by Ngaio Marsh
‘Well, it’s difficult, you know. I expected to find they’d all gone to bed, but not a bit of it. They were hangin’ about the marae in groups and a good many of them seemed to be in the hall; not tidyin’ up or anything—just talkin’. Old Mrs Te Papa seemed to be in a great taking-on. She was in the middle of a long speech. Very excited. Some of them were at that beastly wailin’ noise. Rua was on the verandah with a lot of the older men. Funny thing,’ said the Colonel and stared absently at Dikon without completing his sentence.
‘What, my dear Edward, was a funny thing?’
‘Eh? Oh! I was going to say, funny thing he didn’t seem surprised to see me.’ The Colonel gave a rather mad little laugh and pointed at his brother-in-law. ‘And funnier still,’ he said, ‘when I told them what we thought had happened to Questing, they didn’t seem surprised about that, either.’
Chapter 10
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 effect 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 OK, 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 on to 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 OK 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 go 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 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 on to 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.’
II
Dikon’s notions as to the legal proceedings arising out of the circumstances of Questing’s disappearance were exceedingly vague. Halfforgotten 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 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 tomorrow.’ 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 tonight.’
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 his 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 when ever 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 notebook. “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 notebook 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 airliners, 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 halfway 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 notebook. 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 notebook. 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 everyt
hing 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 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.’
III
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.