Read Online The Coldstone by Patricia Wentworth - Free Book Online

charm—to ward off evil. I can’t see six points. I believe I’m right in saying that the pentagram, or pentacle, was freely used in mediæval magic. Magic’s not my subject, but I seem to remember that.”
    They went on to the standing Stones, but there were no more marks. West talked about the pentacle, about Solomon’s temple, about freemasonry, about mediæval magic, about Friar Bacon, and about Michael Scott. Anthony wondered how much he really knew about any of them, and he thanked his stars for the walking tour that was going to absorb West the day after to-morrow—only the day after to-morrow was the deuce of a long way off. By the time it came, he never wanted to see West again. The fellow was possessed of a perfect demon of energy. He wanted to interview everyone in the village on the subject of the Stones. He cross-examined Lane and Mrs. Hutchins; and the gardeners, and the maid-servants and the boot-boy; and a cowman whom he caught in a field; and the postman, who came from Wrane and said he didn’t know nothing about any of it; and the sexton, who grunted, spat on his hands, and went on digging; and three village boys, two of whom were inarticulate, and the third impudent.
    No one told him about old Mrs. Bowyer, so he did not interview her. The people he did interview displayed that dense ignorance with which the peasant in every country in the world knows how to shield the knowledge which he does not intend to impart. No one knew anything about the Coldstone Ring. The Stones were “great old stones.” They had always been there. They hadn’t been to see them themselves. Sir Jervis didn’t hold with people going into his fields—and, to all the flood of voluble suggestion made by Mr. West: “You don’t say so!” or “Like enough you’re right, sir.”
    Anthony did his best to keep him out of the Miss Colstone’s way. He had a perfectly clear vision of West with a note-book in the white panelled room—West sitting on the edge of a gimcrack gilt chair, rattling off questions at Miss Agatha and Miss Arabel like a human maxim, whilst he himself perspired in the background. As far as the village was concerned, he hoped to live West down; but he felt it would be hard to live him down with the Miss Colstones.
    It is fatal to try and keep people apart; anxiously placed obstacles seem merely to defeat their own ends. To Bernard West, earnestly copying the inscriptions on some of the older tombstones in the little churchyard, there appeared from the church, where she had been arranging flowers, Miss Arabel; and, as it so chanced, Miss Arabel was feeling faint, and accepted with gratitude the arm and the escort of Anthony’s friend. She could do no less than ask him in, and as Miss Agatha was busy in the garden, they had what Mr. West considered a very pleasant conversation in the white panelled drawing-room, with the portrait of the Lady Arabella Stuart looking down on them with her unsmiling dignity. Miss Arabel no longer felt indisposed.
    Bernard West found Anthony a little cold on the subject of his Cousin Arabel’s charms. He did not want to talk about his cousins at all. He only hoped to goodness that West had kept his mania for asking questions within decent bounds. After a chance meeting with Miss Arabel he abandoned this hope. At the mention of West’s name the little lady changed colour, fluttered, and began to talk about the weather. The man was really a most infernal nuisance.
    He turned from Wrane station and drove away with this thought in his mind. He had seen West off with decently suppressed joy, and he was wondering why he had ever thought Stonegate lonely. It wasn’t going to be lonely; it was going to be peaceful. He felt exactly as if he were going home for the holidays after a strenuous term.
    He was passing through the outskirts of Wrane and thinking vaguely what hideous outskirts they were, when his