Ngaio Marsh - Color Scheme

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.”

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.

As they approached Gaunt’s rooms, Colly came out staggering under the weight of a wardrobe trunk. Webley gave him that hard stare with which Dikon was to become so familiar. “You’d better take that thing away, Colly,” said Dikon.

“Take it away?” asked Colly indignantly. “I’ve only just brought it out. What am I supposed to be, sir? Atmosphere in the big railway-station scene or what?” He glanced shrewdly at Webley. “Pardon me, Chief-Inspector,” he said. “There’s no corpse in this trunk. Take a look if you don’t believe me, and don’t muck up our underwear. We’re fussy about details.”

“That’ll be quite all right, Colly,” said Webley. “Stay handy, will you? I’d like to have a yarn with you.”

“Rapture as expressed in six easy poses,” said Colly. “Yours to command,” He winked at Dikon. “If you’re looking for His Royal Serenity, sir,” he said, “he’s in his barf.”

“We’ll wait,” said Dikon. “In here, will you, Mr. Webley?” They waited in Gaunt’s sitting-room. Colly, whistling limpidly, staggered away under the trunk.

“That kind of joker’s out of our line in New Zillund,” said Webley. “He’s different from what you’d have thought. A bit too fresh, isn’t he? Not my idea of a vally.”

“Colly’s a dresser,” said Dikon, “not a valet. He’s been a long time with Mr. Gaunt, and I’m afraid he’s got into the way of thinking he’s a licensed buffoon. I’m sorry, Sergeant. I’ll just go and tell Mr. Gaunt you’re here.”

He had hoped to get one word in private with Gaunt, but Webley thanked him and followed him out on the verandah. “Going in for the treatment, is he?” he asked easily. “Just across the way, isn’t it? I’ve never taken a look at these Springs. Been here ten years and never taken a look at them. Fancy that!”

He followed Dikon across the pumice.

It was Gaunt’s custom before breakfast to soak for fifteen minutes in the largest of the pools, that which was enclosed by a rough shed. Evidently, Dikon thought, his new abhorrence of thermal activities did not extend to this particular bath.

Closely followed by Webley, Dikon went up to the bath-house and tapped at the door.

“Who the hell’s out there!” Gaunt demanded.

“Sergeant Webley to see you, sir.”

“Sergeant who ?”

“Webley.”

“Who’s he?”

“Harpoon police force, sir,” said Mr. Webley. “Very sorry to trouble you.”

There was no reply to this. Webley made no move. Dikon waited uncertainly. He heard a splash as Gaunt shifted in the pool. He had the idea that Gaunt was sitting up, listening. At last, in a cautious undertone, the voice beyond the door called him. “Dikon?”

“I’m here, sir.”

“Come in.”

Dikon went in quickly, closing the door behind him. There was his employer as he had expected to find him, naked, vulnerable, and a little ridiculous, jutting out of the vivid water.

“What is all this?”

Dikon gestured. “Is he there?” Gaunt muttered.

Dikon nodded violently and with an attempt at cheerfulness that he felt rang very false, said aloud: “The Sergeant would like to have a word with you, sir.”

He groped in his pocket, found an envelope and a pencil and wrote quickly: “It’s about Questing. They won’t let us go.” He went on talking as he showed it to Gaunt: “Shall I send Colly in, sir?”

Gaunt was staring at the paper. Water trickled off his shoulders. His face was pinched and looked old, the skin on his hands was waterlogged and wrinkled. He began to swear under his breath.

On the other side of the door Webley cleared his throat. Gaunt, his lips still moving, looked at the door. He grasped the rail at the edge of the bath and stood upright, a not very handsome figure, “He ought to say something,” Dikon thought. “It looks bad to say nothing.” Gaunt beckoned and Dikon stooped towards him but he seemed to change his mind and said loudly, “Ask him to wait. I’m coming out.”

The morning was warm and humid and the pool Gaunt had left was a hot one, but even when he was wrapped in his heavy bathrobe he seemed to be cold. He asked Dikon for a cigarette. Conscious always of Webley on the other side of the thin wooden wall Dikon forced himself to talk. “I’m afraid this appalling business is going to hold us up a bit, sir. I should have thought of it before.” Gaunt suddenly joined in. “Yes, a damned nuisance, of course, but it can’t be helped.” It all sounded horridly false.

They came out of the bath-house and there was Webley, “Hanging about,” thought Dikon, “like Frankenstein’s monster.” He walked up with them to the house and stayed outside Gaunt’s window while he dressed. Dikon sat on the edge of the verandah and smoked. The clouds that had blown up in the night were gone and the wind had dropped. Rangi’s Peak was a clear blue. The trees on its flanks looked as if they had been blobbed down by a water-colourist with a full and generous brush. The hill by the springs basked in the sun and high above it the voices of larks reached that pinnacle of shrillness that floats on the outer margin of human perception. The air seemed to hold a rumour of notes rather than an actual song. Three men came round the path by the lake. One of them carried a sack which he held away from him, the others, rakes and long manuka poles. They walked in Indian file, slowly. When they came nearer, Dikon saw that a heavy globule hung from the corner of the sack. It swung to and fro, thickened, and dropped with a splat of sound on the pumice, It was mud. The rake and the ends of the poles were also muddy.

He sat still, his cigarette burning down to his fingers, and watched the men. They came over the pumice to the verandah and Webley moved across to meet them. The man with the sack opened it furtively and the others moved between him and Dikon. Webley pushed his black felt hat to the back of his head and squatted, peering. They mumbled together. A phrase of Septimus Falls’s came into Dikon’s mind and nauseated him. Inside the house Barbara called to her mother. At once the group broke up. The three men disappeared round the far end of the house, carrying their muddy trophies, and Webley returned to his post by Gaunt’s window.

Dikon heard the creak of a door behind him. His nerves were on edge and he turned quickly; but it was only Mr. Septimus Falls standing on the threshold of his room.