He paused. Dikon thought: “There’s no need for him to continue. I know what he’s going to say.”
“I ran along this track,” said Mr. Falls, “until I reached the top of the hillock. There was nobody there. I ran down the far side and called. There was no answer.”
He paused again, and Dikon said: “I didn’t hear you.”
“The hillock was between us… I turned and looked back and it was then I remembered that the path on the crest of the hillock was broken. I was aware of it all the time, but I had attached no significance to it and had taken the small gap in my stride. I was flashing my torch here and there, you see, and at this moment it happened to catch the raw edge. I returned. As you see, the hillock falls away in a steep bank immediately above the big mud pot. Taupo-tapu, they call it, don’t they? The path runs along the edge of this bank. Look.”
He flashed his torch-light, a very powerful beam, on the crest of the hillock. Dikon could see clearly where the gap had eaten into the path. The inside of his mouth was dry. “Then… it had happened?” he said.
“Of course I looked down. I suppose I expected to see something unspeakable. There was nothing, you understand. Nothing at all.”‘
“Yes — but...”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. The rings and blisters formed and broke. The mud has a kind of lustre at night. I then followed the path right over to the big hill above the Springs. I went almost to the house but there was nobody. I came back here and saw you walking towards me.”
Whether by accident or design, Mr. Falls switched on his torch and its strong beam shone full in Dikon’s eyes. He moved his head but the light followed him. He said thickly: “I’m going up there. To look.”
“I think you had better not do that,” said Mr. Falls.
“Why?”
“It should be left undisturbed. We can do nothing.”
“But you’ve already disturbed it.”
“Not more than I could help. Very little. Believe me, we can do nothing here.”
“It’s all a mistake,” said Dikon violently. “It means nothing. The path may have fallen in a week ago.”
“You forget that we came that way to the concert. It has fallen in since then.”
“Since you know all the answers,” said Dikon unevenly, “perhaps you’ll tell me what we do next. No, I’m sorry. I expect you’re right. Actually, what do we do next?”
“Establish the identity of the man in the overcoat, don’t you think?”
“You mean — find the members of the party. To see… Yes, you’re quite right. For God’s sake let’s go back.”
“By all means let us go back,” said Mr. Falls. “But you know there was only one member of the party who wore an overcoat, and that was Mr. Questing.”
They had agreed to tell Mrs. Claire and Barbara that they had met nobody on the reserve and leave it at that. The short drive home was made ghastly by Mrs. Claire’s speculations on the origin of the scream. She was full of comfortable explanations which, Dikon felt, she herself did not altogether believe. The Maori people, she said, were so excitable. Always playing foolish pranks. “I expect,” she ended on a note that was almost tranquil, “they just thought they’d give us a good fright.”
Barbara, on the other hand, was completely silent. “It was in another age,” Dikon thought, “that I kissed her.” But he did not believe that it was because of the kiss that she was silent. “She knows something has happened,” he thought. It was a relief to hear Mrs. Claire say that after such a late night they must pop straight off to bed.
When they had returned to the Springs, Dikon let his passengers out and drove the car round to the garage. He saw Mrs. Claire and Barbara walk along the verandah towards their rooms. He parked the car and returned to find Mr. Falls waiting for him on the verandah.
They had agreed that Dr. Ackrington should be consulted. It was not until now that Dikon remembered how scattered the various departures from the concert had been. Mr. Questing’s enormities, Gaunt’s fury, and the Colonel’s disappearance seemed now to be profoundly insignificant. But he knew a moment’s unreasoning panic as they crossed the verandah to the dining-room. He didn’t know what he had expected to find but it was extraordinarily disconcerting to hear Gaunt’s voice, angrily scolding.
“I maintain, and anybody who knows me will bear this out, that I am an amazingly even-tempered man. But mark this: when I get angry I get angry and by heaven I’ll give him hell. ‘Do you realize,’ I shall say, ‘that I–I whom you have publicly insulted — have refused to make a concert-platform appearance before royalty? Do you realize…’ ”
Dikon and Mr. Falls walked into the dining-room. Gaunt was sitting on one of the tables. His hand was raised and his eyes flashed. Dikon had time to remark that his employer was now coasting on the down-grade of a bout of temperament. When he began to talk the worst was usually over. Beside him on the table stood a bottle of his own whisky to which he had evidently been treating Dr. Ackrington and Colonel Claire. The Colonel sat with a tumbler in his hand. His hair was ruffled and his mouth was not quite closed. Dr. Ackrington appeared to be listening with angry approval to Gaunt’s tirade.
“Come and have a drink, Falls,” said Gaunt. “I’ve just been telling them — ” He broke off and stared at his secretary. “And may I ask what’s the matter with you?”
They were all staring at Dikon. He thought: “I suppose I look sick or something.” He sat at one of the tables and, resting his head on his hand, listened to Mr. Falls giving an exact repetition of the story he had already told to Dikon. He was heard in utter silence and it was some time after he had finished that Dr. Ackrington said in a voice that seemed foreign to him:
“He may, after all, have returned. How do you know that he hasn’t returned? Have you looked?”
“By all means let us look,” said Falls. “Bell, perhaps you wouldn’t mind?”
Dikon went along the verandah to Mr. Questing’s room. The pearl-grey worsted suit was neatly disposed on a chair, ties that had a familiar look hung over the looking-glass, the bed was turned back and a suit of remarkably brilliant pyjamas with a violent puce motif was laid out. The room smelt strongly of the cream Mr. Questing had used on his hair and, indefinably, of him. Dikon shut the door and went on to look, with an unhurried precision that surprised himself, through any other rooms where Questing might conceivably be found. He could hear Simon practising Morse in the cabin and through the open door saw that he and Smith were together there. On his return he saw Colly cross the verandah with a suit of Gaunt’s over his arm. Dikon returned to the dining-room and again sat down at the table. Nobody asked him if he had seen Questing.
Colonel Claire said suddenly: “Yes, but I don’t understand why it should have happened.”
Mr. Falls was very patient. “A probable explanation might be that he walked too near the edge and it gave way.”
“The only explanation, surely,” said Dr. Ackrington sharply.
“Do you think so?” asked Mr. Falls politely. “Yes, perhaps you are right.”
“Would it be possible,” asked Dikon suddenly, “to branch off from the path and return to the pa by another route?”
“There you are!” cried Colonel Claire with childish optimism. “Why didn’t somebody think of that?”