Ngaio Marsh - Color Scheme

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 died 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 hands on the table. “It was an accident. I won’t have anything else. An accident. An accident. He’s dead. Let him lie.”