Ngaio Marsh - Color Scheme

Dikon read on a little way, made an ejaculation and finally said: “No, by George, you shall hear it.” And he read the letter aloud.

Now, Mr. Bell, I am going to be very very frank with you. You may have understood from remarks that have been passed that I have become interested in certain possibilities regarding a particular district not ten miles distant from where you are located.

Mr. Falls murmured: “Enchanting circumlocution.”

“That’ll be the Peak,” said Webley, still watching him. “Quite.”

I have in the course of my visits made certain discoveries. To put it bluntly, on Friday last, the evening before the S.S. Hokianga was torpedoed off this certain place, I was on the latter and I observed certain suspicious occurrences. They were as follows. Being on the face overlooking the sea, my attention was arrested by a light which flashed several times from a spot some way farther up the slope. For personal reasons I was undesirous of contacting other persons. I therefore remained where I was, some nine feet off the track, lying behind some scrub. From here I observed a certain person, who passed by and was recognized by myself but who did not notice me. This morning, Saturday, I learnt of the sinking of the Hokianga and at once connected it with the above incident. I sought out the person in question and accused him straight out of being an enemy agent. He denied it and added that if I went any further in the matter he would turn the tables on myself. Now, Mr. Bell, this put me in a very awkward spot. My activities in this particular place have leaked out and there are some who have not hesitated, as I am well aware, to put a very very nasty interpretation on them. I am not in a position to right myself against any accusations this person might bring and in his position he is more likely to be believed than I am. I was forced to give an undertaking that I would not say that I had seen him. He adopted a very threatening attitude. I do not think he trusts me. I don’t mind admitting I’m uneasy. He seemed to think I had inside information about his code of signals, which is not the case.

Now, Mr. Bell, I am a man of my word but I am also a patriot. I venerate the British Commonwealth of Nations and the idea of a spy in God’s Own Little Country gets my goat good and proper. Hence this letter.

So it seems to me, Mr. Bell, that the best thing I can do is to fix up this little matter of business across the Tasman right away. I shall tell Mrs. C. I am going in the morning.

So I drop you this line which I shall post before taking the air for Aussie. You will note that I have kept my undertaking to this person and have not mentioned his name. I trust you, Mr. Bell, not to communicate the matter of this letter to anyone else, but to take what action you think best in all other respects.

Again expressing my appreciation for our very pleasant association.

With kind regards,

Yours faithfully,

Maurice Questing

Dikon folded the letter and gave it to Webley.

“ ‘ I do not think he trusts me ,’ ” quoted Mr. Falls. “How right he was!”

“Yes,” Dikon agreed and added, “He was right about another thing too. He was an appalling scamp, but I always rather liked him.”

Huia rang the luncheon bell.

Before they left the room Webley showed Dikon how Questing had already packed most of his clothes. Webley had forced open a heavy leather suitcase and found it full of pieces of greenstone, implements, and weapons; the fruits, he supposed, of many nights’ digging on the Peak. Rewi’s adze, Webley said, had been locked apart in another case. Dikon guessed that Questing had planned to show it to Gaunt when they returned from the concert and had kept it apart for that purpose.

“Do you suppose he meant to try and sell the other stuff in Australia?” he asked.

“That might be the case, Mr. Bell, but he would never have got it past the Customs examination. The export of such things is strictly prohibited.”

“Or perhaps,” Mr. Falls suggested, “he was merely a passionate collector. There are men, you know, who, without any real appreciation for such things, become obsessed with a most imperative desire to acquire them. Scrupulous in other things they are entirely unscrupulous in that.”

“He was a pretty keen man of business,” Dikon said.

“I’ll say he was,” said Webley. “We’ve found blueprints for a new Wai-ata-tapu hotel and grounds that’d make Rotorua look like Shanty-town. Wonderful place he’d planned to make of it.”

He put Questing’s letter in a large envelope, made a note of its contents across the back, and asked Dikon and Falls to sign it. They went out and he locked the door after them.

“Well,” said Dikon as they walked along the verandah. “I never quite believed he was a spy.”

“It seems to leave the field wide-open again, doesn’t it?” Mr. Falls murmured.

“For an enemy agent who is also a murderer?”

“It is a strong presumption. Have you any objection, Webley, to our making this new development known to the rest of our party?”

Webley was close behind them. Mr. Falls stopped and turned to await his answer. It was a long time coming.

“Well, no,” said Webley at last. “There’s no objection to that. I can’t exactly stop you, can I, Mr. Falls?”

“I mean, with an enemy in our midst, isn’t it a wise policy to put everyone on the alert as it were? Will you go in, Bell?”

“After you,” said Dikon.

“Mr. Falls and I,” said Webley, “are going to wash our hands. Don’t wait for us, Mr. Bell.”

Upon this sufficiently broad hint, Dikon went in to lunch.

The rest of the party was already seated. Dikon joined his employer. Dr. Ackrington and the Claires, with the exception of Simon, were at the large family table. Simon sat apart with his friend Mr. Smith. Mr. Falls, when at last he and Webley came in, went to his own table close by.

“Do you mind if I join you, sir?” said Webley and did so.

“But I am honoured, Sergeant. As my guest, I hope?”

“No, no, sir, thanking you, all the same,” said Webley. “I see there’s a place laid, that’s all.”

He had made a mistake, it seemed. There was no second place laid at Mr. Falls’s table but Huia, still very woebegone, rectified this, and he sat down.

“Nice of you to join me, Dikon,” said Gaunt loudly. “I appear to be in disgrace.”

Barbara turned her head swiftly and as swiftly looked away again.

“I forgot to say,” Gaunt added, “that Questing asked fifty guineas for the adze. I shall always wonder if the price was excessive. I must ask the embarrassing old gentleman.”

Nobody answered this sally. Gaunt thrust out his chin and gave Dikon one of his hard bright glances.

Luncheon went forward in a silence that was only broken by Sergeant Webley’s conscientious attention to his food. At an early stage of this uncomfortable meal Dikon, who faced the windows, saw two of Webley’s men come round the shoulder of the hill carrying a covered stretcher between them. They disappeared behind the manuka hedge, taking the roundabout path to the cabins. This unmistakable incident killed what little appetite he had. In a minute or two the men, without their burden, appeared on the verandah. Here they were joined by a young man in grey flannel trousers and a sports coat whom Dikon had no difficulty in recognizing as a representative of the press. This new arrival, with an air of innocent detachment, stared in at the windows. Webley looked at him with lack-lustre eyes and shook his head. The two plain-clothes men hung about near the door. The pressman sat on the verandah step and lit his pipe. The party in the dining-room, though aware of these proceedings, paid no attention to them. “The resemblance to the monkey-house at feeding time grows more pronounced every second,” thought Dikon. Huia collected the plates and, when Mrs. Claire was not watching her, tipped uneaten pieces of cold meat onto one dish. As if by agreement, Mrs. Claire and Barbara went out together.