‘The symbol of the Cross was holy before the crucifixion,’ he said. ‘That does not make it less holy. It means it is twice as holy. The first missionaries understood that. No, Piers, here I stay!’

‘They’ll put you out.’

‘They won’t do that in case I accuse Evans of robbing the commune.’

‘Well, then, they’ll tie a weight on you and drop you in the famous lake.’

‘They may, Piers, but while the bowl is here it is my duty as a servant of God and the Crown to remain.’

‘I’ll have the police here tomorrow.’

‘Then I too with sorrow would enter the world of policemen. I shall confess to the burglary and tell them you have everything except the bowl. I shall also tell them how Simeon tried to kill you and that you were at Bullo Pill when he met his death.’

I could have denied the lot on the grounds that the major was off his rocker, a defence which would be supported by any expert shrink – wrongly, I think, for you can be reasonably sane and yet live in a fairy tale like Don Quixote. But if the Major was backed up by collective peijury on the part of the druidicals, and police began to consider me as a suspect for burglary and murder I should be in trouble. Another point, always in the back of my mind was: what would Elsa’s reaction be?

‘Well, stay if you must,’ I replied weakly. ‘But if you want to escape, follow the footprints to the entrance. It’s closed by a pile of timber which you won’t be able to move from inside, but it will be open at night if any of them are down here. Now settle one thing for me, Denzil! Is it here that Marrin got his gold?’

‘If it is they don’t know it.’

‘And tin?’

‘Perhaps. Gold, tin and copper, Piers. The beginnings of civilisation.’

‘Then the rest of the commune should be working with them.’

‘Not yet. Too sacred to the tonsured. Nothing odd about that. Same in Simeon’s monastery as any other. Some are mystics, some aren’t. One brother has visions, another grows lettuces. If we had a drop of Scotch down here to keep you listening, I’d explain to you the distinction between salvation by faith and salvation by works.’

‘Which is burglary?’

‘Charity. Stopping an old friend from landing himself in gaol and helping a new friend in the advancement of knowledge. Charity comes under the head of works.’

There was nothing for it but to go, leaving this obstinate champion of Christendom to get on with the pagans as best he could. When I had crawled up to fresh air again I dithered. Should I leave the entrance open so that if he changed his mind he could escape, or close it so that my visit remained secret? I closed it, admitting to myself that my military saint was the stronger character.

I wandered back through the empty forest and dark hamlets, completely puzzled. The major’s story and his own reactions were – if one knew him as well as I did – plain enough, but Evans’s motives were obscure. The major accuses him of taking the cauldron from the burgled laboratory as soon as he hears of Marrin’s death. The major is then shut up at Wigpool until he tells them what reason he has to think that it was not the burglar who took it. He proceeds to spin them a yarn of the sanctity of the bowl being so transcendent that the burglar wouldn’t touch it. A most improbable burglar, but apparently they found the explanation acceptable or pretended to.

The only answer is that the major was right: Evans did pinch the cauldron. Even so it can never be proved. Then, if our would-be Perceval refuses to leave, why not give him a kick up the backside and send him away to his Cotswold valley to dream in peace?

Wait a minute! There ought to be something that he can give away. Iron ore? But everyone knows that plenty of ore remains below Wigpool, though no longer worth mining! Gold? A mining company never found any. The secret entrance? Well, they only use it at night so they certainly want to keep it secret. But the major didn’t even know where he was. Give him another druidical cocktail, put him in his car somewhere in the Forest and when he wakes up, all he will know is that he has been in a mine somewhere. And the secret entrance is not all that significant. Obviously they don’t want ex-miners and small boys rambling round the galleries to see what they are up to and dropping in on sacrifices to the gods of the underworld.

Sacrifices. Elsa suspected them. Animals, she said. What sort of animals? Was it conceivable that they didn’t draw the line at sheep? The Box Rock kept returning to my mind. Any offering to the gods should, if I remember correctly, go willingly to death. I had done and so would our Perceval.

The ineffectual wolf slept and stayed in its den all the following day till the evening, when it came out to reconnoitre Broom Lodge and to see if the routine of the colonists had in any way changed. I watched them return from the fields and workshops, tired and smiling. There was no way of approaching the workshops closely enough to hear any conversation, but some of the routes from the fields to the house afforded sufficient cover in ditches and long grass, provided the stragglers had no reason to suspect my presence. How helpless the human animal is without scent! Our eyes, looking ahead or at a companion, are not much of a safeguard unless attracted by movement.

I gathered from scraps of conversation that the commune was discontented – or not exactly discontented but feeling the way towards some kind of democratic organisation. More precise was a bit of talk between a man in his late forties and his still pretty wife who had been digging new potatoes and sorting the best for market and the rest for home consumption. It went something like this. He said:

‘There’s a machine for riddling spuds. Simeon was just going to buy one.’

‘Evans doesn’t like machines.’

‘He’s a bloody fool.’

‘I know, darling, but don’t say so! Seven of them is a big minority.’

‘But the piper can’t call the tune unless he’s got the money.’

‘He will have,’ she said, with a confidence which I think was assumed.

‘Well, so long as we don’t have to accept the rest of his nonsense.’

‘Oh, he won’t ask us to do that. But are you happy, love?’

‘Of course. It’s still heaven when one remembers London.’

And then they kissed and went on their way.

A pleasant requiem for Marrin which was well deserved. In a manner of speaking he had bribed them to support by their labour a dangerous creed, but he had the skill and the leadership to make a success of it. The colonists indeed showed a lack of curiosity. They were innocent, grateful and tolerant, and I’d call the lack of curiosity healthy. They were like, let’s say, receivers of stolen goods at second or third hand, trustfully buying and selling them with nothing on their conscience.

I caught a glimpse of Elsa in the distance, but could not approach her as I was. She was wearing her delightful abbess gown – I am sure it was to give herself more authority – and appeared to be directing or criticising some operation at the door of the smoke house. I felt she might be unwise. She too believed that she was up against nothing more sinister than religious eccentricities. I decided to call on her in the morning, driving openly up to Broom Lodge as Personality No. 1. I was uncertain whether I should tell her of the fate of the major or not. The first necessity was to get her out of there.

Next day I found Elsa wandering aimlessly about the garden and recognised in her the same vague worry, the same unwillingness to commit herself that I felt during our idyllic stay at Thornbury. She wouldn’t leave and she wouldn’t stay. Eventually she snapped at me that the police had been back, asking her how long it was between the time she was told on the telephone of her uncle’s death and the time she left the office to give the news to the commune.