result.'
'You mean you've found a body in the well?'
'Not much use clamming up about it.
The word's got round already.'
'Who is it? The au pair girl?'
'Seems like it.'
'Poor girl,' said Elspeth. 'Did she throw herself in-or what?'
'It wasn't suicide-she was knifed. It was murder all right.'
After her mother had left the Ladies' Room, Miranda waited for a minute or two. Then she opened the door, cautiously peered out, opened the side door to the garden which was close at hand and ran down the garden path that led round to the back yard of what had once been a coaching inn and was now a garage. She went out at a small door that enabled pedestrians to get into a lane outside. A little farther down the lane a car was parked. A man with beetling grey eyebrows and a grey beard was sitting in it reading a newspaper. Miranda opened the door and climbed in beside the driving-seat. She laughed.
'You do look funny.'
'Have a hearty laugh, there's nothing to stop you.'
The car started, went down the lane, turned right, turned left, turned right again and came out on a secondary road.
'We're all right for time,' said the grey-bearded man.
'At the right moment you'll see the double axe as it ought to be seen.
And Kilterbury Down, too. Wonderful view.'
A car dashed past them so closely that they were almost forced into the hedge.
'Young idiots,' said the grey-bearded man.
One of the young men had long hair reaching over his shoulders and large, owlish spectacles. The other one affected a more Spanish appearance with sideburns.
'You don't think Mummy will worry about me?' asked Miranda.
'She won't have time to worry about you. By the time she worries about you, you'll have got where you want to be.'
In London, Hercule Poirot picked up the telephone. Mrs. Oliver's voice came over.
'We've lost Miranda.'
'What do you mean, lost her?'
'We had lunch at The Black Boy. She went to the loo. She didn't come back.
Somebody said they saw her driving away with an elderly man. But it mightn't have been her. It might have been someone else. It-'
'Someone should have stayed with her.
Neither of you ought to have let her out of your sight. I told you there was danger.
Is Mrs. Butler very worried?'
'Of course she's worried. What do you think? She's frantic. She insists on ringing the police.'
'Yes, that would be the natural thing to do. I will ring them also.'
'But why should Miranda be in danger?'
'Don't you know? You ought to by now.' He added, 'The body's been found. I've just heard '
'What body?'
'A body in a well.'
'IT'S beautiful,' said Miranda, looking round her.
Kilterbury Ring was a local beauty spot though its remains were not particularly famous. They had been dismantled many hundreds of years ago. Yet here and there a tall megalithic stone still stood, upright, telling of a long past ritual worship. Miranda asked questions.
'Why did they have all these stones here?'
'For ritual. Ritual worship. Ritual sacrifice. You understand about sacrifice, don't you, Miranda?'
'I think so.'
'It has to be, you see. It's important.'
'You mean, it's not a sort of punishment?
It's something else?'
'Yes, it's something else. You die so that others should live. You die so that beauty should live. Should come into being. That's the important thing.'
'I thought perhaps-'
'Yes, Miranda?'
'I thought perhaps you ought to die because what you've done has killed someone else.'
'What put that into your head?'
'I was thinking of Joyce. If I hadn't told her about something, she wouldn't have died, would she?'
'Perhaps not.'
'I've felt worried since Joyce died. I needn't have told her, need I?
I told her because I wanted to have something worth while telling her.
She'd been to India and she kept talking about it-about the tigers and about the elephants and their gold hangings and decorations and their trappings.
And I think, too-suddenly I wanted somebody else to know, because you see I hadn't really thought about it before.' She added: 'Was-was that a sacrifice, too?'
'In a way.'
Miranda remained contemplative, then she said, 'Isn't it time yet?'
'The sun is not quite right yet. Another five minutes, perhaps, and then it will fall directly on the stone.'
Again they sat silent, beside the car.
'Now, I think,' said Miranda's companion, looking up at the sky where the sun was dipping towards the horizon.
'Now is a wonderful moment. No one here. Nobody comes up at this time of day and walks up to the top of Kilterbury Down to see Kilterbury Ring. Too cold in November and the blackberries are over.
I'll show you the double axe first. The double axe on the stone.
Carved there when they came from Mycenae or from Crete hundreds of years ago. It's wonderful, Miranda, isn't it?'
'Yes, it's very wonderful,' said Miranda. 'Show it me.'
They walked up to the topmost stone.
Beside it lay a fallen one and a little farther down the slope a slightly inclined one leant as though bent with the weariness of years.
'Are you happy, Miranda?'
'Yes, I'm very happy.'
'There's the sign here.'
'Is that really the double axe?'
'Yes, it's worn with time but that's it.
That's the symbol. Put your hand on it.
And now now we will drink to the past and the future and to beauty.'
