this – lapse of mine to anyone."

' "I don't know," I said. "To my way of thinking you ought to see the doctor."

'He shook his head at that.

' "I've seen a number of doctors, Mrs Williams, expensive and important ones. But one just can't help growing old, you see, and as one does, the machinery begins to wear out, that's all."

' "Oh, Mr Zellaby, sir -" I began.

' "Don't distress yourself, Mrs Williams. I'm still quite tough in a lot of ways, so it may not come for some little time yet. But, in the meantime, I think it is rather important that one should not trouble the people one loves any more than can be helped, don't you think? It is an unkindness to cause them useless distress, I'm sure you'll agree?"

' "Well, yes, sir, if you're sure that there's nothing -?"

' "I am. Quite sure. I am already in your debt, Mrs Williams, but you will have done me no service unless I can rely on you not to mention it. Can I?"

' "Very well. If that's the way you want it, Mr Zellaby," I told him.

' "Thank you, Mrs Williams. Thank you very much," he said.

'Then, after a bit, I asked him:

' "You saw it all happen, then, sir? Enough to give anyone a shock, it must've been."

' "Yes," he said. "I saw it – but I didn't see who it was in the car."

' "Young Jim Pawle," I told him, "from Dacre Farm."

'He shook his head.

' "I remember him – nice lad."

' "Yes, sir. A good boy, Jim. Not one of the wild ones. Can't think how he'd come to be driving mad in the village. Not like him at all."

'Then there was quite a pause till he said in a funny sort of voice:

' "Before that, he hit one of the Children – one of the boys. Not badly, I think, but he knocked him across the road."

' "One of the Children -" I said. Then I suddenly saw what he was meaning. "Oh no, sir! My God, they couldn't've -" but then I stopped again, because of the way he was looking at me.

' "Other people saw it, too," he told me. "Healthier – or, possibly less shockable people – Perhaps I myself should have found it less upsetting if, at some previous stage of my quite long life, I had already had the experience of witnessing deliberate murder..." '

The account that Zellaby himself gave us, however, ended at the point where he had sat shakily down on the bench. When he finished, I looked from him to Bernard. There was no lead at all in Bernard's expression, so I said:

'You're suggesting that the Children did it – that they made him drive into that wall?'

'I'm not suggesting,' said Zellaby with a regretful shake of his head, 'I'm stating. They did it, just as surely as they made their mothers bring them back here.'

'But the witnesses – the ones who gave evidence...?'

'They're perfectly well aware of what happened. They only had to say what they actually saw .'

'But if they know it's as you claim -?'

'Well, what then? What would you have said if you had known, and happened to be called as a witness? In an affair such as this there has to be a verdict acceptable to authority – acceptable, that means, to our well-known figment, the reasonable man. Suppose that they had somehow managed to get a verdict that the boy was willed to kill himself – do you imagine that would stand? Of course it wouldn't. There'd have to be a second inquest, called to bring in a "reasonable" verdict, which would be the verdict we now have, so why should the witnesses run the risk of being thought unreliable, or superstitious, for nothing?

'If you want evidence that they would be, take a look at your own attitude now. You know that I have some little reputation through my books, and you know me personally, but how much is that worth against the thought-habits of the "reasonable man"? So little that when I tell you what actually occurred, your immediate reaction is to try to find ways in which what appeared to me to have occurred could not in actual fact have done so. You really ought to have more sense, my dear fellow. After all you were here when those Children forced their mothers to come back.'

'That wasn't quite on a level with what you are telling me now,' I objected.