Original subtitles

Mysteries still attached to Stonehenge.

It was part of an international culture of stone worship, much of whose meaning

we don't yet know.

What did stones mean to these people? The Celts, the Mayans, the Egyptians?

Certainly they were animate. They had divinity.

They linked with the larger cosmos, the cycle of the year, the movement of sun

and planets.

What we do know is that the people who used them and worshipped them and

whipped them...

had advanced learning.

They had Pythagorean mathematics before Pythagoras, a complex astronomy,

advanced building techniques, and a complicated language.

The language is lost.

There are carved symbols on the stones that mystify us, yet a language is the

very heart of a culture.

Only then can we start to know its relationships, its beliefs, the

connections it made.

Who were these people?

How do they live and how and what do they communicate?

What the hell?

What's the matter?

What are you doing, Vanessa?

What is it, Vanessa?

I don't know, Mummy.

Did you have a bad dream?

I don't know.

Come on.

You'd better go back to bed.

Off you go.

Is she alright?

She must have had a bad dream.

What did she do that for?

Has somebody been fiddling with this?

I don't suppose so.

Well, I didn't leave it like this.

Quiet,

Vanessa. Neglected and lost.

The lost language.

It was William Stukely who invented the druids who had the most interesting

theory. The druids' power, he said, came from the most precious of all

possessions, the alphabet.

And where did it come from?

Stukely says... Hercules.

This our Hercules learned of Abraham the East, and this he brought with him to

the extremist West in the very early age of the world.

And why was that wonderful?

Because language was the secret of the gods.

This was not the first time the mystical alphabet had been associated with

Stonehenge. Now, if we turn to a quainter source, we will find that

the... Where is it?

Who's taken my book?

Which particular book, Nicholas? Well, it's the one I'm reading.

The one I'm reading with the one I'm writing.

Stonehenge. Stonehenge Defendive, Our Scholar Antiquary. Where did you put it?

Well, if I knew that, I wouldn't ask you, would I?

Someone's moved it.

Vanessa, have you taken Daddy's book?

No. No, of course you haven't. It hasn't been taken. Look again. It'll be there.

It's here.

Who put it here? Vanessa, have you been... No, Daddy. You did, didn't you?

No, I didn't.

Mysteries associated with Stonehenge.

This source declares... No, this source proposes... Who's that?

I don't know. I haven't answered it yet.

Nicholas Reeve.

Oh, yes, Master.

Oh, the Master.

No, not at all. I was, well, you know, just working.

Well, I'd arranged to dine at home. You are. There's a joint in the oven.

Anne says there's a joint in the oven.

Who wants to meet me?

Harvey Fenton Jones.

Oh, yes, I know. Yes, we were junior fellows at All Souls together back in

the 60s. They've just made him First Minister of Tourism.

Yes, Anne's just reminding me.

How one's friends prosper while one just goes on.

Well, if it's a summons from on high, one can't refuse.

Ask in here.

They want us consultants about a project.

or something.

Here.

No, Anne won't mind.

Yes,

I'll give her your apologies.

Right.

Eight o'clock.

Yes, I'll be there. Bye.

I'm sorry, darling. He's the master's guest.

He wants to talk to us about something or other. So, once again, I stay in

while you dine with dear old Harvey.

Well, it'll be an appalling meal, and I've no great fondness for dear old

Harvey. No, he was fond of me. Yes, I remember.

You were of him.

At least he was go-ahead.

Fashionable at Oxford that year. Go-ahead.

If it had been romantic poetry, Harvey would have had TB.

You're jealous.

No.

Is there a clean white shirt?

Seek and ye shall find.

Sorry, darling.

Enjoy yourself with Harvey. Don't be late.

Be good.

Don't touch my books.

Okay, bye.

Mom, we're gonna be long. I'm hungry.

I'm angry.

He's an old flame.

Harvey Fenton Jones.

How's Anne?

Not as frisky as you remember her.

Good girl.

The last time we met, you were writing a book on Stonehenge, I believe.

Was then.

Still am.

That's why you're here, Reeve. As soon as the minister thought of Stonehenge,

he thought of you.

Do you often think of Stonehenge, Minister, amid the many affairs of

state? Well, it's become an affair of state, actually.

It's quite a scheme. What scheme?

Oh, it's an idea of mine.

We're proposing to move it all up to London.

I mean, it's really very rational.

Tourism's our second biggest industry now.

1,400 millions a year, but it's a cutthroat business.

Live sex shows in Amsterdam,

bogus masses in Baden-Baden.

Our speciality is history, but history happens so randomly.

I mean, it's scattered all over the place.

Well, I am an historian, and terribly dense.

Move it. Why?

You'd like to move it all into the middle.

To the center.

I think the minister feels that Stonehenge is rather vulnerable where it

is. Why, you see, the big threats are weather, erosion, and vandalism. For

instance, a few years ago, some military cadets tried to heave the whole thing

over to gun carrier.

1965, to be precise.

Yes, I believe so.

Anyway, my idea is to put up an exact fiberglass replica on Salisbury Plain

and move the original to Hyde Park where we can keep a better eye on it.

Protect it, preserve its character.

I suppose you could surround it with Loch Ness and replace the monster with

an inflatable model.

That's very good. I like that.

Of course, I did anticipate your skepticism, but it's not a new idea, you

know. Oh, no.

You know, one of its previous owners threatened to sell it to the United

States earlier this century.

Reeves the expert, true or false? Yes, yes, I'm sure.

Aren't you rather underestimating the resistance you'll encounter elsewhere?

Oh, the historical conservationists of the Celtic nationalists will kick up a

bit of a fuss, no doubt.

But after all, you don't mind having Cleopatra's needle in London, do you?

And it will allow your archaeology chaps to dig all over the Stonehenge mound of

their house content.

Seems to me, gentlemen, that the minister's got a good point there.

Let me put my cards on the table.

We need your advice to get this move right. We want to do it precisely.

Scientifically. Keep the astronomical axes, that sort of thing.

Well, there'll be trouble, then, not just from a few conservationists and

scholars, I'm afraid.

Oh, my dear Portman, you're not threatening me with the ancestral curse,

I hope?

Hmm? The druid's revenge?

The druid thing is very suspect.

The whole thing is surrounded with invention, fiction. I mean, it's been

everything from a Roman temple to a launch pad for prehistoric spaceships.

You scholars have had a wonderful time.

Now, for heaven's sake, let's put the damn thing to some use.

We've certainly never known what it's for in the past.

We assume it's the product of a primitive civilization.

Those people in 1800 BC moved stones weighing four or five tons with their

own hands and directed them so precisely you can locate star systems to within

quarter of a degree.

And that is a system that can work only where it is.

Now it's entirely possible the whole thing has a magnetic field that has in

some mysterious way influenced the development of our culture and has

shaped worship and knowledge.

Even influenced the acts of individuals.

And for all we know, still does.

Dinner's nearly ready.

What's that, then?

Oh, it's just a thing I'm doing.

Well, wash yourself.

Then we'll eat.

You see, Harvey, I don't approve.

Where are you taking us?

Is everything up for sale now?

It's a question of survival.

Yes, I agree. Our survival is a country with a sense of values.

Well, if you want to see us drop to the 20th position in the league table of

national growth... I don't think I'd care.

We're several notches below Albania.

Just so long as we don't prostitute ourselves for euro dollars or Libyan

dinars or whatever else it is you expect to get for this desecration. I'm afraid

you suffer from the Oxford disease. Not enough contact with the outside world.

Too much clarity, our boy.

Not enough clarity.

But what is the real world?

Is religion real or the past?

What does reality consist of?

Are we sure the ground we walk on is as solid as we think it is?

I'm coming, Vanessa.

Face washed, teeth clean.

Vanessa, what are you doing?

Is that one of Daddy's books?

You know you're not supposed to touch them. You'd better put it back, hadn't

you?

You know, I do wish you wouldn't take all this so much to heart. I mean, why

all this fuss about stone artifacts?

I mean, they're always being moved.

The Mexicans moved the great rain god to Mexico City.

And it rained for days, if I remember rightly.

And not on an unaccustomed hardship for the British.

Yes, and the Irish did it. Oh, yes.

They moved the Tudor stone from Galway to Dublin for an exhibition.

Yes, and the sling broke, the stone fell and bounced, and nearly crushed the head

of the Irish tourist board.

My dear Nicholas, you really are trying to tell me something, aren't you?

Surely you're not a man to leave any stone unturned, mister.

Stones and curses go together.

In 1899, the owner tried to sell it for grazing land, and he was turned into a

toad.

No.

On the turn of the year, one of the giant lintels fell.

Very well.

I shall stay in over the new year.

There are curses, then?

Rise up, stick, and stand still, stone.

For king of England, thou shalt be none.

Thou and thy men, whore stone shall be, and I myself an elden tree.

Charming.

It's a curse.

From near here, actually.

You know the roll-ride stones, our Banbury way?

They're reputed to be the petrified bodies of a pretender king of England

and his men.

The witch uttered that particular curse.

And there they were, lumps of rock.

And, of course, you, like a good academic, believe all this absolutely. I

believe in it metaphorically.

I mean, why are stones thought animate, almost human?

Why are they associated with forces beyond our control?

Why is a circle of stones a place of worship and ritual?

You know, I'm surprised at you, Nicholas.

You are a historian.

This is all mumbo-jumbo. I mean, can you find one scup of evidence to prove that

this isn't pure coincidence or gossip? I doubt it.

Isn't it the point that one's provoked to a sense of mystery by these things

where they are and not when they're somewhere else?

Well, I must say, Oxford has a remarkable facility for living outside

the real world.

Well... Someone has to keep a firm grasp on the inessentials. Aye.

So you are going to move it?

Banish Plump Jack and banish all the world.

I do, I will.

End of the month, actually.

Is that a friend from school?

Come on.

It's late.

I want you fast asleep before Daddy comes home.

Anybody up?

Harvey Fenton Jones.

Vanessa, what are you doing up at this hour?

Why don't you...

Come

on, Wharton, you are a linguist. What is it?

A book without a cover.

On the spine.

Scribble?

Couldn't it be a language?

Not one I know. Not in symbols I recognize.

Diverse strange characters.

An unknown language or alphabet.

Sit down, Reeve.

Take the weight off your feet.

Let me give you a glass of rather bad sherry.

You're not the only one, you know.

What do you mean?

Well, most of the people I know who don't think they've discovered buried

treasure or the troubled helix...

Think they've discovered a language.

You know, ladies at dinner parties, vicars at garden parties.

They want me to decode it.

The fact that people have gone blind or spent 20 years of their lives trying to

decipher languages does not deter them. They're happy to have me take the risk.

Well, you think it's not a language.

Well, it could be anything, couldn't it?

Scribble, personal cipher, child's drawing.

What do you think a language is?

A system of speech and writing.

A written language is a system of signs agreed and codified by a group of people

in a given culture who have things they wish to exchange with each other. Now,

who, when, and where is exchanging which with whom about what and why?

The book itself is about Stonehenge. You surprise me. And it discusses the

missing Stonehenge language.

Well, that's the traditional idea, of course. Language is carried on stones.

All right.

Celtic languages did turn up in the...

Middle Ages, but this is 17th century, isn't it?

1665.

Plague and fire.

Rather a bad year to publish.

They all are.

Much the same when my books come out.

All right, 17th century loved cipher games, although this isn't in a familiar

style, but why should a 3,000-year-old language turn up then?

Well, this was the year of the Stonehenge controversy.

Inigo Jones had just published his great book to demonstrate it was a Roman

temple. Everyone got into it.

Research all over the place.

This man was interested in the mystical line.

Scholar antiquary.

He said Stonehenge was a language of strangers.

He also spoke of the curse.

That's why I looked at the book late last night after talking to our visitor.

I'm not surprised. What a appalling man.

I feel like that gives fascism a bad name.

You see, he's splashed all over today's papers.

I never really read them.

He ought to, you know, keep up with what's going on.

He announced the scheme to the press yesterday.

I thought he was consulting us first.

Oh, you know, politicians at first consult people afterwards.

Well, what do they say?

What you'd expect, really. The Telegraph's against it, Times is for it,

and The Guardian, while strongly opposing the scheme on the one hand,

warmly applauds it on the other. That's the sun over there.

Stonehenge move, which is protest.

They've discovered a coven in Slough putting on a black mass in a shed. I

suppose you'll be off down there. You do dance, don't you?

Stick pins in a bloody man.

Well, thank God you and I are rational, Reeve.

So you went to the book, took the cover off, and there was the language.

And the cover came off rather oddly.

Look, can't you try it on one of your language computers?

Well, they're clever, Reeve, but they're not that clever.

It's not enough of it, really, you see.

And no cultural background, context of utterance, as we say.

And the alphabet's not familiar. That could be Greek or Chinese, and that's a

bit Egyptian. But it could be a code, but no repetition, you see. That makes

it difficult to break.

I'd need more of it, really. Well, as a matter of fact, it's one of a three

-volume set I bought in an antiquarian bookseller's in Banbury ten years ago.

Have you got the other two?

No, they split the set to make the asking price.

Rather unusual with the rare book. It was lucky for me. I could only afford

the one.

But I probably could chase the others.

Well, surely there are other sets.

Well, there's only one other on record in the British Museum.

Nicholas? Is that you?

Yes, and I'm home.

You're early.

Harvey Foley. Who?

While you were out, Harvey Fenton Jones.

Oh, did he? He was absolutely charming.

That's an improvement.

I didn't know he wanted you to serve on a committee to help the government move

Stonehenge. I'm not going to. I happen to disapprove very strongly of the whole

thing. I see.

By the way, I'm going up to London tomorrow for the PM.

Will you be back in time for dinner?

I'll try to be.

I'm going for a walk with Vanessa.

You're proposing that we remove the cover of a 17th century book. Yes. With

the object of discovering whether words in another language are written on the

spine. Exactly.

Look, Dr.

Reed, what would we do if everyone came in here with requests like this?

Well, it's hardly likely, is it? I admit it's an unusual request.

There's nothing unusual about an unusual request.

Happily to guide us, there are regulations.

which directly forbid it.

Well, I hardly expected there'd be regulations positively advocating taking

covers or valuable books, but can't you make an individual decision?

I am a scholar, Dr. Reeve, but I'm also a public official.

Regulations are precisely designed to protect us from individual decisions.

That's what it's all about.

I'm sorry, Dr.

Reeve. Good day.

May I have your reader's ticket, Dr. Reed?

I expect never to see you in here again.

You're also open to proceedings.

I'm sorry. I just had to know.

Was there a language on the book?

No.

No, there wasn't.

So, you ripped the... the back of a priceless book at the British Museum.

Were they pleased?

They took away my ticket.

And that surprised you?

They can sue as well.

Oh, that should do wonders for your scholarly reputation.

Nicholas, do you think that... Well, do you think that you're normal in the

sense that other people are normal?

Well, I seem normal to me.

Is my Elizabeth David there? Who? My cook report.

Oh.

I mean, you've no time for your family.

You pass up the chance of a post that would give you some standing in the

world.

And now you tear up a national treasure.

You wouldn't have done a thing like that when we were first married, not

conceivably.

If one of your students behaved like that with an old book, you'd be shot

beyond belief, wouldn't you?

Yes.

But you're different.

Anne, my book.

Someone's taken my book. Oh, not again.

Well, where is it?

Where you put it? No, it's not. It's gone.

Well, perhaps it's just as well.

Did you take it?

Why should I? To discourage me. No, Nick, I didn't.

How could it go?

Has Vanessa been in here today? She's always in and out.

Is she in bed?

Oh, Nick, don't wake her.

Why should she take it? It couldn't just disappear.

Leave it till tomorrow.

I have to go to Boundary tomorrow to see my bookseller.

Is this still about your ridiculous language?

Yes, I want to find the other two books in the set.

Do you ever think about staying here and seeing a student or two?

I do see them.

It's ridiculous.

I'm going to bed.

You're unfaithful to me with that bloody book.

Ever heard of Ogham?

No. Where is it?

The language.

Written on stones.

Is this the one you think you've found?

It could be. I really don't know.

That's what I admire about you.

Your compelling lucidity.

Your triumphant rationality.

What a wondrous piece of work is a man.

That's what's so unexpected about this.

It doesn't conventionally Celtic at all.

Right.

And is there any sense in which if you found it and translated it, it would

make the slightest difference to ordinary, everyday human life and

relationships?

No.

No.

Sean?

I wonder if you could help me about a book.

Is Mr. Snaith here?

You're looking at my photograph.

How old is it?

Well, ageless, my dear sir, ageless.

One thinks it doesn't one of those warm summers just before the Great War.

It isn't for sale.

Sentimental associations.

I came about a book, one I bought at auction about ten years ago, on

Stonehenge, by an anonymous author.

Oh, a scholar and a courier.

Yes, I sold the three-volume set. A great rarity.

You were fortunate to get it. How did you? A good source?

Impeccable. I trust all's well with your acquisition.

I recall it went for a fair price.

I split the set.

Wasn't that rather an outrageous thing to do, for such a small profit?

Profit was not my motive.

The spread of learning, perhaps.

I wanted the three volumes to go to individuals.

You did nothing to the books.

Rebind them.

They were in their original bindings, I recall.

Though this was ten years ago.

Oh, you're doubtful about your volume.

I'd happily rebuy at the same price.

No, I want to trace the other two.

I regret that the identity of the purchasers must remain sacrosanct.

Well, I'd like to link the volumes up again. You see, I'm engaged in research.

I'm afraid, in my experience, the word research tends to a curious elasticity.

I could, on your commission, attempt to buy them back.

I'm not in a position to purchase.

If there's no purchase, there's no profit.

I could pay you a small search fee.

Ten pounds in cash.

Very well.

Then I'll get my record clerk to see if she can be of some assistance to take a

seat.

You appear not to hear a word I said.

Alas, a common characteristic of the deaf the world over.

I'm sorry.

Now then, what were we looking for?

A stonehenge defended by a scholar antiquary.

One of many books on the subject, you know.

Jones, Webb, Charlton.

Jones said the Romans built it, Webb the Danes, Charlton they couldn't have since

their hobbies were homicide, filicide, regicide, fratricide, matricide, and

patricide. A bad pedigree.

Our scholar, Andrew Currie, says that learned men came from elsewhere and

built a stone language to speak to the gods.

A remarkable book for its day.

Here we are.

Items sold in August 1968.

Purchases of Mr. Canadoc Hobbs.

Oh, yes, I remember him.

A Welshman, I think. A writer.

He certainly affected the proletarian style like so many of our brighter human

areas.

Mr.

Nicholas Reeve.

Distinguished, I recall, is the shade effeminate.

I'm Nicholas Reeve. Oh, gentle is actually the word I was groping for. Of

course, you're Mr. Reeve. I have almost total recall.

And the third gentleman was from France, a monsieur Lambert.

A medical person, I recollect.

Do you have their addresses?

No, I don't, sir. Since the postal code's a matter of esoteric scholarship.

Would another search fee help? Five pounds?

You're very generous.

I'll write them down.

Thank you.

You're clearly fascinated by Sternhenge.

So am I, Clark, and myself.

You've heard of the plan to move it to London?

Yes. Quite deplorable.

Oh, never fear.

There's been such talk before.

In 1915, the commanding officer of the nearby aerodrome said it got in the way

of his take-offs.

He wanted it flattened.

He died suddenly.

No, it won't be moved.

Very pretty.

Granny? No, turn it over on the other side.

Oh, I see, I see, I see.

It's the same script.

Very much the same, yes.

In fact, this bit is what is written on the spine of your book, only transcribed

horizontally rather than vertically.

And all this bit's new.

There you are, then. That's what you wanted, isn't it?

Wait a minute, Reed. Wait a minute. Doesn't this worry you? Why should the

language of Stonehenge Man be written in ordinary, rather faded commercial ink on

the back of a photograph taken when?

Well, I don't know.

1914? No, I mean, how did it get there?

Well, perhaps I'm not the first.

Someone else might have copied it from all three books.

But that means someone has replaced the binding on your book since 1914.

And that opens all sorts of doors.

Such as?

Well, a very cunning hoax.

Some devious soul devises a bogus language, copies it off the back of this

photograph onto all three volumes, puts the binding back, and then waits for

some obliging scholar like you to come along and uncover the mystery.

Tilt down, skullduggery.

Well, why should he bother to do that?

I don't know, sheer bloody-mindedness.

Academics are like that, you know, invent facts to fit theories rather than

the other way around.

It's our cardinal sin.

Where did you get this, actually?

Snaith, the bookseller in Banbury.

Could be him.

Fortunately, there isn't a problem, because we can check it, at least for

the nearest century. We can examine the spine of your book under a microscope

and see if it was written with a quill pen.

Metal nibs didn't really come in till 1748 and they weren't in general use for

a hundred years after that.

The book's disappeared.

What do you mean disappeared?

I don't know. I locked it in the drawer of my desk and it's just gone.

But Snaith did tell me when I could find the other two volumes.

That's right.

You're looking for me?

You're very remote.

I've come to meet you.

Remote's a word used by suburbanites to describe people whose carbon monoxide

level is below their own.

Self-sufficient.

Here, have a drop of this.

Thank you. Warm you up a bit.

We've quite a walk.

The cottage is up this way.

You are hard to find. Oh, not really, not really.

This is near Pentre-Ivan, isn't it?

Pentre-Ivan? Ah, yes, indeed.

The village of Avon.

You've not been to Wales before?

I taught at Aberystwyth for a couple of years.

Ah, very nice.

Fine.

When you rang and said you were looking for a lost language, I thought you must

be a romantic, a poet.

I'm just an historian, trying to solve a very important mystery.

But you don't solve mysteries, Dr. Eve.

You enter them.

Like Robert Graves, the poet, you know.

One day, he read the Mabinogion. Those are our ancient Welsh legends.

And he realized they hid a message that was leading him somewhere.

Do you know where it took him?

No. Well, you're going to a language.

The secret Celtic alphabets the Druids used.

You mean Ogham? No, not Ogham.

The secret tree alphabet. The consonants were months. The vowels were solstices.

The secret worship alphabet.

An organic alphabet.

Not like our rational ABCQED.

Would you recognize this language if it was on the spine of your book? Ah, Dr.

Reeve, there we have a problem about the book.

I realize it's priceless.

Oh, I'm not properly bound.

I'm out of all that sort of thing.

It's not that I'm afraid.

You see, I can't show you the book. Why not?

I don't have it.

But last night you said... Well, last night on the phone I wasn't drunk, you

know. I thought I did have it.

This morning I went to the shelf and it had disappeared.

It was there two days ago.

Oh, I'm sorry you've had this useless quest.

I rang your home from the pub this morning and they said you'd already

left. How did it disappear?

I don't know.

I don't lock doors. I don't need to.

A few people come up here.

The woman I lived with, she's left me.

I don't understand it.

Look, where are you staying?

I booked a hotel at Fishguard.

Why not stay up here with us?

That's very good of you.

With me and my daughter.

What's the matter? Vanessa's disappeared.

Good evening, sir.

I'm Detective Inspector Barrett.

Mrs. Reid reported to us that your daughter left school two hours ago and

hasn't been seen since.

Two hours?

Exactly. But I've just been explaining that this sort of thing does happen

quite often.

Children are always forgetting what time of day it is.

I've telephoned everyone we know.

She's never run off before?

No. Never talked about it? No.

Adventurous, is she?

No. Rather shy.

But she's been behaving strangely lately. That's why I'm especially

worried. How strangely, Mrs. Reeve?

Yes, but it's seven hours now.

Yes, I'm sure you will.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

They've started a search. They'll circulate her photograph.

That is, if she's not back.

You know she won't be back.

She's being taken.

Come on, sit down.

Keep calm.

Don't jump to conclusions.

He's so...

I think she's gone of her own volition.

You told the inspector she'd been talking to herself.

Now, what did she say?

The other night in bed, she mentioned a name. Well, can you remember what it

was?

Sheena. Shane, I don't know.

Sian? Yes.

I met a Sian yesterday in Wales.

I took her to school down in the village.

She stays for lunch.

I went down in the evening and she wasn't there. She'd gone in the break,

just walked away.

Well, she's a bit unusual, I know. She's my daughter, so they weren't too

terribly worried.

And then after that, no trace at all. They've searched the mountain, they're

used to that. Up to now, nothing. And then Dr Reeve rang me. I came down here,

I thought there must be some connection.

But what possible connection?

The girls don't know each other. How could they know each other? But they

were aware of each other. Vanessa knew Sian's name. And Sian knew Vanessa. She

talked about her. How could she?

Well, it is possible, you know.

Psychokinesis. I mean, people can transmit between each other. There's no

doubt. It's been demonstrated too often.

It's a bit of a stage performance, isn't it? No, Inspector. The old rational code

is dying. We're less ordinary than we think, and a lot of people are finding

that out and expanding their consciousness. You really believe this?

Of course!

I knew Sian was psychokinetic. I've known for years. I've encouraged her to

develop her consciousness.

To talk to Vanessa.

But one knows there's contact. One sees intensified states.

You really believe this?

If you know all that, you'll know where they are.

No, I don't.

I'm as lost as you are.

Mr. Hobbs, there's not much I can do about imaginary links between children.

What I do need to know about are the real links between you. There are no

links between us. Nothing.

Dr. Reeve has just been to Wales. Mr. Hobbs is in this room.

Well, that's because of the books.

The books? It's a split three-volume set. We both bought a volume in Banbury.

This is the book that went missing? Yes. Well, my copy's missing too.

Is it?

Are they valuable? Well, yes, to a scholar or a collector.

Besides, there's something odd about them. Oh, Nicholas, for God's sake.

What's odd about your book, Dr. Reeve?

Mine has a language on it, written on the cover.

On the spine.

I thought Mr. Hobbs' copy might have it too. That's why I went to see him.

Do you mean it's a code of some kind?

Well, it depends what you mean by code.

Nothing very dramatic.

I think it's an ancient, undeciphered language.

Probably one of the Druid languages. There were a number, Inspector.

Well, actually, that's arguable.

Now, you say three books.

Who has the third?

Someone in Rennes, in France. I have his address.

Can you let me have it? Yes.

I'll make some inquiries.

Wren.

That's near Karnak.

Near Karnak.

It's an ancient avenue of stones.

The forming of the triangle.

Karnak.

Pentreevan.

And Stonehenge.

Thank you.

Vanessa? Hello?

Who are you?

What's your name?

Is she really all right?

Oh, Nick.

Thank God.

Yes.

Yes, I'll get her room ready.

Get home as quickly as you can.

Following the meeting, members from all parties agreed to reconvene in Geneva

later this year.

The death has just been reported of Mr. Harvey Fenton Jones, the recently

appointed Minister of Tourism.

The wreckage of his car was found late this afternoon by Hampshire police in a

ditch on the A30 near Basingstoke.

The minister had been thrown through the windscreen and died instantly.

Stone monuments and curses go together.

One man who tried to sell it ended his days in a madhouse.

The Air Force officer who wanted to move it flew into a hillside.

And these stories go back.

There's the peddler whose corpse was found right on the site, his head

crushed by a stone fall.

Then there are the barrows.

where Stonehenge bluestones are found inside the corpses.

A magic power?

A curse?