Ngaio Marsh - Color Scheme

“Well, sir,” said Webley, watching him carefully, “there’s no call to put it like that. At the same time, if you two gentlemen care to stroll over to the pa , I’m sure I’d be much obliged.”

“Splendid!” cried Mr. Falls gaily. “May we go by the short route? It will be much quicker and since, as I imagine, the cauldron is all set about with your myrmidons, neither of us will have an opportunity to add articles of evening dress to the seething mud. You could give us a chit to your men, no doubt.”

Greatly to Dikon’s astonishment, and somewhat to his dismay, Webley raised no objection to this project. Dikon and Mr. Falls set out, by the all too familiar path, for the native reserve. Mr. Falls led the way, limping a little it is true, but not, it seemed, greatly inconvenienced this morning by his lumbago.

“I must congratulate you,” he said pleasantly, “on the attitude you adopted at our rather abortive conference. You felt that our anatomist’s flights into the realms of conjecture were becoming fantastic. So, I must confess, did I.”

“You did!” Dikon ejaculated. “Then, I must say…” He stopped short.

“You were about to say that I didn’t contradict him. My dear sir, you saved me the trouble. You propounded my views to a nicety.”

“I’m afraid I find that difficult to believe,” said Dikon dryly.

“You do? Ah, yes, of course. You regard me as the prime suspect. Very naturally. Do you realize, Mr. Bell, that if I’m tried for murder, you will be the chief witness for the prosecution? Why, bless my soul, you almost caught me red-handed. Always presuming that my hands were red.”

Mr. Falls’s face was habitually inscrutable and naturally the back of his head was entirely so. Dikon was walking behind him and felt himself to be at a loss. He tried to keep his voice as colourless as Mr. Falls’s own. “Quite so,” he said. “But I tell myself that as guilty person you might have shown more enthusiasm for Dr. Ackrington’s theory. No murder, no murderer.”

“Unbounded enthusiasm would hint at a lack of artistry, don’t you feel?”

“The others exhibited it,” said Dikon. Mr. Falls gave a little chuckle. “Yes,” he agreed, “their relief was almost tangible, wasn’t it? Now you, as the only one of the men with a really formidable alibi, were also the only man to exhibit scepticism.”

“Mr. Falls,” said Dikon loudly, “what’s your idea? Do you think he’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“Murdered?”

“Oh, yes. Rather. Don’t you?”

By this time they had reached the borders of the thermal region. Remembering the lunar landscape of last night Dikon thought that by day it looked only less strange. There, in the distance, the geyser’s jet was, for a flash of time, erected like a plume in the air. Here, the path threaded its way between quaking ulcers; there, the white flags drooped from their iron standards. There, too, on the crest of the mound above Taupo-tapu, were Mr. Webley’s men, black figures against a sombre background, figures that stooped, thrust downwards, and then laboriously lifted.

“One can’t believe in things like this,” said Dikon under his breath.

Mr. Falls had very sharp ears. “Horrible, isn’t it?” he said. And again it was impossible to find in his voice the colour of his thoughts. He waved his stick. “The whole place,” he said, “is impossibly Doré-esque, don’t you feel?”

“I find it so difficult to believe that it’s entirely impersonal.”

“The Maori people make no attempt to do so, I understand.”

Now they had drawn close to the mound. Dikon said to himself: “It is nothing. Falls will hand over Webley’s authority and we shall walk quickly over the mound. I shall look at the path between Falls’s feet and my feet and in a moment it will begin to lead downhill. And then I shall know that my back is turned to Taupo-tapu. It is nothing.”

But as they climbed the mound the distance between them widened and Dikon didn’t hear what Falls said to the men. Why were they waiting? Why this long mumbled colloquy? He looked up. The path was steep on that side of the mound and his eyes were on a level with the men’s knees.

“Can’t we get on with it?” he heard himself say angrily.

One of the men pushed past him and stumbled down the path.

Falls said: “Wait a moment, Bell.” The man who had blundered down the path began to make retching noises.

The men on the top of the mound — there were two of them now beside Falls — squatted close to each other as if they held a corroborée. One of them let go a pitchfork he held and it rattled down the path. Falls stood up. His back was towards the light but Dikon saw that his face had bleached. He said: “Come on, Bell.” Although Dikon desired most passionately to turn and escape by the path along which they had come, his muscles sent him forward.

It would have been much worse, of course, if they hadn’t covered it, but, though the sack was thick, it was wet. It followed the shape beneath it in a hard eloquent curve. Dikon’s imagination found sockets in the shadows beneath the curve. One of the men must have pushed him forward.

Falls waited for him on the far side at the foot of the mound, but as soon as Dikon reached him he turned and led the way onwards to the gap in the manuka hedge. Here a man stood on guard.

Even when they were beyond the fence he could still hear the sound of Taupo-tapu, the grotesquely enlarged domestic sound of a boiling pot.

Strangely enough the sensation that was uppermost in Dikon’s mind was one of embarrassment. He would have to speak to Falls about what they had seen, and like a man who hesitates before making a speech of condolence he did not know how to form his phrases. Should he say: “I suppose that was Questing’s head under the sack”? Or, “That settles it”? Or: “That disposes of Ackrington’s theory, doesn’t it?” It was impossible to find the right phrase. He was so occupied with his preposterous difficulty and, at the same time, suffered such a violent feeling of nausea that he didn’t notice Eru Saul and was startled when Falls spoke to him.

“Hello,” said Mr. Falls. “Can you direct me to Mr. Rua Te Kahu’s house?”

Dikon thought that Eru must have been standing in a recess in the hedge, perhaps peering through the twigs, and that he had turned quickly as they came up to him. He was coatless, and wore his puce-coloured shirt. Bits of dry manuka stuck to it and to the front of his waistcoat.

Mr. Falls pointed the ferrule of his stick at the recess. “Can you see the working party from here?” He squinted through an opening in the manuka. “Ah, yes. Quite clearly.” He picked a twig off the front of Eru’s waistcoat. “Terrible affair, isn’t it?” he said. “And now, as we have a message for Mr. Te Kahu from the police, would you mind directing us?”

Eru said: “Have they found him?”

“ ‘A part of him.’ Forgive the inadvertent quotation. His skull, to be exact.”

“ ’Struth!” Eru whispered and showed his teeth. He turned and walked quickly up the path to the marae and they followed him. Old Mrs. Te Papa sat on the verandah floor with her back against the meeting-house wall. When she saw them she shouted something in Maori and Eru replied briefly. Her response was formidable. She flung up her hands and pulled her shawl over her face.

“ Aue! Aue! Aue! Te mamae i au! ” wailed Mrs. Te Papa.

“Good God!” cried Mr. Falls nervously. “What’s she doing?”

“I’ve told her,” said Eru sulkily. “She’s going to tangi .”

“To wail,” Dikon translated. “To lament the dead. Think of an Irish wake.”