“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.
“Thank you so much,” Gaunt murmured. “No. Definitely no.”
“That goes for me,” said Simon. “I’ve got three pairs. They can look at the lot for mine.”
“Very well,” said Dr. Ackrington. “Next, they require to know our movements. Perhaps each of us has already been asked to account for himself. You, Agnes, and you, Barbara, are naturally not personally involved. Nevertheless you may be questioned about us. You should be prepared.”
“Yes, dear. But if we are asked any questions we tell the truth, don’t we? It’s so simple,” said Mrs. Claire, opening her eyes very wide, “just to tell the truth, isn’t it?”
“Possibly. It’s the interpretation this incubus may put upon the truth that should concern us. When I tell you that he has three times taken me through a recital of my own movements and has not made so much as a single note upon my theory of disappearance, you may understand my anxiety.”
“Won’t he listen to the idea?” asked Gaunt anxiously and then added at once: “No. No. He questioned me in the same way. He suspects one of us.” And looking from one to another he repeated: “He suspects one of us. We’re in danger.”
“I think you underrate Webley,” said Falls. “I must confess that I cannot see why you are so anxious. He is following police procedure, which, of necessity, may be a little cumbersome. After all Questing has gone and the manner of his going must be investigated.”
“Quite right,” said the Colonel. “Very sensible. Matter of routine. What I told you, James.”
“And in the absence of motive,” Mr. Falls continued, and was interrupted by Dr. Ackrington.
“Motive!” he shouted. “Absence of motive! My dear man, he will find the path to Taupo-tapu littered with alleged motives. Even I — I am suspect if it comes to motive.”
“Good Lord,” said the Colonel, “I suppose you are, James! You’ve been calling the chap a spy and saying shootin’ was too good for him for the last three months or more!”
“And what about you, my good Edward? I imagine your position is fairly well-known by this time.”
“James! Please!” cried Mrs. Claire.
“Nonsense, Agnes. Don’t be an ostrich. We all know Questing had Edward under his thumb. It’s common gossip.”
Gaunt shook a finger at Simon. “And what about you?” he said. “You come into the picture, don’t you?” He glanced at Barbara, and Dikon wished most profoundly that he had never confided in him.
Simon said quickly: “I’ve never tried to make out I liked him. He was a traitor. If he’s cleared out I hope they get him. The police know what I thought about Questing. I’ve told them. And if I’m in the picture so are you, Mr. Gaunt. You looked as if you’d like to scrag him yourself after he’d finished his little speech last night.”
“That’s fantastically absurd, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to — God, I can’t even bear to think of it.”
“The police won’t worry about how you think, Mr. Gaunt. It’s the way you acted that’ll interest them.”
“Too right,” said Smith rather smugly. Gaunt instantly turned on him.
“What about you and your outcry?” said Gaunt. “Three weeks ago you were howling attempted murder and breathing revenge.”
“I’ve explained all that,” shouted Smith in a great hurry. “Sim knows all about that. It was a misunderstanding. Him and me were cobbers. Here, don’t you go dragging that up and telling the police I threatened him. That’d be a nasty way to behave. They might go thinking anything, mightn’t they, Sim?”
“I’ll say.”
“Naturally, they’ll have their eye on you,” said Gaunt with some enjoyment. “I should say they’ll be handing you the usual warning in less than no time.”
Smith’s eyes filled with tears. He thrust a shaking hand into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a sheet of paper which he flung onto the table. “Look at it!” he cried. “Look at it. Him and me were cobbers. Gawd spare me days, we buried the bloody hatchet, Morry Questing and me. That’s what he was going to do for me. Look at it. Written out by his own hand in pansy green ink. Pass it round. Go on.”
They passed it round. It was a signed statement written in green ink. The Colonel at once recognized the small business-like script as Questing’s. It undertook, in the event of Questing becoming the proprietor of Wai-ata-tapu, that the bearer, Herbert Smith, would be given permanent employment as outside porter at a wage of five pounds a week and keep.
“You must have made yourself very unpleasant to extract this,” said Gaunt.
“You bet your boots I did!” said Mr. Smith heartily. “I got him while my bruises were still bad. They were bad, too, weren’t they, Doc?”
Dr. Ackrington grunted. “Bad enough,” he said.
“Yeh, that’s right. ‘You owe it to me, Questing,’ I said and then he drove me over to the level crossing and showed me how it happened, him looking through the coloured sun-screen at the light. ‘That may be a reason but it’s no excuse,’ I said. ‘I could make things nasty for you and you know it.’ So then he asks me what I want and after a bit he comes across with this contract. After that we got on well. And now, what’s it worth? Dead or bolted it makes no odds, me contract’s a wash-out.”