Ngaio Marsh - Color Scheme

With this recital he bounded into popular favour. Dr. Ackrington, after a comparatively mild blast on the danger of withholding information, declared that Simon, by his vigil on the rock, had gone far towards proving that Questing was the signaller. If Questing was the signaller it was almost certain, said Dr. Ackrington, that the prints on the ledge were his prints. If these corresponded with the impression on the detached clod then they might well prove to be a determining factor.

“You may depend upon it,” cried Dr. Ackrington, “the damned blackguard’s a hundred miles away if he hasn’t got clean out to sea, and wherever he is, he’s wearing these blasted boots.”

Steps sounded outside, followed by a muffled grumble of voices. Dikon turned to look. Through the wide windows of the dining-room the men at the table watched Webley’s three assistants cross the pumice and come towards the verandah. Dikon was visited by a sensation of unreality, a feeling that the mental and physical experiences of this interminable morning were repeating themselves exactly. For the men walked in the same order that they had adopted when he last saw them. They carried again their muddy rakes and poles, and one of them held away from him a heavy sack from which a globule of mud formed and dropped. And just as, before, his heart had jolted against his ribs, so it jolted again. As the men drew near the verandah they saw the party in the dining-room. They paused and the two groups looked at each other through the open windows. A car came down the drive. Webley and an elderly man got out. The men with the sack moved towards them and again there was a huddled inspection.

Mrs. Claire and Barbara, who sat with their backs to the windows, followed the direction of their companions’ gaze, and half turned.

“Wait a moment, Agnes,” said Dr. Ackrington loudly. “Will you attend to me? Never mind the windows now. Mind what I say. Barbara, will you listen!”

“Yes, James.”

“Yes, Uncle James.”

They turned back dutifully. Dikon, sharing Dr. Ackrington’s desire that Barbara should not see the men outside, got to his feet and moved behind her chair. Dr. Ackrington spoke loudly and rapidly. Colonel Claire and his wife and daughter looked at him. The others made no pretence of doing so, and Dikon tried to read in their faces the progress of the men beyond the window.

“… I repeat,” Dr. Ackrington was saying, “that it’s as clear as daylight. Questing, having changed into workmen’s clothes and heavy boots, stamped away the clod from the path, threw his evening clothes into the cauldron and bolted. We were meant to presume accidental death.”

“I still think it was incredibly stupid of him to forget that he would leave prints,” said Dikon. He saw Simon’s eyes widen as he watched the men beyond the windows.

“He thought the clod would fall into the cauldron, Bell. If must be by the merest fluke that it did not do so.”

Simon’s hands were clenched. Falls raised an eyebrow. Dr. Ackrington himself, looking, as they did, beyond the windows, paused and then added rapidly: “If Questing is found before he gets clean away, he will be wearing hobnail boots. I’ll stake my oath on it.”

Simon was on his feet pointing. “Look!”

Now they all turned.

The group of men outside the window parted. Webley had taken something from the sack. He held it up. It was a heavy boot and it dripped mud.

They were all shown the boot. Webley brought it into the dining-room and displayed it, standing on a sheet of newspaper in the middle of the table, and exuding a strong smell of sulphur. He wiped away most of the mud. The surface of the leather was pulpy and greatly disfigured, some of the metal eyelets had fallen out and the upper had become detached in places from the sole. There were, however, still two hobnails in the heel, though the others had fallen out.

Webley wiped his large flat hands on a piece of rag and looked woodenly at his trophy.

“I’d be obliged,” he said, “if any of you ladies or gentlemen could put an owner on this. We’ve got its mate outside.”

Nobody spoke.

“We fished them out with a hay-fork,” Webley said. “Don’t any of you gentlemen recognize it?”

Dr. Ackrington made a brusque movement. “Yes, Doctor?” Webley said at once. “You were going to say something?”

“I believe — I think that quite possibly they were Questing’s.”

“His? But you told me he wore evening shoes, Doctor.”

“Yes. There’s a new development, however. My nephew — Perhaps we should explain.”

Simon cleared his throat. “I told them about it down at your show, Sergeant. It was during my investigation on the Peak.”

Dikon wondered if for a fraction of a second Webley had looked resigned, if his singularly inexpressive face had been blurred momentarily with the glaze of boredom. He passed his flat fingers over his jowl, stared at Simon and said: “Oh, yes?” Simon embarked with a great air of consequence upon an account of their visit to the Peak. He forgot to include Dikon in his recital. “The night before when I was out on the rock, I picked that Questing was signalling from this ledge on the Peak. That’s why I went straight up there yesterday morning. Soon as I got there I looked for footprints and did I find them! Two beauties. Squatting on his heels, he’d been, under the lee of the bank. Here! You let me have a look at the soles of the boots and I reckon I’ll tell you if they made these prints on the Peak. That’s a fair pop, isn’t it?”

Webley went out and returned with the second boot. It was further advanced in disintegration than its mate. He laid them on their sides with their soles towards Simon.

“Some of the sprigs are gone,” he said. “You can see where they’ve been, though. How about it?”

Simon leant forward portentously and stared at the boots. He counted under his breath and his face grew redder and redder.

“How about it?” repeated Webley.

“Give us a chance,” said Simon. He laughed uncomfortably. “I’ve just got to think. You know. You have to concentrate on a thing like this.”

“That’s right,” said Webley impassively.

Simon concentrated.

Gaunt lit a cigarette. “The young investigator seems to be going into a trance,” he said. “I don’t think I shall wait for the revelation. May I be excused?”

“Don’t you start being funny,” said Simon angrily. “This is important. You stay where you are.” Dikon took out his notebook and Simon pounced on it. “Here! Why didn’t you give me that before?” He ruffled the pages. “This is what I wanted all the time, Mr. Webley. I saw the significance of these prints right away and I got Bell to make a sketch of them. Wait till I find it.”

“Was Mr. Bell up there with you?”

“That’s right. Yes, I took him along as a witness. Here,” cried Simon in triumph, “here it is. Look at that.”

Dikon, having made the sketch, had a pretty clear recollection of the prints. He decided that they might have been made by the boots on the table. Such hobnails as remained, as well as the scars left by those that had fallen out, corresponded, he thought, with the impressions he had copied. Webley, breathing placidly through his mouth, shielded the sketch with his hand and compared it with his muddy exhibits. He looked at Dikon.

“Would you have any objection, Mr. Bell, to my taking possession of this page?”

“None.”

“That’ll be quite O.K., Mr. Webley,” said Simon magnificently.

“Much obliged, Mr. Bell,” said Webley and neatly detached the page.

Gaunt said: “And in what condition is our fugitive Questing now, Dr. Ackrington? Is he galloping away to some hide-out, dressed in dungarees and patent-leather pumps, or is he capering about in the rude nude?”