‘Who let us loose?’

‘Same man who shut us in.’

‘I’ve told you. It was Elsa.’

They could have no doubt that Elsa had acquired the bowl exactly as and when she did, but I gathered there had been a disagreement on whether she had made her dramatic appearance in order to save the major and/or the unknown, or whether she had boldly attempted to take over her uncle’s high priesthood to which Evans had succeeded.

Apparently that was not unthinkable. As opposed to some of their eastern doctrines they allowed women to have souls. I should bloody well hope so! I know men who are so single-minded that the chance of eternal life for them will be a case of win or lose. But women have as many aspects as a diamond and at least one facet must be immortal if anything is.

They must have debated the question of Elsa over and over again, as well as the mystery of the major’s companion. That they touched on, just enough to confirm my opinion that I had not been identified, and slopped themselves into the van. To judge by the driver’s course down the track I could only hope that the hour was too late for much traffic on the forest roads and that nothing of what there was would have the bad luck to meet him.

‘Poor sods! Only misguided!’ the major exclaimed with a pity I had not expected. ‘They are not likely to return. But we will now go down and deliver them from any further temptation.’

I said that we should need explosives to close the place for good.

‘Didn’t mean the way of the body, Piers. Way of the soul what matters.’

I was in no mood for any of his theological hairsplittings but there was another good reason to go back: to see that Evans’s body had not been left about. Abruptly and as never before I was shocked to realise how the innocent and happy colonists were involved in criminality without being aware of it. Inner circle was a misnomer. A better picture of Broom Lodge was a figure of 8 with a small loop at the top and a larger one at the bottom and the fraudulent but impressive magus at the junction.

When we reached the great cavern it was plain that the work of dismantling the windlass and removing all traces of occupation had been interrupted by lack of light. The main wheel, weighed down by axle and fittings, had been sunk in the lake. Most of the superstructure remained, but bolts and lashings had been partly loosened so that it was easy to demolish the lot and to steer the floating timbers and ropes to the other side of the cavern where the current of the stream slowly carried them away to oblivion under the low roof.

There was no sign of the exact fate of Evans. The swimmers must have been able to disentangle him from the dredge, but when they found that he had been under too long to be revived I suppose they pushed the body out as far as they could and weighted it. Their anxiety to leave no trace of recent occupation seemed to me exaggerated. The cavern and its lake might, however, be rediscovered at any time – since rumour proved that it had been visited in the past – and they wanted no awkward questions. Nor, for that matter, did I.

The major now turned to delivering them from temptation. With the energy of a Round Table champion he attacked the altar of the pagans with a heavy baulk of timber. I helped him with some regret. The altar, and especially the pedestal for the cauldron, had its own beauty like everything Marrin touched. Fortunately he thought more of proportions than good mortar, or else it had not set properly in the prevailing damp. Splash after splash, his cut ashlars were drowned in the lake.

Returning to the surface, we bedded down the pit props and scattered loose ones above them, recreating the illusion of a derelict pile which had been there for years. While we were driving home to the den I asked the major what story he thought the six would tell when they arrived at Broom Lodge. He was far more conversant with the social diversities of the commune than I was.

‘Anything. Any mystery,’ he replied. ‘The rest of the colony won’t care where they have been.’

‘But what about Evans?’

‘After long prayer and meditation he left them to seek further enlightenment.’

‘The commune will let them get away with that?’

‘No reason to disbelieve. And thankful to be rid of him.’

‘Who will take over?’

‘Democracy, old boy.’

‘But democracy needs a chairman.’

‘He’ll appear. Pity to see the place all sixes and sevens. I used to enjoy it. Simeon and all. Guest room always ready. So I think I’ll go back for a bit.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘Boring from within, Piers. Boring from within.’

I insisted that it was dangerous and that he shouldn’t take the risk.

‘No risk. If I’m dead, I can’t let on where Elsa and the bowl are. They know I know. But if I say nothing about Wigpool, all they can say is: “Good morning, major. Nice day!” Easy to keep ’em in order while they’re off balance.’

‘And Elsa? What will you tell the commune about her?’

‘That she couldn’t stick working with Evans and cleared out in a temper. Might come back when she hears that Evans has gone.’

‘How could you know?’

‘Ran into her in Gloucester, Piers. She was seeing Simeon’s lawyer to sign some papers.’

I remarked too lightly that for someone who disapproved of lying, that was a beauty. He took it almost as an insult, informing me as if I were a junior fellow officer that to preserve the honour and safety of a woman a lie was not only permissible but a duty. He was still in a mood for military snorts until we were back in the den and had opened a bottle.

We could not sleep. The little pool of lamplight in the clearing, surrounded by the wall of larches which seemed as black and solid as the impenetrable rock, was a continuance of our ordeal.

‘I think you want to give back the cauldron,’ I said at last.

‘Yes – on conditions. Summon the bright water for your girl’s dowry!’

‘It’s never bright. A dirty blue under the sun. Milk chocolate under cloud.’

‘Let’s walk to the top of your hill, Piers.’

We pushed our way up to the peak, where through the slender trunks we could watch the great expanse of the Severn Sea silently sliding down to ocean at half tide and under a half moon.

‘Gold under the silver, Piers. You’ve forgotten it in all this sordid excitement.’

In the morning I again tried to stop him setting out upon his new illusion of himself as missionary to the pagans or whatever he meant by ‘boring from within’. It was no use. The only indication he gave of any lack of confidence was to tell me – should I not be far away and not wish to appear in person – to look for any message at our old ash stump and leave a reply.

When he had gone I cleared up the den since it was unlikely that the wolf would need it any more. Meanwhile my thoughts played for the hundredth time over the dreams and contradictions in the major’s character. The Gloucester solicitor, who had caused the temporary coldness between us, kept recurring to mind. He really existed and was Marrin’s unfortunate executor. I had his name and address from Elsa who was about the only person able to answer questions on the assets of the commune, though she couldn’t make much sense of them. I decided on the spur of the moment to call on this Mr Dunwiddy as a friend and guest of Broom Lodge. He might refuse to talk to me as having no standing in Marrin’s affairs but, if he did talk, some clue to the source of Marrin’s capital might come out of it.

Dunwiddy’s office was in the cathedral close. I think I would rather live in such a place than anywhere else in England. All the benediction of the land is there, from the devotion of the Norman architects struggling with traditions of Byzantium to the ecstasies in stone of the fifteenth century and, around the lawns, shapely Georgian houses of the servants of the great church. I am overcome by the sanity of it all rather than by any religion, mindful that before this Christian civilisation there were few peaceful havens for the soul. It was no place for an executor of Simeon Marrin, who served past and future gods by blood on a torch-lit altar or slower death in the quicksand of Box Hole.