“Smith!” said Gaunt. “Lord, what an anticlimax! They must be hard-up for cogs in the fifth-column set-up in this country if they found a job for Smith.”
“I’m afraid he is a very small cog,” replied Falls.
The Colonel said: “He’s been with us for years.”
“I am not entirely convinced,” said Dr. Ackrington importantly. “How are you so damned positive that Smith knew Questing was colour-blind? He may have believed the story of the sun-screen.”
“He was never told that story. According to Smith, Questing drove him to the crossing and showed him the light through the screen, which Smith said was green but which, as you see, is yellow. He’s not colour-blind, you know; he knew Questing wrote with green ink. The sun-screen story was invented after the murder, for our benefit. He had to explain why he had suddenly become friendly with Questing. He had to produce his precious letter. Above all things, we mustn’t know of Questing’s defective sight. His insistence, this morning, that Questing must have been right about the colour of Eru Saul’s shirt is only ex plicable in that light. Of course Questing gave Smith the real explanation of his failure to see the signal. Questing agreed to keep him quiet, and incidentally used him as a go-between in his curio hunts. All went well until Questing discovered him on the Peak and accused him of espionage. The goose that laid the golden eggs had to be killed.”
“Then the Maori theme,” said Dikon. “Eru Saul, the stolen adze, and the violation of tapu, were all subsidiary factors?”
“In a way, yes. Eru Saul told me that when he returned to the concert, after going for a drink with Smith, he heard Mr. Gaunt recite a speech about ‘old dug-outs being asleep while him and the boys waited for the balloon to go up.’ This seemed to me to be a recognizable paraphrase of ‘gentlemen in England now a-bed,’ which is part of the Saint Crispin speech. But Smith told us that as he returned to the hall he heard Mr. Gaunt shout a sentence which he rendered as: ‘Once more into the blasted breeches, pals.’ Unmistakably the opening line of the Agincourt speech, the last item in Mr. Gaunt’s recital, which he gave only after prolonged and enthusiastic demands for an encore.”
“Bert wouldn’t know,” Simon said. “He wouldn’t know. It’s all one to Bert.”
“There is a time lag of some five or six minutes between the beginning of the Crispian speech and the beginning of the Agincourt speech. Would you put it at that, Gaunt?”
“I think so,” said Gaunt automatically.
“Time enough for Smith to re-enter the doorway with his companions and, while all eyes were focussed on you, to slip out again and run to the reserve. Time enough, when he could not wrench it out, for him to kick the standard until it was loosened, and then drop it over the edge. Time enough to think of the evidence left by his boots and throw them overboard. Time enough to run back to the hall and be standing there, close by his friends, when the lights went up.” He turned to Simon. “You were with him after the concert?” Simon nodded. “Did you notice his feet?” Simon shook his head.
“Mr. Gaunt’s man was with you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Could we speak to him, I wonder?”
Webley nodded to the man at the door. He went out and returned with Colly.
“Colly,” said Mr. Falls. “What sort of boots was Mr. Smith wearing when you went home last night?”
“Not boots at all, sir,” said Colly instantly. “Soft shoes.”
“Did you walk over to the hall with him before the concert?”
“Yessir. We went over early with extra chairs.”
“Was he wearing shoes then?” Webley demanded.
Colly jumped and said: “You’re that small, Inspector, I never see you. No, he was wearing boots then. ’E took ’is shoes in ’is pocket, ’case we finished up with a dance.”
“Did he carry his boots home?” asked Webley.
“I never see them,” said Colly, and looked uneasy.
“O.K.”
Colly glanced unhappily at Simon and went out.
Webley walked over to the man at the door.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“In his room, Mr. Webley. We’re watching it.”
“Come on, then,” said Webley, and they went out, their boots making a heavy trampling sound that died away in the direction of Smith’s room.
Chapter XV
The Last of Septimus Falls
“It’s no good asking me to work up a grain of sympathy for him,” said Dikon. “There’s no capital punishment in this country now. He’ll spend the rest of his life in gaol, and a damned lucky let-off it is for him. He’s a dirty little spy and a still dirtier murderer. It’s poor old Questing I can’t bear to think about.”
“Oh, don’t.”
“I’m sorry, Barbara darling. No, I won’t call you ‘Barbara darling.’ In our giddy theatrical circles we call people ‘darling’ when we can’t remember their names. I shall call you something calmly Victorian. Barbara, love. Barbara, my dear. Now, don’t take umbrage. It doesn’t hurt you, and it gives me a certain hollow satisfaction. How far shall we walk?”
“To the sea?”
“My feet will turn into smouldering sponges, but I’m game. Come on.”
They walked on in silence under a pontifical sky.
“It seems more like a week ago than two days,” said Barbara at last.
“I know. Exit Smith in custody. Exit Mr. Septimus Falls in a trail of glory and soon, alas, exit us.‘”
“How soon?”
“He talks about next week. We’ve got to stay for the inquest. He’s much better, you know. Your anatomical uncle says he doesn’t think there will be a recrudescence of the fibrositis, which is, I consider, a magic phrase.”
“Where will he go?” asked Barbara in a flat voice.
“To London. He wants to take a company out on tour. The Bard in the blitz. Fit-ups. Play anywhere. It’s a grand idea,” said Dikon and added, “I’m leaving him.”
“Leaving him? But why?”
“To have one more shot at enlisting. If they won’t like me any better here than they did in Australia I shall return with Gaunt. There must be something for a blind bat to do. They say they use everybody at Home. I shall wear battle-dress, and sit in a black little cellar at the end of the longest passage of an obscure building, typewriting memoranda for a Minor Blimp. Will you write to me?”
Barbara didn’t answer. “Will you?” he insisted and she nodded.
“Fancy!” Dikon said after a moment. “There are tears in your eyes because he’s going and here am I, ready to howl like a banshee at the notion of leaving you. There’s no sense in it.”
Barbara stopped short and glared at him. “It’s not for that,” she said. “You’re not as sharp as I thought you were. It’s because— well, it’s partly because I’ve been living in a hollow mockery.” She brought this out in her old style, turning her eyes up and the corners of her mouth down.
“Don’t do that to your nice face,” said Dikon.
“I’ll do what I like with my face,” said Barbara with spirit. “If my face irritates you, you needn’t look at it. You talk about being fond of me but all you want to do is fiddle about with me until you’ve made me into a bad imitation of some beastly glamour girl.”
“No, honestly. Honestly not. I wouldn’t mind if you screamed at me because I sniff when I read and bite my nails. You can make one face after another with the virtuosity of a Saint Vitus and I shall still love you. Why have you been living in your ‘hollow mockery’?”