by Ngaio Marsh
“Establish the identity of the man in the overcoat, don’t you think?”
“You mean — find the members of the party. To see… Yes, you’re quite right. For God’s sake let’s go back.”
“By all means let us go back,” said Mr. Falls. “But you know there was only one member of the party who wore an overcoat, and that was Mr. Questing.”
They had agreed to tell Mrs. Claire and Barbara that they had met nobody on the reserve and leave it at that. The short drive home was made ghastly by Mrs. Claire’s speculations on the origin of the scream. She was full of comfortable explanations which, Dikon felt, she herself did not altogether believe. The Maori people, she said, were so excitable. Always playing foolish pranks. “I expect,” she ended on a note that was almost tranquil, “they just thought they’d give us a good fright.”
Barbara, on the other hand, was completely silent. “It was in another age,” Dikon thought, “that I kissed her.” But he did not believe that it was because of the kiss that she was silent. “She knows something has happened,” he thought. It was a relief to hear Mrs. Claire say that after such a late night they must pop straight off to bed.
When they had returned to the Springs, Dikon let his passengers out and drove the car round to the garage. He saw Mrs. Claire and Barbara walk along the verandah towards their rooms. He parked the car and returned to find Mr. Falls waiting for him on the verandah.
They had agreed that Dr. Ackrington should be consulted. It was not until now that Dikon remembered how scattered the various departures from the concert had been. Mr. Questing’s enormities, Gaunt’s fury, and the Colonel’s disappearance seemed now to be profoundly insignificant. But he knew a moment’s unreasoning panic as they crossed the verandah to the dining-room. He didn’t know what he had expected to find but it was extraordinarily disconcerting to hear Gaunt’s voice, angrily scolding.
“I maintain, and anybody who knows me will bear this out, that I am an amazingly even-tempered man. But mark this: when I get angry I get angry and by heaven I’ll give him hell. ‘Do you realize,’ I shall say, ‘that I–I whom you have publicly insulted — have refused to make a concert-platform appearance before royalty? Do you realize…’ ”
Dikon and Mr. Falls walked into the dining-room. Gaunt was sitting on one of the tables. His hand was raised and his eyes flashed. Dikon had time to remark that his employer was now coasting on the down-grade of a bout of temperament. When he began to talk the worst was usually over. Beside him on the table stood a bottle of his own whisky to which he had evidently been treating Dr. Ackrington and Colonel Claire. The Colonel sat with a tumbler in his hand. His hair was ruffled and his mouth was not quite closed. Dr. Ackrington appeared to be listening with angry approval to Gaunt’s tirade.
“Come and have a drink, Falls,” said Gaunt. “I’ve just been telling them — ” He broke off and stared at his secretary. “And may I ask what’s the matter with you?”
They were all staring at Dikon. He thought: “I suppose I look sick or something.” He sat at one of the tables and, resting his head on his hand, listened to Mr. Falls giving an exact repetition of the story he had already told to Dikon. He was heard in utter silence and it was some time after he had finished that Dr. Ackrington said in a voice that seemed foreign to him:
“He may, after all, have returned. How do you know that he hasn’t returned? Have you looked?”
“By all means let us look,” said Falls. “Bell, perhaps you wouldn’t mind?”
Dikon went along the verandah to Mr. Questing’s room. The pearl-grey worsted suit was neatly disposed on a chair, ties that had a familiar look hung over the looking-glass, the bed was turned back and a suit of remarkably brilliant pyjamas with a violent puce motif was laid out. The room smelt strongly of the cream Mr. Questing had used on his hair and, indefinably, of him. Dikon shut the door and went on to look, with an unhurried precision that surprised himself, through any other rooms where Questing might conceivably be found. He could hear Simon practising Morse in the cabin and through the open door saw that he and Smith were together there. On his return he saw Colly cross the verandah with a suit of Gaunt’s over his arm. Dikon returned to the dining-room and again sat down at the table. Nobody asked him if he had seen Questing.
Colonel Claire said suddenly: “Yes, but I don’t understand why it should have happened.”
Mr. Falls was very patient. “A probable explanation might be that he walked too near the edge and it gave way.”
“The only explanation, surely,” said Dr. Ackrington sharply.
“Do you think so?” asked Mr. Falls politely. “Yes, perhaps you are right.”
“Would it be possible,” asked Dikon suddenly, “to branch off from the path and return to the pa by another route?”
“There you are!” cried Colonel Claire with childish optimism. “Why didn’t somebody think of that?”
“Utterly impossible, I should say,” said Dr. Ackrington crisply. “Where’s that boy? And Smith? They ought to know.”
“Dikon will find them,” said Gaunt. “God, this can’t be true! It’s monstrous, it’s unthinkable. I–I won’t have it.”
“You’ll have to lump it,” thought Dikon as he went off to the cabin.
They were still there. Dikon interrupted Simon in the middle of a heated dissertation on fifth columnists in New Zealand. The sinking of the ship, together with all the other crises of the past week, had been forgotten in this new and supreme horror, but now Dikon thought suddenly that if Questing had indeed been an agent, it would have been better for him to have faced discovery and a firing squad than to have met his fate in Taupo-tapu. He hold Simon briefly what they believed to have happened, and was inexpressibly shocked by the way he took it.
“Packed up, is he?” said Simon angrily. “Yeh, and now they’ll never believe me. What a bastard!”
“Cursing and swearing about the poor bastard when he’s dead,” said Mr. Smith reproachfully. “You ought to be bloody well ashamed of yourself.” He stirred uneasily and disseminated a thick spirituous odour. “What a death!” he added thickly. “Give you the willies to think about it, wouldn’t it?” He shivered and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “I had one or two over at the pa with the boys,” he explained needlessly.
Dikon was disgusted with both of them. He said shortly that they were wanted in the dining-room, and walked out, leaving them to follow. Simon caught up with him. “Bert’s not so good,” he said. “He’s had a couple.”
“Quite obviously.”
Smith lurched between them and took them by the arms. “That’s right,” he agreed heavily, “I’m not so good.”
When Dr. Ackrington questioned them about a possible means of returning to the Maori settlement by any route other than the flagged path, they said emphatically that it could not be done. “Even the Maoris,” said Smith, staring avidly at the whisky bottle, “won’t come at that.”
“You can forget it,” said Simon briefly. “He couldn’t do it.”
Gaunt, with a beautifully expressive gesture, covered his eyes with his hands. “This will haunt me,” he said, “for the rest of my life. It’s in here.” He beat the palms of his hands against his temples. “Indelibly fixed. Hag-ridden by a memory.”
“Fiddlesticks,” said Dr. Ackrington briskly.
Gaunt laughed acidly. “Perhaps I am exceptional,” he said with a kind of tragic airiness.
“Well,” said the Colonel most unexpectedly, “if you don’t mind, James, I think I’ll go to bed. I feel rather sick.”
“Good God, Edward, are you demented? Is it possible that you have ever been in a position of authority? When, as we are forced to believe, you were responsible for the conduct of a regiment, did you meet the threat of native uprisings by feeling sick and taking to your bed?”
“Who’s talking about native uprisings? The natives of this country don’t do that sort of thing. They give concerts and mind their own business.”
�
��You deliberately misconstrue my meaning. The threat of danger — ”
“But,” objected Colonel Claire, opening his eyes very wide, “we aren’t threatened with danger at the moment, James. Either Questing has fallen into a boiling mud cauldron, poor feller, in which case we can do nothing, or else, you know, he hasn’t, in which case there is nothing the matter with him.”
“Good God, man, we’ve an extremely grave responsibility.”
Colonel Claire said loudly: “What in heaven’s name do you mean?”
Dr. Ackrington beat the air with both hands. “If this appalling accident has happened — I say, if it has happened, then the police must be informed.”
“Very well, James,” said the Colonel. “Inform them. I am all for handing over to the proper authorities. Falls would be the one to do that, you know, because he almost saw it happen. Didn’t you?” he asked, gazing mournfully at Mr. Falls.
“I was not as close as that, I think,” said Mr. Falls. “But you are perfectly right, sir. I should inform the police. In point of fact,” he added after a pause, “I have already done so. While Bell was parking the car.”
They gaped at him. “I felt,” he added modestly, “that the responsibility of taking this step devolved upon myself.”
Dikon expected Dr. Ackrington to bristle at this disclosure, but it appeared that his enormous capacity for irritation was exhausted by his brother-in-law, upon whom he now turned his back.
“Is it remotely possible,” he asked Mr. Falls, “that the fellow came on here and has made off somewhere or another?” He looked hard at his nephew. “Such a proceeding,” he said, “would not be altogether out of character.”
“His car’s in the garage,” said Simon.
“Nevertheless he may have gone.”
“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” said Falls precisely. “If he followed the path I must have seen him.”
“And there was the scream,” Dikon heard himself say.
“Exactly. But I agree that we should form a search-party. Indeed, the police have suggested that we do so before they take any steps in the matter. I make one stipulation. Let us avoid the path past Taupo-tapu.”
“Why?” demanded Simon, instantly truculent.
“Because the police will wish to make an examination.”
“You talk as if it was murder,” said Gaunt loudly. Smith gave a violent snuffle.
“No, I assure you,” said Mr. Falls politely. “I only talk as if there will be an inquest.”
“You can’t have an inquest without a body,” said Simon.
“Can’t you? But in any case — ”
“Well!” Simon demanded. “What?”
“In any case there may be a body. Later on. Or part of one,” Mr. Falls added impassively.
“And now I’m afraid I really am going to be sick,” said the Colonel. He hurried out to the verandah and was.
The search-party was formed. The Colonel, having recovered from his nausea, astonished them all by offering to go to the Maori settlement and make inquiries.
“If they’ve got wind of it, as you seem to suggest, Bell, they’ll work themselves up into a state. In my experience, half the trouble with native people is not lettin’ them know what you’re up to. The poor feller’s been killed on their property, you know. That makes it a bit tricky. I think I’d better have a word with old Rua.”
“Edward,” said his brother-in-law, “you are incomprehensible. By all means go. The Maori people appear to understand you. They are to be congratulated.”
“I’ll come with you, Dad,” said Simon.
“No, thank you, Sim,” said the Colonel. “You can help with the search-party. You know the terrain, and may prevent anyone else falling into a geyser or somethin’.” He gazed in his startled fashion at Mr. Falls. “I don’t catch everything people say,” he added, “but if I understand you, he must be dead. I mean, why scream? And you say there was nobody else about. Still, you’d better have a look round, I suppose. I think before I go over to the pa, I’d better tell Agnes.”
“Need Agnes be told yet?”
“Yes,” said the Colonel, and went away.
As Mr. Falls still insisted that the section of the path above Taupo-tapu was not to be used, the only way to the native settlement was by the main road. It was agreed that the Colonel should drive there in Dr. Ackrington’s car, satisfy the Maori people, and organize a thorough search of the village. Meanwhile the rest of the party would explore the hills, thermal enclosures, and paths round the Springs. Dikon felt sure that none of them had the smallest expectation of finding Questing. The search seemed futile and horrible but he welcomed it as something that staved off for a time the moment when he would have to think closely about Questing’s death. He was busy shoving away from his thoughts the too vivid picture that formed itself about the memory of a falsetto scream.
It was decided that Dr. Ackrington should take the stretch of kitchen garden and rough paddock behind the house, Dikon the hill, Smith and Simon the hot springs, their surrounding path, and the rough country round the warm lake. Mr. Falls proposed to follow the path across the native thermal reserve until he came within a short distance of Taupo-tapu. The Colonel had suggested that Questing might have broken his ankle and fallen. Nobody believed in this theory. Gaunt said hurriedly that there seemed nowhere for him to go. “I am ready to do anything, anything possible, anything in reason,” he said, “but I am deeply shaken and if you can manage without me I shall be grateful.” They decided to manage without him. Dikon was uncomfortably aware that the other men had dismissed Gaunt as useless and that Simon, at least, had done so with contempt. He watched Simon speak in an undertone to Smith and was miserably angry when Smith glanced at Gaunt and sniggered. So far from being an understatement, Gaunt’s description of himself was, Dikon realized, accurate. Gaunt was profoundly shocked. His hands were unsteady and his face pinched. Lines, normally dormant, netted the corners of his eyes. It was not in Gaunt to conceal emotion but it was an error to suppose that because his distress was unchecked, it was not authentic.
Dikon set out along the path by the Springs to the hill. While they were indoors the moon had risen. Its light brought into strange relief the landscape of Wai-ata-tapu. Plumes of steam stood erect above the pools. Shadows were graved like caverns in the flanks of the hill, but while the higher surfaces, as it drawn in wood by an engraver, were strongly marked in passages of silver and black, the lower planes were wreathed in vapour through which rose manuka bushes, stiffly pallid. These, when Dikon brushed against them, gave off an aromatic scent. As always, in moonlight, there was a feeling of secret expectancy in the air.
Simon caught up with Dikon by the brushwood fence. “Here,” he said. “I want you.”
Dikon felt unequal to Simon but he waited. “Don’t you reckon we’re dopey if we let that bloke go off on his pat?” Simon demanded.
“Who are you talking about?” asked Dikon wearily.
“Falls. He seems to think he amounts to something, shooting out orders. Who is he anyway? If I got him right this morning when he did his stuff with the pipe he’s the bird that knows the signals. And if he knows the signals he was in with Questing, wasn’t he? He’s just a bit too anxious about his cobber, in my opinion. We ought to watch him.”
“But if Questing’s dead what can Falls, if he is an agent, do about it?”
“I’m not a mathematician,” said Simon obscurely, “but I reckon I can add up the fifth column when the answer’s two plus two.”
“But he telephoned the police.”
“Did he? He says he did. The telephone’s in Dad’s office. You can’t hear it from the dining-room. How do we know he used it?”
“Well, stop him if you like.”
“He’s lit off. Streaked away before we got started. Where’s his lumbago?”
“How the hell do I know! He’s shed it in your marvellous free sulphuric-acid baths,” said Dikon, but he began to feel uneasy.
“O.K., ca
ll me a fool. But you’re doing the hill. If I were you I’d keep a look-out across the reserve while you’re at it. See what Mr. Falls’s big idea is when he goes along the path. Why does he want to keep everyone off it except himself? How do we know he won’t go over the ground above the mud pot? Know what I reckon? I reckon he’s dead scared Questing dropped something when he took the toss. He’s going to look for it.”
“Pure conjecture,” Dikon muttered. “However, I’ll watch.”
Smith, like some unattractive genie, materialized out of a drift of steam. “Know what I reckon?” he began and Dikon sighed at the repetition of this persistent phrase. “I reckon it’s blind justice. After what he tried on me. I’d rather a train killed me than Taupo-tapu, by God. Give you the willies, wouldn’t it? What’s the good of looking for the poor bastard when he’s been an hour in the stock pot?”
Dikon swore at Smith with a violence that surprised himself. “It’s no good howling at me,” said Smith, “you can’t get away from the facts. C’mon, Sim.”
He moved on towards the lake.
“He reeks of alcohol,” said Dikon. “Is it wise to let him loose?”
“He’ll be O.K.,” said Simon, “I’ll keep the tags on him. You look after Falls.”
Dikon stood for a moment watching them fade into wraiths as they turned into the Springs’ enclosure. He lit a cigarette and was about to strike out for the hillcwhen he heard his name called softly.
“Dikon!”
It was Barbara in her red flannel dressing gown and felt slippers, running across the pumice in the moonlight. He went to meet her. “You called me by my first name,” he said, “so perhaps you’ve forgiven me. I’m sorry, Barbara.”
“Oh, that!” said Barbara. “I expect I behaved stupidly. You see, it hasn’t happened to me ever before.” And with an owlish imitation of somebody else’s wisdom she quoted: “It’s always the woman’s fault.”
“You little goat,” said Dikon unsteadily.
“I didn’t come out to talk about that. I wanted to ask you what’s happened.”
“Hasn’t your father—?”
