The Dancing Druids

Chapter Thirteen

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‘… but the moon was cold and daily, and said, “I smell flesh and blood this way!” ’

Ibid. (The Seven Ravens)

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Laura listened intently, but the sound was not repeated. The three lay crouched where they were for perhaps a quarter of an hour, but nothing stirred. Laura murmured, ‘I know now.’

‘Know what?’ asked O’Hara, his long body sprawled beside her on the turf.

‘Those lights and colours. Don’t you remember the Ferguson one-act play, Campbell of Kilmhor? It comes: The blue and the green and the grey fires… That’s what they were making. I wonder why?’

‘For the destruction of your soul? said O’Hara softly. ‘I said they were trying to raise the devil. Will you be quiet now! I think I hear them coming.’

‘This is it!’ muttered Laura, feeling, she confessed to Mrs. Bradley later, a chilly sensation down her spine. ‘Who comes, though?—and why?’

‘Lie close,’ murmured Gascoigne. ‘They’re coming this way, I think. I only hope they haven’t been tipped off that there are strangers in the House!’

Laura listened. Very soon, through the thick darkness, could be heard the approach of several persons, one of whom almost immediately revealed, by the light of a lantern from which he had slipped the cover, that he was wearing riding breeches and boots, and was, in all probability, therefore, the horseman whom the three had seen go past when they were on their way to the circle of standing stones.

When this man had reached the middle of the stone circle he set down his lantern upon the ground and thus provided enough light for Laura and her companions to see the number of persons who were with him. There were eight of them, the man himself making nine, and Laura, tapping heavily with her forefinger upon Gascoigne’s shoulder, indicated that this magic number was again of some importance and interest. Just as she had concluded this unnecessary observation, the party she was watching began slowly to disperse until one of the standing stones hid each man and the lantern alone could be seen, glowing bright as a topaz in the middle of the ring of stones.

Led by Gascoigne, the watchers began to crawl towards the stones. Minutes passed. There was the silence of death. Then began a slight sound too loud to be called breathing, too quiet to be called grunting. Laura heard it first, and, for a reason she could not afterwards explain, but which was due to some instinct acquired by females as opposed (in all senses) to males, she leapt up, shouting, ‘They’re on us! We should have kept to the hedge!’

It was true. There ensued a curse and a shout, followed by a tense moment of dramatic fervour as her cavaliers went into battle. Laura, prompt always for action, went bounding to help them, and then heard two shots as she wound her long, strong arms about a stranger who loomed up in the light of the lantern. Then came a cry from her left in a voice she did not know; that, apparently, of one of the postulants of the Druids.

‘Look out! Someone else! Look out, boys!’ Her opponent wrenched himself free, but Laura had a coat button and a lock of his hair. Gascoigne grounded his man and fell on him, and muffled cries could be heard as he bumped the man’s head on the turf. The man, however, showed sudden agility. He rolled over, kicked backwards at Gascoigne’s face, leapt up and raced off. Gascoigne, pursuing him, ran into a bush he had not seen in the dark, and tripped and fell.

There was the sound of a rich cackle. A formidable beam of light was switched on. Mrs. Bradley, her revolver still in her hand, swept her torch across the ground in widening arcs. By this means O’Hara was discovered sitting masterfully on one of the foemen.

‘I think he’s dead,’ he said. ‘I tackled him low, and I think he hit his head.’

Mrs. Bradley knelt down and examined the fallen man. She gave Laura the gun to hold. The man opened his eyes.

‘Well, well!’ said Mrs. Bradley, as he sat up and felt the back of his head, and winced. ‘And what game is this that has to be played by midnight among the relics of pre-history?’

The man, who was young and badly needed a shave, looked sheepish and scrambled to his feet.

‘It’s just a ceremony,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it’s ruined for this year. Was it you that fired the gun?’

‘It was,’ replied Mrs. Bradley. ‘Pick up your lantern and go home. And don’t drink spirits until a doctor has examined your head. You might regret it. But, first, who are you?’

‘I’m with the film people,’ he responded sullenly. ‘We weren’t doing any harm. You’d no right to attack us like that. We only came up for a lark because… because…’

‘Because the Druids might dance? Don’t lie,’ said Mrs. Bradley peremptorily. ‘Be off with you. And you children, too,’ she added. ‘Every one of you ought to be in bed! This is all very foolish and frightening. Which is your way, young man?’

‘Oh, the village,’ said the young man crossly. ‘I’m in lodgings there.’ He limped away from them. Mrs. Bradley kept her torch trained on him. He picked up the lantern and, using it to light him on his way, went slowly, half-dragging one leg, in the direction of the path which eventually gave access to the main road near the village of Upper Deepening.

‘And now,’ said Mrs. Bradley, as the wavering lantern disappeared from view, ‘to your car as quickly as you can.’

Guided by her torch (Laura still holding the revolver), they returned to the wood in which they had left the car. They could see its rear light among the trees, so they made their way to it, climbed in, and made room for Mrs. Bradley.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I have George to drive me back. Laura, I suggest that you come with me, too, then these young men can sleep in their car. I also suggest that neither of you two returns to Slepe Rock until the morning,’ she added, addressing Gascoigne and O’Hara. ‘There have been strange happen-ings to-night, from what I hear at the hotel! Sandbags, indeed! Drive back towards the outskirts of Cuchester, and park the car in the lane that leads to the ancient fort. You, Mr. O’Hara, will know the lane I mean.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said O’Hara, in a gravely obedient tone. ‘And you’ll pick us up there in the morning?’

‘At ten o’clock,’ said Mrs. Bradley briskly. ‘Now good night, heaven preserve you, and don’t run into any more mischief.’ She stood away whilst Gascoigne, who was driving, backed the car on to the road, but as soon as its tail-light had topped the rise, she seized Laura’s sleeve and said urgently, ‘And, now, child, back to the stone circle, for we cannot remain in this unenviable condition of doubt.’

To Laura’s astonishment, excitement and secret, slight dismay, they were soon dodging under the cartshed. Then they set their faces towards the north-east and approached what Laura, with some lack of originality but with a nice sense of what it would feel like to be permanently agoraphobic, had begun to think of as the wide open spaces beyond the farm and on top of the hill.

‘Don’t speak, if you can help it,’ said Mrs. Bradley, suddenly, ‘after we pass the next gate.’

‘I was wondering what had happened to the horse,’ said Laura mildly, taking advantage of the permission implicit in her instructions to speak at least once before they reached the gate. ‘One of those men was on horseback.’

‘The horse? Oh, I led it away. It is in one of the stables at this farm,’ said Mrs. Bradley carelessly. ‘It came from here, I expect.’

‘What do you think the men with the lantern were up to?’ Laura then asked.

‘Oh, an interment—or a disinterment,’ Mrs. Bradley replied. ‘I thought it would be a very good idea to find out which. The Chief Constable and his men should be in position by now. I only hope they haven’t frightened our birds away.’

The cheering news that the police had been brought into the adventure reassured Laura. To Mrs. Bradley’s amusement, she stepped out briskly.

They passed the gate which Mrs. Bradley had mentioned, and were soon walking upon turf, for Mrs. Bradley had left the track, and was bearing over to the west towards the barrows.

As they approached the circle of standing stones, Laura gasped, for in the middle of the circle stood another group of figures, one of whom was holding a lantern.

‘Keep close to the hedge,’ murmured Mrs. Bradley, in her ear, ‘but don’t fall over the Chief Constable, who should be in hiding near here.’

But it seemed that the drama of the earlier part of the night had expended itself, for when at last a sharp sound like a sibilant hiss informed them of the presence of the police, Mrs. Bradley and Laura lay under the hedge and grew gradually cold and stiff whilst the party whom they could still see on the higher ground did nothing more subversive than to produce more lanterns and light them and then hold a midnight picnic. The popping of corks, the sound of women’s voices, some laughter and conversation could be heard, and, after about an hour, the Chief Constable muttered into Mrs. Bradley’s ear that he was damned cold, felt a damned fool, and was damned well going home.

‘Those film people, that’s all that is!’ he said in a blasphemous mutter.

‘Well, at least go up and have a look at them,’ said Mrs. Bradley, at this. ‘You’ll be sorry, later on, perhaps, if you don’t.’

‘I’ve no earthly right to go and look at them!’ he retorted, this time in his ordinary voice, for conversation among the picnickers was so general and so noisy that no other voice was likely to be heard. ‘Come on, Inspector. Bring your people. Do you recognize any of those voices?’

‘Ah, I do, sir,’ the Inspector replied. ‘One of them’s Mr. Battle, the artist, I reckon, him that lost his father in the circumstances you asked us to look into. We questioned him last Monday, and I know the voice. At least, I reckon I do.’

‘Good for you, Inspector,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘But the tones seemed to me deeper than those of Mr. Battle.’

‘I say,’ said Laura suddenly. ‘I thought I recognized another of those voices.’

‘Yes, so did I,’ Mrs. Bradley agreed. ‘In fact, there was no thought about it, child. It was the voice of our acquaintance from Slepe Rock, the aptly-named Mr. Cassius.’

‘Funny, if it was,’ said Laura, ‘because Gerry and Mike laid him out with a sandbag before we left there this evening. I suppose they didn’t like to hit him hard. His real name’s Concaverty and he owns the house with the four dead trees. We found all that out since you went to London. Not bad for amateurs, eh?’

The police, moving with Boy Scout swiftness and silence along by the hedge, soon led the party to the gate. The last Laura saw of the picnickers was an unnaturally tall figure darting from side to side of the stone circle like a witch-doctor smelling out the damned. She watched for a moment, but decided that he was probably only handing round food.

‘Oh, well, that’s that,’ she said, unable to keep from her voice the note of anti-climax as she joined the others.

‘Oh, no, it isn’t! Not by a very long way,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘For one thing, there is some indication that David Battle is in league with the film people who’ve rented the house, and that might mean the turn of his fortunes! Who knows? He says he is poor. Perhaps he has been engaged as a designer.’

Laura received this suggestion in silence. They reached the farm and found the police cars parked beneath the cartshed.

‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Bradley benevolently. ‘So the curfew could scarcely be expected to ring to-night!’

‘Oh, that farmhouse is empty,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘Can we give you a lift?’

‘No, I have George,’ she replied. ‘He awaits us this side of the golf links.’ She walked off into the night, taking Laura with her. It seemed a long way to the golf links. George lifted his head from the wheel, upon which he had been dozing, and, without instructions, drove into Welsea Beaches just as the dawn appeared.

‘Do you really think that first lot meant to bury something?’ Laura enquired.

‘Frankly, no, child, but the Druids might dance on more than one night in September.’