Hearing Secret Harmonies - Anthony Powell [11]
This time Murtiock showed no interest. The threat to The Devil’s Fingers might have been judged something to shock anyone who had spoken of the sanctity of another prehistoric site, but he seemed altogether unmoved. At least he enquired no further as to the conservation problem as presented to him. He did, however, ask how the place could be reached, showing close attention when Isobel explained. He discarded all his elaborately mystical façade while listening to instructions of that sort.
‘Is it a secluded spot?’
‘About half-a-dozen fields from the road.’
‘On high ground?’
‘I’d guess about five or six hundred feet.’
‘Surrounded by grass?’
‘Plough, when we were last there, but the farmer may have gone back to grass.’
‘Trees?’
‘The Stones stand in an elder thicket on the top of a ridge. It’s one of those characteristic settings. The land the other side slopes down to the stream.’
Murtlock thought for a moment or two. His face was pallid now. He seemed quite agitated at what he had been told. This physical reaction on his part suggested in him something more than the mere calculating ambition implied by Hugo’s story. Forces perhaps stronger than himself dominating him, made it possible for him also to dominate by the strength of his own feelings. He turned abruptly on the others, standing passively by while his interrogation was taking place.
‘Tomorrow we’ll go first to The Devil’s Fingers. We’ll reach there by dawn.’
They concurred.
‘You’ll find it of interest.’
He made an odd gesture, indicative of impatience, amazement, contempt, at the inadequacy of such a comment in the context. Then his more mundane half-amused air returned.
‘Barnabas will leave the bucket by the kitchen door when we set out in the morning.’
‘That would be kind.’
‘Don’t forget, Barnabas.’
Henderson’s lip trembled slightly. He muttered that it would be done.
‘Then we’ll bid you goodbye,’ said Isobel.
Fiona, assuming the expression of one taking medicine, allowed herself to be kissed. Henderson rather uneasily offered a hand, keeping an eye on Murtlock in case he was doing wrong. Rusty gave a grin, and a sort of wave. Murtlock himself raised his right hand. The gesture was not far short of benediction. There was a feeling in the air that, to be wholly correct, Isobel and I should have intoned some already acquired formula to convey that gratitude as to the caravan’s visit was something owed only by ourselves. There was a short pause while this antiphon remained unvoiced. Then, since nothing further seemed forthcoming on either side, each party turned away from the other. The four visitors moved towards the caravan, there to perform whatever rites or duties, propitiatory or culinary, might lie before them. We returned to the house.
‘I agree with whoever it was thought the dark young man creepy,’ said Isobel.
‘Just a bit.’
Departure the following morning must have taken place as early as announced. No one heard them go. A candle had apparently proved superfluous, because Henderson never arrived to demand one. His own responsibilities, material and moral, must have turned out too onerous for him to have remembered about the bucket. It was found, not by the kitchen door, but on its side in the grass among the tracks of the caravan. The crayfish were gone. Traces of a glutinous substance, later rather a business to clean out, adhered to the bucket’s sides, which gave off an incenselike smell. Isobel thought there was a suggestion of camphor. A few charred laurel leaves also remained in an empty tomato juice tin. Whatever the scents left behind, they were agreed to possess no narcotic connotations.