He came back towards Ash's grave, pushing against a howling tide of air, hearing other trees crash all around. As he came to the knoll and turned his storm lantern on it, he saw the yew tree throw up its arms and a huge gaping white mouth appear briefly in the reddish trunk, close to the thick base of the tree, which leaned giddily over, and went on cracking slowly, slowly, descending in a burst of needle-leaves, and finally snapping and shuddering to rest across the grave, obscuring it utterly. He could now go neither forwards nor backwards. He cried out "Hildebrand!" and his own voice seemed to curl uselessly back like smoke in his face. Was he safer nearer the church? Could he get there? Where was Hildebrand? There was a momentary lull and he called again.
Hildebrand called out, "Help. Help. Where are you?"
Another voice said, "Here, by the church. Hang on."
Peering between the branches of the yew, Cropper saw Hildebrand crawling along the grass between the graves towards the church. Waiting for him was a dark figure with a flashlight, whose beam was swung in his direction.
"Professor Cropper?" said this being, in a clear, authoritative male voice. "Are you all right?"
"I seem to be trapped by trees."
"We can get you out, I expect. Have you got the box?"
"What box?" said Cropper.
"Yes, he has," said Hildebrand, "Oh, get us out of here, this is ghastly, I can't take any more."
There was a crackling sound, like the electric forces that played at Hella Lees's seances. The figure spoke to the air. "Yes, he's here. Yes, he's got it. We're all cut off by trees. Are you OK?"
Crackle, crackle.
Cropper decided to run for it. He turned back. It must be possible to circumnavigate the tree in the track-except that there seemed to be other trees, a hedge, a huge scaly barrier reared where none had been.
"It's no good," the figure incredibly said. "You're surrounded. And there's a tree on your Mercedes."
Cropper spun round, and the beam of the other's flashlight revealed, peering through the branches, like bizarre flowers or fruit, wet and white, Roland Mitchell, Maud Bailey, Leonora Stern, James Blackadder, and with streaming white woolly hair descended, like some witch or prophetess, a transfigured Beatrice Nest.
It took them an hour and a half to scramble back on foot to the Rowan Tree Inn. The Londoners, who had set out in two cars from Mortlake before the storm, but had begun to see its effects before they set out for the church, had brought a small saw from Blackadder's Peugeot, as well as the walkie-talkie with which Euan had equipped them. Armed with this, and Cropper's shovels, they scrambled and climbed over and under fallen columns and sighing vegetation, holding out hands to help, pushing, pulling, until they arrived at the road and saw festoons of cable and dark windows. The power was cut. Cropper let them all in to the Inn, still clutching the box. In the hall already were a crew of stranded lorry drivers, motorcyclists and a couple of firemen. The landlord was moving round the hall with candles in bottles. Huge pans of water were boiling on the kitchen Aga. At no other time would the incursion of so many wet, dirty scholars in the small hours have been taken with such casual and unquestioning calm. Pots of coffee and hot milk- and, at Euan's suggestion, a bottle of brandy-were taken up to Cropper's room, where his captors accompanied him. Dressing-gowns and spare sweaters were found for all, amongst Cropper's bags and Hildebrand's brand-new luggage. It was all so unreal, and the sense of communal survival was so powerful that they sat stupidly good, smiling weakly, damp and chill. Neither Cropper nor the others, curiously, could find force to be angry or even indignant. The box sat between candles, on the table in the window, rusty and earthy and wet. The women, all three clothed in pyjamas-Maud in Cropper's black silk, Leonora in his scarlet cotton, and Beatrice in peppermint and white stripes belonging to Hildebrand-sat side by side on the bed. Val and Euan had their own clothes and represented normality. Blackadder wore a sweater and cotton trousers of Hildebrand's. Euan said, "I've always wanted to say, 'You are surrounded.' "
"You said it very well," said Cropper. "I don't know you, but I've seen you. In the restaurant."
"And at the Garden Centre, and Densher and Winterbourne, and the churchyard yesterday, yes. I'm Euan Maclntyre. Dr Bailey's lawyer. I believe I can prove she is the legal owner of the manuscripts of the letters-both sides-at present in the possession of Sir George Bailey."
"This box, however, is nothing to do with her."
"It will be mine, " said Hildebrand.
"Unless you had a Faculty from the Bishop, and permission from Mr Drax and permission from Lord Ash, it was feloniously obtained by disturbing a burial, and I can take it from you, and take you into custody as a citizen's arrest. Moreover, Professor Blackadder has a letter forbidding the export of the contents until their status as national heritage treasures has been ascertained."
"I see," said Mortimer Cropper. "There may, of course, be nothing in there. Or merest dust. Might we-conjointly-examine the contents? Since we are unable to leave this place, or each other's company?"
"It shouldn't be disturbed," said Beatrice. "It should be put back."
She looked round the group and saw no support. Mortimer Cropper said, "If you believed that, you could have made your citizen's arrest before I found it."
Blackadder said, "That is perfectly true."
Leonora said, "Why did she leave it to be found, if she didn't entertain the thought of it? Why wasn't it clasped to her bosom-or his?"
Maud said, "We need the end of the story."
"There is no guarantee that that is what we shall find," said Blackadder. "But we must look, " said Maud.
Cropper produced a can of oil, and rubbed the oil round the join, working it with his knife, flaking off particles of rust. After a long few moments, he inserted the knife point under the join and pushed. The lid sprang off, revealing Randolph Ash's glass specimen container, cloudy and stained, but intact. Cropper lifted the lid of this too, slipping his knife round it, neatly, neatly, and took out the contents. An oiled silk bag contained: a hair bracelet, with a silver clasp of two hands joining; a blue envelope containing a long thread of very finely plaited pale hair; another oiled silk package that proved to contain a thick bundle of letters tied with ribbon; and a long envelope, once white, sealed, inscribed in brown letters: To: Randolph Henry Ash, under cover.