Summon the Bright Water by Geoffrey Household

Author:Geoffrey Household [Household, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0652-1
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller

Chapter Three

Again I must write an exact account of my operations while memory is fresh, in case I am ever compelled to justify them. I feel that I am guilty of a betrayal, yet must admit that the offence lies on me as lightly as do the deaths of Marrin and Evans. I intended neither, but perhaps did not care as much as I should have if my actions were to bring about a highly probable result. A sentence of one year for Marrin would, I think, be ample. My intervention was only culpable negligence. In the case of Evans I could plead self-defence unless witnesses agreed with each other in some outrageous lie, which, thanks to Denzil’s mission to the heathen, is now most unlikely.

On the whole I see the betrayal of my professional standards as worse than dubious manslaughter. On the other hand I am convinced that it is pointless to publish a discovery which in the absence of date and identity adds nothing material to history.

I return to my confession. The fact that I have just written ‘confession’ shows that my conscience is still uneasy, but to hell with it! If I published I should undoubtedly lose my reputation rather than advance it, and at the same time be forced to throw more light than is convenient on matters which could still, I fear, be of interest to the police.

After the indisputable verdict of Authority on the golden cauldron, I repacked it and consigned it to the safe deposit at my bank. The next urgent duties were to recover the major’s car before it was found and reported, and to release the prisoners at Wigpool. Meanwhile I left Elsa at my flat, where it was best she should remain until we had dealt with the parishioners of Gwyn ap Nudd and concocted some story to account for her sudden disappearance from Broom Lodge.

In the evening the major and I drove down to the Forest. After dark we found his old Humber undisturbed and extracted it from the thicket where it had been hidden. I was growing weary of darkness and straining eyes along the beam of a torch, and wished I had been gifted with night sight: a werecat rather than a werewolf. When we were out in the open we mended the wire, leaving the fence in better condition than before. As soon as wheel tracks had become barely distinguishable under growing grass the farmer to whom the derelict copse belonged would never notice that the wire had been cut and repaired.

No lodging was more discreet than the den, so there we remained till morning. I noticed that the major slept where he dropped as easily as any old soldier. That accounted for his patience underground as champion of the imagined Grail. He was divisible by three: one part the wandering friar, one part clubman, one part veteran of the Queen’s – or Arthur’s – bodyguard.

We were in no hurry to release the druidicals. They had now been buried for three nights and two days, and they could well endure another without food.

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