The Coldstone by Patricia Wentworth Page B

West had the air of having been contradicted by a small boy.
    â€œHe wouldn’t let anyone see it. You saw the hedge. I had to break my way through.”
    â€œWhy on earth?”
    â€œCan’t tell you—a kink I should say.”
    â€œOh, but that’s all nonsense. You must change all that. Get into touch with experts. I wouldn’t trust local people to do any excavating, but the whole thing ought to be thoroughly and carefully investigated. Ah now! Here! What did I say? What did I tell you? That gate of yours—look at the pillars! The stone is undoubtedly the same. Vandals! We shall probably find bits of these archaic stones built into half the houses of the village. This doesn’t look like a stone country, but of course anyone who wanted stone for a gatepost, or a well-head, or a doorstep simply went and looted from the Coldstone Ring. By the way, what’s the origin of the name?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYour family name obviously derives from it.”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    â€œSuppose so? Of course it does! Have you asked about the origin of the name? Someone ought to be able to give you some information. Have you tried the parson? Parsons are very often a mine of information on this sort of subject. Have you tried your local man?”
    â€œWe haven’t got a resident parson. We go shares with two other villages, and the present man is a retired Indian chaplain who has only been here a few months—at least so the Miss Colstones say.”
    Mr. West pounced on the Miss Colstones.
    â€œAh! And what do they say about the Ring?”
    â€œNothing,” said Anthony. Somehow it gave him great pleasure to say “Nothing” like that to West. He grinned, and West frowned portentously.
    â€œ Nothing? Have you asked them?”
    â€œThey don’t talk about the Ring. No one in Ford St. Mary talks about it—it’s a great taboo.”
    â€œSince when? There wasn’t any taboo when they set these gates and built this wall. That garden opposite too—look at those flagstones. Look at them—look at them! And the doorstep! The house is Elizabethan. There wasn’t any taboo in those days, whatever there may be now.” He darted across the street and hung over Mrs. Bowyer’s gate, discoursing upon the stones that paved her garden.
    He proceeded to discover fresh evidences of vandalism in the Smithers’ well-head, and in the wall of the churchyard. At least a dozen of the oldest tombstones he declared to be portions of the Stones from the Coldstone Ring.
    After a tour of the village he returned full of energy to the Ring itself. This time each Stone was minutely examined. He made copious notes as he talked. Then, at the prostrate Stone, he stiffened, knelt down, and began in great excitement to trace the worn markings which Anthony had already discovered.
    â€œWhat’s this? What’s this?”
    Anthony cheered up a little. He had begun to feel rather like one of those small tags which adorn the tail of a proud, erratic kite, and have perforce to follow its soarings and plungings. He found it a boring rôle. Now he cheered up a little. These marks, at any rate, he had discovered for himself. He said so:
    â€œOh, those triangles? I found them the other day. I suppose they are triangles?”
    Mr. West threw a scornful glance over his shoulder.
    â€œTriangles? It’s a pentagram. That’s very interesting—that’s very interesting indeed. I don’t remember any other instance—I don’t believe there’s any other instance.”
    â€œWell,” said Anthony, “anyone might have put it there, any old time. And—er—isn’t a pentagram a thing with five points? This has six.”
    West was on his knees beside the Stone. He turned now and looked up with an arrested expression.
    â€œYes,” he said, “yes—put on afterwards—perhaps as a