The seven adepts appeared to see and to bless some sort of apparition in the air above the bowl. The curious thing is that I saw it myself: a diaphanous, moving figure like a pencil of mist rising from the ground. My brain of course was affected by the brew in the bowl and mistranslating the message from the eyes. I have no doubt that Marrin saw it too. He was not play-acting this time. He believed so absolutely in himself and his rite that he created the illusion for the rest of us, perhaps by telepathy and the hypnotic effect of the drug. Proof that it was illusion? First, that I wasn’t dead at all and only he thought I was. Second, that all the codswallop of solemnities could produce the desired effect on a profane, sceptical outsider, unclean ritually and in fact.
They spent about half an hour on the In Memoriam service and returned to Broom Lodge as secretly as they had set out. I followed, in order to see what door they used in case it ever came in handy, and then walked home to my den – myself feeling a ghost wandering among trees and tracks, for on the way I did not pass man or sheep, partly due to the late hour and a slight drizzle which had started.
Tucked up in my outside lavatory with the major’s rug over me and a good swig of his whisky inside me, I thought over the curious scene. Was such liturgy at the heart of Broom Lodge? I thought not. It was confined to the druidical drop-outs – a vulgar nickname of mine, considering the woodland features of the ceremony handed down from pagan and poetical Britons. I knew the names of four of them: the chanter, Evans, a sulky fellow who strutted like a hierarch which Marrin never did; Raeburn, who had poured the brew into the cauldron, an excellent craftsman with a sense of humour in daily life; Ballard, the curate-looking chap who had been digging up tulips when I first arrived; and Carver, a compact little holy man who had passed the cauldron to Marrin.
Evidently it was such a rite as this which the major suspected and considered a blasphemous misuse of the cauldron, far worse than the half-pagan heresies somehow related to the mysteries of metals. Transmutation I did not believe, but those herbs, of which the heavy scent flowed off under the branches further than the smoke of the torch, suggested that Marrin was a devoted student of ancestral pharmacy and that the laboratory itself was no pretence.
I slept long and late, recovering from the previous two nights and such exercise as I had not taken since tracing the once-cultivated fields on the coast of Greenland. I found myself stiff but fit. The first job was to buy supplies from somewhere miles away where I had never been before. Coleford to the north and on the edge of the Forest seemed a likely spot. It turned out to be an ugly little Victorian town like most of the mining settlements, but with everything I needed. Having noticed a fire-watching tower which commanded most of the Forest, I decided against using my ruined hearth in case the plume of smoke was noticed, and bought a Primus stove and a frying pan. With eggs, butter, cheese, bread fresh from the oven, meat, green stuff and a variety of cans, plus a bottle of brandy to disguise the taste of coal in the sparkling water from the nearest stream, I returned home to my plantation.
My mind was a blank on how and where to make my next attack on Broom Lodge. According to the major, Marrin seldom left the estate during the day. Night – well, it was pointless to go out every night in the hope of something happening. The best bet was for the corpse to create some diversion, in order to walk off with that chalice and obtain an expert’s opinion.
In the reddish light of the torch the two-handled cauldron had again seemed to me of great age. Could it be, I wondered, that Marrin was passing off his own work as two thousand years old or better? Highly improbable that he could deceive the authorities at the British Museum! And if he had, we should all have heard of the extraordinary find. The papers would be full of it.
A photograph, then, from several angles. The major could probably manage that. But would photographs of the cauldron be enough to tell an expert whether the goldsmith was living or long dead? I doubted it. However, once my mind began to run on photographs a secondary object presented itself. How about some shots of the turtle? I knew a zoologist who would remember me well, though I had not seen him for some years. He would give me his opinion by return of post if I asked for it. The beast could not be so obscure that neither he nor his colleagues could fail to identify it.
At any rate it was a scheme to fill up an otherwise empty day. So I wrote a note to the major: ‘Can you secretly take some close-up photographs of the turtle in his laboratory and leave them here? I believe they may give us a line on what he is doing.’
This time I was very careful to approach Broom Lodge from the back, avoiding the paths, moving from tree to tree and ready to drop into the bracken at any moment. I had more trouble than I expected in finding the stump of the ash sapling. That done, I covered the letter with a cushion of moss and marked it with a white sliver of wood.
No one was about except a party of two men and two girls on the nearest track, walking in a dream of the Forest of Arden and prettily singing a madrigal, so I determined to have a look in daylight at the open space where my wandering spirit had received attention. That, too, took some finding, for there were many places where the oaks stood far enough apart to form a glade, though none had the beaten-down bracken between them. I doubt if I ever would have found it if not for the glimpse of another person moving across my front. I turned on to a parallel course and arrived at the outer pillars of the woodland sanctuary, on the opposite side to my position the night before.
I recognised him. It was Carver, whom I had often seen packing a primitive kiln with bricks to be fired – hard physical labour which he carried out with a set, contented smile. Those smiles were one of the most exasperating features of the tonsured, expressing the false puritanical humility of the saved. During the ceremony he appeared to have lost something, for he was now searching through and under the squashed bracken, moving methodically over the ground which he had covered the previous night.
After some twenty minutes he gave up and started back. I was curious to know what he had dropped and, as so often happens when a fresh pair of eyes take over a search, found the missing article near the circumference of the circle. It was his wrist watch, and hard to see since it was face downwards with the back encased in dark green leather. The strap was worn and half split, and the watch must have fallen from his wrist when he stretched out across the beaten circle to pass the bowl to Marrin. Obviously neither of them had noticed it, being entranced by fumes and piety.
I picked it up and would have liked to return it. After all, it had been lost in an act of kindly monkeying with my soul. But even returning it through the major would lead to far too many questions. So I decided to leave it where Carver or one of his fellows could not miss it – not difficult since I knew the path by which they went out and back. Some of the colony’s pigs were rooting and grubbing not far away, covering any noise I made and allowing me to walk normally. He at the same time must have been dreaming of enlightenment or in no hurry to return to heaving bricks, for I found that I had got ahead of him. I laid the watch in the middle of the track face upwards with a shaft of sunlight falling directly on it through the leaves, and slipped back into the bracken to see what he would do.
He didn’t miss it. He couldn’t. He picked it up with an exclamation of astonishment, raised his hands, murmured something I couldn’t hear and looked upwards into all the branches around as if assuming that some bird had dropped the watch into his path. Then he continued to Broom Lodge almost at a run. His manner was so peculiar and excited that I was bursting with curiosity and followed, slipping into the tall, pink foxgloves from which, the day before, I had watched the back of the house and caught a glimpse of Elsa.
Now it was that I perceived a new facet of that many-sided man, Simeon Marrin. He was a fraud, an idealist and a born leader – like so many of them not excluding murder when needful – but I had not suspected him of being superstitious. Perhaps superstitious is the wrong word. It implies illogicality, whereas the ritual which I had witnessed showed that
he had worked out or accepted some sort of purgatory as a consequence of the transition from one life to another. Carver dashed into the estate office and almost immediately came out with Marrin. He was showing him the watch, miraculously transported to the spot where he could not miss it, but the other, so far as I could see, was not over-impressed until Carver pointed to the broken strap. Then Marrin’s face quite evidently displayed a sudden gravity, even shock. The broken strap had no special meaning for Carver, but for Marrin it was an instant reminder of the cunning weakening of the straps on the open-heel fins. My spirit by a neat piece of telekinesis – I was always good with my hands – had established its identity. Inspired guesswork, but I am sure I am right.
I left for the rock where I had deposited the diving kit and waited there until it was dark and I could walk home with the aqualung without attracting attention. I had no immediate use for it, but I did foresee that Severn and Forest were equally likely to hold the clue to the hoard which Marrin was ransacking. I think it was that night when my attitude towards him changed. After a solid, much-needed supper I lay on my bed of twigs, concentrating not so much on the mystery of the gold as on my quarry. In my mind I called him that because I hoped to track him through the forest as relentlessly as a carnivore. If the druidicals knew how my thoughts were running and believed in such things – was there any damned nonsense they weren’t ready to believe? – they could call me possessed, though in fact I wanted Marrin alive, well and talking. At any rate I slept as soundly as any satisfied werewolf.
Off again in the morning to find a message from the major at the foot of the sapling.
‘Easy. He left me alone there. Perhaps we are assuming guilt where there isn’t any. Mining. Naturally keeps it quiet. Are you sure your misfortune was not accident? Meet me tomorrow same place eleven am.’
‘My misfortune’ – hell! But of course he wanted to believe in his hero if it was at all possible. In spite of that, our interests were the same. He had put it plainly enough when he said that he must keep Marrin out of gaol. As for me, I was determined to prevent a crime more monstrous than murder. I was a little suspicious of that phrase ‘left me alone there’. But after all, why shouldn’t the major be left alone there? He was a welcome guest and an old friend and it did not matter if he wandered round investigating chemicals. It was proof of his value to me as an ally, so long as he could keep his mouth shut, and did not go chasing after preposterous ideas like mining. There might be some stream in the Forest where you could pick up a few grains by panning, but you could not dig a hole, as in the Klondike, and find sizeable nuggets at the bottom.
I did not approve of another roadside meeting in daylight. The major was taking this business of staying dead as casually as a game of hide-and-seek. However, he discreetly parked his car among the trees, waiting patiently until I appeared and signalled to him to join me. He showed me three excellent pictures of the turtle, well lit from the opposite window of the laboratory, showing a side view of head and tail and a front view of the head. I noticed for the first time that there was no skeleton, only the curious armadillo-like carapace covering the whole animal.
‘What did Simeon tell you about it?’ he asked.
‘That he had put it up for fun.’
‘Just like him! See you don’t believe it! Think he bought it?’
‘Possibly. But if he just wanted to impress his public a skeleton of a crocodile would have done – and been cheaper.’
Marrin at the time had been holding forth – quite sincerely – on the life of the tideway from lamprey to salmon so that I felt the remains of the turtle were probably from one of the Severn deeps, either discovered by him in the silt or perhaps on the mantelpiece of the lonely cottage of some salmon fisher. I asked the major to run into nearby Bream and come back with a sheet of paper and a stamped envelope. When he returned I sent the photographs to my colleague in the zoology department and asked him to let me know urgently what the creature was, addressing his reply to me at Bream Post Office as I was continually on the move.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ the major said. ‘Simeon could have dug it up down a mine.’
‘What is this about mining?’
‘Keeps a pick and spade and drum of nylon cord in the boot of his car. What for?’
‘To bury my body if it turns up.’
‘Might be anywhere, old boy. Police bound to find it first.’
‘Free bucket of coal? Digging up daffodil bulbs?’
‘Goes off for the day sometimes with Evans and Carver. We ought to follow the car.’
‘You can follow if you like. I’m not risking it,’ I said firmly.
‘What about a false beard or something?’
Typical of him! I had only the clothes I stood up in and my voice was easily recognisable. It was a perfect formula for disaster.
‘Do you know where they go?’
‘Wigpool Common. A company mined for gold there years ago.’
‘Try your luck alone, then, but don’t get caught snooping!’ I reminded him that Marrin was determined to keep his secrets and that friendship would not count at all in an emergency.
‘Locals say there is an underground lake. Bloody rabbit warren, they say. Full of tunnels. Iron. Romans. Why would they want an underground lake anyway?’
‘Communing with spirits of the earth.’
‘Ah yes! Hadn’t thought of that. Very reasonable.’
‘But gold more reasonable still, you think?’
‘Might be both.’
‘Snow White and the seven dwarfs?’
‘You mustn’t laugh at legends, Piers. There’s always some truth in them if you can spot where it is. Next time I’m going to watch ’em.’
I told him to be very careful that afterwards he wasn’t watched himself, and I insisted he should not try to meet me until I told him when and where. Meanwhile all communications should be by the stump of the sapling, and I would call there every morning.
No doubt the major was on to something of interest, relevant or not. I would have liked to know what was the significance of Wigpool Common, but this new eccentricity of Marrin and his inner circle confirmed how helpless I was. I could watch the comings and goings at Broom Lodge; I could explore the banks of the Severn; but I could not follow Marrin if he left by car and most certainly not in company with the major whose distinctive Humber was sure to be spotted. If asked by Marrin what the devil he thought he was doing, his only hope was to stutter one of his staccato replies which could mean anything.
So, when the major had driven away, there was nothing for it but to walk home to my comfortable ex-lavatory, stopping on the way to buy a daily papei: with any other reading matter that Bream might have and, if there was an off-licence, supplies of something better than my coal-tasting stream.
Bream was far enough from Broom Lodge to make it unlikely that any members of the commune would be about. Their normal shopping town was Lydney. After sliding, not too obviously, from cover to cover like a soldier afraid of snipers, I completed my purchases, passed the butcher’s, saw some mutton kidneys in the window and thought how good they would be grilled on a wooden spit. When I had paid for them and was just going out, Elsa appeared from the living quarters behind the shop.
‘Piers!’
‘And you – what are you doing here?’
‘Selling black puddings. I thought you were in Wales.’
‘Are you alone? Did anyone drive you over?’
‘I bicycled. I’m trying to get a contract from dear Mr Willets.’
‘And she’s got it,’ said Mr Willets, impressed by the ‘dear’ in such a lovely mouth.
‘At forty pence a pound?’
‘Don’t leave me much profit, Miss Marrin, but it’s a deal.’
We walked out together, myself torn between the delight of seeing her and anxiety lest this might be the end of my staying dead.
‘You haven’t shaved and you smell of coal and dried leaves,’ she said.
�
�Only my clothes. It’s just that I slept rough last night. I couldn’t find a room anywhere so I played Robin Hood in the green wood.’
‘Come back with me and clean up!’
That gave me an opportunity. ‘Think how hurt they would be if I just came back to have a bath and cleared off!’
‘Then come back and stay with us again! You’d be welcome. Simeon liked you.’
I said that I knew that and had liked him. It wasn’t a lie, I had. ‘But you know how difficult it was for us,’ I reminded her.
‘I don’t care if we do shock them.’
‘But much better if we can meet and you don’t say a word. When can I see you?’
‘Whenever you like, if you do like.’
‘Tomorrow afternoon in your dell?’
‘If I can.’
She pedalled off. I was fairly confident that she would not speak of our meeting, not for the reason I had given but because she knew instinctively that I had a better reason and had not told her all the truth.
For the rest of the day there was nothing for it but to be patient and wish to God that she was not the fond niece of Simeon Marrin. Next morning I went over to the woods behind Broom Lodge to see if the major had left any message for me. I was now familiar with the shortest route by tracks and footpaths through the Forest and often passed the time of day with other walkers. That was unimportant since no one knew who I was. The risk of meeting any of the colonists was very slight. They were dutifully busy at their tasks with neither time nor inclination for casual strolls.
I found a report from the major, militarily precise and piously long, which I had to read more than twice before it was clear that even for him mining was ruled out. He had gone to Wigpool Common on foot in the afternoon and apparently behaved as sensibly as any private investigator. Tea at a teashop. One pub at eighteen hours. Another at eighteen-thirty. I think soldiers must be trained to leave out all illuminating details in their reports. Yes, the place was riddled with underground shafts but the entrances were all blocked up. Iron mining it had been, not coal. Yes, there was supposed to be a large cavern with a pool in it. Strangers had been casually poking about after gold for years, encouraged by rumours rather than geology. A tall man with one or two companions often drove out and was digging near the Bailey Rock. Not for gold. They were in the wrong place for that. They didn’t say much, and were accepted as geologists.
Summon the Bright Water Page 6
