Color Scheme

Chapter XI The Theory of the Put-up Job

The sensation he had created seemed to mollify Dr. Ackrington. After a moment’s utter silence his hearers all started together to exclaim or expostulate. Dikon was visited by one of those chance notions that startle us by their vividness and their irrelevancy. He actually thought for a moment that Ackrington, of all people, had suggested some return from death. A horrific picture of a resurrection from the seething mud rose in his mind and was violently dismissed. From this fantasy he was aroused by Gaunt, who cried out with extraordinary vehemence: “You’re demented! What idiocy is this!” and by Falls who, with an air of concentration, raised his hand and succeeded, unexpectedly, in quelling the rumpus.

“I assure you,” he said, “if he was uninjured and moving, I must have seen him. But perhaps, Dr. Ackrington, you think that he was uninjured and still.”

“I see you take my point,” said Ackrington, who, as usual, seemed ready to tolerate Falls. “In my opinion the whole thing was an elaborately staged disappearance.”

“Do you mean he’s still hangin’ about?” cried the Colonel, looking acutely uncomfortable.

“Of course,” Mrs. Claire said, “we should all be only too thankful if we could believe…”

“Gosh!” said Simon under his breath. “I wish to God you were right.”

“Same here,” agreed Smith fervently. “Suit me all right, never mind what happened before.” His hand moved to the breast pocket of his coat. He opened the coat and looked inside. An unpleasant thought seemed to strike him. “Here!” he said angrily. “Do you mean he’s hopped it altogether?”

“I mean that taking into consideration the profound incompetence of the authorities, he has every chance of doing so,” said Ackrington.

“Aw, hell!” said Smith plaintively. “What do you know about that!” He laughed bitterly. “If he’s hooked it,” he said, “that’s the finish. I’m not interested.” The corners of his mouth drooped dolorously. He looked like an alcoholic and disappointed clown. “I’m disgusted,” he said.

“Perhaps we should let Dr. Ackrington expound,” Falls suggested.

“Thank you. I have become accustomed to a continuous stream of interruptions whenever I open my mouth in this household. However.”

“Do explain, dear,” said his sister. “Nobody’s going to interrupt you, old boy.”

“For some time,” Dr. Ackrington began, pitching his voice on a determined note, “I have suspected Questing of certain activities; in a word, I believe him to be an enemy agent. Some of you have been aware of my views. My nephew, apparently, has shared them. He has not seen fit to consult me and has conducted independent investigations of the nature of which I was informed, for the first time, last night.” He paused. Simon kicked his legs about and said nothing. “It appears,” Dr. Ackrington continued, “that my nephew has had other confidants. It would be strange under these circumstances if Questing, undoubtedly an astute blackguard, failed to discover that he was in some danger. How many of you, for instance, knew of his real activities on the Peak?”

“I know what he was up to,” said Smith instantly. “I told Rua, weeks ago. I warned him.”

“Of what did you warn him, pray?”

“I told him Questing was after his grandfather’s club. You know, Rewi’s adze. I was sorry later on that I’d spoken. I got Questing wrong. It was different, afterwards. He was going to treat me all right.” Again, his hand moved to the inside pocket of his coat.

“I too had spoken to Rua. I had received no satisfaction from the police or from the military authorities, and, wrongly perhaps, I conceived it my duty to warn Rua of the true significance of Questing’s visits to the Peak. Don’t interrupt me,” Dr. Ackrington commanded, as Smith began a querulous outcry. “I told Rua the curio story was a blind. I gather that unknown to myself, at least three other persons” — he looked from Simon to Dikon and Gaunt —“were aware of my suspicions. Simon has actually visited the police. As for you, Edward, I tried repeatedly to convince you…”

“Yes, but you’re always goin’ on about somethin’ or other, James.”

“My God!” said Dr. Ackrington quietly.

“Please, dear!” begged Mrs. Claire.

“Is it too much,” asked Gaunt on a high note, “to ask that this conversation should grow to a point?”

“May I interrupt?” murmured Falls. “Dr. Ackrington suggests that Questing, feeling that the place was getting too hot for him, has staged his own disappearance in order to make good his escape. We have got so far, haven’t we?”

“Certainly. Further, I suggest that he was lying in the shadows when you hunted along the path last night after the scream, and that as soon as you had gone he completed a change of garments. Doubtless he had hidden his new clothes in some suitable cache. He threw the ones he was wearing into Taupo-tapu and made off under cover of the dark. In support of this theory I draw your attention to a development of which Falls has acquainted me. They have salvaged Questing’s white waistcoat from Taupo-tapu. How could a waistcoat detach itself from a body?”

“It was a backless waistcoat,” Dikon muttered. “The straps might have gone. And anyway, sir, the chemicals in the thing…”

But Dr. Ackrington swept on with his discourse. “It is even possible that the person you, Falls, heard moving about when you returned was Questing himself. Remember that he could only get away by returning through the village or by coming on round the hill. No doubt he waited for everything to settle down. He acted, of course, under orders.” Dr. Ackrington coughed slightly and looked complacently at Falls. “My theory,” he said with a most unconvincing air of modesty, “for what it is worth.”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Uncle James,” said Simon instantly, “in my opinion it’s not so much a theory as a joke.”

“Indeed! Perhaps you’ll be kind enough…”

“You’re trying to tell us that Questing wanted to make a clean get-away. What was his big idea letting out a screech you could hear for miles around?”

“I had scarcely dared to hope that I would be asked that question,” said Dr. Ackrington complacently. “What better method could he employ if he wished to protect himself from interruption from the Maori people? Do you imagine that after hearing that scream, there was a Maori on the place who would venture near Taupo-tapu?”

“What about us?”

“It was sheer chance that kept Bell and your mother and sister and Mr. Falls behind. And, most important, please remember that it had been arranged that we should all pack into Gaunt’s car for the return journey. All, that is, except Questing himself, Simon and Smith. It was an unexpected turn of events when Gaunt, Edward, Falls and I all decided, separately, to walk. He had expected to be practically free from disturbance. The audience was leaving when Questing himself went out.”

“And what about this print?” Simon continued exactly as if his uncle had not spoken. “I thought the idea was that somebody had deliberately kicked the clod away. Bell’s pointed out that Questing wore pansy pumps.”

“Ah!” cried Dr. Ackrington triumphantly. “Aha!” Simon looked coldly at him. “Questing,” his uncle went on, “wished to create the impression that he fell in. If my theory is correct he will have made as great a change as possible in his appearance. Rough clothes. Workmen’s boots. He waits until he has changed his evening shoes for these boots and then stamps away the edge of the path.” Dr. Ackrington slapped the table and flung himself back in his chair. “I invite comment,” he said grandly.

For a moment nobody spoke, and then, to Dikon’s profound astonishment, one after another, Gaunt, Smith, the Colonel, and Simon, the last somewhat grudgingly, said that they had no comments to offer. It seemed to Dikon that the listeners round the table had relaxed. There was a feeling of expansion. Gaunt touched his forehead with his handkerchief and took out his cigarette case.

Obviously gratified, Ackrington turned to Falls. “You say nothing,” he said.

“But I am filled with admiration nevertheless,” said Falls. “A most ingenious theory and lucidly presented. I congratulate you.”

“What is it about the man?” Dikon wondered. “He looks all right, rather particularly so. His voice is pleasant. One keeps thinking he’s going to be an honest-to-God sort of fellow and then he prims up his mouth and talks like an affected pedagogue.” Out of patience with Falls, he turned to look at Barbara. He had tried not to look at her ever since she came in. Her pallor, her air of bewilderment, and the painful attentiveness with which she listened to everybody and said nothing seemed to Dikon almost unbearably touching. She was watching him now, anxiously, asking him something. She answered his smile with a shadowy one of her own. There was an empty chair beside hers.

“Dikon!”

Gaunt had shouted at him. He jumped and looked round guiltily. “I’m sorry, sir. Did you say something to me?”

“Dr. Ackrington has been waiting for your answer for some considerable time. He wants your opinion on his solution.”

“I’m terribly sorry. My opinion?” Dikon thrust his hands into his pockets and clenched them. They were all watching him. “Well, sir, I’m afraid I’ve been completely addled by the whole affair. I can’t pretend to have any constructive theory to offer.”

“Then I take it you are prepared to accept mine?” said Ackrington impatiently.

Why had he got the feeling that they were bending their wills upon him, that they sat there boring into his mind with theirs, trying to compel him to something?

“What the devil’s the matter with you?” Gaunt demanded.

“Come, come, Bell, if you’ve nothing to say we must conclude you’ve no objection.”

“But I have,” said Dikon, rousing himself. “I’ve every objection. I don’t believe in it at all.”

He knew that his explanations sounded hopelessly inadequate. He heard himself stumbling from one feeble objection to another. “I can’t disprove it, of course, sir. It might be true. I mean, it’s all sort of logical but I mean it’s not based on anything.”

“On the contrary,” said Dr. Ackrington and his very mildness seemed to Dikon to be most disquieting, “it is based on the man’s character, on the circumstances surrounding him, and upon the undisputed fact that no body has been found.”

“It sounds so sort of bogus, though.” Dikon floundered about through a series of slangy phrases which he was quite unaccustomed to use. “I mean it’s the kind of thing that they do in thrillers. I mean he wouldn’t know there was going to be all that chat at the concert about the girl who fell in Taupo-tapu. Would he? And if he didn’t know that then he wouldn’t know about the scream keeping the Maoris away.”

“My good fool,” said Gaunt, “can’t you understand that the scream was introduced because of the legend? An extra bit of atmosphere. If he hadn’t heard the legend and the song he wouldn’t have screamed.”

“Precisely,” said Ackrington.

“Well, Mr. Bell?” asked Falls.

“Yes, that fits in, of course, but I’m afraid it all sort of fits too neatly for me. As if it was concocted, don’t you know? Like china packed too closely. No lee-way for jolts. I’m afraid my objections are maddeningly vague but I simply cannot see him hiding a disguise in an extinct geyser and tossing his boiled shirt into a mud pot. And then going off — where?”

“It is highly probable that a car was waiting for him somewhere along the road,” said Ackrington.

“There’s a goods train goes through at midnight,” suggested Smith. “He might of hopped onto that. Geeze, I hope you’re right, Doc. It’d give you the willies to think he was stewing over there, wouldn’t it?”

Mrs. Claire uttered a cry of protest and Ackrington instantly blasted Smith.

“Cut it out, Bert!” advised Simon. “You don’t put things nicely.”

“Hell, I said I hoped he wasn’t, didn’t I? What’s wrong with that?”

“If you are not satisfied with Dr. Ackrington’s theory, Mr. Bell,” said Falls, “can you suggest any other explanation?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I haven’t seen the print on the clod of mud, of course, but it seems to me it can’t be an old one if it suggests that somebody kicked the clod loose. If that’s so, it looks as if there has been foul play. And yet I’m afraid I don’t think Questing was drunk enough to fall in or even that it’s at all likely, if he did put his foot in the gap, that he would go right over. And it seems to be a very chancy sort of trap for a murderer to set, doesn’t it? I mean Simon might have gone over, or anybody else who happened to walk that way. How could a murderer reckon on Questing being the first to leave the concert?”

“You don’t think it was an accident. You can’t advance any tenable theory of homicide. You find my theory logical and yet cannot accept it. I think, Mr. Bell,” Dr. Ackrington summed up, “you may be excused from any further attempts to explain yourself.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Dikon sincerely. “I think I may.”

He walked round the table and sat down by Barbara.

From that moment the other men treated Dikon as an onlooker. It was impossible, they agreed, that in a homicide investigation the police could regard him as a suspect. He was with Mrs. Claire and Barbara when Questing screamed, he drove to the hall and had no opportunity to enter the thermal reserve either before, after, or during the concert. The fact that the path had been intact when the other men walked over to the village excluded him from any suspicion of complicity as far as the displaced clod was concerned. “Even the egregious Webley,” said Dr. Ackrington, “could scarcely blunder where Bell is concerned.” Dikon realized with amusement that in a way he lost caste by his immunity.

“As for the rest of us,” said Dr. Ackrington importantly, “I have no doubt that Webley, in the best tradition of the worst type of fiction, will suspect each of us in turn. For this reason I have thought it well that we should consult together. We do not know along what fantastic corridors his fancy may lead him but it is quite evident from certain questions that he has already put to me that he has crystallized upon the footprint. Now, did any of us wear boots or shoes with nails in them?”

Only Simon and Smith, it appeared, had done so. “I got them on now,” Smith roared out. “In my position you don’t wear pansy shoes. I wear working boots and I wear them all the time.” He hitched up his knee and planked a most unlovely boot firmly against the edge of the table. “Anybody’s welcome to inspect my feet,” he said.

“Thank you so much,” Gaunt murmured. “No. Definitely no.”

“That goes for me,” said Simon. “I’ve got three pairs. They can look at the lot for mine.”

“Very well,” said Dr. Ackrington. “Next, they require to know our movements. Perhaps each of us has already been asked to account for himself. You, Agnes, and you, Barbara, are naturally not personally involved. Nevertheless you may be questioned about us. You should be prepared.”

“Yes, dear. But if we are asked any questions we tell the truth, don’t we? It’s so simple,” said Mrs. Claire, opening her eyes very wide, “just to tell the truth, isn’t it?”

“Possibly. It’s the interpretation this incubus may put upon the truth that should concern us. When I tell you that he has three times taken me through a recital of my own movements and has not made so much as a single note upon my theory of disappearance, you may understand my anxiety.”

“Won’t he listen to the idea?” asked Gaunt anxiously and then added at once: “No. No. He questioned me in the same way. He suspects one of us.” And looking from one to another he repeated: “He suspects one of us. We’re in danger.”

“I think you underrate Webley,” said Falls. “I must confess that I cannot see why you are so anxious. He is following police procedure, which, of necessity, may be a little cumbersome. After all Questing has gone and the manner of his going must be investigated.”

“Quite right,” said the Colonel. “Very sensible. Matter of routine. What I told you, James.”

“And in the absence of motive,” Mr. Falls continued, and was interrupted by Dr. Ackrington.

“Motive!” he shouted. “Absence of motive! My dear man, he will find the path to Taupo-tapu littered with alleged motives. Even I — I am suspect if it comes to motive.”

“Good Lord,” said the Colonel, “I suppose you are, James! You’ve been calling the chap a spy and saying shootin’ was too good for him for the last three months or more!”

“And what about you, my good Edward? I imagine your position is fairly well-known by this time.”

“James! Please!” cried Mrs. Claire.

“Nonsense, Agnes. Don’t be an ostrich. We all know Questing had Edward under his thumb. It’s common gossip.”

Gaunt shook a finger at Simon. “And what about you?” he said. “You come into the picture, don’t you?” He glanced at Barbara, and Dikon wished most profoundly that he had never confided in him.

Simon said quickly: “I’ve never tried to make out I liked him. He was a traitor. If he’s cleared out I hope they get him. The police know what I thought about Questing. I’ve told them. And if I’m in the picture so are you, Mr. Gaunt. You looked as if you’d like to scrag him yourself after he’d finished his little speech last night.”

“That’s fantastically absurd, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to — God, I can’t even bear to think of it.”

“The police won’t worry about how you think, Mr. Gaunt. It’s the way you acted that’ll interest them.”

“Too right,” said Smith rather smugly. Gaunt instantly turned on him.

“What about you and your outcry?” said Gaunt. “Three weeks ago you were howling attempted murder and breathing revenge.”

“I’ve explained all that,” shouted Smith in a great hurry. “Sim knows all about that. It was a misunderstanding. Him and me were cobbers. Here, don’t you go dragging that up and telling the police I threatened him. That’d be a nasty way to behave. They might go thinking anything, mightn’t they, Sim?”

“I’ll say.”

“Naturally, they’ll have their eye on you,” said Gaunt with some enjoyment. “I should say they’ll be handing you the usual warning in less than no time.”

Smith’s eyes filled with tears. He thrust a shaking hand into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a sheet of paper which he flung onto the table. “Look at it!” he cried. “Look at it. Him and me were cobbers. Gawd spare me days, we buried the bloody hatchet, Morry Questing and me. That’s what he was going to do for me. Look at it. Written out by his own hand in pansy green ink. Pass it round. Go on.”

They passed it round. It was a signed statement written in green ink. The Colonel at once recognized the small business-like script as Questing’s. It undertook, in the event of Questing becoming the proprietor of Wai-ata-tapu, that the bearer, Herbert Smith, would be given permanent employment as outside porter at a wage of five pounds a week and keep.

“You must have made yourself very unpleasant to extract this,” said Gaunt.

“You bet your boots I did!” said Mr. Smith heartily. “I got him while my bruises were still bad. They were bad, too, weren’t they, Doc?”

Dr. Ackrington grunted. “Bad enough,” he said.

“Yeh, that’s right. ‘You owe it to me, Questing,’ I said and then he drove me over to the level crossing and showed me how it happened, him looking through the coloured sun-screen at the light. ‘That may be a reason but it’s no excuse,’ I said. ‘I could make things nasty for you and you know it.’ So then he asks me what I want and after a bit he comes across with this contract. After that we got on well. And now, what’s it worth? Dead or bolted it makes no odds, me contract’s a wash-out.”

“I should keep it, nevertheless,” said Dr. Ackrington.

“Too right, I’ll keep it. If Stan Webley starts in on me — ”

“I had an idea,” said Mr. Falls gently, “that we were going to discuss alibis.”

“You’re perfectly right, Falls. It’s utterly beyond the power of man, in this extraordinary household, to persuade any single person to keep to the point for two seconds together. However. Now, we left this infernal concert severally. Questing went out first. You followed him, Gaunt, after an interval of perhaps three minutes. Not more.”

“What of it?” Gaunt demanded, at once on the offensive. He added immediately, “I’m sorry, Ackrington. I’m behaving badly, I know.” He looked at Mrs. Claire and Barbara. “Will you forgive me?” he said. “I don’t deserve to be forgiven, I know, but this business has jangled my nerves to such an extent I hardly know what I’m saying. I’m a bit run-down, I suppose, and — well, it’s hit me rather hard, for some stupid reason.”

Mrs. Claire made soft consolatory noises. For the life of him Dikon could not stop himself looking at Barbara. Until now, Gaunt had completely disregarded her but the famous charm had suddenly reappeared and he was smiling at her anxiously, pleading with her to understand him. Barbara met this advance with a puzzled frown and turned away. Then, as if ashamed of this refusal, she raised her head and, finding that he was still watching her, blushed. “I’m so sorry,” said Gaunt and Dikon thought he made this last apology indecently personal. Barbara answered it with an unexpected gesture. She gave an awkward little bow. “She’s got good manners,” thought Dikon, “She’s a darling.” He saw that her hands were working together under the edge of the table and wished he could tranquillize them with his own. When he listened again to the conversation he found that Gaunt was giving an account of his movements after the concert.

“I don’t pretend I wasn’t angry,” he said. “I was furious. He’d behaved abominably, using my name as a blurb for his own squalid business. I thought the best thing I could do was to go out and apply fresh air to the famous temperament. That’s what I did. There was nobody about. I lit a cigarette and walked home by the road. I don’t think I can prove to the strange Mr. Webley that I did precisely that, but it happens to be the truth. I regained my temper in the process. When I arrived here I went to my room. Then I heard voices in the dining-room and thought that a drink might be rather pleasant. I came to the dining-room bringing a bottle of whisky with me. I found Colonel Claire and Dr. Ackrington. That’s all.”

“Quite so,” said Ackrington. “Thank you. Now, Gaunt, your best move, obviously, is to find some witness to your movements. You say there is none.”

“I’m positive. I’ve told you.”

“But it’s more than possible some of the Maori people hanging round the doorway saw you walk away. The same observers might already have seen Questing go off in the opposite direction. I myself followed close after you but you had already disappeared. However, I heard distant voices that seemed to me to come from the far side of the village, the side nearest the main road. Possibly the owners of these voices saw you. It was with the object of collecting such data that I suggested we should call this meeting.”

“I saw nobody,” said Gaunt, “and I heard no voices.”

“Did you hear the scream?” asked Simon.

“No, I heard nothing,” said Gaunt easily and smiled again at Barbara.

“Then,” said Dr. Ackrington importantly, “I may proceed with my own statement.”

“No, wait a bit, James.”

Colonel Claire drove his fingers through his hair and gazed unhappily at his brother-in-law. “I’m afraid we can’t let things go like this. I mean, since you’ve insisted on us thrashing the thing out between us one mustn’t keep back anything, must one? Gaunt’s statement may be quite all right. I don’t know. But at the same time…”

Dikon saw Gaunt turn white while his lips still held their smile. Gaunt did not look at the Colonel, his eyes still rested on Barbara, but they stared blankly, now. He did not speak and after glancing uncomfortably at him the Colonel went on.

“You remember,” he said, “I went back to the pa last night.”

“Well?” said Ackrington sharply as he paused.

“Well, I think I told you that they were all excited. They said a lot of things that at the time I felt I’d better keep to myself. I used to take that line in India, pretty much, when there was trouble with the natives. Wait a bit before handin’ on anything they tell you or you may land yourself in a mess. It’s the best way in my opinion. But when we agree to give full reports on our movements and there’s evidence that a report may not be full, well then it’s one’s duty to speak. That’s my view.”

“Your ethics, my dear Edward, may be admirable. No doubt they are. But having decided to reveal that which you formerly held locked in your bosom, will you be kind enough to come to the point and, in fact, reveal it.”

“All right, James. Don’t start rattlin’ me, there’s a good chap. It’s only this. One of the boys over there said that during Questing’s speech he went up to a whare near the road. I’m afraid they’d got a keg of beer there stowed away for the evening. Young Eru Saul, it was. He said that some minutes later he heard a couple of pakehas having a fearful row. At least, one of them was abusin’ the other like a pickpocket and the other seemed to be half-laughin’ and half-jeerin’. ‘Made him get very angry,’ was the way Saul put it. He didn’t understand what it was all about but he listened to it until he heard one of them call the other a bloody liar (please forgive me, Agnes, I have been against your attendin’ this meetin’ from the beginnin’) and threaten to do something or another that Saul couldn’t catch. Then there was a long pause. He got tired of it and went back to the beer. He heard someone walk past the whare and went out to see who it was. Of course it was dark but he left the door open. They’re very careless about the blackout over there, my dear. I think we ought — ”

“Will you get on, Edward?”

“Very well, James. The light from the door showed up this person and Saul said it was Gaunt. He said he’d recognized the angry voice as Gaunt’s as soon as he heard it and he’s quite certain the other man was Questing.”

During the next five minutes Dikon underwent as many changes of temperament as Gaunt himself at his worst. Incredulity, panic, sympathy, shame and irritation in turn possessed him as Gaunt first denied, then admitted and finally explained away his interview with Questing. He began by suggesting that the Colonel’s informant had either made up his story of a quarrel or else mistaken the principals. The Colonel remained unshaken.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I don’t think there was any mistake, you know.”

“The youth was probably tight. Isn’t he the fellow you’ve had to get rid of, Mrs. Claire?”

“Eru Saul? Yes. Yes. I’m afraid he really is an unsatisfactory boy. No home influence, alas. One of those unfortunate cases,” said Mrs. Claire meaningly. “We’ve tried to give him a good start but he’s drifted back. Such a pity, yes.”

Gaunt shook a finger at the Colonel: “You say yourself he’d been at the beer.”

“Yes, I know I do, but he wasn’t a bit tight and I’m sure he believed he was speaking the truth.”

“All right, Colonel.” Gaunt raised his hands and let them fall on the table. “I give up. I met the man and told him precisely what I thought of him. I’m sorry it’s had to come out. Another bit of most undesirable publicity. If my agent was here he’d give me absolute hell, wouldn’t he, Dikon? My one desire was to keep out of this extremely distasteful affair. I’m perfectly certain that Dr. Ackrington is right and that the whole thing’s a put-up job. Frankly, I’m tremendously anxious that my name should not appear and that is precisely why I hoped to avoid any mention of this encounter. I’ve been foolish. I realize that. I apologize.”

“It’s just too bad about you,” said Simon. “You’re in it with the rest of us. Why the heck should you get away with a pack of lies!”

“You’re perfectly right, of course,” said Gaunt. “Why should I?”

“If people start talking about murder — ” began Smith confusedly, and Gaunt at once interrupted him.

“If there’s talk of murder,” he said, “I fancy this story gives me a complete alibi. Young Saul says that he saw me walking up to the main road. As a matter of fact I remember passing the lighted hut. I distinctly noticed a smell of beer. The thermal region’s in the opposite direction. I suppose I should be grateful to the dubious Mr. Saul.”

“You should be thankful you haven’t landed yourself in a damned equivocal position,” said Dr. Ackrington, staring at Gaunt. “I pass over the more serious view, which we should be perfectly justified in taking, of your attempt to keep us in the dark. I merely advise you to make quite sure of this alibi you have just thought of.”

“It is quite genuine, I promise you,” said Gaunt easily. “Might we get on with someone else’s movements?”

“Well, of all the bloody nerve — ” began Simon.

“Simon!” said his parents together and the Colonel added, “You’ll apologize to your mother and sister, immediately, Simon. And to Mr. Gaunt.”

Dikon, in his distress, had time to reflect that the Claires were a little too good to be true. Simon muttered his apology.

“Suppose,” Mr. Falls suggested, “we get on with the other narratives. Yours, for instance, Ackrington.”

“By all means. I shall begin by stating flatly that if I could have got at Questing last night I should certainly have given him fits. I left the hall with every intention of giving him fits. I couldn’t find him. I heard voices in the distance; in the light of Gaunt’s emended statement, I presume they were his and Questing’s voices but I did not recognize them. I had it in my head that Questing would be half-way across the thermal reserve and I hurried along with the idea of catching him up. I did not find him. I carried on and came home.”

“May one know why you wanted to tackle him?” asked Falls.

“Certainly. His behaviour at the concert. It was the final straw. Any questions?” asked Dr. Ackrington loudly.

“Too right, Doc, there’s a question,” said Smith with an air of the deepest acumen. “Can you prove it?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Any other questions?”

“I should like to know,” said Falls, “if you noticed the gap in the path.”

“I am glad, Falls, that you at least have had the intelligence to ask the only question that can possibly have any useful bearing on our problem. I did not. I must confess I don’t actually remember seeing the flag, which I admit is curious. But I’m perfectly certain there was no gap in the path.”

“Might you have missed it, Uncle?” asked Barbara suddenly and Dikon noticed how the men all looked at her as if a domestic pet had given utterance.

“Conceivably,” said Dr. Ackrington. “I don’t think so. However. Now you, Edward.”

“It’s unfortunate,” said Gaunt airily, “that nobody saw the doctor whizzing past the geysers.”

“I am aware of that. I realize my position. The purple policeman has doubtless put some fantastic interpretation upon the circumstance. I agree that I am unfortunate in that I was unobserved.”

“But you were observed, James,” said the Colonel, opening his eyes very widely. “I observed you, you know.” iv

The Colonel seemed to be mildly gratified by his brother-in-law’s reception of this news. He smiled gently and nodded his head at Dr. Ackrington, who gaped at him, opened and shut his mouth once or twice, and finally swore softly under his breath.

“I was behind you, you know,” Colonel Claire added. “Walkin’.”

“I didn’t suppose, Edward, that you cycled through the thermal region. May I ask why you have not mentioned this before?”

Colonel Claire returned the classic answer: “Nobody asked me,” he said.

“Were you hard on his heels the whole way, Colonel?”

“Eh? No, Falls. No, you see he went so fast. I caught sight of him when I got to that gap in the hedge round the village and then the bumps in the ground hid him. Then I saw him again when I got to the top of the mound. He was nearly over at the hill by then.”

“I must say it’s not my idea of a cast-iron alibi,” said Gaunt, who seemed to welcome any chance of scoring off Dr. Ackrington. “Two little peeps in the dark with craters and mounds between you.”

“Oh, he had a torch,” said the Colonel. “Hadn’t you, James? And, by the way, the scream was much later. I was nearly home when I heard the scream. I thought it was a bird,” added the Colonel.

“What sort of bird, for God’s sake?”

“A mutton-bird, James. They make beastly noises at night.”

“There are no mutton-birds round here, Edward.”

“Does it matter?” asked Dikon wearily.

“Not two hoots, I should have thought,” said Gaunt bitterly. “I’ve always detested nature study.”

“He is sure of himself all of a sudden,” thought Dikon.

They ploughed on with the Colonel’s story. When asked if he had noticed the gap in the path he became distressingly vague and changed his mind with each question as it was put to him. Falls took a hand. “You say you had a pocket torch, Colonel. Now my recollection of the gap is that it showed rather sharp and dark in the torchlight, like a shadow or even a stain across the outer edge of the path.”

“Yes!” the Colonel exclaimed. “That’s a jolly good way of describin’ it. Like a black stain.”

“Then you did see it?”

“I only said it was a good way of describin’ it. Vivid.”

“Didn’t you notice that the white flag at the top was missing?”

“Ah! Now, did I? You’d notice a thing like that, wouldn’t you?”

Dr. Ackrington groaned and executed a rapid tattoo with h is fingers on the table.

“But then again,” the Colonel said, “one saw the red flags going off at the foot of the mound, so naturally one wouldn’t follow them. And the path is quite sharply defined and that. One would just follow it up the mound, wouldn’t one, Agnes?”

“What, dear?” said Mrs. Claire, startled by this sudden demand upon her attention. “Yes, of course. Naturally.”

“The hole!” Dr. Ackrington shouted. “The gap! For pity’s sake pull yourself together, Edward. Throw your mind, a courtesy title for your cerebral arrangements, I fear, back to your walk up the path. Visualize it. Think. Concentrate.”

Colonel Claire obediently screwed up his face and shut his eyes tightly.

“Now,” said Dr. Ackrington, “you are climbing the path, using your torch. Do you see the white flag on the top of the mound?”

Colonel Claire, without opening his eyes, shook his head.

“Then, as you reach the top, what do you see?”

“Nothing. How can I? I’m flat on my face.”

“What!”

“I fell down, you know. Flat.”

“What the devil did you do that for?”

“I don’t know,” said Colonel Claire, opening his eyes very wide. “Not on purpose, of course. I caught sight of you some way ahead and I thought to myself, ‘Hullo, there goes James,’ and there, at that moment, went I. It gave me quite a fright because after all one is close to the edge up there. However, I picked myself up and carried on.”

“Did you fall into the hole, dear?” asked Mrs. Claire, solicitously.

“What hole, Agnes?”

“James seems to think there was a hole,” she muttered.

“Did you look to see why you’d fallen? Did you examine the path with your torch?”

“How could I, James, when the torch had gone out? I fell on it and it wouldn’t go again. But I could see the flags dimly so I was all right.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t hurt, dear,” said his wife.

“And so there, in effect,” said the Colonel quite cosily, “we are.”

“Precisely nowhere,” said Dr. Ackrington. “I take it you can’t produce a witness to your movements, Edward?”

“Not unless Questing saw me. And even if he’s alive, as we all seem to have agreed, he’s vanished into thin air, so that’s no good, is it?”

Dr. Ackrington pointed at his nephew. “You,” he said.

“Bert and Colly and I were together,” said Simon. “A chap from Harpoon gave us a lift back. Ernie Priest, it was. Some of the boys over there wanted us to stay for a drink but I don’t think it’s so hot getting dragged in on those parties. It was Eru Saul’s gang and I draw the line there. Ernie had a bottle of beer in the car. We had one with him and he dropped us up at the front gate. That’s right, isn’t it, Bert?”

“I’ll say,” said Smith moodily.

“Did any of you leave the hall during the performance?” asked Falls.

“You did, didn’t you, Bert?”

“What if I did!” cried Smith, instantly on the defensive. “Sure, I did. I went out with two of the boys for a quick one. There’s some people when they’ve got a drink on the place has the decency to offer you one.” He looked accusingly at Gaunt. “Some people, I said,” he added. “Not everyone.”

“Who were the two youths?” Dr. Ackrington demanded.

“Eru Saul and Maui Matai.”

“Did you separate at all, Mr. Smith?” asked Falls.

“That’s right, pick on me. We did not. We stuck together and we got back in time to hear his nibs screeching his socks off.”

“Are you talking about me?” asked Gaunt, bristling.

“That’s right.”

“I should be glad to know at what point in my performance I could be said, even by a drunken Philistine, to screech.”

“ ‘Once more into the blasted breeches, pals,’ ” said Smith in a shrill falsetto. “ ‘Once more.’ We could hear you all the way down the path. Does it hurt you much?”

“Cut it out, for Pete’s sake, Bert,” whispered Simon and stifled a laugh.

“I resent this,” said Gaunt breathing noisily.

“My dear Gaunt, surely not?” soothed Mr. Falls. “A piquant incident! You will dine off it when the undesirable publicity has subsided. I should like to ask Mr. Smith and Mr. Claire,” he went on, “if they and Mr. Gaunt’s man remained in the hall until the general exodus.”

“Yes,” said Simon, glaring at him.

“Did you see Questing go out?” asked Dr. Ackrington.

“Too right we did,” said Smith — “he was talking to us. Well, to me. Very pleased with his bit of a speech and skiting about it. It was while we were with some of the Maori gang, wasn’t it, Sim? Outside the hall.”

“That’s right. And d’you know what I reckon he was doing?”

“You’re asking me!” said Smith. “He was passing over the doings. Had a bottle in his overcoat pocket. One of those flatties.”

“Brandy,” said Simon.

“Yeh. I saw him slip it to young Maui Matai. It’s like what I told Rua. He was keeping in with the young lot. That’s why Maui asked us to have one. I could of done with it, too,” confessed Smith.

“Well, and then Ernie Priest came along,” Simon explained, “and the four of us sloped off up to his car.”

“Leaving Questing with those Maori youths?” asked Falls.

“That’s right,” said Smith.

“Interesting!” Falls murmured. “And your Maori friends said nothing to you of this, Colonel?”

“They wouldn’t. They know what we think about the whole business of giving spirits to the natives.”

“It would be after this that you met Questing, Mr. Gaunt?”

“I suppose so. Yes, yes,” said Gaunt in an exhausted voice.

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Falls blandly. “Quite so. Afterwards. I take it,” he went on with his air of precision, “that this meeting doesn’t wish for a repetition of my own extremely inconclusive statement? I understand that you have all become acquainted with it.”

“That’s right,” said Simon before anyone else could answer. “We know you were just about on the spot when he yelled. We know you took pretty good care to keep us off the path while you went back there yourself. We know you wouldn’t have had to say anything if Bell hadn’t come along and found you. You’re the only one of the lot of us except Uncle James that’s seen this gap in the path. You seem to have got hold of the idea that everything you say goes for gospel. Well, by cripey, it doesn’t for mine. By my idea you’ve had a free run of the hot air round here for a bit too long. There’s one other thing we know about you. What about that stuff with your pipe?”

“Simon!” said his father and uncle together.

“What about it? Come on. What about it?”

“Simon, will you…”

“No, no, please!” begged Falls. “Do let us hear about this. I’m completely baffled, I assure you. Did you say my pipe?”

“I’m not saying another thing, Uncle. Keep your shirt on.”

Colonel Claire looked coldly at his son and said: “You’ll come and speak to me afterwards, Simon. In the meantime you will be good enough to say nothing. I am ashamed of you.”

“Damned young cub,” Dr. Ackrington began, and his sister at once said: “No, James, please. It’s for his father to speak to him, dear, if he’s done wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” Simon muttered ungraciously. “I didn’t mean to…”

“That will do,” said his father.

“Well,” said Falls, “since this seems to be another little mystery that is to remain unsolved, perhaps, Ackrington, you would sum up for us.”

“Certainly. I’m afraid,” said Dr. Ackrington, clearing his throat, “that beyond establishing a species of alibi in three cases, and also clarifying the situation generally, we do not appear at first glance to have attained very much.”

“Hear, hear,” said Gaunt.

“Nevertheless,” continued Dr. Ackrington, quelling him with an acid stare, “there are certain valuable points to be noted. The gap in the path was not there before the concert. I didn’t see it on my return and as Claire was close behind me it seems most unlikely, indeed impossible, that it could have appeared before he got there or that even he could have missed it. We are agreed that the clod of mud could only have been dislodged by considerable force and we know that it bears the deep impress of a nailed boot. The only two members of our party wearing nailed shoes or boots appear to have alibis. Questing must have entered the thermal reserve after Claire and I had crossed it and after his scene with Gaunt. What was he doing in the interim?”

“Having one with the boys?” Smith suggested.

“’Possibly. That can be checked. Now, we have discovered nothing to contradict my theory of a put-up job. On the other hand we’ve narrowed down the margin for murder. If the clod was dislodged with the idea of Questing putting his foot into the gap and falling over, this fictitious murderer must have dodged out after you, Edward, had gone by. He must have danced and stamped about, revealing himself on the sky-line if you’d happened to glance back, and, having completed his work, come on here or returned to the pa. During this period Gaunt had quarrelled with Questing, and gone up to the main road; Simon and Smith were drinking in somebody’s car after consorting for a time with certain Maoris; while Bell, Agnes, and Barbara had gone to Gaunt’s car.“ Dr. Ackrington looked triumphantly round the table. ”We are completely covered for the crucial time. What’s the matter, Agnes?”

Mrs. Claire was weaving her small plump hands. “Nothing really, dear,” she said gently. “It’s only — I know nothing about such things, of course, nothing. But I do read some of Edward’s thrillers, and it always seems to me that in the stories they make everything rather more elaborate than it would be in real life.”

“This is not a discussion on the dubious realism of detective fiction, Agnes.”

“No, dear. But I was wondering if perhaps we were not a little inclined to be too elaborate ourselves? I mean, it’s very clever of you to think of all the other things, and I don’t pretend I can follow them; but mightn’t it be simpler if somebody had just hit poor Mr. Questing?”

Dikon broke a dead silence by saying: “Mrs. Claire, you make me want to stand up and cheer.”