Colour Scheme Page 22

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

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

  ‘Do you mean Sergeant Webley?’ asked Falls.

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

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

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

  ‘And what are you going to do about it?’ asked Gaunt offensively.

  ‘I intend to call a meeting.’

  ‘Good God, how perfectly footling!’

  ‘And why, may I ask you? Why?’

  ‘Does somebody propose somebody else as a murderer? Or what?’

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

  ‘I should like to know precisely what you mean by that, Ackrington.’

  ‘Come,’ said Falls. ‘Nothing is gained by losing our tempers.’

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

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

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

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Falls, ‘I shall certainly attend.’

  ‘And I,’ said Dikon.

  ‘Obviously,’ said Gaunt, ‘I had better be there, if only to protect myself.’

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

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

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

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

  ’I fancy it is a summons to the conference,’ said Falls placidly. ‘Shall we go in?’

  VI

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

  ‘Very rum,’ agreed Mr Falls sedately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘We heard you, James,’ said Colonel Claire mildly, ‘the first time.’

  ‘Then why don’t you say something?’

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

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

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

  ‘You said alleged,’ Mr Falls reminded Dr Ackrington pacifically.

  ‘I did. Advisedly.’

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

  ‘Habeas corpus?’ suggested Colonel Claire dimly.

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

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

  ‘Cut it out, Bert,’ Simon muttered.

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

  ‘Perhaps I may be allowed to continue,’ said Dr Ackrington coldly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Sim, dear!’

  ‘All right, all right. Nothing,’ said Simon and relapsed into his chair.

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

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

  ‘Falls,’ said Dr Ackrington, ‘is it too much to ask you to put forward your theory once more?’

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

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

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

  Chapter 11

  The Theory of a 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 had 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 had 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!’ begge
d 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 getaway. 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?’