--_this great stone structure, lying on the Plain of Salisbury,
Wiltshire, England, is pre-eminent among megalithic monuments of the
ancient world. Within a circular ditch 300' in diameter, stones up to
22' in height are arranged in concentric circles. The central altar
stone, over 16' long, is approached from the northeast by a broad
roadway called the Avenue_--
"It is not an altar," said Foster.
"How do you know?"
"Because----" Foster frowned. "I know, that's all."
"The journal said the stones were arranged in the sign of the Two
Worlds," I said. "That means the concentric circles, I suppose; the
same thing that's stamped on the cover of the notebook."
"And the ring," Foster said.
"Let me read the rest: _A great sarsen stone stands upright in the
Avenue; the axis through the two stones, when erected, pointed directly
to the rising of the sun on Midsummer Day. Calculations based on this
observation indicate a date of approximately 1600 B.C._"
Foster took the book and I sat on the window sill and looked out at
a big Florida moon over the ragged line of roofs with a skinny royal
palm sticking up in silhouette. It didn't look much like the postcard
views of Miami. I lit a cigarette and thought about a man who long ago
had crossed the North Atlantic in a dragon boat to be a god among the
Indians. I wondered where he came from, and what it was he was looking
for, and what kept him going in spite of the hell that showed in the
spare lines of the journal he kept. If, I reminded myself, he had ever
existed....
Foster was poring over the book. "Look," I said. "Let's get back to
earth. We have things to think about, plans to make. The fairy tales
can wait until later."
"What do you suggest?" Foster said. "That we forget the things you've
told me, and the things we've read here, discard the journal, and
abandon the attempt to find the answers?"
"No," I said. "I'm no sorehead. Sure, there's some things here that
somebody ought to look into--some day. But right now what I want is the
cops off my neck. And I've been thinking. I'll dictate a letter; you
write it--your lawyers know your handwriting. Tell them you were on the
thin edge of a nervous breakdown--that's why all the artillery around
your house--and you made up your mind suddenly to get away from it all.
Tell them you don't want to be bothered, that's why you're travelling
incognito, and that the northern mobster that came to see you was just
stupid, not a killer. That ought to at least cool off the cops----"
Foster looked thoughtful. "That's an excellent suggestion," he said.
"Then we need merely to arrange for passage to England, and proceed
with the investigation."
"You don't get the idea," I said. "You can arrange things by mail so we
get our hands on that dough of yours----"
"Any such attempt would merely bring the police down on us," Foster
said. "You've already pointed out the unwisdom of attempting to pass
myself off as--myself."
"There ought to be a way...." I said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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