Color Scheme

Chapter IX Mr. Questing Goes down for the Third Time

They were not alone for more than two minutes. A subdued hubbub had broken out in the village around them. Doors were opened and slammed. A woman’s voice. — was it Mrs. Te Papa’s? — was raised in a long wail.

“What,” asked Mrs. Claire steadily, “was that dreadful noise?”

They began to protect themselves with improbabilities. It was the small boys trying to frighten them. It was someone repeating the death cry of the girl in the song. The last suggestion came from Dikon, and as soon as he had made it he felt its reflection in his hearers.

“Will you wait here by the car?” he said. “I’d better go and see if anyone’s in trouble out there.” He moved his hand towards the pools. The open space before the meeting-house was filled with shadowy forms. The woman broke out again into a wail. Other voices joined hers: “Aue! Aue! Taukiri e!” Rua spoke authoritatively out of the darkness and the wailing stopped.

“Get into the car, Barbara, and wait,” said Dikon.

“You mustn’t go out there by yourself.”

“I’ve got a torch in the car. In the rack above your head, Mrs Claire. May I have it?” Mrs. Claire gave it to him.

“Not by yourself,” said Barbara. “I’m coming too.”

“Please stay here. It’s probably nothing at all, but I’d better look.”

“Stay here, dear,” said Mrs. Claire. “Keep to the white flags, Mr. Bell, won’t you?”

Dikon called into the darkness: “Mr. Te Kahu! What’s wrong?”

“Who is that?” Rua’s voice held a note of surprise. “I know of nothing that is wrong. Someone has cried out. Where are you?”

Mrs. Claire put her head out of the car window. “Here we are, Rua.”

Dikon switched on his torch, shouted that he was going to the thermal reserve, and set out.

The village was surrounded by a manuka fence. The only path across the thermal region started at a gap in this fence and Dikon found his way there easily enough. He could hear the pools working. The reek of sulphur grew stronger as he moved towards the gap. He felt and dimly saw wraiths of steam. When he put his hand to his face he found it was damp with condensed vapour. Now he was outside the hedge, his torch-light found the white flags. He followed them. The ground beneath his feet quivered. Alongside the path a mud pot no bigger than a saucepan worked industriously, forming ringed bosses that swelled and broke interminably. But to his left an unseen vent hissed. He caught sight of a steaming pool. The path mounted and then encompassed the mound of an old geyser. A mass of whitish-grey sinter rose up in front of Dikon and his path veered sharply to the right.

He had felt himself to be very much alone and was startled to see the figure of a man, clearly silhouetted against a pale background of sinter. At first Dikon thought this man stood with his back towards him but as he moved forward he discovered that they were face to face. The man’s head was bent forward. Some trick of shadow, or perhaps of Dikon’s nerves, suggested that the stranger had turned sharply and now stood ready to defend himself. So vivid was this impression that Dikon halted.

“Who’s that?” he said loudly.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” said Mr. Septimus Falls. “I see now that it is Mr. Bell. I thought you were to drive back to the Springs.”

“We heard someone scream.”

“Yes?”

“It seemed to be in this direction. Has anything happened?”

“I have seen nothing.”

“But you must have heard it.”

“One could scarcely escape hearing it.”

“What are you doing here?” Dikon asked.

“I came to look for Colonel Claire.”

“Where is he?”

“As I have explained, I have seen nobody. I hope he has reached the hill and gone home.”

Dikon looked across to where the hill that separated them from the Springs stood black against the stars.

“You hope?” he said.

“Have you a good nerve?” asked Mr. Falls. “I think you have.”

“Why do you ask that, for God’s sake!”

“Look here.”

Dikon moved towards him and he at once turned about and led the way to the base of a hillock. The eruptive noises were now much louder. Falls waited for Dikon and took him by the elbow. His fingers were like steel. Dikon saw that they stood at a junction of red-and-white-flagged tracks on the native side of the mound above Taupo-tapu. It was on the summit of this mound that Dikon and Gaunt had stood on the evening that they first saw Taupo-tapu.

“When I came to look for Colonel Claire,” said Falls, “I stood for a moment in the gap in the fence. As I looked, a man’s figure appeared against the sky-line. He carried a torch and I saw him in silhouette. He must have been somewhere near the extinct geyser you passed a moment ago. I was about to hail him when I noticed that he wore an overcoat, and then I knew that it couldn’t be the Colonel so I let him go. I’d looked for Colonel Claire all over the village and I now decided that he must have gone home by way of the reserve and by this time would have got too far for it to be worth while calling him back. I stood there idly waiting for the figure of the man in the overcoat to appear again on the sky-line, as it was bound to do when I climbed this hillock. I knew that it would be a little time before you left so I paused long enough to take out my pipe and fill it. I remember thinking how ancient the half-seen landscape felt, and how alien. I don’t know if it was long, perhaps it was half a minute, before I realized that the man in the overcoat was taking a long time to reach the hillock. I wondered if he, like myself, stood listening to the working of this hell-brew. Then I heard the scream.”

He paused. Dikon thought: “There’s no need for him to continue. I know what he’s going to say.”

“I ran along this track,” said Mr. Falls, “until I reached the top of the hillock. There was nobody there. I ran down the far side and called. There was no answer.”

He paused again, and Dikon said: “I didn’t hear you.”

“The hillock was between us… I turned and looked back and it was then I remembered that the path on the crest of the hillock was broken. I was aware of it all the time, but I had attached no significance to it and had taken the small gap in my stride. I was flashing my torch here and there, you see, and at this moment it happened to catch the raw edge. I returned. As you see, the hillock falls away in a steep bank immediately above the big mud pot. Taupo-tapu, they call it, don’t they? The path runs along the edge of this bank. Look.”

He flashed his torch-light, a very powerful beam, on the crest of the hillock. Dikon could see clearly where the gap had eaten into the path. The inside of his mouth was dry. “Then… it had happened?” he said.

“Of course I looked down. I suppose I expected to see something unspeakable. There was nothing, you understand. Nothing at all.”‘

“Yes — but...”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. The rings and blisters formed and broke. The mud has a kind of lustre at night. I then followed the path right over to the big hill above the Springs. I went almost to the house but there was nobody. I came back here and saw you walking towards me.”

Whether by accident or design, Mr. Falls switched on his torch and its strong beam shone full in Dikon’s eyes. He moved his head but the light followed him. He said thickly: “I’m going up there. To look.”

“I think you had better not do that,” said Mr. Falls.

“Why?”

“It should be left undisturbed. We can do nothing.”

“But you’ve already disturbed it.”

“Not more than I could help. Very little. Believe me, we can do nothing here.”

“It’s all a mistake,” said Dikon violently. “It means nothing. The path may have fallen in a week ago.”

“You forget that we came that way to the concert. It has fallen in since then.”

“Since you know all the answers,” said Dikon unevenly, “perhaps you’ll tell me what we do next. No, I’m sorry. I expect you’re right. Actually, what do we do next?”

“Establish the identity of the man in the overcoat, don’t you think?”

“You mean — find the members of the party. To see… Yes, you’re quite right. For God’s sake let’s go back.”

“By all means let us go back,” said Mr. Falls. “But you know there was only one member of the party who wore an overcoat, and that was Mr. Questing.”

They had agreed to tell Mrs. Claire and Barbara that they had met nobody on the reserve and leave it at that. The short drive home was made ghastly by Mrs. Claire’s speculations on the origin of the scream. She was full of comfortable explanations which, Dikon felt, she herself did not altogether believe. The Maori people, she said, were so excitable. Always playing foolish pranks. “I expect,” she ended on a note that was almost tranquil, “they just thought they’d give us a good fright.”

Barbara, on the other hand, was completely silent. “It was in another age,” Dikon thought, “that I kissed her.” But he did not believe that it was because of the kiss that she was silent. “She knows something has happened,” he thought. It was a relief to hear Mrs. Claire say that after such a late night they must pop straight off to bed.

When they had returned to the Springs, Dikon let his passengers out and drove the car round to the garage. He saw Mrs. Claire and Barbara walk along the verandah towards their rooms. He parked the car and returned to find Mr. Falls waiting for him on the verandah.

They had agreed that Dr. Ackrington should be consulted. It was not until now that Dikon remembered how scattered the various departures from the concert had been. Mr. Questing’s enormities, Gaunt’s fury, and the Colonel’s disappearance seemed now to be profoundly insignificant. But he knew a moment’s unreasoning panic as they crossed the verandah to the dining-room. He didn’t know what he had expected to find but it was extraordinarily disconcerting to hear Gaunt’s voice, angrily scolding.

“I maintain, and anybody who knows me will bear this out, that I am an amazingly even-tempered man. But mark this: when I get angry I get angry and by heaven I’ll give him hell. ‘Do you realize,’ I shall say, ‘that I–I whom you have publicly insulted — have refused to make a concert-platform appearance before royalty? Do you realize…’ ”

Dikon and Mr. Falls walked into the dining-room. Gaunt was sitting on one of the tables. His hand was raised and his eyes flashed. Dikon had time to remark that his employer was now coasting on the down-grade of a bout of temperament. When he began to talk the worst was usually over. Beside him on the table stood a bottle of his own whisky to which he had evidently been treating Dr. Ackrington and Colonel Claire. The Colonel sat with a tumbler in his hand. His hair was ruffled and his mouth was not quite closed. Dr. Ackrington appeared to be listening with angry approval to Gaunt’s tirade.

“Come and have a drink, Falls,” said Gaunt. “I’ve just been telling them — ” He broke off and stared at his secretary. “And may I ask what’s the matter with you?”

They were all staring at Dikon. He thought: “I suppose I look sick or something.” He sat at one of the tables and, resting his head on his hand, listened to Mr. Falls giving an exact repetition of the story he had already told to Dikon. He was heard in utter silence and it was some time after he had finished that Dr. Ackrington said in a voice that seemed foreign to him:

“He may, after all, have returned. How do you know that he hasn’t returned? Have you looked?”

“By all means let us look,” said Falls. “Bell, perhaps you wouldn’t mind?”

Dikon went along the verandah to Mr. Questing’s room. The pearl-grey worsted suit was neatly disposed on a chair, ties that had a familiar look hung over the looking-glass, the bed was turned back and a suit of remarkably brilliant pyjamas with a violent puce motif was laid out. The room smelt strongly of the cream Mr. Questing had used on his hair and, indefinably, of him. Dikon shut the door and went on to look, with an unhurried precision that surprised himself, through any other rooms where Questing might conceivably be found. He could hear Simon practising Morse in the cabin and through the open door saw that he and Smith were together there. On his return he saw Colly cross the verandah with a suit of Gaunt’s over his arm. Dikon returned to the dining-room and again sat down at the table. Nobody asked him if he had seen Questing.

Colonel Claire said suddenly: “Yes, but I don’t understand why it should have happened.”

Mr. Falls was very patient. “A probable explanation might be that he walked too near the edge and it gave way.”

“The only explanation, surely,” said Dr. Ackrington sharply.

“Do you think so?” asked Mr. Falls politely. “Yes, perhaps you are right.”

“Would it be possible,” asked Dikon suddenly, “to branch off from the path and return to the pa by another route?”

“There you are!” cried Colonel Claire with childish optimism. “Why didn’t somebody think of that?”

“Utterly impossible, I should say,” said Dr. Ackrington crisply. “Where’s that boy? And Smith? They ought to know.”

“Dikon will find them,” said Gaunt. “God, this can’t be true! It’s monstrous, it’s unthinkable. I–I won’t have it.”

“You’ll have to lump it,” thought Dikon as he went off to the cabin.

They were still there. Dikon interrupted Simon in the middle of a heated dissertation on fifth columnists in New Zealand. The sinking of the ship, together with all the other crises of the past week, had been forgotten in this new and supreme horror, but now Dikon thought suddenly that if Questing had indeed been an agent, it would have been better for him to have faced discovery and a firing squad than to have met his fate in Taupo-tapu. He hold Simon briefly what they believed to have happened, and was inexpressibly shocked by the way he took it.

“Packed up, is he?” said Simon angrily. “Yeh, and now they’ll never believe me. What a bastard!”

“Cursing and swearing about the poor bastard when he’s dead,” said Mr. Smith reproachfully. “You ought to be bloody well ashamed of yourself.” He stirred uneasily and disseminated a thick spirituous odour. “What a death!” he added thickly. “Give you the willies to think about it, wouldn’t it?” He shivered and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “I had one or two over at the pa with the boys,” he explained needlessly.

Dikon was disgusted with both of them. He said shortly that they were wanted in the dining-room, and walked out, leaving them to follow. Simon caught up with him. “Bert’s not so good,” he said. “He’s had a couple.”

“Quite obviously.”

Smith lurched between them and took them by the arms. “That’s right,” he agreed heavily, “I’m not so good.”

When Dr. Ackrington questioned them about a possible means of returning to the Maori settlement by any route other than the flagged path, they said emphatically that it could not be done. “Even the Maoris,” said Smith, staring avidly at the whisky bottle, “won’t come at that.”

“You can forget it,” said Simon briefly. “He couldn’t do it.”

Gaunt, with a beautifully expressive gesture, covered his eyes with his hands. “This will haunt me,” he said, “for the rest of my life. It’s in here.” He beat the palms of his hands against his temples. “Indelibly fixed. Hag-ridden by a memory.”

“Fiddlesticks,” said Dr. Ackrington briskly.

Gaunt laughed acidly. “Perhaps I am exceptional,” he said with a kind of tragic airiness.

“Well,” said the Colonel most unexpectedly, “if you don’t mind, James, I think I’ll go to bed. I feel rather sick.”

“Good God, Edward, are you demented? Is it possible that you have ever been in a position of authority? When, as we are forced to believe, you were responsible for the conduct of a regiment, did you meet the threat of native uprisings by feeling sick and taking to your bed?”

“Who’s talking about native uprisings? The natives of this country don’t do that sort of thing. They give concerts and mind their own business.”

“You deliberately misconstrue my meaning. The threat of danger — ”

“But,” objected Colonel Claire, opening his eyes very wide, “we aren’t threatened with danger at the moment, James. Either Questing has fallen into a boiling mud cauldron, poor feller, in which case we can do nothing, or else, you know, he hasn’t, in which case there is nothing the matter with him.”

“Good God, man, we’ve an extremely grave responsibility.”

Colonel Claire said loudly: “What in heaven’s name do you mean?”

Dr. Ackrington beat the air with both hands. “If this appalling accident has happened — I say, if it has happened, then the police must be informed.”

“Very well, James,” said the Colonel. “Inform them. I am all for handing over to the proper authorities. Falls would be the one to do that, you know, because he almost saw it happen. Didn’t you?” he asked, gazing mournfully at Mr. Falls.

“I was not as close as that, I think,” said Mr. Falls. “But you are perfectly right, sir. I should inform the police. In point of fact,” he added after a pause, “I have already done so. While Bell was parking the car.”

They gaped at him. “I felt,” he added modestly, “that the responsibility of taking this step devolved upon myself.”

Dikon expected Dr. Ackrington to bristle at this disclosure, but it appeared that his enormous capacity for irritation was exhausted by his brother-in-law, upon whom he now turned his back.

“Is it remotely possible,” he asked Mr. Falls, “that the fellow came on here and has made off somewhere or another?” He looked hard at his nephew. “Such a proceeding,” he said, “would not be altogether out of character.”

“His car’s in the garage,” said Simon.

“Nevertheless he may have gone.”

“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” said Falls precisely. “If he followed the path I must have seen him.”

“And there was the scream,” Dikon heard himself say.

“Exactly. But I agree that we should form a search-party. Indeed, the police have suggested that we do so before they take any steps in the matter. I make one stipulation. Let us avoid the path past Taupo-tapu.”

“Why?” demanded Simon, instantly truculent.

“Because the police will wish to make an examination.”

“You talk as if it was murder,” said Gaunt loudly. Smith gave a violent snuffle.

“No, I assure you,” said Mr. Falls politely. “I only talk as if there will be an inquest.”

“You can’t have an inquest without a body,” said Simon.

“Can’t you? But in any case — ”

“Well!” Simon demanded. “What?”

“In any case there may be a body. Later on. Or part of one,” Mr. Falls added impassively.

“And now I’m afraid I really am going to be sick,” said the Colonel. He hurried out to the verandah and was.

The search-party was formed. The Colonel, having recovered from his nausea, astonished them all by offering to go to the Maori settlement and make inquiries.

“If they’ve got wind of it, as you seem to suggest, Bell, they’ll work themselves up into a state. In my experience, half the trouble with native people is not lettin’ them know what you’re up to. The poor feller’s been killed on their property, you know. That makes it a bit tricky. I think I’d better have a word with old Rua.”

“Edward,” said his brother-in-law, “you are incomprehensible. By all means go. The Maori people appear to understand you. They are to be congratulated.”

“I’ll come with you, Dad,” said Simon.

“No, thank you, Sim,” said the Colonel. “You can help with the search-party. You know the terrain, and may prevent anyone else falling into a geyser or somethin’.” He gazed in his startled fashion at Mr. Falls. “I don’t catch everything people say,” he added, “but if I understand you, he must be dead. I mean, why scream? And you say there was nobody else about. Still, you’d better have a look round, I suppose. I think before I go over to the pa, I’d better tell Agnes.”

“Need Agnes be told yet?”

“Yes,” said the Colonel, and went away.

As Mr. Falls still insisted that the section of the path above Taupo-tapu was not to be used, the only way to the native settlement was by the main road. It was agreed that the Colonel should drive there in Dr. Ackrington’s car, satisfy the Maori people, and organize a thorough search of the village. Meanwhile the rest of the party would explore the hills, thermal enclosures, and paths round the Springs. Dikon felt sure that none of them had the smallest expectation of finding Questing. The search seemed futile and horrible but he welcomed it as something that staved off for a time the moment when he would have to think closely about Questing’s death. He was busy shoving away from his thoughts the too vivid picture that formed itself about the memory of a falsetto scream.

It was decided that Dr. Ackrington should take the stretch of kitchen garden and rough paddock behind the house, Dikon the hill, Smith and Simon the hot springs, their surrounding path, and the rough country round the warm lake. Mr. Falls proposed to follow the path across the native thermal reserve until he came within a short distance of Taupo-tapu. The Colonel had suggested that Questing might have broken his ankle and fallen. Nobody believed in this theory. Gaunt said hurriedly that there seemed nowhere for him to go. “I am ready to do anything, anything possible, anything in reason,” he said, “but I am deeply shaken and if you can manage without me I shall be grateful.” They decided to manage without him. Dikon was uncomfortably aware that the other men had dismissed Gaunt as useless and that Simon, at least, had done so with contempt. He watched Simon speak in an undertone to Smith and was miserably angry when Smith glanced at Gaunt and sniggered. So far from being an understatement, Gaunt’s description of himself was, Dikon realized, accurate. Gaunt was profoundly shocked. His hands were unsteady and his face pinched. Lines, normally dormant, netted the corners of his eyes. It was not in Gaunt to conceal emotion but it was an error to suppose that because his distress was unchecked, it was not authentic.

Dikon set out along the path by the Springs to the hill. While they were indoors the moon had risen. Its light brought into strange relief the landscape of Wai-ata-tapu. Plumes of steam stood erect above the pools. Shadows were graved like caverns in the flanks of the hill, but while the higher surfaces, as it drawn in wood by an engraver, were strongly marked in passages of silver and black, the lower planes were wreathed in vapour through which rose manuka bushes, stiffly pallid. These, when Dikon brushed against them, gave off an aromatic scent. As always, in moonlight, there was a feeling of secret expectancy in the air.

Simon caught up with Dikon by the brushwood fence. “Here,” he said. “I want you.”

Dikon felt unequal to Simon but he waited. “Don’t you reckon we’re dopey if we let that bloke go off on his pat?” Simon demanded.

“Who are you talking about?” asked Dikon wearily.

“Falls. He seems to think he amounts to something, shooting out orders. Who is he anyway? If I got him right this morning when he did his stuff with the pipe he’s the bird that knows the signals. And if he knows the signals he was in with Questing, wasn’t he? He’s just a bit too anxious about his cobber, in my opinion. We ought to watch him.”

“But if Questing’s dead what can Falls, if he is an agent, do about it?”

“I’m not a mathematician,” said Simon obscurely, “but I reckon I can add up the fifth column when the answer’s two plus two.”

“But he telephoned the police.”

“Did he? He says he did. The telephone’s in Dad’s office. You can’t hear it from the dining-room. How do we know he used it?”

“Well, stop him if you like.”

“He’s lit off. Streaked away before we got started. Where’s his lumbago?”

“How the hell do I know! He’s shed it in your marvellous free sulphuric-acid baths,” said Dikon, but he began to feel uneasy.

“O.K., call me a fool. But you’re doing the hill. If I were you I’d keep a look-out across the reserve while you’re at it. See what Mr. Falls’s big idea is when he goes along the path. Why does he want to keep everyone off it except himself? How do we know he won’t go over the ground above the mud pot? Know what I reckon? I reckon he’s dead scared Questing dropped something when he took the toss. He’s going to look for it.”

“Pure conjecture,” Dikon muttered. “However, I’ll watch.”

Smith, like some unattractive genie, materialized out of a drift of steam. “Know what I reckon?” he began and Dikon sighed at the repetition of this persistent phrase. “I reckon it’s blind justice. After what he tried on me. I’d rather a train killed me than Taupo-tapu, by God. Give you the willies, wouldn’t it? What’s the good of looking for the poor bastard when he’s been an hour in the stock pot?”

Dikon swore at Smith with a violence that surprised himself. “It’s no good howling at me,” said Smith, “you can’t get away from the facts. C’mon, Sim.”

He moved on towards the lake.

“He reeks of alcohol,” said Dikon. “Is it wise to let him loose?”

“He’ll be O.K.,” said Simon, “I’ll keep the tags on him. You look after Falls.”

Dikon stood for a moment watching them fade into wraiths as they turned into the Springs’ enclosure. He lit a cigarette and was about to strike out for the hillcwhen he heard his name called softly.

“Dikon!”

It was Barbara in her red flannel dressing gown and felt slippers, running across the pumice in the moonlight. He went to meet her. “You called me by my first name,” he said, “so perhaps you’ve forgiven me. I’m sorry, Barbara.”

“Oh, that!” said Barbara. “I expect I behaved stupidly. You see, it hasn’t happened to me ever before.” And with an owlish imitation of somebody else’s wisdom she quoted: “It’s always the woman’s fault.”

“You little goat,” said Dikon unsteadily.

“I didn’t come out to talk about that. I wanted to ask you what’s happened.”

“Hasn’t your father—?”

“He’s talking to Mummy. I know by his voice that it’s something frightful. They won’t tell me, they never do. I must know. What are you all doing? Why are you out here? Uncle James has brought his car round and I saw Sim and Mr. Smith go out together. And when I met him on the verandah he looked so terrible. He didn’t answer when I spoke to him — just walked away to his room and slammed the door. It’s something to do with what we heard, isn’t it? Please tell me. Please do.”

“We think there may have been an accident.”

“To whom?”

“Questing. We don’t know yet. He may have just wandered off somewhere. Or sprained his ankle.”

“You don’t believe that.” Barbara’s arm in its red flannel sleeve shot out as she pointed to the hill. “You think something’s happened, out there. Don’t you? Don’t you?”

Dikon took her by the shoulders. “I’m not going to conjure up horrors,” he said, “before there are any to conjure. If you take my tip you’ll follow suit. Think what a frightful waste of the jim-jams if we find him cursing over a fat ankle, or if he merely went home to supper with the Mayor. I’m sure he adores mayors.”

“And so, who screamed?”

“Sea-gulls,” said Dikon shaking her gently. “Banshees. Maori maidens. Go home and do your stuff. Make cups of tea. Go to bed. Men must search and women must sleep and if you don’t like me kissing you don’t look at me like that.”

He turned her about and shoved her away from him. “Flaunting about in your nightgown,” he said. “Get along with you.”

He watched her go and then, with a sigh, set out for the hill.

He thought he would climb high enough to get a comprehensive view of the native thermal reserve and the land surrounding it. If anything stirred down there he should stand a good chance of seeing it in the bright moonlight. He found the track that Rua used on his evening walks and felt better for the stiff climb. Someone had suggested half-heartedly that they should at intervals call out to Questing but Dikon could not bring himself to do this. A vivid imagination stimulated by the conviction that Questing was most horridly dead made the idea of shouting his name quite appallingly stupid. However, he had promised to search so he climbed steadily until he reached a place where the reserve was spread out before him in theatrical relief. It had the curious and startling unreality of an infra-red photograph. “If it wasn’t so infernally alive,” he thought, “it would be like a lunar landscape.” He could see that the reserve was more extensive than he had imagined it to be. It was pocked all over with mud pots and steaming pools. Far out towards its eastern border he caught a glimpse of a delicate jet that spurted from its geyser and was gone. “It’s a lost world,” Dikon thought. He reflected that a man lying in one of the inky shadows would be quite invisible and decided that he had had his climb for nothing. He looked at the slopes of the hill immediately beneath him. The short tufts of grass and brush were motionless. He wandered about a little and was going to turn back when he sensed, rather than saw, that beneath him and out to his left, something had moved.

His heart and his nerves were jolted before his eyes had time to tell him that it was only Mr. Septimus Falls, moving quietly along the white-flagged path across the reserve. As far as he could make out, Mr. Falls was bent forward. Dikon remembered Simon’s theory and wondered if, after all, it was so preposterous. But Mr. Falls was still well within the bounds that he himself had set though he walked fairly rapidly towards the forbidden territory. Dikon realized with a sudden pang of interest that he was moving in a very singular manner, running when he was in the moonlight and dawdling in the shadows. The mound above Taupo-tapu was easily distinguishable; Mr. Falls had almost reached the limit of his allotted patrol. “Now,” Dikon said, “he must turn.”

At that moment a cloud passed before the face of the moon and Dikon was alone in the dark. The reserve, the path, and Mr. Falls had all been blotted out.

Clouds must have come up from the south while Dikon climbed the hill, for the sky was now filled with them, sweeping majestically to the north-east. A vague sighing told him that a night wind had arisen and presently his hair lifted from his forehead. He had brought his torch but he was unwilling to disclose himself. He had told nobody of his intention to climb high up the hill. He saw that in a minute or two the moon would reappear and he waited, peering into darkness, for the moment when Mr. Falls would be revealed.

It was not long, perhaps no more than a minute, before the return of the moonlight. After its brief eclipse the strange landscape seemed to be more sharply defined; mounds, craters, pools and mud pots, all showed clearly. He could even see the white flags along the path. But Mr. Falls had completely disappeared. iv

“Really,” Dikon thought, “if I go all jitter-bug after the problematical death of a man who was almost certainly an enemy agent, I’m not likely to be a howling success in the blitz. No doubt Mr. Falls is pottering about in the shadows. In a moment he will reappear.”

He waited and watched. He could hear his watch tick. Away to the east a night bird cried out twice. He saw a light moving about in the native village and wondered if it was Colonel Claire’s. Two or three more sprang up. They were searching about the village. Once, far below on the other side of the hill, he heard Simon and Smith call to each other. An interval in the vast procession of clouds left the face of the moon quite clear. But still Mr. Falls remained invisible.

“I can’t stand this any longer,” Dikon thought. He had taken three strides downhill when a brilliant point of light flashed on the mound above Taupo-tapu and was gone, but not before the image of a stooping man had darted up in Dikon’s brain. The flash was not repeated but in a little while the faintest possible glow of reflected light appeared behind the mound. “Why, damn and blast the fellow,” thought Dikon, “he’s messing about on forbidden territory!”

His only emotion was that of fury; his impulse, to plunge downhill, cross the path and catch Falls red-handed. He had actually set out to do this when a shattering fall taught him that he could not run downhill and at the same time keep his eye on a distant spot on the landscape. When he had picked himself up and recovered his torch, which had rolled downhill, he heard a thin sweet whistle threading its way through an air that transported Dikon with astounding vividness into the wings of a London theatre.

Mr. Septimus Falls was walking briskly back along the path, whistling his way home.

He had reached the foot of the hill and turned its flank before Dikon, cursing freely, was half-way down. The thin whistle changed into a throaty baritone and the last Dikon heard of the singer was a doleful rendering of the song which begins: “Fear no more the heat of the sun.”

The jolts and stumbles of his journey downhill took the fine edge off his temper and by the time he had reached the bottom he was telling himself that he must go warily with Falls. He paused, lit a cigarette and made some attempt to sort our the jumble of events, suspicions and conjectures that had collected about the person and activities of Maurice Questing.

Questing had visited Rangi’s Peak and the Maori people believed he had gone there to collect forbidden curios. When Smith attempted to spy on Questing he had narrowly escaped death under a train and at the time had believed Questing had done his best to bring about the accident. Had Smith, then, been on the verge of stumbling across evidence which would incriminate Questing? Subsequently Questing had offered to keep Smith on at the Springs and pay him a generous wage. This sounded like bribery on Questing’s part. Simon and Dr. Ackrington were convinced that Questing’s main object in visiting the Peak was to flash signals out to sea. This theory was strongly borne out by Simon’s investigations on the night before the ship went down. Questing had manoeuvred to get possession of Wai-ata-tapu, and, when he was about to take over, Septimus Falls had arrived, making certain that he would not be refused a room. Mr. Falls had made himself pleasant. He had talked comparative anatomy with Dr. Ackrington, and Shakespeare with Gaunt.

He had also tapped out something that Simon declared was a repetition of the signal flashed from the Peak. Had this been an intimation to Questing that Falls himself was another agent? Why had Falls been at such pains to ensure that nobody inspected the path above Taupo-tapu? Was it because he was afraid that Questing might have left some incriminating piece of evidence behind him? If so, what? Papers? Some object that might be recovered from the cauldron? For the first time Dikon forced himself to consider the possibility of anything being recovered from the cauldron, and was sickened by a procession of unspeakable conjectures.

He decided that as soon as he returned he would tell Dr. Ackrington what he had seen. “I shan’t tell Simon,” he decided. “His present theory will lead him to behave like the recording angel’s off-sider whenever he sets eyes on Falls.”

And Gaunt? His first impulse was not to tell Gaunt. It was an impulse based on some instinctive warning which he did not care to recognize. He told himself that knowledge of this new development would only add to Gaunt’s nervous distress and that no good purpose would be served by speaking to him.

As he walked briskly along the path towards the Springs, he was conscious of a feeling of extreme dissatisfaction and uneasiness. There was at the back of his mind some apprehension which he had not yet acknowledged. He felt that a further revelation was to come and that within himself, unadmitted to his thoughts, was the knowledge of what it would be. The air of the little Maori song came back to him and with it, like a chain jerked out of dark waters, sprang the sequence of ideas he was so loath to examine.

It was with a sense of extreme depression that he finally reached the house.

The dining-room was in darkness but a light shone faintly round the edge of the study window. The Colonel’s blackout arrangements were not entirely successful. Dikon could hear the drone of voices — the Colonel’s, he thought, and Dr. Ackrington’s — and he tapped at the door and the Colonel called out in a high voice: “Yes, yes, yes? Come in.”

They sat together, portentously, after the manner of elderly gentlemen in conclave. They seemed to be distressed. With a trace, or so Dikon thought, of his old regimental manner, the Colonel said: “Come to report, Bell? That’s right. That’s right.”

Feeling rather like a blushing subaltern, Dikon stood by the desk and gave his account. The Colonel, as usual, stared at him with his eyes wide-open and his mouth not quite closed. Dr. Ackrington looked increasingly perturbed and uncomfortable When Dikon had finished there was a long silence and this surprised him, for he had anticipated that from Dr. Ackrington, at least, there would be a display of wrath in the grand manner. Dikon waited for a minute and then said: “So I thought I’d better come straight back and report.”

“Exactly so,” said the Colonel. “Perfectly correct. Thank you, Bell.” And he actually gave a little nod of dismissal.

“This,” thought Dikon, “is not good enough,” and he said: “The whole affair seemed so very suspicious.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Dr. Ackrington very quickly. “I’m afraid, Bell, you’ve merely been afforded a momentary glimpse into a mare’s nest.”

“Yes, but look here, sir…”

Dr. Ackrington raised his hand. “Mr. Falls,” he said, “has already informed us of this incident. We’re satisfied that he acted advisedly.”

“Quite. Quite!” said the Colonel, and touched his moustache. Again with that air of dismissal, he added: “Thank you, Bell.”

“This is not the army,” Dikon thought furiously, and stood his ground.

Dr. Ackrington said: “I think, Edward, that perhaps Bell is entitled to an explanation. Won’t you sit down, Bell?”

With a sense of bewilderment Dikon sat down and waited. These two amazing old gentlemen appeared to have effected a swap of their respective personalities. As far as his native mildness would permit, the Colonel had now assumed an air of austerity; Dr. Ackrington’s manner, on the contrary, was almost propitiatory. He glanced sharply at Dikon, looked away again, cleared his throat, and began.

“Falls,” he said loudly, “had no intention of infringing the bounds that he himself had set upon the extent of his investigation. You will remember that the area between the two points where the red-flagged path deviated from the white-flagged one was to be regarded as out of bounds. He had arrived at the first red flag on this side of Taupo-tapu and was about to turn back when he was arrested by a suspicious noise.”

Dr. Ackrington paused for so long that Dikon felt obliged to prompt him.

“What sort of noise, sir?” he asked.

“Somebody moving about,” said Dr. Ackrington, “on the other side of the mound. He waited for a moment, listening. Then a light flashed out. Under the circumstances Falls decided — rightly, in my opinion — that he’d go forward and establish the identity of this person. As quietly as possible and very slowly, he crept up the mound and looked over it.”

With a sudden dart that made Dikon jump, Colonel Claire thrust a box of cigarettes at him, muttering the preposterous phrase: “No need for formality.” Dikon refused a cigarette and asked what Mr. Falls had discovered.

“Nothing!” said the Colonel opening his eyes very wide. “Nothing at all. Damned annoyin’. What!”

“The fellow either heard Falls coming,” said Dr. Ackrington, “or else he’d finished whatever game he was up to and bolted while Falls was climbing the mound; in my opinion the more likely explanation. He’d a good start and although Falls went some way down the other side and flashed his torch, there wasn’t a sign of anybody. Fellow had got clean away.”

Dikon felt foolish and therefore rather annoyed.

“I see, sir,” he said. “Obviously, I’ve been barking up the wrong tree. But Simon and I had some further cause for believing Mr. Falls to be a rather mysterious person.”

He paused, wishing he had held his tongue.

“Well,” said Dr. Ackrington sharply, “what was it, what was it?”

“I thought perhaps Simon had told you.”

“Simon hasn’t honoured me with his theories which, I have no doubt, constitute a plethora of wild-cat speculations.”

“Not quite that, I think,” Dikon rejoined and he related the story of Mr. Falls and his pipe. To this recital they listened with ill-concealed impatience; indeed it had the effect of restoring Dr Ackrington to his customary form. “Damn and blast that cub of yours, Edward,” he shouted. “What the devil does he mean by concocting these fables and broadcasting them in every quarter but the right one? He knew perfectly well that I regarded Questing’s visits to the Peak with the gravest suspicion, he goes haring off by himself, picks up what may prove to be vital information, and tells me nothing whatever about it. In the mean time a ship goes down and an agent from whom we should have got valuable information goes and gets lost in a mud pot. Of all the blasted, self-sufficient young popinjays…” He broke off and glared at Dikon. “As a partner in this conspiracy of silence, perhaps you will be good enough to offer an explanation.”

Dikon was in a quandary. Though he had refused to be bound to secrecy by Simon he felt that he had betrayed a trust. To tell Dr. Ackrington that he had urged a consultation and that Simon had refused it would be to present himself as an insufferable prig. He said he understood that Simon had every intention of going to the police with his story. Far from pacifying Dr. Ackrington this statement had the effect of still further inflaming him, and Dikon’s assurances that so far as he knew Simon had not yef consulted an authority did little to calm him.

The Colonel bit his moustache and apologized to his brother-in-law for Simon’s behaviour. Dikon attempted to lead the conversation back to Mr. Falls and was instantly snubbed for his pains.

“Sheer twaddle and moonshine,” Dr. Ackrington fumed. “The young ass had his head full of this precious signal and no doubt heard it in everything. What was it?” he demanded. Fortunately Dikon remembered the signal and repeated it.

“Makes no sense in Morse,” said the Colonel unhappily. “Four t’s, four 5’s, a t, a I, and an s. Ridiculous, you know, that sort of thing.”

“My good Edward, I don’t for an instant doubt the significance of this signal as flashed from the Peak. Do you imagine that Questing would communicate in intelligent Morse code to an enemy raider: ‘Ship sails to-morrow night kindly sink and oblige yours Questing’?” He gave an unpleasant bark of laughter. “It’s this tarradiddle about Falls and his pipe that I totally discredit. The man’s full of nervous mannerisms. I’ve observed him. He’s forever fiddling with his pipe. And will you be good enough to tell me, Mr. Bell, how one distinguishes between a long and a short tap? Pah!”

Dikon thought this over. “By the intervals between the taps?” he suggested timidly.

“Indeed? Would Simon be able, without warning, so to distinguish?”

“The t’s would sound very like a collection of o’s and m’s,” said the Colonel.

“I never heard such high-falutin piffle in my life,” added Dr. Ackrington.

“I don’t profess to read Morse,” said Dikon huffily.

“And you never will if you take lessons from Falls and his pipe. He’s a reputable person and not altogether a fool on the subject of comparative anatomy. I may add that we have discovered friends in common. Men of some standing and authority.”

“Really, sir?” said Dikon demurely. “That, of course, completely exonerates him.”

Dr. Ackrington darted a needle-sharp glance at Dikon and evidently decided that he had not intended an impertinence. “I consider,” he said, “that Falls has behaved with admirable propriety. I shall speak to Simon to-night. It’s essential that he should not go shouting about this preposterous theory to anyone-else.”.

“Quite,” said the Colonel. “We’ll speak to him.”

“As for the interloper at Taupo-tapu, it was doubtless one of your Maori acquaintances, Edward, disobeying orders as usual. By the way, you must have been there at the time. Did you notice any suspicious behaviour?”

The Colonel rubbed up his hair and looked miserable. “Not to say suspicious, James. Odd. They see things differently, you know. I don’t pretend to understand them. Never have. I like them, you know. They keep their word and so on. But of course they’re a superstitious lot. Interestin’.”

“If you found their behaviour this evening so absorbing,” said Dr. Ackrington acidly, “perhaps you will favour us with a somewhat closer description of it.”

“Well, it’s difficult, you know. I expected to find they’d all gone to bed, but not a bit of it. They were hangin’ about the marae in groups and a good many of them seemed to be in the hall; not tidyin’ up or anything — just talkin’. Old Mrs. Te Papa seemed to be in a great taking-on. She was in the middle of a long speech. Very excited. Some of them were at that beastly wailin’ noise. Rua was on the verandah with a lot of the older men. Funny thing,” said the Colonel and stared absently at Dikon without completing his sentence.

“What, my dear Edward, was a funny thing?”

“Eh? Oh! I was going to say, funny thing he didn’t seem surprised to see me.” The Colonel gave a rather mad little laugh and pointed at his brother-in-law. “And funnier still,” he said, “when I told them what we thought had happened to Questing, they didn’t seem surprised about that, either.”