Color Scheme

Chapter X Entrance of Sergeant Webley

Dikon was dispatched with orders to find Simon and send him to his father in ten minutes’ time. He had Simon rather heavily on his conscience. Thinking longingly of his bed he went once more to the cabin. The sky was overcast and a light drizzle was falling. Dikon was assailed by a feeling of profound depression. He found Simon still up and still closeted with Smith, in whom the effects of alcohol had faded to a condition of stale despair.

“My luck all over,” Smith said lugubriously as soon as he saw Dikon. “I land a permanent job with good money and the boss fades out on me. Is it tough or is it tough?”

“You’ll be O.K., Bert,” said Simon. “Dad’ll keep you on. I told you.”

“Yeah, but what a prospect. I’m not saying anything against your dad, Sim, but he’s onto a good thing with me and he knows it. If I liked to squeal on him your dad’d be compelled by law to give me hotel wages. I’m not complaining, mind, but that’s the strength of it. I’d have done good with Questing.”

Dikon said: “I find it difficult to reconcile your disappointment with your former statement that Questing tried to run a train over you.”

Smith stared owlishly at him. “He satisfied me about that,” he said. “It wasn’t like he said at the time. The signal was working O.K. but his car’s got one of them green talc sun-screens. He was looking through it and never noticed the light turn red. He took me along and showed me. I went crook at the time. Him and me hadn’t hit it off too well and I taped it out he’d tried to fix me up for keeps but I had to hand it to him when he showed me. He was upset, you know. But I said I’d overlook it.”

“With certain stipulations, I fancy,” said Dikon drily.

“Why not!” cried Smith indignantly. “He owed it to me, didn’t he? I was suffering from shock and abrasions. You ask the Doc. My behind’s like one of them monkeys’, yet. I’d got a lot to complain about, hadn’t I, Sim?” he added with an air of injury.

“I’ll say.”

“Yeh, and what’s Mr. Bell’s great idea talking as if it was me that acted crook?”

“Not a bit of it, Mr. Smith,” said Dikon soothingly. “I only admire your talents as an opportunist.”

“Call a bloke names,” said Smith darkly, “and never offer him a drink even though he is supposed to be a blasted guest.” He brooded, Dikon understood, on Gaunt’s bottle of whisky.

“All the same, Bert,” said Simon abruptly, “I reckon you were pretty simple to believe Questing. He was only trying to keep you quiet. You wouldn’t have seen your good money, don’t you worry.”

“I got it in writing,” shouted Smith belligerently. “I’m not childish yet. I got it in writing while he was still worried I’d turn nasty over the train. Far-sighted. That’s me.”

Dikon burst out laughing.

“Aw, turn it up and get to hell,” roared Smith. “I’m a disappointed man. I’m going to bed.” He gave an indignant belch and left them.

“He’d be all right,” said Simon apologetically, “if he kept off the booze.”

“Have you told him about your own views on Questing?”

“Not more than I could help. You can’t be sure he won’t talk when he’s got one or two in. He still reckons Questing went up to the Peak for curios. I didn’t say anything. You want to keep quiet about the signals.”

“Yes,” agreed Dikon and rubbed his nose. “On that score I’m afraid you’re not going to be very pleased with me.” And he explained that he had told the whole story to the Colonel and Dr. Ackrington. Simon took this surprisingly well, reserving his indignation for Mr. Falls’s behaviour at Taupo-tapu which Dikon now revealed to him. In Simon’s opinion Falls had no right, however suspicious the circumstances, to exceed the limit that he himself had set. “I don’t like that joker,” he said. “He’s a darned sight too plausible.”

“He’s no fool.”

“I reckon he’s a crook. You can’t get away from those signals.”

Rather apprehensively Dikon advanced Dr. Ackrington’s views on the signals. “And I must confess,” he added, “that to me it seems a likely explanation. After all, why on earth should Falls take such an elaborate and senseless means of introducing himself to Questing? All he had to do was to take Questing on one side and present his credentials. Why run the danger of someone spotting the signal? It doesn’t make sense.”

Unable to answer this objection, Simon angrily reiterated his own views. “And if you think I’m dopey,” he stormed, “there are others that don’t. You may be interested to hear I went to the police station this afternoon.” He observed Dikon’s astonishment with an air of satisfaction. “Yes,” he said, “after you’d told me it was Falls tapped out the signal, I hopped on my bike and got going. I know the old sergeant and I got onto him. He started off by acting as if I was a kid but I convinced him. Well, anyway,” Simon amended, “I stuck to it until he let me in to see the Super.”

“Well done,” Dikon murmured.

“Yes,” Simon continued, stroking the back of his head, “I was an hour in the office. Talking all the time, too. And they were interested. They didn’t say much, you know, but they took a lot of it down in writing and I could see they were impressed. They’re going to make inquiries about this Falls. If Uncle James and Dad reckon they know better than the authorities why should I worry? Wait till the police pull in their net. That’ll be the day. They’re not as dumb as I thought they were. I’m satisfied.”

“Splendid,” said Dikon. “I congratulate you. By the way, I was to ask you to go and see your father and I may as well warn you that you’re going to be bound over to secrecy about your theory of Falls’s signals with the pipe. And now I think I shall go to bed.”

He had reached the door when Simon stopped him. “I forgot to tell you,” said Simon. “I asked them the name of this big pot out from Home. They looked a bit funny on it and I thought they weren’t going to tell me but they came across with it in the end. It’s Alleyn. Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn.”

Dikon’s notions as to the legal proceedings arising out of the circumstances of Questing’s disappearance were exceedingly vague. Half-forgotten phrases about presumption of death after a lapse of time occurred to him. He had speculated briefly about Questing’s nationality and next-of-kin. He had never anticipated that on the following morning he would wake to find several large men standing about the Claires’ verandah, staring at their boots, mumbling to each other, and exuding the unmistakable aroma of plain-clothes policemen.

This, however, was what he did find. The drone of voices awakened him; the light was excluded from his room by a massive back which actually bulged through the open window. Dikon put on his dressing gown and went to see his employer. He had looked in on Gaunt before going to bed and had discovered him to be in a state of nervous prostration, undergoing massage from Colly. Dikon, having been told for God’s sake to let him alone, had left the room followed by Colly. “Oh, my aunt!” Colly had whispered, jerking his thumb at the door. “High strikes with bells on. A fit of the flutters with musical honours. We’re in for a nice helping of ter-hemperament, sir, and no beg pardons. Watch out for skids, and count your collars. We’ll be out on tour again to-morrow.” He turned down his thumbs. “Colly!” Gaunt had yelled at this juncture. “Colly! Damnation! Colly!” And Colly had darted back into the bedroom.

Remembering this episode, Dikon approached his employer with some misgivings. He listened at the door, caught a whiff of Turkish tobacco, heard Gaunt’s cigarette cough, tapped and walked in. Gaunt, wearing a purple dressing gown, was propped up in bed, smoking. When Dikon asked how he had slept he laughed bitterly and said nothing. Dikon attempted one or two other little opening gambits all of which were received in silence. He was about to make an uncomfortable exit when Gaunt said: “Ring up that hotel in Auckland and book rooms for to-night.”

With a feeling of the most utter desolation Dikon said: “Then we are leaving, sir?”

“I should have thought,” said Gaunt, “that it followed as the night the day. I do not book rooms out of sheer elfin whimsy. Please settle with the Claires. We leave as soon as possible.”

“But, sir, your cure?”

Gaunt shook a finger at him. “Are you so grossly lacking in sensibility,” he asked, “that you can blandly suggest that I, with the loathsome picture of last night starting up before my eyes whenever I close them, should steep my body, mine, in seething mud?”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” said Dikon lamely. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell the Claires.”

“Pray do,” said Gaunt and turned his shoulder on him.

Dikon went to find Mrs. Claire and encountered Colly on the way. Colly turned his eyes up and affected to dash a tear from them. The phrase, “He’s too cheeky,” formed itself in Dikon’s thoughts and instantly reminded him of the small brown boys who had grimaced in the moonlight. He continued on his way without an answering gesture. He ran the Colonel to earth in his study where he was closeted with a large dark man with a high colour, wearing an uneventful suit and a pair of repellent boots. This person turned upon Dikon a hard speculative stare.

“Sergeant Webley,” said the Colonel. Sergeant Webley rose slowly.

“How do you do, sir?” he said in a muffled voice. “Mr…?”

“Bell,” said the Colonel.

“Ah, yes. Mr. Bell,” repeated Sergeant Webley. He half-opened his hand, which was broad, flat and flabby with lateral creases. He seemed to peer into its palm. Dikon realized with a stab of alarm that he was consulting a small note-book. “That’s right,” repeated Sergeant Webley heavily. “Mr. Dikon Bell. Would that be a kind of nickname, sir?”

“Not at all,” said Dikon. “It was given me in my baptism.”

“Is that so, sir? Very unusual. Old English perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” said Dikon coldly. Webley cleared his throat and waited.

“Sergeant Webley,” said the Colonel uncomfortably, “is making some inquiries…”

“Yes, of course,” said Dikon hurriedly. “I’m sorry I interrupted, sir. I’ll go.”

“No need for that, Mr. Bell,” said Webley with a sort of fumbling cordiality. “Very glad you looked in. Quite an unfortunate affair. Yes. Take a seat, Mr. Bell, take a seat.”

With a claustrophobic sensation of something closing in upon him, Dikon sat down and waited.

“I understand,” said Webley, “that your movements last night were as follows.” He flattened his note-book on his knees and began to read from it. “But I’ve heard all this before,” Dikon thought. “I’ve read it a hundred times in air-liners, on the decks of steamers, in hotel bedrooms.” And he saw yellow dust-jackets picturing lethal weapons, clutching hands, handcuffs, and men like Mr. Webley squinting along the barrels of revolvers. More in answer to his thoughts than to Webley’s questions he cried aloud: “But it was only an accident!”

“In a case of this sort, Mr. Bell, disappearance of the party concerned under circumstances pointing to demise, we make inquiries. Now, you were saying?”

His heavy interrogation began to take on a kind of lifeless rhythm: question, answer, pause, while Sergeant Webley wrote and Dikon fidgeted, and again, question. It was a colourless measure reiterated drearily with variations. Under its burden Dikon walked again down a narrow track, through a gap in a hedge, and across a barren place where white flags showed clearly. Beyond the drone of Webley’s voice a single scream rose and fell like a jet from a geyser.

Webley was very insistent about the scream. Was Dikon positive that it had come from the direction of the mud cauldron? Sounds were deceptive, Webley said. Might it not have come from the village? Dikon was quite positive that it had not and, on consideration, said he would swear that it had arisen close at hand in the thermal region. Where precisely had he been when he first saw Mr. Falls? Here Webley unfolded a large-scale and extremely detailed map of the district. Dikon was able to find his place on the map and, a punctual wraith, Mr. Falls walked again towards him in the starlight. “Then you’d say he was about half-way between you and the mud pot?” The sense of impending horror which had haunted Dikon ever since he woke was now intensified and translated physically into a dryness of the throat. “About that,” he said.

Webley looked up from the map, his pale finger still flattened on the point where Dikon had stood. “Now, Mr. Bell, how long would you say it was from the time you left Mrs. and Miss Claire until the moment you first saw Mr. Falls?”

“No longer than it takes to walk fairly briskly from the car to the point under your finger. Perhaps a couple of minutes. No more.”

“A couple of minutes,” Webley repeated, and stooped over his note-book. With his head bent, so that his voice sounded more muffled than ever, he said much too casually: “You’re in young Mr. Claire’s confidence, aren’t you, Mr. Bell?”

“In what sense?”

“Didn’t he tell you about his ideas on Mr. Questing?”

“He talked to me about them. Yes.”

“And did you agree with him?” asked Webley, raising his florid face for a moment to look at Dikon.

“At first I considered them fantastic.”

“But you got round to thinking there might be something in it? Did you?”

“I suppose so,” said Dikon and then, ashamed of answering so guardedly, he said firmly: “Yes, I did. It seems to me to be inescapable.”

“Is that so?” said Webley. “Thank you very very much, Mr. Bell. We won’t trouble you any more just now.”

Dikon thought: “I seem to be forever getting my congé.” He said to the Colonel: “I really came to tell you, sir, that Mr. Gaunt has been very much upset by this appalling business and thinks he would like to get away, for a time at least. He’s most anxious that you should know how much he appreciates all the kindness and consideration that he has been shown and… and,” Dikon stammered, “and I hope that after a little while we may return. I’m so sorry to bother you now but if I might settle up…?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said the Colonel with obvious relief. “Quite understandable. Sorry it’s happened like this.”

“So are we,” said Dikon. “Enormously. I’ll come back a little later, shall I? We’ll be leaving at about eleven.” He backed away to the door.

“Just a minute, Mr. Bell.”

Webley had been stolidly conning over his notes, and Dikon, in his embarrassment, had almost forgotten him. He now rose to his feet, a swarthy official in an ugly suit. “You were thinking of leaving this morning were you, Mr. Bell?”

“Yes,” said Dikon. “This morning.”

“You and Mr. Geoffrey Gaunt and Mr. Gaunt’s personal vally?” He wetted his thumb and turned a page of his note-book. “That’d be Mr. Alfred Colly, won’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Well, now, we’ll be very sorry to upset your arrangements, Mr. Bell, but I’m just afraid we’ll have to ask you to stay on a bit longer. Until we’ve cleared up this little mystery, shall we say?”

With a sense of plunging downwards in a lift that was out of control, Dikon said: “But I’ve told you everything I know, and Mr. Gaunt had nothing whatever to do with the affair. I mean he was nowhere near. I mean…”

“Nowhere near, eh?” Webley repeated. “Is that so? Yes. He didn’t drive home in his car, did he? Which way did Mr. Gaunt go home, Mr. Bell?”

And now Dikon was back in the meeting-house, and Gaunt, shaking with rage, was pushing his way out along the side aisles as if propelled by an intolerable urge. He was engulfed in a crowd of people who stared curiously at him. He showed for a moment in the doorway and was gone.

Dikon was recalled by Webley’s voice. “I was asking which way Mr. Gaunt went home from the concert, Mr. Bell.”

“I don’t know,” said Dikon. “If you like I’ll go and ask him.”

“I won’t trouble you to do that, Mr. Bell. I’ll ask Mr. Gaunt myself.”

We are slow to recognize disaster, quick to erect screens between ourselves and a full realization of jeopardy. Perhaps the idea of something more ominous than accident had lain dormant at the back of Dikon’s thoughts. As there are some diseases that we are loath to name, so there are crimes with which we refuse consciously to associate ourselves. Though Dikon was oppressed by the sense of an approaching threat, his conscious reaction was to wonder how in the world under these new restrictions he was to cope with Gaunt. Thus, by a process of mental juggling, the minor was substituted for the major horror.

He said: “If you’re going to see Mr. Gaunt perhaps I may come with you. I don’t know if he’s up yet.”

Webley looked thoughtfully at him and then with an air of heartiness which Dikon found most disconcerting he said: “That’ll do very very nicely, Mr. Bell. We like to do things in a friendly way. If you don’t mind introducing me to Mr. Gaunt, I’ll just explain the position to him. I’m quite sure he’ll understand.”

“Are you, by God!” thought Dikon, and led the way along the verandah.

As they approached Gaunt’s rooms, Colly came out staggering under the weight of a wardrobe trunk. Webley gave him that hard stare with which Dikon was to become so familiar. “You’d better take that thing away, Colly,” said Dikon.

“Take it away?” asked Colly indignantly. “I’ve only just brought it out. What am I supposed to be, sir? Atmosphere in the big railway-station scene or what?” He glanced shrewdly at Webley. “Pardon me, Chief-Inspector,” he said. “There’s no corpse in this trunk. Take a look if you don’t believe me, and don’t muck up our underwear. We’re fussy about details.”

“That’ll be quite all right, Colly,” said Webley. “Stay handy, will you? I’d like to have a yarn with you.”

“Rapture as expressed in six easy poses,” said Colly. “Yours to command,” He winked at Dikon. “If you’re looking for His Royal Serenity, sir,” he said, “he’s in his barf.”

“We’ll wait,” said Dikon. “In here, will you, Mr. Webley?” They waited in Gaunt’s sitting-room. Colly, whistling limpidly, staggered away under the trunk.

“That kind of joker’s out of our line in New Zillund,” said Webley. “He’s different from what you’d have thought. A bit too fresh, isn’t he? Not my idea of a vally.”

“Colly’s a dresser,” said Dikon, “not a valet. He’s been a long time with Mr. Gaunt, and I’m afraid he’s got into the way of thinking he’s a licensed buffoon. I’m sorry, Sergeant. I’ll just go and tell Mr. Gaunt you’re here.”

He had hoped to get one word in private with Gaunt, but Webley thanked him and followed him out on the verandah. “Going in for the treatment, is he?” he asked easily. “Just across the way, isn’t it? I’ve never taken a look at these Springs. Been here ten years and never taken a look at them. Fancy that!”

He followed Dikon across the pumice.

It was Gaunt’s custom before breakfast to soak for fifteen minutes in the largest of the pools, that which was enclosed by a rough shed. Evidently, Dikon thought, his new abhorrence of thermal activities did not extend to this particular bath.

Closely followed by Webley, Dikon went up to the bath-house and tapped at the door.

“Who the hell’s out there!” Gaunt demanded.

“Sergeant Webley to see you, sir.”

“Sergeant who?”

“Webley.”

“Who’s he?”

“Harpoon police force, sir,” said Mr. Webley. “Very sorry to trouble you.”

There was no reply to this. Webley made no move. Dikon waited uncertainly. He heard a splash as Gaunt shifted in the pool. He had the idea that Gaunt was sitting up, listening. At last, in a cautious undertone, the voice beyond the door called him. “Dikon?”

“I’m here, sir.”

“Come in.”

Dikon went in quickly, closing the door behind him. There was his employer as he had expected to find him, naked, vulnerable, and a little ridiculous, jutting out of the vivid water.

“What is all this?”

Dikon gestured. “Is he there?” Gaunt muttered.

Dikon nodded violently and with an attempt at cheerfulness that he felt rang very false, said aloud: “The Sergeant would like to have a word with you, sir.”

He groped in his pocket, found an envelope and a pencil and wrote quickly: “It’s about Questing. They won’t let us go.” He went on talking as he showed it to Gaunt: “Shall I send Colly in, sir?”

Gaunt was staring at the paper. Water trickled off his shoulders. His face was pinched and looked old, the skin on his hands was waterlogged and wrinkled. He began to swear under his breath.

On the other side of the door Webley cleared his throat. Gaunt, his lips still moving, looked at the door. He grasped the rail at the edge of the bath and stood upright, a not very handsome figure, “He ought to say something,” Dikon thought. “It looks bad to say nothing.” Gaunt beckoned and Dikon stooped towards him but he seemed to change his mind and said loudly, “Ask him to wait. I’m coming out.”

The morning was warm and humid and the pool Gaunt had left was a hot one, but even when he was wrapped in his heavy bathrobe he seemed to be cold. He asked Dikon for a cigarette. Conscious always of Webley on the other side of the thin wooden wall Dikon forced himself to talk. “I’m afraid this appalling business is going to hold us up a bit, sir. I should have thought of it before.” Gaunt suddenly joined in. “Yes, a damned nuisance, of course, but it can’t be helped.” It all sounded horridly false.

They came out of the bath-house and there was Webley, “Hanging about,” thought Dikon, “like Frankenstein’s monster.” He walked up with them to the house and stayed outside Gaunt’s window while he dressed. Dikon sat on the edge of the verandah and smoked. The clouds that had blown up in the night were gone and the wind had dropped. Rangi’s Peak was a clear blue. The trees on its flanks looked as if they had been blobbed down by a water-colourist with a full and generous brush. The hill by the springs basked in the sun and high above it the voices of larks reached that pinnacle of shrillness that floats on the outer margin of human perception. The air seemed to hold a rumour of notes rather than an actual song. Three men came round the path by the lake. One of them carried a sack which he held away from him, the others, rakes and long manuka poles. They walked in Indian file, slowly. When they came nearer, Dikon saw that a heavy globule hung from the corner of the sack. It swung to and fro, thickened, and dropped with a splat of sound on the pumice, It was mud. The rake and the ends of the poles were also muddy.

He sat still, his cigarette burning down to his fingers, and watched the men. They came over the pumice to the verandah and Webley moved across to meet them. The man with the sack opened it furtively and the others moved between him and Dikon. Webley pushed his black felt hat to the back of his head and squatted, peering. They mumbled together. A phrase of Septimus Falls’s came into Dikon’s mind and nauseated him. Inside the house Barbara called to her mother. At once the group broke up. The three men disappeared round the far end of the house, carrying their muddy trophies, and Webley returned to his post by Gaunt’s window.

Dikon heard the creak of a door behind him. His nerves were on edge and he turned quickly; but it was only Mr. Septimus Falls standing on the threshold of his room.

“Good morning, Bell,” he said. “A lovely day, isn’t it? Quite unsullied and in strong contrast to the events associated with it. ‘Only man is vile.’ It is not often that one goes to Hymns A. and M. for profundity of observation but I remember the same phrase occurred to me on the night that war broke out.”

“Where were you then, Mr. Falls?”

“ ‘Going to and fro in the earth,’ ” said Mr. Falls lightly. “Like the devil, you know. In London, to be precise. I didn’t see you after your return last night but hear that your vigil on the hill was an uneventful one.”

“So they haven’t told him I was watching him,” thought Dikon. “And how did you get on?” he asked.

“I? I was obliged to trespass, and all to no avail. I thought you must have seen me.” He smiled at Dikon. “I heard you falling about on your hill. No injuries, I trust? But you are young and can triumph over such mishaps. I, on the contrary, have played the very devil with my lumbar region.”

“I thought last night that you seemed remarkably lively.”

“Zeal,” said Mr. Falls. “All zeal. Wonderful what it will do, but one pays for it afterwards, unhappily.” He placed his hand in the small of his back and hobbled towards Webley. “Well, Sergeant,” he said, “any new developments?”

Webley looked cautiously at him. “Well, yes, sir, I think we might say there are,” he said. “I don’t see any harm in telling you we’re pretty well satisfied that this gentleman came by his death in the manner previously suspected. My chaps have been over there and they’ve found something. In the mud pot.”

“Not—?” said Dikon.

“No, Mr. Bell, not the remains. We could hardly hope for them under the circumstances, though of course we’ll have to try. But my chaps have been there on the look-out ever since it got light. About half an hour ago they spotted something white working about in the pot. Sometimes, they said, you’d see it and sometimes you wouldn’t. One of them who’s a family man passed the remark that it reminded him of the week’s wash.”

“And… was it?” asked Falls.

“In a manner of speaking, sir, it was. We raked it out and are holding it. It’s a gentleman’s dress waistcoat. One of those backless ones.” iv

Dikon, at his employer’s request, was present at the interview between Gaunt and Webley. Gaunt was at his worst, alternately too persuasive and too intolerant. Webley remained perfectly civil, muffled, and immovable.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to stay, sir. Very sorry to inconvenience you but there it is.”

“But I’ve told you a dozen times I’ve no information to give you. None. I’m unwell and I came here for a rest. A rest! My God! You may have my address and if I should be wanted you’ll know where to find me. But I know nothing that can be of the smallest help to you.”

“Well, now, Mr. Gaunt, we’ll just see if that’s so. I haven’t got round yet to asking you anything have I? Now, perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me just how you got home last night.”

Gaunt beat the arms of his chair and with an excruciating air of enforced control said in a whisper: “How I got home? Very well. Very well. I walked home.”

“Across the reserve, sir?”

“No. I loathe and abominate the reserve. I walked home by the road.”

“That’s quite a long way round, Mr. Gaunt. I understand you had your car at the concert.”

“Yes, Sergeant, I had my car. That did not prevent me from wishing to walk. I walked. I wanted fresh air and I walked.”

“Who drove the car, sir?”

“I did,” said Dikon.

“Then I suppose, Mr. Bell, that you overtook Mr. Gaunt?”

“No. It was some time before we left.”

“Longer than fifteen minutes after the concert was over, would you say?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought.”

“Mr. Falls puts it at about fifteen minutes. It’s a mile and a quarter by the main road, sir,” said Webley, shifting his position in order to face Gaunt. “You must be a smart walker.”

“The car can’t do more than crawl along that road, you know. But I walked fast on this occasion, certainly.”

“Yes. Would that be because you were at all excited, Mr. Gaunt? I’ve noticed that when people are kind of stimulated or excited they’re inclined to step out.”

Gaunt laughed and adopted, mistakenly, Dikon thought, an air of raillery. “I believe you’re a pressman in disguise, Sergeant. You want me to tell you about my temperament.”

“No, sir,” said Webley stolidly. “I just wondered why you walked so fast.”

“You have guessed why. I was stimulated. For the first time in months I had spoken Shakespearean lines to an audience.”

“Yes?” Webley opened his note-book. “I understand you left before the other members of your party. With the exception of Mr. Questing, that is. Mr. Questing left before you, didn’t he?”

“Did he? I believe he did.” Gaunt put his delicate hand to his eyes and then shook his head violently as though he dismissed some unwelcome vision. Next he smiled sadly at Mr. Webley, extended his arms and let them flop. It was a bit of business that he used in “Hamlet” during the penultimate duologue with Horatio. Mr. Webley watched it glumly. “You must forgive me, Sergeant,” said Gaunt. “This thing has upset me rather badly.”

“It’s a terrible affair, sir, isn’t it? Was the deceased a friend of yours, may I ask?”

“No, no. It’s not that. For it to happen to anyone!”

“Quite so. You must have seen him, I suppose, after you left the hall.”

Gaunt took out his cigarette case and offered it to Webley, who said he didn’t smoke. Dikon saw a tremor in Gaunt’s hand and lit his cigarette for him. Gaunt made rather a business of this and as they were at it, said something not so much in a whisper as with an almost soundless articulation of his tongue and teeth. Dikon thought it was: “I’ve got to get out of it.”

“I was saying—” said Webley heavily, and repeated his question.

Gaunt said that as far as he could remember he had caught a glimpse of Questing outside the hall. He wasn’t positive. Webley kept him to this point and he grew restive. At last he broke off and drew his chair closer to Webley.

“Look here,” he said. “I’ve honestly told you all I know about this poor fellow. I want you to understand something. I’m an actor and an immensely well-known one. Things that happen to me are news, quite big news, at Home and in the States. Bell, as my secretary, will tell you how tremendously careful I have to be. The sort of things that are said about me in print matter enormously. It may sound far-fetched, but I assure you it is not, when I tell you that a few sentences in the hot-news columns, linking my name up with this accident, would be exactly the wrong kind of publicity. We don’t know much about this unfortunate man but I’ve heard rumours that he wasn’t an altogether savoury character. That may come out, mayn’t it? We’ll get hints about it. ‘Mystery man dies horribly after hearing Geoffrey Gaunt recite at one-eyed burg in New Zealand.’ That’s how the hot-columnists will treat it.”

“We don’t get much of that sort of thing in this country, Mr. Gaunt.”

“Good Lord, man, I’m not talking about this country. As far as I’m concerned this country doesn’t exist. I’m talking of New York.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Webley impassively.

“See here,” said Gaunt, “I know you’ve got your job to do. If there’s anything more you want to ask, why ask it. Ask it now. But for God’s sake don’t keep me hanging on here. I can’t invite you to come out and have a drink with me but —”

Dikon, appalled, saw Gaunt’s hand go to the inside pocket of his coat. He got behind Webley and shook his head violently, but Gaunt’s note-case was now in his hand and Webley on his feet.

“Now Mr. Gaunt,” Webley said with no change whatever in his uninflected and thick voice, “you should know better than to think of that. If you’re as careful of your reputation as you’ve been telling me, you ought to realize that anything of this nature looks very bad indeed if it gets known. Put that case away, sir. We’ll let you go as soon as possible but until this black business is cleared up nobody’s leaving Wai-ata-tapu. Nobody.”

Gaunt drew back his head with a certain characteristic movement which Dikon always associated with an adder.

“I think you’re making a mistake, Sergeant,” he said with elaborate indifference. “However, we’ll leave it as it is for the moment. I’ll telephone to Sir Stephen Johnston and ask him to advise me what steps to take. He’s a personal friend of mine. Isn’t he your Chief Justice or something?”

“That’ll be quite in order, Mr. Gaunt,” said Webley tranquilly. “His Honour may make some special arrangement. In the meantime I’ll ask you to stay here.”

“Great God Almighty!” Gaunt screamed out. “If you say that again I’ll lose all control of my temper. How dare you take this attitude with me! The man has been killed by a loathsome accident. You behave, my God, as if he’d been murdered.”

“But,” said a voice in the doorway, “isn’t it almost certain that he has?”

It was Mr. Septimus Falls, standing diffidently on the threshold. v

“Do forgive me,” said Mr. Falls in his rather spinster-like fashion. “I did tap on the door, I promise you, but you didn’t notice. I came to tell Sergeant Webley that he is wanted on the telephone.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Webley, and went out.

“May I come in?” asked Falls, and came in. “As that large efficient man has tramped away, it seems a propitious moment to review our position.”

“Why did you say — that — about Questing?” said Gaunt. “Why, in heaven’s name?”

“That he has been murdered? Because of several observations I have made. Let me enumerate them. A, the attitude of the police seems to me to be more consistent with a homicide investigation than with an inquiry into an accident. B, the circumstances surrounding the affair appear to be suspicious; as, for instance, the bite out of the path. Have you ever tried to dislodge a piece of that solidified mud? My dear sir, you couldn’t do it unless you positively danced on the spot. C, I observed by the light of my torch that the displaced clod had fallen to the foot of the bank. It held the impression of a nailed boot or shoe. Questing was the only man in evening dress, at the concert. D (and, dear me, how departmental I sound), the clod had contained a white flag which lay beside it, the only white flag on that side of the mound. As far as I could see the grooves on the edge of the gap and down the sides of the clod must have been the hole made by the flag standard. I am certain Webley and his satellites have discovered these not inconsiderable phenomena. Which would account for their somewhat implacable attitude towards ourselves, don’t you feel? I too have been forbidden to leave Wai-ata-tapu. A tiresome restriction.”

“I fail utterly,” said Gaunt breathlessly, “to see why these ludicrous details should suggest that there has been foul play.”

“Do you? And yet when Hamlet felt the point unbated did he not smell villainy?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean. I still think it monstrous that I, who after all am a guest in this country, should be subjected to this imbecile entanglement in red tape. If the position continues,” said Gaunt, speaking very rapidly and looking down his nose at Mr. Falls, “I shall appeal directly to the Governor-General whom I have the honour to know personally.”

“This is frightful,” thought Dikon. “First a Chief Justice and now a Governor-General. We shall be cabling to the Royal Family if Webley remains unshaken.”

At this point Dr. Ackrington appeared in the doorway.

“May I come in?” he asked.

Gaunt waved his hand.

“I don’t know whether you realize it,” said Dr. Ackrington, taking them all in with a comprehensive glare, “but we are under suspicion of homicide, every man jack of us.” He gave an angrily triumphant laugh.

“I refuse to believe it!” Gaunt shouted. “I refuse to be entangled. It was an accident. He was drunk and he stumbled. Nobody is to blame, I least of all. I refuse to be implicated.”

“You can refuse till you’re black in the face, my good sir,” said Dr. Ackrington. “Much good will it do you. You liked him no better than the rest of us, a fact that even this purple monument to inefficiency must stumble across sooner or later.”

“Do you mean Sergeant Webley?” asked Falls.

“I do. I’m sorry to say I regard the man as a moron.”

“That, if you will forgive me, Dr. Ackrington, is a mistake. I feel sure that we should be extremely ill-advised to dismiss Webley as a person of no intelligence. And in any case, if, as I am persuaded, Questing has been deliberately sent to an unspeakable death, do we not wish his murderer to be discovered?”

With a faint smile Mr. Falls looked from one face to another. After an uncomfortable interval, Gaunt, Dr. Ackrington, and Dikon all spoke together. “Yes, of course,” they said impatiently. “Of course,” Dr. Ackrington added. “But I must tell you at the outset, Falls, that if you concur with the official view of this case, I utterly disagree with you. However I merely wish to warn you of the possible, the almost inevitable blunders that will be perpetrated by this person. If he is to be in charge of this case I consider that none of us is safe.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” asked Gaunt offensively.

“I intend to call a meeting.”

“Good God, how perfectly footling!”

“And why, may I ask? Why?”

“Does somebody propose somebody else as a murderer? Or what?”

“You are facetious, sir,” said Dr. Ackrington furiously. “I confess that I did not expect to find you so confident of your own immunity.”

“I should like to know precisely what you mean by that, Ackrington.”

“Come,” said Falls. “Nothing is gained by losing our tempers.”

“Nor by the merciless introduction of clichés,” Gaunt retorted, darting his head at him.

“Are you in there, James?” asked Colonel Claire. His face, slightly distorted, was pressed against the window-pane.

“I’m coming.” Dr. Ackrington surveyed his audience of three. “It is my duty,” he said grandly, “to inform you that Webley has apparently been recalled to Harpoon. His men have returned to the reserve. At the moment we are not under direct supervision and I suggest that we lose no time in discussing our position. We are meeting in the dining-room in ten minutes. After this conversation I cannot, I imagine, expect to see you there.”

“On the contrary,” said Falls, “I shall certainly attend.”

“And I,” said Dikon.

“Obviously,” said Gaunt, “I had better be there, if only to protect myself.”

“I am delighted that you recognize the necessity,” said Dr. Ackrington. “Coming, Edward.” He joined his brother-in-law on the verandah.

Mr. Falls did not follow him. To Dikon’s embarrassment he stayed and listened with the air of a connoisseur to Gaunt’s renewed display of temper. Gaunt had never been averse to an audience at these moments but on this occasion he seemed to be unaware of anyone but Dikon, who received the full blast of his displeasure. He was told that he had bungled the whole affair, that he should never have allowed Webley an interview, that he was totally indifferent to Gaunt’s agony of mind. Never before had Dikon found his employer so unreasonably abusive. His own feeling of apprehension mounted with each intemperate phrase. He was ashamed of Gaunt.

This uncomfortable display was brought to an end by a sudden and unnerving clangour outside the window. Huia was performing with vigour upon the dinner bell. Gaunt, abominably startled, uttered a loud oath.

“Is that lunch?” exclaimed Dikon, who had himself been shaken. “Now I come to think of it,” he added, “I forgot to have breakfast.”

“I fancy it is a summons to the conference,” said Falls placidly. “Shall we go in?” vi

Three of the small dining-tables had been shoved together and at the head of them sat Dr. Ackrington with the Colonel, looking miserable, on his right hand. Simon and Smith sat together at the far end. Simon looked mulish and Smith foggily disgusted. Dr. Ackrington pointed portentously to the chairs on his left. Dikon and Falls sat together; Gaunt, like a sulky schoolboy, took the chair farthest removed from everyone else. The Colonel, evidently feeling that the silence was oppressive, suddenly ejaculated: “Rum go, what?” and seemed alarmed at the sound of his own voice.

“Very rum,” agreed Mr. Falls sedately.

Mrs. Claire and Barbara came in. They wore their best dresses, together with hats and gloves, and they carried prayer-books. They contrived to disseminate an atmosphere of English Sunday morning. There was a great scraping of chairs as the men got up. Smith and Simon seemed to grudge this small courtesy, and looked foolish.

“I’m so sorry if we are late, dear,” said Mrs. Claire. “Everything was a little disorganized this morning.” She began to peel the worn gloves from her plump little hands and looked about her with an air of brisk expectancy. Dikon remembered with a start that she conducted a Sunday school in the native village. “We had to come and go by the long way,” she explained.

Barbara went off with the prayer-books and returned, without her hat, looking scared.

“Well, sit down, Agnes, sit down,” Dr. Ackrington commanded. “Now that you have come. Though why the devil you elected to traipse off… However! I imagine that you had no pupils.”

“Not a very good attendance,” said Mrs. Claire gently, “and I’m afraid they were rather inattentive, poor dears.”

Dikon was amazed to see that she was quite unruffled. She sat beside her husband and looked brightly at her brother. “Well, dear?” she asked.

Dr. Ackrington grasped the edge of the table with both hands and leant back in his chair.

“It seems to me,” he began, “it is essential that we, as a group of people in extraordinary circumstances, should understand one another. I, and I have no doubt all of you, have been subjected to a cross-examination from a person who, I am persuaded, is grossly unfit for his work. I am afraid my opinion of the local police force has never been a high one and Sergeant Webley has said and done nothing to alter it. I may state that I have formed my own view of this case. A brief inspection of the scene of the alleged tragedy would possibly confirm this view but Sergeant Webley, in his wisdom, sees fit to deny me access to the place. Ha!”

He paused, and Mrs. Claire, evidently feeling that he expected an answer, said: “Fancy, dear! What a pity, yes.”

Dr. Ackrington looked pityingly at his sister. “I said ‘the alleged tragedy,’ ” he pronounced. “The alleged tragedy.” He glared at them.

“We heard you, James,” said Colonel Claire mildly, “the first time.”

“Then why don’t you say something?”

“Perhaps, dear,” said his sister, “it’s because you speak so loudly and look so cross. I mean,” she went on with an apologetic cough, “one thinks to oneself: ‘How cross he is and how loudly he speaks,’ and then, you know, one forgets to listen. It’s confusing.”

“I was not aware,” Dr. Ackrington shouted, and checked himself. “Very well, Agnes,” he said, dropping his voice to an ominous monotone. “You desire a continuation of the mealy-mouthed procedure of your Sunday school. You shall have it. With a charge of homicide hanging over all our heads, I shall smirk and whisper my way through this meeting and perhaps you will manage to listen to me.”

“ ‘I will roar you,’ ” thought Dikon, “ ‘as ’twere any nightingale.’ ”

“You said alleged,” Mr. Falls reminded Dr. Ackrington pacifically.

“I did. Advisedly.”

“It will be interesting to learn why. Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Falls mellifluously, “the whole affair is not to be described out of hand as murder. I don’t pretend to understand the, shall I call it, technical position of a case like this. I mean, the absence of a body…”

“Habeas corpus?” suggested Colonel Claire dimly.

“I fancy, sir, that habeas corpus refers rather to the body of the accused than to that of the victim. Any one of us, I imagine,” Mr. Falls continued, looking amiably round the table, “may be a potential corpus within the meaning of the writ. Or am I mistaken?”

“Who’s going to be a corpse?” Smith roared out in a panic. “Speak for yourself.”

“Cut it out, Bert,” Simon muttered.

“Yeh, well I want to know what it’s all about. If anyone’s going to call me names I got a right to stick up for myself, haven’t I?”

“Perhaps I may be allowed to continue,” said Dr. Ackrington coldly.

“For God’s sake get on with it,” said Gaunt disgustedly. Dikon saw Barbara look wonderingly at him.

“As I came along the verandah just now,” said Dr. Ackrington, “I heard you, Falls, giving a tolerably clear account of the locale. You, as the only member of our party who has had the opportunity of seeing the track, are at an advantage. If, however, your description is accurate, it seems to me there is only one conclusion to be drawn. You say Questing carried a torch and was using it. How, therefore, could he miss the place where the path has fallen in? You yourself saw it a few moments later.”

Mr. Falls looked steadily at Dr. Ackrington. Dikon found it impossible to interpret his expression. He had a singularly impassive face. “The point is quite well taken,” he said at last.

“The chap was half-shot,” said Simon. “They all say he smelt of booze. I reckon it was an accident. He went too near the edge and it caved in with him.”

“But,” said Dikon, “Mr. Falls says the clod that carried away has got an impression of a nailed boot or shoe on it. Questing wore pumps. What’s the matter!” he ejaculated. Simon, with an incoherent exclamation, had half risen. He stared at Dikon with his mouth open.

“What the devil’s got hold of you?” his uncle demanded.

“Sim, dear!”

“All right, all right. Nothing,” said Simon and relapsed into his chair.

“The footprint which you say you noticed, my dear Falls.” said Dr. Ackrington, “might have been there for some time. It may be of no significance whatever. On the other hand, and this is my contention, it may have been put there deliberately, to create a false impression.”

“Who by?” asked the Colonel. “I don’t follow all this. What did Falls see? I don’t catch what people say.”

“Falls,” said Dr. Ackrington, “is it too much to ask you to put forward your theory once more?”

“It is rather the theory which I believe the police will advance,” said Falls. With perfect urbanity he repeated his own observations and the conclusions which he thought the police had drawn from the circumstances surrounding Questing’s disappearance. Colonel Claire listened blankly. When Falls had ended he merely said: “Oh that!” and looked faintly disgusted.

Gaunt said: “What’s the good of all this? It seems to me you’re running round in circles. Questing’s gone. He’s died in a nightmarish, an unspeakable manner and I for one believe that, like many a drunken man before him, he stumbled and fell. I won’t listen to any other theory. And this drivelling about footprints,! The track must be covered in footprints. My God, it’s too much. What sort of country is this that I’ve landed in? A purple-faced policeman to speak to me like that! I can promise you there’s going to be a full-dress thumping row when I get away from here.” His voice broke. He struck his hands on the table. “It was an accident. I won’t have anything else. An accident. An accident. He’s dead. Let him lie.”

“That is precisely where I differ from you,” said Dr. Ackrington crisply. “In my opinion Questing is very far from being dead.”