Color Scheme

Chapter XIII Letter from Mr. Questing

Strangely enough the sensation that was uppermost in Dikon’s mind was one of embarrassment. He would have to speak to Falls about what they had seen, and like a man who hesitates before making a speech of condolence he did not know how to form his phrases. Should he say: “I suppose that was Questing’s head under the sack”? Or, “That settles it”? Or: “That disposes of Ackrington’s theory, doesn’t it?” It was impossible to find the right phrase. He was so occupied with his preposterous difficulty and, at the same time, suffered such a violent feeling of nausea that he didn’t notice Eru Saul and was startled when Falls spoke to him.

“Hello,” said Mr. Falls. “Can you direct me to Mr. Rua Te Kahu’s house?”

Dikon thought that Eru must have been standing in a recess in the hedge, perhaps peering through the twigs, and that he had turned quickly as they came up to him. He was coatless, and wore his puce-coloured shirt. Bits of dry manuka stuck to it and to the front of his waistcoat.

Mr. Falls pointed the ferrule of his stick at the recess. “Can you see the working party from here?” He squinted through an opening in the manuka. “Ah, yes. Quite clearly.” He picked a twig off the front of Eru’s waistcoat. “Terrible affair, isn’t it?” he said. “And now, as we have a message for Mr. Te Kahu from the police, would you mind directing us?”

Eru said: “Have they found him?”

“ ‘A part of him.’ Forgive the inadvertent quotation. His skull, to be exact.”

“ ’Struth!” Eru whispered and showed his teeth. He turned and walked quickly up the path to the marae and they followed him. Old Mrs. Te Papa sat on the verandah floor with her back against the meeting-house wall. When she saw them she shouted something in Maori and Eru replied briefly. Her response was formidable. She flung up her hands and pulled her shawl over her face.

“Aue! Aue! Aue! Te mamae i au!” wailed Mrs. Te Papa.

“Good God!” cried Mr. Falls nervously. “What’s she doing?”

“I’ve told her,” said Eru sulkily. “She’s going to tangi.”

“To wail,” Dikon translated. “To lament the dead. Think of an Irish wake.”

“Really? Extraordinarily interesting.”

Mrs. Te Papa continued to wail like a banshee while Eru led them to the largest of the cottages that stood round the marae. Like its fellows it was shabby. Its galvanized iron roof was corroded by sulphur.

“That’s it,” said Eru, and made off.

Attracted by Mrs. Te Papa’s cries, other women came out of the houses and, calling to each other, trooped towards the meeting-house. Eru was joined by three youths. They stood with their hands in their pockets, watching Mr. Falls and Dikon. Dikon still felt very sick, and hoped ardently that he would not disgrace himself before the youths.

Mr. Falls was about to tap on the door when it opened and old Rua stood upon the threshold. Mrs. Te Papa shouted agitatedly. He answered her in Maori and waited courteously for his visitors to announce their errand. Falls delivered Sergeant Webley’s message and Rua at once said that he would come with them. He shouted, and a small girl ran out of the house, bringing the grey blanket he wore on his shoulders. “It is as well,” he said tranquilly, but with a faint glint in his eyes, “to give instant obedience when it is a policeman who asks. Let us go.” He turned off as if to follow the track that led to the main road.

“We’ve got the Sergeant’s permission to cross the reserve,” said Mr. Falls.

“It will be better by the road,” said Rua.

“It’s very much further,” Falls pointed out.

“Then we should take Mrs. Te Papa’s car.” Again Rua shouted and Mrs. Te Papa broke ofif in the middle of a desolate wail to say prosaically: “All right, you take him but he won’t go.”

“We shall take him,” said Rua, “and perhaps he will go.”

“Eru can make him go,” Mrs. Te Papa remarked and she hurled an order across the marae. Eru detached himself from the group of young men and slouched off behind the houses.

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Te Papa,” said Falls, taking off his hat.

“You are very welcome,” she replied, and composed herself for a further lamentation.

Mrs. Te Papa’s car was not so much a car as a mass of wreckage. It stood in a back yard in a little pool of oil, sketchily protected by the remains of its own fabric hood. One of its peeling doors hung disconsolately from a single hinge. It was markedly bandy and had that look of battered gentility that belongs to very old-fashioned vehicles.

Rua opened the only door that was shut and said: “Do you prefer front or back?”

“I shall sit in the back with you, if I may,” said Falls.

Dikon climbed into the front. Eru wrenched at the starting handle and, as though he had dug a thumb in her ribs, the old car gave a galvanic start and set up a terrific commotion. “Ah!” Rua shouted cheerfully. “She goes, you see.” Having been left in gear, she almost ran over her driver. However, Eru flung him self in as she passed, and in a moment they were jolting up the hill. The noise was appalling.

“I see no reason,” Mr. Falls began in a stentorian voice, “why you should not be told the object of Sergeant Webley’s message.”

Dikon slewed round in his seat to gaze in consternation at Mr. Falls. He met the unwinking stare of old Rua, huddled comfortably in his blanket.

“Webley wants your opinion on a native weapon,” Falls continued. “A beautiful piece, it seems to me, a collector’s piece.” Rua said nothing. “I should call it an adze but perhaps that is incorrect. Let me describe it.”

He described it with extraordinary accuracy and in such detail that Dikon was first amazed at his faculty of observation and then extremely suspicious of it. Could Mr. Falls possibly have seen all these things through his window during the brief time that the adze was on the verandah table?

“One thing struck me very forcibly,” Mr. Falls was saying. “The figure at the head of the haft has got, not one protruding tongue, but two. Two long protruding tongues, side by side. The little god, if indeed he is a god, holds one in each of his three-fingered hands. Between the fingers there are small pieces of shell and beneath them the tongues are encircled by a narrow band.”

“You are driving too fast, Eru,” said old Rua, to Dikon’s profound relief. Mrs. Te Papa’s car, bucketing down a steep incline, had developed a curious flaunting movement which, he felt certain, its back axle could sustain no longer. Eru checked her with a jerk.

“The band itself,” Mr. Falls continued mellifluously in the comparative silence, “is most delicately carved. One marvels at the skill of your ancient craftsmen, Mr. Te Kapu. When one considers that their tools were those of a stone age — What did you say?”

Rua had made some ejaculation in his native tongue.

“Nothing,” he said. “Drive carefully, Eru. You are too impetuous.”

“But it seems to me that across this band some other hand has graved three vertical furrows. The design is repeated all over the weapon, but in no other place do these three lines occur. Now how do you explain that?”

Rua did not answer at once. Eru trod violently on the accelerator, and Dikon repressed a cry of dismay as Mrs. Te Papa’s car responded with a shattering leap. Rua’s words were lost in the din of progress. “Wait… impossible… until I see…”

He roared at Eru and at the same time Dikon turned to protest against this new turn of speed. He saw, with astonishment, that the half-caste’s lips were trembling, that his face was livid. “He must be feeling like I feel,” thought Dikon. “He must have seen everything through the hole in the manuka hedge.”

Mr. Falls leant forward and tapped Eru on the shoulder. He started violently.

“I hear you missed the star turn at the concert last night,” said Mr. Falls.

“We heard some of it,” said Eru. “It was all right, too!”

“Mr. Smith tells me you missed the earlier speeches. I do hope you returned in time for the magnificent Saint Crispin’s Eve.”

“Was that when he said something about the old dugouts being asleep while him and the boys was waiting for the balloon to go up?”

“ ‘And gentlemen in England now a-bed’?”

“Yeh, that’s right. We heard that one. It was good, too.”

“Marvellous,” said Mr. Falls, and sat back in his seat. “Marvellous, wasn’t it?”

They arrived intact at Wai-ata-tapu. The adze had been removed, evidently to the Colonel’s study, as Rua was at once taken there, Falls, rather unnecessarily, ushering him in. Dikon was left alone with Eru Saul in Mrs. Te Papa’s palpitating car. “Hadn’t you better turn off your engine?” he suggested. Eru jumped and switched back the key. “Have a cigarette?” said Dikon.

“Ta.” He helped himself with trembling fingers.

“This is a bad business, isn’t it?”

“It’s terrible all right,” said Eru, staring at the study window.

Dikon got out and lit his own cigarette. He was feeling better.

“Where did they find it?” Eru demanded.

“What? Oh, the axe. I don’t know.”

“Did they find it in his stuff?”

“Whose?” said Dikon woodenly. He was determined to know nothing. Eru electrified him by jerking his head, not at Questing’s room but at Gaunt’s.

“That’s where he hangs out, isn’t it?” said Eru. “Your boss?”

“What the hell do you think you’re talking about?” said Dikon violently.

“Nothing, nothing!” said Eru, showing the whites of his eyes. “I was only kidding. You don’t want to go crook over a joke.”

“I can’t see anything amusing in your extraordinary suggestion that a Maori axe should be discovered in Mr. Gaunt’s room.”

“O.K., O.K. I only wondered if he was one of these collectors. They’ll come at anything, if they’re mad on it. You know. Lose their respect for other people’s property.”

“Let me assure you that Mr. Gaunt is not a collector.”

“Good oh. He’s not. Let it go.”

Dikon turned on his heel and walked toward his own room. It was in his mind to go straight to Gaunt. His idea of Gaunt, by no means an unrealistic one, had been defaced by the events of the day. He felt a strange necessity to see Gaunt for himself, alone, to try if it was possible to re-establish their old relationship. He had not gone more than six paces when he was arrested by a terrific rumpus which seemed to come from the Colonel’s study. It was old Rua. His voice was raised in a roar as formidable as any with which his ancestors had led their clans to battle. The words at first were indistinguishable. Dikon thought that he made out ejaculations in Maori and occasional words of English. A babble of consolatory phrases broke out. The Colonel, Sergeant Webley and Mr. Falls seemed to be making an attempt to placate him. He roared them down. “It is the Toki-poutan-gata-o-Tane. It is the weapon of my grandfather, Rewi. It is a matter of offence against a most sacred and tapu possession. It must be returned immediately. Immediately!”

“Wait on, wait on,” Dikon heard Webley mumble. “You’ll get it back all right.”

“I shall have it back immediately. I shall appeal to the native land courts. I shall go to the Minister for Native Affairs,” Rua stormed and Dikon was reminded vividly of his employer. The rumpus broke out with renewed enthusiasm. Mrs. Claire came out from the dining-room.

“Oh, Mr. Bell,” she whispered, “what now?” She laid a plump hand on his arm, a hand which he thought the more touching for its calluses and stains. “It’s Rua, isn’t it?” she said.

“Something about his grandfather’s axe,” Dikon muttered. “He’s very cross with Webley for holding onto it.”

“Oh dear! One of those silly superstitions. Sometimes one almost loses hope. And yet, you know, he’s a regular communicant.”

The regular communicant, at this moment, came charging out of the study roaring like a bull and flourishing the ancestral adze. Webley and the Colonel were hot on his heels. Mr. Fall followed in a more leisurely manner.

“He’s ruining the prints,” Webley shouted in great agitation. “It’s most irregular.”

Rua plunged blindly along the verandah. Mrs. Claire moved forward to meet him. He fetched up short. He was breathless, and his eyes flashed. He stamped twice with his heavy boot and shook the adze. “It is an outrage!” he panted.

“Now, Rua,” said Mrs. Claire placidly. “It’s not at all good for you to work yourself up like this and it’s not a nice way to behave in somebody else’s house. I’m ashamed of you.”

Webley approached cautiously and Rua backed away from him.

“I obey the gods,” said Rua. “He robbed the grave of my ancestor. The fury of Tane has fallen upon him. My grandfather Rewi is avenged.” It occurred to Dikon that all this grandiloquence would have sounded more impressive in the native tongue. Mrs. Claire seemed to be of this opinion. She administered a crisp scolding, her hands folded at her waist, while Rua, still clutching his preposterous trophy, rolled his eyes and seemed to be in two minds whether to go for Webley or beat a retreat.

Upon this scene, half-comic, half-ominous as all scenes at Wai-ata-tapu seemed fated to appear, came Huia, nervously twisting her hands. She edged her way round the dining-room door and along the back of the verandah. Her gaze was fixed upon her great-grandfather. At the same time Simon appeared round the corner of the house and Barbara, carrying a tray, drifted through the dining-room and paused at the windows. Dr. Ackrington loomed up behind her, peered through the window and, seeing what was afoot, limped out to the verandah. A moment later Dikon heard a movement in Gaunt’s rooms. It was as though the characters in a loosely constructed drama had begun to converge upon a focal point.

Huia’s face had lost its warmth of colour. She and the old man stared at each other, seeming to communicate. He raised the adze slowly. The crest of hair quivered. “Haere mai,” said Rua. “Come here to me.”

She crept a little nearer. He began to speak to her in their own tongue but soon checked himself. “You do not understand me. You know little of the speech of the children of Tane. Very well. Let your shame be made known in the tongue of the pakeha.” He looked about him, commanding the attention of his hearers. “Many months ago, feeling myself draw near to the path that goes down to the final abode, I spoke with my eldest grandson who now fights with our battalions in a strange country. To him I confided the secret of the hiding place of this weapon, a secret which has been known only to the ariki, the first-born, of each generation of my family. Beyond the manuka bushes where we spoke, unknown to me, this girl lay dreaming. I discovered her when my grandson had left me. I questioned her and she told me that since I had spoken in our own tongue she had not understood me. Look at her now and judge if she deceived me.” He moved towards her. She pressed herself against the wall and watched him. “To whom did you betray the resting place of Rew’s toki? Answer me. To whom?”

She made a timid abortive gesture, half-raising her hand. Then, as if Rua had menaced her, she shot out her arm and pointed at Eru Saul.

Throughout the scenes that followed Dikon had the feeling that he was peering into some room which at first seemed to be quite dark. But, he thought, out of the shadow nearer objects presently appeared so that first the figure of Huia and then that of Eru were distinguishable, while behind these, in deeper shadow, more significant forms awaited the slow adjustment of his vision.

Eru faced old Rua with an air strangely compounded of terror and effrontery. Dikon fancied that a struggle was at work in the half-caste, between his European and his native impulses. If this was so the Maori, under Rua’s dominance, was the more potent agent. A shabby attempt at defiance soon broke down. Eru began with protestations and ended with a confession.

“I never touched it. I never took it. I never seen it before.”

“You knew where it rested. Huia, answer me. You told him where it was hidden?”

Huia nodded and burst into tears. Eru threw a venomous glance at her.

“So you, Eru, stole it and took money for it from this man Questing?”

“I never! I never knew he’d got it. I hadn’t got any time for him.”

“Huia, did you tell Questing?”

“No! No! Never. I never tell anyone but Eru. It was long time ago. I told Eru for fun when we go together. Nobody else. Eru told him.”

“If I’d thought it was for that bastard,” said Eru, “I’d never of told nobody.” And with extraordinary venom he added: “You and your fancy pakeha. I might’ve picked Questing was at the back of it. Why the hell didn’t he say it was for Questing?”

“To whom did you speak of this matter? Answer me.”

“Come on, Eru,” said Webley. “You won’t do yourself any good by holding out on it. There’s a serious charge mixed up in this business, don’t forget. You want to put yourself right, don’t you?”

“I told Bert Smith,” Eru muttered and Dikon thought he saw a little farther into the darkness of that shrouded room: not to the end, he thought, but a little farther. Webley moved forward and said to Simon, “Find Bert, will you?”

“O.K.,” said Simon.

When he appeared Smith was querulous and uneasy. “Can’t a bloke have any time to himself?” he demanded and then saw the adze in Rua’s hand. “By cripey!” he said. “By cripey, it’s Rewi’s axe.” He looked at Rua and drew a deep breath. “So he stuck to it, after all,” he said.

“Who stuck to what?” asked Webley. “Take a look at that axe, Bert. Have you ever seen it before? Come on.”

Smith cautiously approached Rua, who drew back. “You’ll have to let him see it, Rua,” said Webley. “Come on, now.”

“It’s all right,” said Smith. “I’ve never seen it but I know what it is all right. I’d heard all about it.”

“You stole it — ” Rua began and Smith, in a great hurry, interrupted him. “Not on your life, I didn’t! You haven’t got anything on me. I might of known where it was and I might of told him but I never went curio hunting on the Peak. No bloody fear, I didn’t.”

“You told Questing where it was?” Dr. Ackrington demanded. “Why?”

“Just a minute, Doctor, if you please,” Webley intercepted. “Now then, Bert. What was the idea, telling Questing?”

“He asked me.” And now it was Questing’s large face that showed in the dark.

“Asked you to find out? And paid you for your trouble, eh?” said Webley.

“All right. Put it that way. Nothing criminal in passing on a bit of information, is there? He asked me to find out and I found out. Eru told me. Come on, Eru. You told me, you know you did.”

“You said it was for the other bloke,” Eru said breathlessly.

“What other bloke?” Webley demanded. Eru once again jerked his head at Gaunt’s rooms. “Him,” he said. And Dikon now saw into the farthest corner of his imaginary room.

In the silence that followed, Mr. Falls said: “There seems to be a multiplicity of blokes all passing on information like a hot potato. Are we to understand, Sergeant Webley, that the deceased, on behalf of Mr. Gaunt, bribed Mr. Smith to bribe Mr. — Saul, is it? Thank you — Mr. Saul, to obtain information as to the locale of this exquisite weapon?”

“It looks as if that’s about the strength of it, sir.”

“You damn’ well choose your words!” said Smith indignantly. “Who’s talking about bribes? It was between friends. Him and me were cobbers, weren’t we, Sim?”

“I thought he tried to put you under the train, Bert,” said Webley.

“Oh, my Gawd, do I have to go into that again!” apostrophized Mr. Smith with evident fatigue. “We got it all ironed out. Here. Take a look.” He lugged out his written agreement with Questing and thrust it at Webley.

“Let it go,” said Webley. “You’ve showed me that before. We won’t trouble you any more just now, Bert.”

“So you say,” Smith grumbled and, carefully folding his precious document, wandered morosely into the dining-room.

Webley turned to Rua. “Look, Rua. You can see by what’s been said that we’ve got to keep hold of your grand-dad’s axe. We’ll give you a receipt for it. You’ll get it back all right.”

“It should not be touched. You do not understand. I myself, holding it, am now tapu.”

“Rua, Rua!” chided Mrs. Claire softly.

“Sergeant Webley,” said Falls, “please correct me if I am wrong, but suppose Mr. Te Kahu gave you his undertaking that when the adze is needed by the police he will allow them to have it? Could it not in the meantime be entrusted to the Colonel? The Colonel is your friend, Mr. Te Kahu, isn’t he? Suppose you went with him to his bank and left it there for safe-keeping? How would that be? Colonel, what do you say?”

“Eh?” said the Colonel. “Oh, certainly, if Webley agrees.”

“Sergeant?”

“I’ll be satisfied, sir.”

“Well, then?” Falls turned to Rua.

The old man looked at the weapon in his hands. “You will think it strange,” he said, “that I, who have in my time led my people towards the culture of the pakeha, should now grow quarrelsome over a silly savage notion. Perhaps in our old age we return to the paths of our forbears. The reason may put on new garments but the heart and the blood are constant. From the haft of the weapon there flows into my blood an influence darker and more potent than all the pakeha wisdom I have stored in my foolish old head. But, as you say, Colonel Claire is the friend of my people. To him I submit.”

Falls went into his room and came out with that heavily be-labelled case which Mrs. Claire had noticed on his arrival. He placed it open, upon the table, and Rua laid the adze in it.

“If it remains in Colonel Claire’s hands,” he said, “I am satisfied.” He turned to Eru. “You are not of the Maori people. In the days when this toki was fashioned your breed was unknown. Yet the punishment of Tane shall reach you. It were better that you had died in Taupo-tapu. I forbid you to return to our people.” After this final burst of magnificence Rua added placidly, “I myself can drive Mrs. Te Papa’s car.”

And drive it he did, sitting upright at the wheel, his blanket about his shoulders, bouncing slightly as he negotiated the inequalities of the pumice track.

Huia, sobbing noisily, ran into the house followed by the gently clucking Mrs. Claire. Eru moistened his lips and, without another word, set off up the track.

“That’s a very embarrassing old gentleman.”

Gaunt had strolled along the verandah, smoking a cigarette. He had dressed that morning in a travelling suit and looked an extraordinarily incongruous figure. His clothes, his hands, and his hair were as little in harmony with Wai-ata-tapu as would have been those of Sergeant Webley in the Ritz. Webley at once fastened on him.

“Now, Mr. Gaunt.”

“Well, Sergeant?”

“You must have heard what’s been said. Is it correct that you wanted to get hold of this weapon?”

“I should have liked to buy it, certainly. I have a taste for barbaric ornament.”

“Did you offer to buy it?”

“I told Questing I should like to see it first. Not unnaturally. My secretary had related the story of Rewi’s axe. When Questing came to me a few nights ago and littered the place up with obscure hints that he could if he would and so on, I confess my curiosity was stimulated. But I assure you that I did not commit myself in any way.”

“Do you realize that the removal of property from a native reserve is a criminal offence?” Dr. Ackrington demanded.

“No. Is it really? Questing told me the old gentleman was prepared to sell but that he didn’t want the rest of his tribe to know. He said we should have to be very hush-hush.”

“Did you know anything about this, Mr. Bell?” asked Webley, turning his dark face towards Dikon.

“Oh, no,” said Gaunt easily. “I didn’t mention it to anybody. Questing was rather particular about that.”

“I’ll be bound he was,” said Webley with a nearer approach to bitterness than Dikon had thought him capable of expressing.

“It was really too bad of him to involve me in a dubious transaction, you know. I resent it,” said Gaunt. “And I must say, Sergeant, you seem to me to be working yourself into a tig over an abortive attempt at theft while an enemy agent bustles into obscurity. Why not deny yourself your passion for curios and catch Mr. Questing?”

Dikon opened his mouth and shut it again. He was looking at Mr. Falls, upon whose lips were painted the faintest trace of a smile.

“But we have found Mr. Questing,” said Webley dully. Gaunt’s hands contracted and he gave a sharp exclamation. Dikon saw again the hard curve of an orb under wet sacking.

“Found him?” said Gaunt softly. “Where?”

“Where he was lost, Mr. Gaunt. In Taupo-tapu.”

“My God!”

Gaunt looked at his fingers, seemed to hesitate, and then turned on his heel and walked back along the verandah. As he reached his own rooms he said loudly with a sort of sneer: “That takes the icing off old Ackrington’s gingerbread, doesn’t it! I beg your pardon, Doctor. Do forgive me. I’d forgotten you were here.”

He went into his room and they heard him shout for Colly.

Mr. Falls broke an awkward silence by saying: “What a very gay taste in shirts Mr. Eru Saul displays, doesn’t he?”

Eru, a desolate figure, had plodded up the drive as far as the last turn that was visible from the house. His puce-coloured sleeves were vivid in the sunlight.

Barbara leant out of the open window and said nervously: “He always wears that shirt. One wonders if it’s ever washed.”

Dikon, expecting Dr. Ackrington’s outburst to come at any moment, said hurriedly: “I know. He wore it on the day of Smith’s accident.”

“So he did.”

“No, he didn’t,” said the Colonel unexpectedly.

They stared at him. “But, Daddy, he did,” said Barbara. “Don’t you remember he came into the dining-room to sort of confirm Mr. Smith’s account and he was wearing the pink shirt? Wasn’t he, Sim?”

“What the heck’s it matter?” Simon asked. “He was, as a matter of fact.”

“He couldn’t have been,” said the Colonel.

Dr. Ackrington began in a high voice, “In the name of all that’s futile, Edward, will you — ” and stopped short. “The shirt was pink,” he said loudly.

“No.”

“It was pink, Edward.”

“It couldn’t have been, James.”

Webley said heavily: “If you’ll excuse me I’ll get on with it,” and casting a disgusted look at the Colonel he returned to Questing’s room.

“I know it wasn’t pink,” the Colonel went on.

“Did you see the fellow’s shirt?”

“I suppose I must have, James. I don’t remember that, but I have it in my head that it was blue. People talked about the feller’s blue shirt.”

“Well, it wasn’t blue, Dad,‘* said Simon. ”It was that same godalmighty affair he’s got on now.”

“I don’t catch what people say, but I did catch that. Blue.”

“This is extremely interesting,” said Mr. Falls. “Here are three people swearing pink and one blue. What about you, Bell?”

“I’m on both sides,” said Dikon. “It was puce but I agree with the Colonel that Questing said it was blue.”

“It is extraordinary to me,” said Dr. Ackrington, “that you can all moon about, arguing like magpies over a perfectly footling affair, when the discovery of Questing’s body puts us all in a damned equivocal position.”

“I am interested in the man in the ambiguous shirt. Could we not have Mr. Smith’s opinion?” suggested Mr. Falls. “Where is he?”

Without moving, Simon yelled: “Hey, Bert!” and in due course Smith reappeared.

Mr. Falls said: “I wonder if you can settle an argument. Do you remember that on the evening of your escape from the train, Mr. Questing said that he left you to the attentions of a man in a blue shirt?”

“Uh?”

Mr. Falls repeated his question.

“That’d be Eru Saul. He brought me home. What of it?”

“Wearing a blue shirt?”

“Yeh, that’s right.”

“It was pink,” said Dr. Ackrington and Simon together.

“If Questing said it was blue it must’ve been blue,” said Smith crossly. “I was that knocked about I wouldn’t notice whether the man was wearing a pansy shirt or a pair of rompers. Yeh, I remember. It was blue.”

“You’re colour-blind,” said Simon. “It was pink.”

He and Smith argued hotly. Smith walked away muttering and Simon shouted after him. “You’re making out it was blue because he said it was blue. You’ll be telling us next he went to Pohutukawa Bay that afternoon, like he said he did.”

Smith stopped short. “So he did go to the Bay,” he yelled.

“Yeh? And when Uncle James said wasn’t it a pity the pootacows weren’t in bloom he said yes, too bad. And they were blazing there all the time.”

“He did go to the Bay. He took Huia. You ask Huia. Eru told me. So get to hell,” added Smith and disappeared.

“What do you know about that!” Simon demanded. “Here, do you reckon Eru changed his shirt in our kitchen? Or was it another man on the hill that Questing saw?”

“He did not go to Pohutukawa Bay,” said his uncle. “I bowled him over. I completely bowled him over. Huia!”

After a short delay Huia, still weeping, appeared in the doorway.

“What you want?” she sobbed.

“Did you go in Mr. Questing’s car to Pohutukawa Bay on the day when Smith was nearly run over?”

“I never do anything bad with him,” roared poor Huia, relapsing into pidgin English. “Only go for drive to te Bay and come back. Never stop te engine, all time.”

“Did you see the pootacows?” said Simon.

“How can we go to Pohutukawa Bay and not see pohutukawas? Of course we see pohutukawas like blazes all over te shop.”

“Did Eru Saul change his shirt in the kitchen that night?”

“What te devil you ask me nex’! Let me catch him change his shirt in my kitchen.”

“Oh, gee!” said Simon disgustedly and Huia plunged back into the house.

“It must be nearly lunch time,” the Colonel remarked vaguely. He followed Huia indoors and shouted for his wife.

“This is a madhouse,” said Dr. Ackrington.

Webley came out of Questing’s room. “Mr. Bell,” he said, “may I trouble you, please?” iv

“I couldn’t feel more uncomfortable,” Dikon thought as he walked along the verandah, “if I’d killed poor old Questing myself. It’s extraordinary.”

Webley stood on one side at the door, followed Dikon inside and shut it. The blind was pulled down and the light was on so that Dikon was vividly reminded of his visit of the previous night. The pearl-grey worsted suit was still neatly disposed upon a chair. The ties and the puce-coloured pyjamas were in their former positions. Webley went to the dressing-table and took up an envelope. Dikon saw with astonishment that it was addressed to himself in the neat commercial script of Smith’s talisman.

“Before you open this, Mr. Bell, I’d like to have a witness.” He put his head round the door and mumbled inaudibly. Mr. Falls was cautiously admitted.

“A witness before or after the fact, Sergeant?” he asked archly.

“A witness to the fact, shall we say, sir?”

“But why in heaven’s name did he write to me?” Dikon murmured.

“That’s what we’ll find out, Mr. Bell. Will you open it?”

It was written in green ink on a sheet of business paper on which printed titles were set out, representing Mr. Questing as an indent agent and representative of several firms. It bore the date of the previous day and was headed: “Private and Confidential.”

“I can’t go on with this,” said Dikon.

“If you don’t, sir, we will. He’s dead, remember.”

“Oh, hell!”

“You can read it to yourself if you like, Mr. Bell,” said Webley, keeping his eyes on Mr. Falls, “and then hand it over.”

Dikon read on a little way, made an ejaculation and finally said: “No, by George, you shall hear it.” And he read the letter aloud.

Mr. Falls murmured: “Enchanting circumlocution.”

“That’ll be the Peak,” said Webley, still watching him. “Quite.”

Dikon folded the letter and gave it to Webley.

“ ‘I do not think he trusts me,’ ” quoted Mr. Falls. “How right he was!”

“Yes,” Dikon agreed and added, “He was right about another thing too. He was an appalling scamp, but I always rather liked him.”

Huia rang the luncheon bell.