With a faint smile Mr. Falls looked from one face to another. After an uncomfortable interval, Gaunt, Dr. Ackrington, and Dikon all spoke together. “Yes, of course,” they said impatiently. “Of course,” Dr. Ackrington added. “But I must tell you at the outset, Falls, that if you concur with the official view of this case, I utterly disagree with you. However I merely wish to warn you of the possible, the almost inevitable blunders that will be perpetrated by this person. If he is to be in charge of this case I consider that none of us is safe.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” asked Gaunt offensively.
“I intend to call a meeting.”
“Good God, how perfectly footling!”
“And why, may I ask? Why?”
“Does somebody propose somebody else as a murderer? Or what?”
“You are facetious, sir,” said Dr. Ackrington furiously. “I confess that I did not expect to find you so confident of your own immunity.”
“I should like to know precisely what you mean by that, Ackrington.”
“Come,” said Falls. “Nothing is gained by losing our tempers.”
“Nor by the merciless introduction of clichés,” Gaunt retorted, darting his head at him.
“Are you in there, James?” asked Colonel Claire. His face, slightly distorted, was pressed against the window-pane.
“I’m coming.” Dr. Ackrington surveyed his audience of three. “It is my duty,” he said grandly, “to inform you that Webley has apparently been recalled to Harpoon. His men have returned to the reserve. At the moment we are not under direct supervision and I suggest that we lose no time in discussing our position. We are meeting in the dining-room in ten minutes. After this conversation I cannot, I imagine, expect to see you there.”
“On the contrary,” said Falls, “I shall certainly attend.”
“And I,” said Dikon.
“Obviously,” said Gaunt, “I had better be there, if only to protect myself.”
“I am delighted that you recognize the necessity,” said Dr. Ackrington. “Coming, Edward.” He joined his brother-in-law on the verandah.
Mr. Falls did not follow him. To Dikon’s embarrassment he stayed and listened with the air of a connoisseur to Gaunt’s renewed display of temper. Gaunt had never been averse to an audience at these moments but on this occasion he seemed to be unaware of anyone but Dikon, who received the full blast of his displeasure. He was told that he had bungled the whole affair, that he should never have allowed Webley an interview, that he was totally indifferent to Gaunt’s agony of mind. Never before had Dikon found his employer so unreasonably abusive. His own feeling of apprehension mounted with each intemperate phrase. He was ashamed of Gaunt.
This uncomfortable display was brought to an end by a sudden and unnerving clangour outside the window. Huia was performing with vigour upon the dinner bell. Gaunt, abominably startled, uttered a loud oath.
“Is that lunch?” exclaimed Dikon, who had himself been shaken. “Now I come to think of it,” he added, “I forgot to have breakfast.”
“I fancy it is a summons to the conference,” said Falls placidly. “Shall we go in?” vi
Three of the small dining-tables had been shoved together and at the head of them sat Dr. Ackrington with the Colonel, looking miserable, on his right hand. Simon and Smith sat together at the far end. Simon looked mulish and Smith foggily disgusted. Dr. Ackrington pointed portentously to the chairs on his left. Dikon and Falls sat together; Gaunt, like a sulky schoolboy, took the chair farthest removed from everyone else. The Colonel, evidently feeling that the silence was oppressive, suddenly ejaculated: “Rum go, what?” and seemed alarmed at the sound of his own voice.
“Very rum,” agreed Mr. Falls sedately.
Mrs. Claire and Barbara came in. They wore their best dresses, together with hats and gloves, and they carried prayer-books. They contrived to disseminate an atmosphere of English Sunday morning. There was a great scraping of chairs as the men got up. Smith and Simon seemed to grudge this small courtesy, and looked foolish.
“I’m so sorry if we are late, dear,” said Mrs. Claire. “Everything was a little disorganized this morning.” She began to peel the worn gloves from her plump little hands and looked about her with an air of brisk expectancy. Dikon remembered with a start that she conducted a Sunday school in the native village. “We had to come and go by the long way,” she explained.
Barbara went off with the prayer-books and returned, without her hat, looking scared.
“Well, sit down, Agnes, sit down,” Dr. Ackrington commanded. “Now that you have come. Though why the devil you elected to traipse off… However! I imagine that you had no pupils.”
“Not a very good attendance,” said Mrs. Claire gently, “and I’m afraid they were rather inattentive, poor dears.”
Dikon was amazed to see that she was quite unruffled. She sat beside her husband and looked brightly at her brother. “Well, dear?” she asked.
Dr. Ackrington grasped the edge of the table with both hands and leant back in his chair.
“It seems to me,” he began, “it is essential that we, as a group of people in extraordinary circumstances, should understand one another. I, and I have no doubt all of you, have been subjected to a cross-examination from a person who, I am persuaded, is grossly unfit for his work. I am afraid my opinion of the local police force has never been a high one and Sergeant Webley has said and done nothing to alter it. I may state that I have formed my own view of this case. A brief inspection of the scene of the alleged tragedy would possibly confirm this view but Sergeant Webley, in his wisdom, sees fit to deny me access to the place. Ha!”
He paused, and Mrs. Claire, evidently feeling that he expected an answer, said: “Fancy, dear! What a pity, yes.”
Dr. Ackrington looked pityingly at his sister. “I said ‘the alleged tragedy,’ ” he pronounced. “The alleged tragedy.” He glared at them.
“We heard you, James,” said Colonel Claire mildly, “the first time.”
“Then why don’t you say something?”
“Perhaps, dear,” said his sister, “it’s because you speak so loudly and look so cross. I mean,” she went on with an apologetic cough, “one thinks to oneself: ‘How cross he is and how loudly he speaks,’ and then, you know, one forgets to listen. It’s confusing.”
“I was not aware,” Dr. Ackrington shouted, and checked himself. “Very well, Agnes,” he said, dropping his voice to an ominous monotone. “You desire a continuation of the mealy-mouthed procedure of your Sunday school. You shall have it. With a charge of homicide hanging over all our heads, I shall smirk and whisper my way through this meeting and perhaps you will manage to listen to me.”
“ ‘I will roar you,’ ” thought Dikon, “ ‘as ’twere any nightingale.’ ”
“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?”