Mr Leebody got up. He turned to Angela Zellaby.

'I'm sorry. I think I'd better -' he began, but his apology was cut short by Mrs Brant's tugging.

'Has anyone told the police?' Zellaby inquired.

'Yes – no. I don't know. They couldn't get here in time. Oh, Vicar, please hurry !' said Mrs Brant, dragging him forcibly through the doorway.

The four of us were left looking at one another. Angela crossed the room swiftly, and closed the door.

'I'd better go and back him up, I think,' said Bernard.

'We might be able to help,' agreed Zellaby, turning, and I moved to join them.

Angela was standing resolutely with her back to the door.

'No!' she said, decisively. 'If you want to do something useful, call the police.'

'You could do that, my dear, while we go and -'

'Gordon,' she said, in a severe voice, as if reprimanding a child. 'Stop and think. Colonel Westcott, you would do more harm than good. You are identified with the Children's interest.'

We all stood in front of her surprised, and a little sheepish.

'What are you afraid of, Angela?' Zellaby asked.

'I don't know. How can I possibly tell? – Except that the Colonel might be lynched.'

'But it will be important,' protested Zellaby. 'We know what the Children can do with individuals, I want to see how they handle a crowd. If they run true to form they'll only have to will the whole crowd to turn round and go away. It will be most interesting to see whether -'

'Nonsense,' said Angela flatly, and with a firmness which made Zellaby blink. 'That is not their "form", and you know it. If it were, they'd simply have made Jim Pawle stop his car; and they'd have made David Pawle fire his second barrel into the air. But they didn't. They're never content with repulsing – they always counter-attack.'

Zellaby blinked again.

'You're right, Angela,' he said, in surprise. 'I never thought of that. The reprisal is always too drastic for the occasion.'

'It is. And however they handle a crowd, I don't want you handled with it. Nor you, Colonel,' she added, to Bernard. 'You're going to be needed to get us out of the trouble you've helped to cause. I'm glad you're here – at least there's someone on the spot who will be listened to.'

'I might observe – from a distance, perhaps,' I suggested meekly.

'If you've any sense you'll stay here out of harm's way,' Angela replied bluntly, and turned again to her husband. 'Gordon, we're wasting time. Will you ring up Trayne, and see whether anyone has told the police there, and ask for ambulances as well.'

'Ambulances! Isn't that a bit – er – premature?' Zellaby protested.

'You introduced this "true to form" consideration – but you don't seem to have considered it,' Angela replied. 'I have. I say ambulances, and if you don't, I will.'

Zellaby, with rather the air of a small boy subdued, picked up the telephone. To me he remarked:

'We don't even know – I mean, we've only Mrs Brant's word for any of it...'

'As I recall Mrs Brant, she was one of the reliable pillars,' I said.

'That's true,' he admitted. 'Well, I'd better risk it.'

When he had finished he returned the telephone thoughtfully to the rest, and regarded it for a moment. He decided to make one more attempt.

'Angela, my dear, don't you think that if one were to keep at a discreet distance...? After all, I am one of the people the Children trust, they're my friends, and -'

But Angela cut him short, with unweakened decision.

'Gordon, it's no good trying to get round me with that nonsense. You're just inquisitive. You know perfectly well that the Children have no friends.'

The Chief Constable of Winshire looked in at Kyle Manor the next morning, just at the right time for a glass of Madeira and a biscuit.

'Sorry to trouble you over this affair, Zellaby. Ghastly business – perfectly horrible. Can't make any sense of it. Nobody in your village quite on target, seems to me. Thought you might be able to put up a picture a fellow can understand.'

Angela leant forward.

'What are the real figures, Sir John? We've heard nothing officially yet.'

'Bad, I'm afraid.' He shook his head. 'One woman and three men dead. Eight men and five women in hospital. Two of the men and one woman in a pretty bad way. Several men who aren't in hospital look as if they ought to be. Regular riot by all accounts – everybody fighting everybody else. But why? That's what I can't get at. No sense out of anybody.' He turned back to Zellaby. 'Seeing that you called the police, and told them there was going to be trouble, it'd help us to know what put you on to it.'

'Well,' Zellaby began cautiously, 'it's a curious situation -'

His wife cut him short by breaking in:

'It was Mrs Brant, the blacksmith's wife,' she said, and went on to describe the vicar's departure. 'I'm sure Mr Leebody will be able to tell you more than we can. He was there, you see; we weren't.'

'He was there all right, and got home somehow, but now he's in Trayne hospital,' said the Chief Constable.

'Oh, poor Mr Leebody. Is he badly hurt?'

'I'm afraid I don't know. The doctor there tells me he's not to be disturbed for a bit. Now.' He turned back to Zellaby once more, 'you told my people that a crowd was marching on The Grange with the intention of setting fire to it. What was your source of information?'

Zellaby looked surprised.

'Why, Mrs Brant. My wife just told you.'

'Is that all! You didn't go out to see for yourself what was going on?'

'Er – no,' Zellaby admitted.

'You mean that, on the unsupported word of a woman in a semi-hysterical condition, you called out the police, in force, and told them that ambulances would be needed?'

'I insisted on it,' Angela told him, with a touch of chill. 'And I was perfectly right. They were needed.'

'But simply on this woman's word -'

'I've known Mrs Brant for years. She's a sensible woman.'

Bernard put in:

'If Mrs Zellaby had not advised us against going to see for ourselves, I'm quite sure we should now be either in hospital, or worse.'

The Chief Constable looked at us.

'I've had an exhausting night,' he said, at last. 'Perhaps I haven't got this straight. What you seem to be saying is that this Mrs Brant came here and told you that the villagers – perfectly ordinary English men and women, and good Winshire stock, were intending to march on a school full of children, their own children, too, and -'

'Not quite, Sir John. The men were going to march, and perhaps some of the women, but I think most of the women would be against it,' Angela objected.

'Very well. These men, then, ordinary, decent, country chaps, were going to set fire to a school full of children. You didn't question it. You accepted an incredible thing like that at once. You did not try to check up, or see for yourselves what was happening. You just called in the police – because Mrs Brant is a sensible woman?'

'Yes,' Angela said icily.

'Sir John,' Zellaby said, with equal coolness. 'I realize you have been busy all night, and I appreciate your official position, but I think that if this interview is to continue, it must be upon different lines.'

The Chief Constable went a little pink. His gaze dropped. Presently he massaged his forehead vigorously with a large fist. He apologized, first to Angela, and then to Zellaby. Almost pathetically he said:

'But there's nothing to get hold of. I've been asking questions for hours, and I can't make head or tail of anything. There's no sign that these people were trying to bum The Grange: they never touched it. They were simply fighting one another, men, and a few women, too – but they were doing it in The Grange grounds. Why? It wasn't just the women trying to stop the men – or, it seems, some of the men trying to stop the rest. No, it appears they all went up from the pub to The Grange together, with nobody trying to stop anybody, except the parson, whom they wouldn't listen to, and a few women who backed him up. And what was it all about? Something, apparently, to do with the children at the school – but what sort of a reason is that for a riot like this? It just doesn't make sense, any of it.' He shook his head, and ruminated a moment. 'I remember my predecessor, old Bodger, saying there was something deuced funny about Midwich. And, by God, he was right. But what is it?'