“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.”
Chapter XI
The Theory of the Put-up Job
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.