Colour Scheme (24 page)

“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.”

“That is precisely where I differ from you,” said Dr. Ackrington crisply. “In my opinion Questing is very far from being dead.”

The sensation he had created seemed to mollify Dr. Ackrington. After a moment’s utter silence his hearers all started together to exclaim or expostulate. Dikon was visited by one of those chance notions that startle us by their vividness and their irrelevancy. He actually thought for a moment that Ackrington, of all people, had suggested some return from death. A horrific picture of a resurrection from the seething mud rose in his mind and was violently dismissed. From this fantasy he was aroused by Gaunt, who cried out with extraordinary vehemence: “You’re demented! What idiocy is this!” and by Falls who, with an air of concentration, raised his hand and succeeded, unexpectedly, in quelling the rumpus.

“I assure you,” he said, “if he was uninjured and moving, I must have seen him. But perhaps, Dr. Ackrington, you think that he was uninjured and still.”

“I see you take my point,” said Ackrington, who, as usual, seemed ready to tolerate Falls. “In my opinion the whole thing was an elaborately staged disappearance.”

“Do you mean he’s still hangin’ about?” cried the Colonel, looking acutely uncomfortable.

“Of course,” Mrs. Claire said, “we should all be only too thankful if we could believe…”

“Gosh!” said Simon under his breath. “I wish to God you were right.”

“Same here,” agreed Smith fervently. “Suit me all right, never mind what happened before.” His hand moved to the breast pocket of his coat. He opened the coat and looked inside. An unpleasant thought seemed to strike him. “Here!” he said angrily. “Do you mean he’s hopped it altogether?”

“I mean that taking into consideration the profound incompetence of the authorities, he has every chance of doing so,” said Ackrington.

“Aw, hell!” said Smith plaintively. “What do you know about that!” He laughed bitterly. “If he’s hooked it,” he said, “that’s the finish. I’m not interested.” The corners of his mouth drooped dolorously. He looked like an alcoholic and disappointed clown. “I’m disgusted,” he said.

“Perhaps we should let Dr. Ackrington expound,” Falls suggested.

“Thank you. I have become accustomed to a continuous stream of interruptions whenever I open my mouth in this household. However.”

“Do explain, dear,” said his sister. “Nobody’s going to interrupt you, old boy.”

“For some time,” Dr. Ackrington began, pitching his voice on a determined note, “I have suspected Questing of certain activities; in a word, I believe him to be an enemy agent. Some of you have been aware of my views. My nephew, apparently, has shared them. He has not seen fit to consult me and has conducted independent investigations of the nature of which I was informed, for the first time, last night.” He paused. Simon kicked his legs about and said nothing. “It appears,” Dr. Ackrington continued, “that my nephew has had other confidants. It would be strange under these circumstances if Questing, undoubtedly an astute blackguard, failed to discover that he was in some danger. How many of you, for instance, knew of his real activities on the Peak?”

“I know what he was up to,” said Smith instantly. “I told Rua, weeks ago. I warned him.”

“Of what did you warn him, pray?”

“I told him Questing was after his grandfather’s club. You know, Rewi’s adze. I was sorry later on that I’d spoken. I got Questing wrong. It was different, afterwards. He was going to treat me all right.” Again, his hand moved to the inside pocket of his coat.

“I too had spoken to Rua. I had received no satisfaction from the police or from the military authorities, and, wrongly perhaps, I conceived it my duty to warn Rua of the true significance of Questing’s visits to the Peak. Don’t interrupt me,” Dr. Ackrington commanded, as Smith began a querulous outcry. “I told Rua the curio story was a blind. I gather that unknown to myself, at least three other persons” — he looked from Simon to Dikon and Gaunt —“were aware of my suspicions. Simon has actually visited the police. As for you, Edward, I tried repeatedly to convince you…”

“Yes, but you’re always goin’ on about somethin’ or other, James.”

“My God!” said Dr. Ackrington quietly.

“Please, dear!” begged Mrs. Claire.

“Is it too much,” asked Gaunt on a high note, “to ask that this conversation should grow to a point?”

“May I interrupt?” murmured Falls. “Dr. Ackrington suggests that Questing, feeling that the place was getting too hot for him, has staged his own disappearance in order to make good his escape. We have got so far, haven’t we?”

“Certainly. Further, I suggest that he was lying in the shadows when you hunted along the path last night after the scream, and that as soon as you had gone he completed a change of garments. Doubtless he had hidden his new clothes in some suitable cache. He threw the ones he was wearing into Taupo-tapu and made off under cover of the dark. In support of this theory I draw your attention to a development of which Falls has acquainted me. They have salvaged Questing’s white waistcoat from Taupo-tapu. How could a waistcoat detach itself from a body?”

“It was a backless waistcoat,” Dikon muttered. “The straps might have gone. And anyway, sir, the chemicals in the thing…”

But Dr. Ackrington swept on with his discourse. “It is even possible that the person you, Falls, heard moving about when you returned was Questing himself. Remember that he could only get away by returning through the village or by coming on round the hill. No doubt he waited for everything to settle down. He acted, of course, under orders.” Dr. Ackrington coughed slightly and looked complacently at Falls. “My theory,” he said with a most unconvincing air of modesty, “for what it is worth.”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Uncle James,” said Simon instantly, “in my opinion it’s not so much a theory as a joke.”

“Indeed! Perhaps you’ll be kind enough…”

“You’re trying to tell us that Questing wanted to make a clean get-away. What was his big idea letting out a screech you could hear for miles around?”

“I had scarcely dared to hope that I would be asked that question,” said Dr. Ackrington complacently. “What better method could he employ if he wished to protect himself from interruption from the Maori people? Do you imagine that after hearing that scream, there was a Maori on the place who would venture near Taupo-tapu?”

“What about us?”

“It was sheer chance that kept Bell and your mother and sister and Mr. Falls behind. And, most important, please remember that it had been arranged that we should
all
pack into Gaunt’s car for the return journey. All, that is, except Questing himself, Simon and Smith. It was an unexpected turn of events when Gaunt, Edward, Falls and I all decided, separately, to walk. He had expected to be practically free from disturbance. The audience was leaving when Questing himself went out.”

“And what about this print?” Simon continued exactly as if his uncle had not spoken. “I thought the idea was that somebody had deliberately kicked the clod away. Bell’s pointed out that Questing wore pansy pumps.”

“Ah!” cried Dr. Ackrington triumphantly. “Aha!” Simon looked coldly at him. “Questing,” his uncle went on, “wished to create the impression that he fell in. If my theory is correct he will have made as great a change as possible in his appearance. Rough clothes. Workmen’s boots. He waits until he has changed his evening shoes for these boots and then stamps away the edge of the path.” Dr. Ackrington slapped the table and flung himself back in his chair. “I invite comment,” he said grandly.

For a moment nobody spoke, and then, to Dikon’s profound astonishment, one after another, Gaunt, Smith, the Colonel, and Simon, the last somewhat grudgingly, said that they had no comments to offer. It seemed to Dikon that the listeners round the table had relaxed. There was a feeling of expansion. Gaunt touched his forehead with his handkerchief and took out his cigarette case.

Obviously gratified, Ackrington turned to Falls. “You say nothing,” he said.

“But I am filled with admiration nevertheless,” said Falls. “A most ingenious theory and lucidly presented. I congratulate you.”

“What
is
it about the man?” Dikon wondered. “He looks all right, rather particularly so. His voice is pleasant. One keeps thinking he’s going to be an honest-to-God sort of fellow and then he prims up his mouth and talks like an affected pedagogue.” Out of patience with Falls, he turned to look at Barbara. He had tried not to look at her ever since she came in. Her pallor, her air of bewilderment, and the painful attentiveness with which she listened to everybody and said nothing seemed to Dikon almost unbearably touching. She was watching him now, anxiously, asking him something. She answered his smile with a shadowy one of her own. There was an empty chair beside hers.

“Dikon!
”

Gaunt had shouted at him. He jumped and looked round guiltily. “I’m sorry, sir. Did you say something to me?”

“Dr. Ackrington has been waiting for your answer for some considerable time. He wants your opinion on his solution.”

“I’m terribly sorry. My opinion?” Dikon thrust his hands into his pockets and clenched them. They were all watching him. “Well, sir, I’m afraid I’ve been completely addled by the whole affair. I can’t pretend to have any constructive theory to offer.”

“Then I take it you are prepared to accept mine?” said Ackrington impatiently.

Why had he got the feeling that they were bending their wills upon him, that they sat there boring into his mind with theirs, trying to compel him to something?

“What the devil’s the matter with you?” Gaunt demanded.

“Come, come, Bell, if you’ve nothing to say we must conclude you’ve no objection.”

“But I have,” said Dikon, rousing himself. “I’ve every objection. I don’t believe in it at all.”

He knew that his explanations sounded hopelessly inadequate. He heard himself stumbling from one feeble objection to another. “I can’t disprove it, of course, sir. It might be true. I mean, it’s all sort of logical but I mean it’s not based on anything.”

“On the contrary,” said Dr. Ackrington and his very mildness seemed to Dikon to be most disquieting, “it is based on the man’s character, on the circumstances surrounding him, and upon the undisputed fact that no body has been found.”

“It sounds so sort of bogus, though.” Dikon floundered about through a series of slangy phrases which he was quite unaccustomed to use. “I mean it’s the kind of thing that they do in thrillers. I mean he wouldn’t know there was going to be all that chat at the concert about the girl who fell in Taupo-tapu. Would he? And if he didn’t know that then he wouldn’t know about the scream keeping the Maoris away.”

“My good fool,” said Gaunt, “can’t you understand that the scream was introduced
because
of the legend? An extra bit of atmosphere. If he hadn’t heard the legend and the song he wouldn’t have screamed.”

“Precisely,” said Ackrington.

“Well, Mr. Bell?” asked Falls.

“Yes, that fits in, of course, but I’m afraid it all sort of fits too neatly for me. As if it was concocted, don’t you know? Like china packed too closely. No lee-way for jolts. I’m afraid my objections are maddeningly vague but I simply cannot
see
him hiding a disguise in an extinct geyser and tossing his boiled shirt into a mud pot. And then going off — where?”

“It is highly probable that a car was waiting for him somewhere along the road,” said Ackrington.

“There’s a goods train goes through at midnight,” suggested Smith. “He might of hopped onto that. Geeze, I hope you’re right, Doc. It’d give you the willies to think he was stewing over there, wouldn’t it?”

Mrs. Claire uttered a cry of protest and Ackrington instantly blasted Smith.

“Cut it out, Bert!” advised Simon. “You don’t put things nicely.”

“Hell, I said I hoped he
wasn’t
, didn’t I? What’s wrong with that?”

“If you are not satisfied with Dr. Ackrington’s theory, Mr. Bell,” said Falls, “can you suggest any other explanation?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I haven’t seen the print on the clod of mud, of course, but it seems to me it can’t be an old one if it suggests that somebody kicked the clod loose. If that’s so, it looks as if there has been foul play. And yet I’m afraid I don’t think Questing was drunk enough to fall in or even that it’s at all likely, if he did put his foot in the gap, that he would go right over. And it seems to be a very chancy sort of trap for a murderer to set, doesn’t it? I mean Simon might have gone over, or anybody else who happened to walk that way. How could a murderer reckon on Questing being the first to leave the concert?”

“You don’t think it was an accident. You can’t advance any tenable theory of homicide. You find my theory logical and yet cannot accept it. I think, Mr. Bell,” Dr. Ackrington summed up, “you may be excused from any further attempts to explain yourself.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Dikon sincerely. “I think I may.”

He walked round the table and sat down by Barbara.

From that moment the other men treated Dikon as an onlooker. It was impossible, they agreed, that in a homicide investigation the police could regard him as a suspect. He was with Mrs. Claire and Barbara when Questing screamed, he drove to the hall and had no opportunity to enter the thermal reserve either before, after, or during the concert. The fact that the path had been intact when the other men walked over to the village excluded him from any suspicion of complicity as far as the displaced clod was concerned. “Even the egregious Webley,” said Dr. Ackrington, “could scarcely blunder where Bell is concerned.” Dikon realized with amusement that in a way he lost caste by his immunity.

“As for the rest of us,” said Dr. Ackrington importantly, “I have no doubt that Webley, in the best tradition of the worst type of fiction, will suspect each of us in turn. For this reason I have thought it well that we should consult together. We do not know along what fantastic corridors his fancy may lead him but it is quite evident from certain questions that he has already put to
me
that he has crystallized upon the footprint. Now, did any of us wear boots or shoes with nails in them?”

Only Simon and Smith, it appeared, had done so. “I got them on now,” Smith roared out. “In my position you don’t wear pansy shoes. I wear working boots and I wear them all the time.” He hitched up his knee and planked a most unlovely boot firmly against the edge of the table. “Anybody’s welcome to inspect my feet,” he said.