by Ngaio Marsh
“I mean, about him coming up to me and talking as if he’d given it to me.”
Appalled by the possible implication of this project Dikon said roughly: “Good Lord, what tomfoolery is this!”
“There!” said Barbara. “You’re livid again. I can’t think why you lose your temper every time I mention the dress. I still think he did it. He’s the only person we knew who wouldn’t see that it was an impossible sort of thing to do.”
Dikon took a deep breath. “Listen,” he said. “I told Questing the blasted clothes were almost certainly a present from your Auntie Whatnot in India. He remarked that India was a long way away and I’ve no doubt he thought he’d take a gamble and pretend he was the little fairy godfather. He was simply trying to make capital. And anyway,” Dikon added, hearing his voice turn flat, “you must see that all this can have no possible bearing on the case. You don’t want to go trotting to the police with tatty little bits of gossip about your clothes. Answer any questions that are put to you, you silly child, and don’t muddle the poor gentlemen. Barbara, will you promise?”
“I’ll think about it,” said Barbara gravely. “It’s only that I’ve got a notion in my head that somehow or another my dress does fit into the picture.”
Dikon was in a quandary. If Gaunt was forced to acknowledge the authorship of the present to Barbara, his fury against Questing would be brought out in stronger relief, an unpleasant development. Dikon scolded, ridiculed, and pleaded. Barbara listened quietly and at last promised that she would say nothing of the dress without first telling him of her intention. “Though I must say,” she added, “that I can’t see why you’re getting into such a tig over it. If, as you say, it’s completely irrelevant, it wouldn’t matter much if I did tell them.”
“You might put some damn-fool idea into their thick heads. The mere fact of you lugging the wretched afïair into the conversation would make them think there was something behind it. Let it alone, for pity’s sake. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
He kept her with him a little longer. He had an idea that she’d substituted this nonsense about the dress for a more important discussion which, at the last moment, she had funked. He saw her look unhappily at the door into Gaunt’s rooms. At last, twisting her hands together, she said very solemnly: “I suppose you’ve had a lot of experience, haven’t you?”
“I must say you do astonish me,” cried Dikon. “What sort of experience? Do you imagine I’m dyed deep in strange sins?”
“Of course not,” said Barbara turning pink. “I meant you must have had a good deal of experience of the Artistic Temperament.”
“Oh, that. Well, yes; we come at it rather strong in our line of business, you know. What about it?”
Barbara said rapidly: “People who are very sensitive — ” she corrected herself —“I mean, highly sensitized, are terribly vulnerable, aren’t they? Emotionally they’re a skin short. Sort of. Aren’t they? Things hurt them more than they hurt us.” She glanced doubtfully at Dikon. “This,” he thought, “is pure Gaunt; a paraphrase, I shouldn’t wonder, of the stuff he sold her while I was sweating up that mountain.”
“I mean,” Barbara continued, “that it would be wrong to expect them to behave like less delicately adjusted people when something emotionally disintegrating happens to them.”
“Emotionally…?”
“Disintegrating,” said Barbara hurriedly. “I mean you can’t treat porcelain like kitchen china, can you?”
“That,” said Dikon, “is the generally accepted line of chat.”
“Don’t you agree with it?”
“For the last six years,” said Dikon cautiously, “part of my job has been to act as a shock-absorber for temperaments. You can’t expect me to go all dewy-eyed over them at my time of life. But you may be right.”
“I hope I am,” said Barbara.
“The thing about actors, for instance, that makes them different from ordinary people is that they are technicians of emotion. They are trained not to suppress but to flourish their feelings. If an actor is angry, he says to himself and to everyone else, ‘My God, I am angry. This is what I’m like when I’m angry. This is how I do it.’ It doesn’t mean he’s angrier or less angry than you or I, who bite our lips and feel sick and six hours later think up all the things we might have said. He says them. If he likes someone, he lets them know it with soft music and purring chest notes. If he’s upset he puts tears in his voice. Underneath he’s as nice a fellow as the next man. He just does things more thoroughly.”
“You do sound cold-blooded.”
“Bless me soul, I take pinches of salt whenever I enter a stage-door. Just as a precautionary measure.”
Barbara’s eyes had filled with tears. Dikon took her hand in his. “Do you know why I’ve said all this?” he asked. “If I was a noble-minded young man with gentlemanly instincts, I should go white to the lips and in a strangulated voice agree with everything you say. Since I can’t pretend we’re not talking about Gaunt I should add that it is our privilege to sacrifice ourselves to a Great Artist. Because I’m Gaunt’s secretary I should say that my lips were sealed and stand on one side like a noble-minded dumb-bell while you made yourself miserable over him. I don’t behave like this because I’m not such a fool, and also because I’m falling very deeply in love with you myself. There are Webley and your father going into a huddle on the verandah so we can’t pursue this conversation. Go back into the house. I love you. Put that on your needles and knit it.” iv
Somewhat shaken by his own boldness, Dikon watched Barbara run into the house. She had given him one bewildered and astonished glance before she turned tail and fled. “So I’ve done it,” he thought, “and how badly! No more pleasant talks with Barbara. No more arguments and confidences. After this she’ll fly before me like the wind. Or will she think it her duty to hand me a lemon on a silver salver and tell me nicely that she hopes we’ll still be friends?” The more he thought about it the more deeply convinced did he become that he had behaved like a fool. “But it’s all one,” he thought. “She’s never even looked at me. All I’ve done is to make her rather more miserable about Gaunt than she need have been.”
Webley and the Colonel were still huddled together on the verandah. They moved and Dikon saw that between them they held a curious-looking object. Seen from a distance, it resembled a gigantic wishbone adorned with a hairy crest. It was by this crest that they held it, standing well away from the two shafts, one of which was wooden while the other glinted dully in the sunlight. It was a Maori adze.
Webley looked up and saw Dikon, who instantly felt as though he had been caught spying on them. To dispel this uncomfortable illusion, he walked over and joined them.
“Hullo, Bell,” said the Colonel. “Here’s a rum go.” He looked at Webley. “Shall we tell him?” he asked.
“Just a minute, Colonel,” said Webley, “just a minute. I’d like to ask Mr. Bell if he’s ever seen this object before.”
“Never,” said Dikon. “To my knowledge, never.”
“You were in Questing’s room last night, weren’t you, Mr. Bell?”
“I glanced in to see if he was there. Yes.”
“You didn’t look in any of his boxes?”
“Why should I?” cried Dikon. “This isn’t a corpse-in-a-trunk mystery. Why on earth should I? Anyway,” he added lamely after a glance at Webley’s impassive face, “I didn’t.”
Webley, still holding the adze by its hairy crest, laid it carefully on the verandah table. The haft, intricately carved, was crowned by a grimacing manikin. The stone blade, which had been worked down to a double edge with a rounded point, projected, almost at right angles to the haft, from beneath the rump of the manikin.
“They used to dong one another with those things,” said Dikon. “Did you find it in Questing’s room?”
The Colonel glanced uncomfortably at Webley, who merely said: “I think we’ll let old Rua take a look at this, Colonel. Could you get a messa
ge over to him? My chaps are busy out there. I’d rather nobody touched this axe affair and anyway it’d be as well to get Rua away from the rest of his gang.”
“I’ll go,” Dikon offered.
Webley looked him over thoughtfully. “Well now, that’s very kind of you, Mr. Bell,” he said.
“Trophies of the chase, Sergeant?” asked Mr. Falls, suddenly thrusting his head out of his bedroom window which was above the verandah table. “Do forgive me. I couldn’t help overhearing you. You’ve found a magnificent expression of a savage art, haven’t you? And you wish for an expert opinion? May I suggest that Bell and I go hand-in-hand to the native village? We can, as it were, keep an eye on each other. A variant of the adage that one should set a thief to catch a thief. Do you follow me?”
“Well, sir,” said Webley, watching him carefully, “there’s no call to put it like that. At the same time, if you two gentlemen care to stroll over to the pa, I’m sure I’d be much obliged.”
“Splendid!” cried Mr. Falls gaily. “May we go by the short route? It will be much quicker and since, as I imagine, the cauldron is all set about with your myrmidons, neither of us will have an opportunity to add articles of evening dress to the seething mud. You could give us a chit to your men, no doubt.”
Greatly to Dikon’s astonishment, and somewhat to his dismay, Webley raised no objection to this project. Dikon and Mr. Falls set out, by the all too familiar path, for the native reserve. Mr. Falls led the way, limping a little it is true, but not, it seemed, greatly inconvenienced this morning by his lumbago.
“I must congratulate you,” he said pleasantly, “on the attitude you adopted at our rather abortive conference. You felt that our anatomist’s flights into the realms of conjecture were becoming fantastic. So, I must confess, did I.”
“You did!” Dikon ejaculated. “Then, I must say…” He stopped short.
“You were about to say that I didn’t contradict him. My dear sir, you saved me the trouble. You propounded my views to a nicety.”
“I’m afraid I find that difficult to believe,” said Dikon dryly.
“You do? Ah, yes, of course. You regard me as the prime suspect. Very naturally. Do you realize, Mr. Bell, that if I’m tried for murder, you will be the chief witness for the prosecution? Why, bless my soul, you almost caught me red-handed. Always presuming that my hands were red.”
Mr. Falls’s face was habitually inscrutable and naturally the back of his head was entirely so. Dikon was walking behind him and felt himself to be at a loss. He tried to keep his voice as colourless as Mr. Falls’s own. “Quite so,” he said. “But I tell myself that as guilty person you might have shown more enthusiasm for Dr. Ackrington’s theory. No murder, no murderer.”
“Unbounded enthusiasm would hint at a lack of artistry, don’t you feel?”
“The others exhibited it,” said Dikon. Mr. Falls gave a little chuckle. “Yes,” he agreed, “their relief was almost tangible, wasn’t it? Now you, as the only one of the men with a really formidable alibi, were also the only man to exhibit scepticism.”
“Mr. Falls,” said Dikon loudly, “what’s your idea? Do you think he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“Murdered?”
“Oh, yes. Rather. Don’t you?”
By this time they had reached the borders of the thermal region. Remembering the lunar landscape of last night Dikon thought that by day it looked only less strange. There, in the distance, the geyser’s jet was, for a flash of time, erected like a plume in the air. Here, the path threaded its way between quaking ulcers; there, the white flags drooped from their iron standards. There, too, on the crest of the mound above Taupo-tapu, were Mr. Webley’s men, black figures against a sombre background, figures that stooped, thrust downwards, and then laboriously lifted.
“One can’t believe in things like this,” said Dikon under his breath.
Mr. Falls had very sharp ears. “Horrible, isn’t it?” he said. And again it was impossible to find in his voice the colour of his thoughts. He waved his stick. “The whole place,” he said, “is impossibly Doré-esque, don’t you feel?”
“I find it so difficult to believe that it’s entirely impersonal.”
“The Maori people make no attempt to do so, I understand.”
Now they had drawn close to the mound. Dikon said to himself: “It is nothing. Falls will hand over Webley’s authority and we shall walk quickly over the mound. I shall look at the path between Falls’s feet and my feet and in a moment it will begin to lead downhill. And then I shall know that my back is turned to Taupo-tapu. It is nothing.”
But as they climbed the mound the distance between them widened and Dikon didn’t hear what Falls said to the men. Why were they waiting? Why this long mumbled colloquy? He looked up. The path was steep on that side of the mound and his eyes were on a level with the men’s knees.
“Can’t we get on with it?” he heard himself say angrily.
One of the men pushed past him and stumbled down the path.
Falls said: “Wait a moment, Bell.” The man who had blundered down the path began to make retching noises.
The men on the top of the mound — there were two of them now beside Falls — squatted close to each other as if they held a corroborée. One of them let go a pitchfork he held and it rattled down the path. Falls stood up. His back was towards the light but Dikon saw that his face had bleached. He said: “Come on, Bell.” Although Dikon desired most passionately to turn and escape by the path along which they had come, his muscles sent him forward.
It would have been much worse, of course, if they hadn’t covered it, but, though the sack was thick, it was wet. It followed the shape beneath it in a hard eloquent curve. Dikon’s imagination found sockets in the shadows beneath the curve. One of the men must have pushed him forward.
Falls waited for him on the far side at the foot of the mound, but as soon as Dikon reached him he turned and led the way onwards to the gap in the manuka hedge. Here a man stood on guard.
Even when they were beyond the fence he could still hear the sound of Taupo-tapu, the grotesquely enlarged domestic sound of a boiling pot.
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 a
nd 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.”