‘No. But he came in and took them all away. He said that the lab wasn’t the right place for them.’

I went shopping to re-stock the den with food, and then took the bus into the forest and walked home. I dozed and rested through the afternoon since I might need all the endurance I had, and meanwhile the June sun was kind enough to dry last night’s clothes. Before sunset I started out on the eight-mile tramp to Wigpool, taking it easy and stopping on the way for a meal. The wind, what there was of it, had gone round to the north and the night was clear and starlit.

After approaching the shaft from the back, I lay down to await developments and noticed that the pile of old pit props had been arranged in something like a hollow square. That was fine. Somebody was about to go down or come out and I was prepared to watch all night for him to appear.

At last there was a quick flash of light between the timbers and a man emerged from the middle of them. I could not be sure who he was till I was closer, when he turned out to be that white worm, Ballard, He returned the props to their normal shape of a stack and cleared off. As I wanted to see where he had parked his car and who would pick him up, I followed him, from time to time deliberately making a little mysterious noise to bother him. I did, for he quickened his pace and started to whistle to keep up his courage. Meditation should have been enough to dispel such worldly matters. It may be harder when they are unworldly.

He walked for about half a mile along the rutted track and through a stand of splendid oaks, outliners of the Forest, until he came to a minor road where he waited. Marrin’s van arrived to collect him. I could not see who was driving.

Since Ballard had carefully remade the stack it was obvious that I was going to have the night to myself and plenty of time for exploration. Considering the stories I had heard of a maze of forgotten galleries, I had thought it advisable to imitate Theseus and Ariadne and take with me a large ball of string to be used to mark my trail wherever there might be a doubt of the way back to the surface. I must admit that I did not much like making such a journey unaccompanied but I was sure that both the major and the cauldron were ahead of me and either – or if possible both – would do.

As soon as I had moved the scattered props, which probably had been there for years until eyes no longer paid attention to them, I came upon four layers of them, neatly set into a square excavation. After raising these, a dark hole appeared. The diameter was very narrow, only about three feet, and my guess is that it had been the entrance to a badger sett which Marrin had excavated still further in the hope that it offered an alternative way into the workings. For the first few yards I had to crawl, but then an even slope led downwards, with some timbering to support the roof, until it led at a right angle into a true miner’s roadway cut in rock. This was obviously the main shaft. The gallery to which badgers and Marrin had obtained access had never been intended to reach the surface and was possibly a lay-by or an exploratory tunnel later abandoned.

The first question was whether to turn right uphill or left downhill along the main shaft. Right was soon eliminated. The roadway curved round, still uphill, and the beam of my torch showed the inner side of the old timber barrier; so I turned back and carried on downwards. The floor had been dry rock but now became wet and muddy, and it was quite believable that a stream or lake was somewhere in the depths. At a Y junction footsteps in the mud showed me which branch to take, and soon I saw a faint gleam of light on the yellow, dripping wall coming from some opening on the right. I could not approach it quietly, for it was impossible to move without audible squelching. There was nothing for it but to try speed and surprise. I picked up a lump of iron ore and rushed the opening.

Sitting in a deck chair was the major, peacefully reading a pocket Bible in the light of an oil lamp.

He looked up without any alarm and put down the book.

‘But how kind of you to want to see how I was getting on!’ he said.

My lungs were suddenly emptied of the deep breath of attack and I could only gasp, ‘Then you’re … you’re not a prisoner?’

‘I was a prisoner. But now I am here of my own free will.’

I told him how I had found his hidden car, proving that he had been killed or kidnapped, and that then I had tried the Wigpool workings on the off-chance that he might be there. What had happened, I asked.

‘After I had performed my vigil in Blakeney church and prayed that I might be worthy …’

‘Worthy of what?’ I interrupted.

‘Worthy of guarding the Grail.’

‘It is not the Grail,’ I bellowed in exasperation. ‘It’s not a chalice or a bowl. It’s a cauldron, if anything.’

‘In Irish legend, Piers, the Grail was a cauldron.’

‘Well, is it down here?’

‘I am sure of it.’

‘And you have confessed to the burglary?’

‘Ashamed to say I haven’t, old boy! I would have told the truth if they had asked me, but they never did.’

‘Then why are they holding you here?’

‘I was telling you. After I had performed my vigil I went to Evans and accused him of entering the laboratory as soon as he heard of Simeon’s death and taking the bowl. They showed no resentment, he and his friends. We’ll talk about, it they said, and then you shall see it. So we went to Evans’ room where we all had a drink. I remember walking with them to my car and then nothing else until I woke up down here. Wigpool, is it? Damned interesting, that!’

‘But how could you know that the burglar hadn’t taken the bowl?’

‘That is what they want me to tell them.’

‘And what have you told them?’

‘That when the burglar smashed the casket he was so overcome by the beauty and sanctity of the bowl that he could not bring himself to take it. And that, old boy, is as true as God’s in Gloucestershire except that I didn’t smash the casket.’

‘And what in the name of God in Gloucestershire did they think of that?’

‘They wondered. They too accept that it may be the chalice which started the legend of the Grail.’

‘But they aren’t Christians, damn it!’

‘They think it is far older than Our Lord.’

Well, there at least they could be right. It might be Saxon, but I too thought it far older and an import from the east. I had even played with the idea that it could be more ancient still, either a part of the treasure of Nodens before he became a god, or an urn to contain his entrails in the manner of the Egyptians.

‘They believe that it has been sacred from time immemorial,’ he went on, ‘that the first Britons worshipped it, and the Christians after them, and that both had their own myths to account for it. I do not believe that it was the Cup of the Last Supper, Piers, but I do believe that it is in some way hallowed.’

‘Do they know where Marrin found it?’

‘No. He said that he had been led to it in a dream.’

‘And they believe that?’

‘In two different senses. They are subtle as theologians, Piers, when explaining the ineffable. Evans believes that Simeon was led to the hiding-place of the bowl by direct inspiration: a waking rather than a sleeping dream. Some others have it that Simeon himself, in a trance, made it from gold transmuted by the spirit of earth. That is to say: the substance is immaterial but the shape material. A sort of immortal, eternally reincarnated object. Fits the Grail, what? But too subtle.’

‘I’m glad they are enjoying themselves. And how long do you propose to stay here?’

‘Until Evans confesses and gives the Grail into my care.’

We had reached the limit of exasperating lunacy. I thought that if I could shake his delusion that the cauldron could be the Grail of legend he would break out of his complacency – Perceval if I remember was somewhat complacent too – and leave with me at once. So I told him of that In Memoriam ceremony I had witnessed, which was pure midnight sorcery and as pagan and pantheistic as you could want.