Swiftly Tarlyon put the bonnet of his car to the direction from which we
had come, where lay the town whose name is of no interest.
“How far is it, d’you think, Ralph?”
“About four miles,” I ventured; and Tarlyon proceeded to eat up those
four miles as a conjuror eats up yards of ribbon. It perished beneath
us, that road, and the roaring cut-out tore the silence of Carmion Wood
into a million bits, and may it never have found them again! Neither of
us spoke. I was feeling sick.
We reached the outskirts of the town, and a piece of luck saved us from
inquiring for the police station; for, approaching us on a bicycle, we
saw a blue, helmeted figure, and by the stripes on his arm we knew him
for a sergeant of police. Tarlyon pulled up.
“Better leave the bicycle and come with us to Carmion Wood,” he said.
“Explain as we go. Urgent.”
The sergeant looked closely into Tarlyon’s face.
“Right, sir,” said he, and quickly gave the custody of his bicycle to a
gnarled-looking woman in the open doorway of a labourer’s dwelling.
“What’s oop over ut Carmion?” asked she.
“You may well ask,” said Tarlyon.
No laggard was that sergeant of police. A grizzled man, with a reticent
face. I sat behind and heard Tarlyon explain. The sergeant said nothing,
listening intently, until the end.
“Where did you say the house was, sir?” he asked then.
“I’ve just been telling you, man! In a little clearing in the wood.”
“Very good, sir,” said the sergeant of police.
Silently we sped into Carmion Wood.
“You see, sir,” said the sergeant, “it’s a powerful long time since I’ve
been here. Folk roundabout mislike the wood.”
“Don’t feel very attached to it myself,” grunted Tarlyon. “Ah, here we
are!”
But it was not going to be as easy as that. For when we left the car, at
the identical spot where, we were certain, the little old woman had
stopped us, we somehow lost our way. We wandered about for some time, up
little twisting lanes, down tangled untidy lanes, up no lanes at all: we
ploughed through the growth and lush of the wood, like angry flies
beating about a crypt to which the sun filtered in tortured patches of
light. We perspired enormously--and Tarlyon lost his temper. He had had
no luncheon, you understand, and it was now past five; and so he was
fluent in the forbidden language. But the sergeant of police was a tough
and silent man, he neither sweated nor spoke.
“Where did you say the house was, sir?” asked the sergeant at last: and
very amiably, I thought, considering....
“Oh,” says Tarlyon. “So you’ve heard me mention a house, have you!”
We stood very still, the three of us, and Tarlyon glared.
“Look here, sergeant,” he snarled, “if you ask me again where that house
is I shall get cross.... I’ve told you, man! Body of God, if----”
“_Please_, sir!” said the sergeant quickly.
“What d’you mean by ‘Please, sir?’” Tarlyon was well away. It was a very
warm day, you understand.
“I mean, sir,” said the sergeant of police, “please don’t swear on the
name or the body of God.”
V
Well, we went on ... and, at last, unmistakably hit the path up which we
had followed the little old woman. We followed the path, Tarlyon first,
then me, then the sergeant. And then we came upon the clearing, and the
sun lay on it like a carpet of gold. We stared. Like idiots, we stared.
For, except the sun, there was nothing in that clearing but the rust and
bones of a long-ruined house.
You had, of course, suspected as much. You had known that all along. You
know all about those silent woods and slaughtered men. You have been let
in before, by better men. But it was curious, all the same....
“Is this where you said the house was, sir?” the sergeant’s voice came
gently.
We turned and looked at him.
“Because,” he went on, “there’s been no house here for more than thirty
year....”
“Ah!” said Tarlyon; that was about as much as any one _could_ say. And
our eyes wandered over the clearing, and we saw, bright against the
mouldy stones of the ruin, two silk handkerchiefs....
Even the law was at last affected by the heat, for he raised his helmet
and passed a hand over his almost bald head.
“Yes,” said the sergeant of police. “There was a house here thirty year
ago, but it was burnt down by the men of the neighbourhood because of a
great crime that was done there. Parricide it was, but the boy was
pardoned, being judged mad, and mad he must have been to kill the best
and most God-fearing man in the county. Good-day, sirs. I’ll walk my way
back. Yours was just an illusion, I make no doubt. The sun, maybe. But
it’s always had a bad name, has Carmion.... Good-day, sirs.” And the
sergeant of police went his way.
“Did you see him, did you see his face?” I gasped frantically. For the
face of the sergeant of police was the grown face of the lunatic boy we
had trussed up an hour before with our two silk handkerchiefs, and they
lying where we must have dropped them, drooping over the ruins....
“And he has learnt his lesson,” said Tarlyon, and his face was as still
as the grey water of a rock-pool. “He has learnt his lesson, Ralph--and
has taught me one. For the one sin that the old man said was
unpardonable by all men is blasphemy....”