It must have been close on 11 o’clock when it occurred. Coler had initially given me a part of Meredith’s manuscript and had me make certain arrangements of the curious and faded letters which would allow him to break the centuries-old cipher, but after a time stopped me, telling me that he had perhaps discovered the base and method of the text. I had recommenced finding the answer to our other enigma, picking up Laurent de Longnez’s comparatively recent L’Histoire des Planetes (1792), to see if that contemporary of Sade and La Bretonne had any knowledge of the age-old green thing that had come from Arabia. De Longnez’s French was filled with irritating punctuational and literary archaisms that made reading none too easy, so that after a time I found myself bent almost double over the book, perpetually squinting my eyes and following with my head each individual line. Several hours of this had hypnotized me to the book, so much that I all but forgot the presence of Coler at the desk across the room. Only until I heard a sudden shuffling movement close at hand did I merge from my reverie and, for the first time in hours, look up.
What I saw was another man in the room, not Meredith, nor Coler, but one whose slovenly attire and facial vacuity told that his origin could be nothing else but that squalid decadence called Lower Brichester.
How the man had gotten in the house became more an enigma than what his object was, for it was now obvious that his steps were leading in straight to the glowing crystal on Coler’s desk, and now only yards separated him from his prize.
Coler, miraculously, was so entranced in his studies that he still had no inkling that this intruder was here at all, and only looked up, mutely baffled and disturbed, when I flung myself bodily at the man, half wrestling him to the ground. Either through my underestimation of the degenerate miscreant’s strength or through my own unrealized enervation, I found myself soon with my back to the ground, looking up into a visage which now held the image of absolute terror. Seeming now to be possessed of an incontrollable lunacy, the thief suddenly raised himself to his feet and, disregarding both his bizarre quest and any concern for bodily injury, flung himself headlong through the window of Coler’s library. Falling to the ground amidst a frightful shattering of glass, the man got up and ran off into the night.
Too awed at the whole spectacle to speak, I could only stand at the window and regard the curious voleur, who had now stopped running when he saw that he was unpursued. Coler, however, had not been idle: he suddenly came up behind me and, laying a hand on my shoulder, spoke the words:
“Quick, Collins! Follow him! See where he goes!”
“What?” I burst out. “What on earth for?”
“It would take too long to explain now: just follow him, man. It’s vital! I’ve nearly solved the Kurkur Fragment, and Collins, it deals with the very crystal I dug up! Everything is fitting together, everything is making sense. I think I even know why that robber came here. But go now, Collins: follow him, and tell me where he went. Go now!”
Coler would not hear another word of protest nor any demand at explication, and I could do nothing but carry out his request.
Trailing our erstwhile criminal proved to be of no difficulty, as he had no intimation whatever that anyone would want to watch his movements. He was walking easily now, and the simplicity of my task allowed me to ponder on the several enigmas which had so suddenly formed minutes ago. Paramount was the almost ludicrous audacity which this fellow had demonstrated; what phenomenal idiocy or urgency had impelled him to attempt his criminous act in our very presence, where his chances of success were of such exiguity as to be explained only by resorting to the appellation of lunacy? Then there was the matter of Coler’s fragmentary utterances concerning his success in decoding Meredith’s ancient tract. What could Coler have meant when he said that everything was “fitting together”? And how could the Kurkur Fragment, the green crystal, and this unsuccessful try at larceny be in any way related? I think that it was about then that I first began to perceive vaguely that we were dealing with great and appalling matters beyond our ken, involving elder secrets of galactic menace inexplicably joined with incidents in our own midst, the end result of which seemed to form such a devastating implication of doom as might, when correlated and understood, cause the mind to totter on the outermost reaches of irremediable insanity.
I had been following the man with only half my mind, ruminating on the mysteries which seemed imminent of solution by Coler. But even now, as we approached the outskirts of Brichester, I saw that our bucolic brigand could have only one destination: Sentinel Hill, the site of that occult nocturnal ritual of yestereve.
When we reached the hill itself, I felt no surprise at the sight: the congregation that had met almost exactly twenty-four hours ago, for what was taken to be a suggestive if innocuous assembly, was there again, all clustering around the flat, table-like mass of stone that lay on the very summit of the hill, surrounded by a score of carven menhirs whose prodigious age was evident even in near pitch-darkness. Sheltered behind a clump of trees, I saw my shadow timorously approach the others and, when he had reached him who seemed to be the leader of the band, mumble, with head bent low in mortification, a handful of words, arms gesturing plaintively. Upon the man’s concluding, the leader, a small, chunky man of sixty, was suddenly seized with a maniac rage, and slapped the erring subordinate in the face again and again, ceasing only when exhaustion overcame him. The brigand, who was almost twice the size of his punisher, seemed to have no notion whatever of retaliation: although he could easily have annihilated his violent castigator, he chose instead to endure the chastisement, seeming to regard the other with an ineffable respect that was as incredible as it was absurd. When finally the affair was concluded, the elderly padrone adjured all the members to depart, then himself left. I saw that the unfortunate young man who had been so severely reprimanded walked alone, the object of ridicule and outright hatred by the others.
When I returned to Coler’s manor and reported the incident, he, still working on the Egyptian document, nodded slowly and thoughtfully, as if it had only confirmed his hypothesis on the matter. He refused to tell me anything regarding either the attempt at stealing the crystal or his deciphering of the Kurkur Fragment, saying only that he must be left alone so that he could finish its translation. But here I intervened: seeing Coler’s haggard and dishevelled appearance, realizing that he was on the brink of utter physical and mental exhaustion, I refused to allow him to work any more that evening, and bade him get a good night’s sleep; Coler was either too weak or too sensible to resist.
There was hardly any indication when I awoke the next morning that the very night would see the culmination and end of the horrific incidents in which we had so accidentally become involved. Realizing, since Coler had already broken the code of the Kurkur Fragment and that only the arduous work of transcribing had to be done, that my presence at his home would be more a hindrance than a help, I decided to pick up the threads of my own archaeological studies. Leafing through my small report, I found that it contained a number of unsubstantiated statements which could only be rectified by referring to contemporary manuscripts, and in the late morning I journeyed down to Oxford and looked through the Bodleian Library collection of ancient documents to find the necessary sources. When I concluded this work it was mid-afternoon, and, since my time was my own, I decided not to return home but to reacquaint myself with an Oxford which I had not seen for well-nigh a dozen years. My particular architectural predilections tend toward the High Gothic, and few places could satisfy my desires better than Oxford. I must have spent hours in examining the buildings and in roaming the countryside, and I think I can be forgiven for so letting my fancy overcome me, though I often shudder at the thought that I came back to Severnford in what proved to be the very nick of time.