They dropped me off at Kyle Manor, and I used Zellaby's phone to call the police. When I put the receiver down I found him at my elbow with a glass in his hand.

'You look as if you could do with it,' he said.

'I could,' I agreed. 'very unexpected. Very messy.'

'Just how did it occur?' he inquired.

I gave him an account of our rather narrow angle on the affair. Twenty minutes later Bernard returned, able to tell more of it.

'The Pawle brothers were apparently very much attached,' he began. Zellaby nodded agreement. 'Well, it seems that the younger one, David, found the inquest the last straw, and decided that if nobody else was going to see justice done over his brother, he'd do it himself.

'This girl Elsa – his girl – called at Dacre Farm just as he was leaving. When she saw him carrying the gun she guessed what was happening, and tried to stop him. He wouldn't listen, and to get rid of her he locked her in a shed, and then went off.

'It took her a bit of time to break out, but she judged he would be making for The Grange, and followed across the fields. When she got to the field she thought she'd made a mistake because she didn't see him at first. Possibly he was lying down to take cover. Anyway, she doesn't seem to have spotted him until after the first shot. When she did, he was standing up, with the gun still pointed into the lane. Then while she was running towards him he reversed the gun, and put his thumb on the trigger...'

Zellaby remained silently thoughtful for some moments, then he said:

'It'll be a clear enough case from the police view. David considers the Children to be responsible for his brother's death, kills one of them in revenge and then, to escape the penalty, commits suicide. Obviously unbalanced. What else could a "reasonable man" think?'

'I may have been a bit sceptical before,' I admitted, 'but I'm not now. The way that boy looked at us! I believe that for a moment he thought one of us had done it – fired that shot, I mean – just for an instant, until he saw it was impossible. The sensation was indescribable, but it was frightening for the moment it lasted. Did you feel that, too?' I added, to Bernard.

He nodded. 'A queer, weak, and watery feeling,' he agreed. 'very bleak.'

'It was just -' I broke off, suddenly remembering. 'My God, I was so taken up with other business I forgot to tell the police anything about the wounded boy. Ought we to call an ambulance for The Grange?'

Zellaby shook his head.

'They've got a doctor of their own on the staff there,' he told us.

He reflected in silence for fully a minute, then he sighed, and shook his head. 'I don't much like this development, Colonel. I don't like it at all. Am I mistaken, do you think, in seeing here the very pattern of the way a blood feud starts...?'

Dinner at Kyle Manor was postponed to allow Bernard and me to make our statements to the police, and by the time that was over I was feeling the need of it. I was grateful, too, for the Zellabys' offer to put both of us up for the night. The shooting had caused Bernard to change his mind about returning to London; he had decided to be on hand, if not in Midwich itself, then no further away than Trayne, leaving me with the alternative of keeping him company, or making a slow journey by railway. Moreover, I had a feeling that my sceptical attitude towards Zellaby in the afternoon had verged upon the discourteous, and I was not sorry for the chance to make amends.

I sipped my sherry, feeling a little ashamed.

'You cannot,' I told myself, 'you cannot protest or argue these Children and their qualities out of existence. And since they do exist, there must be some explanation of that existence. None of your accepted views explain it. Therefore, that explanation is going to be found, however uncomfortable it may be for you, in views that you do not at present accept. Whatever it is, it is going to arouse your prejudices. Just remember that, and clout your instinctive prejudices with it when they bob up.'

At dinner, however, I had no need to be vigilant for clouting. The Zellabys, feeling no doubt that we had passed through disquietment enough for the present, took pains to keep the conversation on subjects unrelated to Midwich and its troubles. Bernard remained somewhat abstracted, but I appreciated the effort, and ended the meal listening to Zellaby discoursing on the wave-motion of form and style, and the desirability of intermittent periods of social rigidity for the purpose of curbing the subversive energies of a new generation, in a far more equable frame of mind than I had started it.

Not long after we had withdrawn to the sitting-room, however, the peculiar problems of Midwich were back with us, re-entering with a visit by Mr Leebody. The Reverend Hubert was a badly troubled man, and looking, I thought, a lot older than the passage of eight years fully warranted.

Angela Zellaby sent for another cup and poured him some coffee. His attempts at small talk while he sipped it were valiant if erratic, but when he finally set down his empty cup, it was with an air of holding back no longer.

'Something,' he announced to us all, 'something will have to be done.'

Zellaby looked at him thoughtfully for a moment.

'My dear Vicar,' he reminded him gently, 'each of us has been saying that for years.'

'I mean done soon , and decisively. We've done our best to find a place for the Children, to preserve some kind of balance – and, considering everything, I don't think we have done too badly – but all along it has been makeshift, impromptu, empiric, and it can't go on like that any longer. We must have a code which includes the Children, some means by which the law can be brought to bear on them, as it does on the rest of us. If the law is seen to be incapable of ensuring that justice is done, it falls into contempt, and men feel that there is no resort and no protection but private revenge. That is what happened this afternoon, and even if we get through this crisis without serious trouble, there is bound to be another before long. It is useless for the authorities to employ the forms of law to produce verdicts which everyone knows to be false. This afternoon's verdict was a farce; and there is no doubt in the village that the inquest on the younger Pawle will be just as much of a farce. It is absolutely necessary that steps should be taken at once to bring the Children within the control of the law before worse trouble occurs.'

'We foresaw possible difficulty of the kind, you will remember,' Zellaby reminded him. 'We even sent a memorandum on the subject to the Colonel here. I must admit that we did not envisage any such serious matters as have occurred – but we did point out the desirability of having some means of ensuring that the Children should conform to normal social and legal rules. And what happened? You, Colonel, passed it on to higher authorities, and eventually we received a reply appreciating our concern, but assuring us that the Department concerned had every confidence in the social psychologists who had been appointed to instruct and guide the Children. In other words they saw no way in which they could exert control over them, and simply were hoping that under suitable training no critical situation would arise. – And there, I must confess, I sympathize with the Department, for I am still quite unable to see how the Children can be compelled to obey rules of any kind, if they do not choose to.'

Mr Leebody entwined his fingers, looking miserably helpless.

'But something must be done,' he reiterated. 'It only needed an occurrence of this kind to bring it all to a head, now I'm afraid of it boiling over any minute. It isn't a matter of reasoning, it's more primitive. Almost every man in the village is at The Scythe and Stone tonight. Nobody called a meeting; they've just gravitated there, and most of the women are fluttering round to one another's houses, and whispering in groups. It's the kind of excuse the men have always wanted – or it might be.'