Hearing Secret Harmonies - Anthony Powell [70]
‘Russell?’
‘Hi, Nicholas.’
Gwinnett was far less astonished than myself. In fact he did not seem surprised at all. He was carrying under his arm what looked like a large black notebook, equipment that had at first assimilated him with other note-takers in the fields round about.
‘I was told you live near here, Nicholas.’
‘Fairly near.’
‘What’s going on?’
He managed to establish a situation in which I, rather than he, found it necessary to give an explanation for being on that spot at that moment. I tried to summarize briefly for him the problem of the quarry and The Devil’s Fingers. Gwinnett nodded. He made some technically abstruse comment on quarrying. In spite of outward calmness he was not looking at all well. This was very noticeable at close quarters. Gwinnett’s appearance was ghastly, as if he had drunk too much, been up all night, or – on further inspection – slept on the ground in his clothes. The dark suit was covered in dust and scraps of grass. His shoes, too, were caked with mud. He brought with him even greater disquiet than usual; a general sense of insecurity increased by the skies above becoming all at once increasingly dark.
‘Have you been visiting The Devil’s Fingers?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re staying near here?’
‘Not far.’
‘With friends?’
‘No.’
He named an inn at a small town a few miles distant. It appeared from what he said that he was alone there.
‘I didn’t know you were interested in prehistoric stuff – or has this something to do with your Jacobean dramatists?’
Gwinnett, as was often his habit, did not answer at once. He seemed to be examining his own case, either for a clue as to what had indeed happened to him, or, already knowing that, in an effort to decide how much to reveal.
‘I’ve lost my way. Just now I came up the same path, as well as I could remember it. I don’t know how to get down to the road from here.’
‘You’ve been to The Devil’s Fingers before?’
‘We came up on foot last night. I couldn’t sleep when I got back. I thought I’d drive out here again. Make more notes on the spot. It’s because I’m tired I’ve forgotten the path down, I guess.’
‘You’ve got a car with you?’
‘It’s parked in a gully off the road. Beside some old cars that have been dumped there. I took the steep path up the hill. It stops after a while. That’s why I can’t find the place.’
‘You were here last night?’
‘Some of the night.’
His manner was odd even for Gwinnett. He talked like a man in a dream. It occurred to me that he was recovering from a drug. The suspicion was as likely to be unfounded as earlier ones, in Venice, that he was a homosexual, or a reclaimed drunk.
‘Were you one of the party dancing round The Devil’s Fingers last night?’
Gwinnett laughed aloud at that. He did not often laugh. To do so was the measure of the state he was in. His laughter was the reverse of reassuring.
‘Why? Were they seen? How do you know about that?’
‘They were seen.’
‘I wasn’t one of the dancers. I was there.’
‘What the hell was going on?’
‘The stag-mask dance.’
‘Who was performing?’
‘Scorp Murtlock and his crowd.’
‘Are they at your pub too?’
‘They’re on their own. In a caravan. Those taking part in the rites travelled together. Scorp thought that necessary. I met them near here. We came up to the place together.’
‘Who were the rest of the party?’
‘Ken Widmerpool, two girls – Fiona and Rusty – a boy called Barnabas.’
‘Was Widmerpool in charge?’
‘No, Scorp was in charge. That was what the row was about.’
‘There was a row?’
Gwinnett puckered up his face, as if he was not sure he had spoken correctly. Then he confirmed there had been a row. A bad row, he said. Its details still seemed unclear in his mind.
‘Did Widmerpool dance?’
‘When the rite required that.’
‘Naked?’
‘Some of the time.’
‘Why only some of the time?’
‘Ken was mostly recording.’
‘How do you mean – recording?’
‘Sound and pictures. It was a shame things went