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  “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 trad
ition 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 tempera
ment. 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.