“I beg your pardon?”

“Godamercy. It is one of your vivid sixteenth-century English ejaculations. My little circle has revived it. For fun,” Mrs. Bünz explained.

“I’m afraid I—”

“This is merely to satisfy you that I may in all humility claim to be something of an expert. My status, Mr. Stayne, was indeed of such a degree as to encourage the late Lord Rekkage —”

“Do you mean Loony Rekkage?”

“— to entrust no less than three Saratoga trunkfuls of precious, precious family documents to my care. It was one of these documents, examined by myself for the first time the day before yesterday, that has led me to Mardian Castle. I have it with me. You shall see it.”

Ralph Stayne had begun to look extremely uncomfortable.

“Yes, well now, look here, Mrs. — ”

“Bünz.”

“Mrs. Burns, I’m most awfully sorry, but if you’re heading the way I think you are, then I’m terribly afraid it’s no go.”

Mrs. Bünz suddenly made a magnificent gesture towards the windows.

“Tell me this,” she said. “Tell me. Out there in the courtyard, mantled in snow and surrounded at the moment by poultry, I can perceive, and with emotion I perceive it, a slightly inclined and rectangular shape. Mr. Stayne, is that object the Mardian Stone? The dolmen of the Mardians?”

“Yes,” said Ralph. “That’s right. It is.”

“The document to which I have referred concerns itself with the Mardian Stone. And with the Dance of the Five Sons.”

“Does it, indeed?”

“It suggests, Mr. Stayne, that unknown to research, to experts, to folk dancers and to the societies, the so-called Mardian Mawris (the richest immeasurably of all English ritual dance-plays) was being performed annually at the Mardian Stone during the winter solstice up to as recently as fifteen years ago.”

“Oh,” said Ralph.

“And not only that,” Mrs. Bünz whispered excitedly, advancing her face to within twelve inches of his, “there seems to be no reason why it should not have survived to this very year, this winter solstice, Mr. Stayne — this very week. Now, do you answer me? Do you tell me if this is so?”