“Really? You mean a real Maori — not a pakeha-Maori?”
“Yes.”
“We, too, are strangers in New Zealand, you know. We have only been here for about thirty generations. We brought our culture with us and applied it to the things we found here. Our religion too, and our science, if we may be allowed to call it science.”
Alleyn looked at the magnificent head. Te Pokiha was a pale Maori, straight-nosed, not very full-lipped. He might have been a Greek or an Egyptian. There was an aristocratic flavour about him, a complete absence of anything vulgar or tentative in his voice or his movements. His speech, gravely formal, carefully phrased, suited him and did not seem at all pedantic or affected.
“Where did you come from?” asked Alleyn.
“From Polynesia, and before that perhaps from Easter Island. Perhaps from South East Asia. The tohunga and rangitira say that in the beginning it was from Assyria, but I think the pakeha anthopologists do not follow us there. Our teaching was not given to everybody. Only the learned and noble classes were permitted to know the history of their race. It was learnt orally and through the medium of the carvings and hieroglyphics. My grandfather was a deeply-instructed rangitira and I learned much from him. He was a survival of the old order and his kind will not be seen much longer.”
“Do you regret the passing of the old order?”
“In some ways. I have a kind of pride of race — shall we say a savage pride? The pakeha has altered everything, of course. We have been unable to survive intact the fierce white light of his civilisation. In trying to follow his example we have forgotten many of our own customs and have been unable wisely to assimilate all of his. Hygiene and eugenics for example. We have become spiritually and physically obese. That is only my own view. Most of my people are well content, but I see the passing of the old things with a kind of nostalgia. The pakeha give their children Maori Christian names because they sound pretty. They call their ships and their houses by Maori names. It is perhaps a charming compliment, but to me it seems a little strange. We have become a side-show in the tourist bureau — our dances — our art — everything.”
“Such as the little green tiki? I understand what you mean.”
“Ah — the tiki.”
He paused and Alleyn had the impression that he had been going to say more about the tiki but had stopped himself. It was growing dark. Te Pokiha’s head was silhouetted against a background of green hills and very dark blue mountains.
“To the north are Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe,” he said. “My grandfather would have told you that the volcanic fires of Ngauruhoe were caused by the youngest son of the Earth Mother who lay deep underground with her child at her breast. The fire was given him for comfort by Rakahore, the rock-god.”
They drove on in silence until the mountains were black against the fading sky.
“My house is not very far off now,” said Te Pokiha quietly. And in a minute or two they crossed a clanking cattle-stop and plunged into a dark tunnel where the head-lights shone on the stems of tree-ferns.
“I like the smell of the bush,” said Alleyn.
“Yes? Do you know I once did a very foolish thing. It was when I was at the House — my first year at Oxford, and my first year in England. I became very homesick and wrote in my letters of my homesickness. I said that I longed for the smell of burning bush-wood and begged them to send me some. So my father sent me a case of logs. It was a very expensive business as you may imagine, but I burnt them in my fireplace at the House and the smoke of Te-Ika-a-Maui hung over the famous Dreaming Spires.” He burst out laughing. “Ridiculous, wasn’t it?”
“Did you take your medical degree at home?”
“Yes, at Thomas’s. I was a thorough pakeha by that time — almost. Here we are.”
They pulled up in a wide open space before the dark shape of a long one-storied house. From the centre of the front wall projected a porch with a gable roof, and Alleyn saw that this porch was decorated with Maori carvings.
“An affectation on my part,” said Te Pokiha. “You may question the taste of joining an old-time porch on to a modern bungalow. At least the carving is genuine.”
“I like it.”
“You must see it by daylight. Come in.”
They dined in a pleasant room, waited on by an enormous and elderly Maori woman, who showed a tendency to join in the laughter when Alleyn cracked a modest joke. After dinner they moved into a comfortable living-room with an open fireplace where an aromatic log fire reminded Alleyn of Te Pokiha’s story. The furniture was of the solid smoking-room type — very English and non-committal. A mezzotint of Christ Church, Oxford, an undergraduate group or two, and a magnificent feather cloak decorated the walls.
When, after some excellent brandy, they had lit their pipes, Alleyn asked Te Pokiha if his practice was a general one.
“Oh, yes. When I first came back I had some idea of specialising in gynaecology, but I think it is the one branch of my profession in which my race would tell against me. And then, as I settled down, I began to see the terrible inroads made by civilisation in the health of my own people. Tuberculosis, syphilis, typhoid — none of them known in our savage days when ritual and health-giving dances, as well as strict hygienic habits, were enforced. So I came down to earth — brown earth — and decided that I would become a doctor to my own people.”
“I’m sure you do not regret your choice.”
“No. Though it is depressing to see how quickly a healthy race can degenerate. I am very busy — consulting-room hours in town, and a wide country beat. I am re-learning some of my own race history.”
And he related several stories about his Maori patients, telling them well, without too much emphasis. The time passed pleasantly in this fashion.
At last Alleyn put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the tiki. He put it on the arm of Te Pokiha’s chair.
“May we talk about the tiki?” he asked.
Te Pokiha looked at it with surprise.
“Does Miss Dacres not wish to accept it? Has she returned it to you?”
“No. I hope she will still accept it, though she may not wish to do so. At the moment it is by way of being used in evidence.”
“The tiki? What do you mean?”
“It was found in the gallery above the stage on the spot where the murderer must have stood.”
Te Pokiha gazed at him with something like horror in his eyes.
“That is — is most extraordinary. Do you know how it got there?”
“Yes. I believe I do.”
“I see.”
There was relief and something else — could it be disappointment? — in Te Pokiha’s voice. Then, suddenly, he leant forward:
“But it’s impossible — that lovely creature! No, there must be some mistake. I cannot believe it of her.”
“Of Miss Dacres? Why should you suspect Miss Dacres?”
“Why because I saw — but I do not suspect her.”
“Because you saw her slip it into her dress?”
“There is something very strange in this,” said Te Pokiha, staring at the tiki. “May I ask one question, Mr. Alleyn. Do you suspect Miss Dacres of murder?”
“No. I believe her to be innocent.”
“Then how did the tiki get there?”
“I’ll tell you presently,” said Alleyn. “It was strange, wasn’t it? Almost as though the tiki itself had taken a hand, don’t you think?”
“You ask a leading question,” said Te Pokiha, smiling. He had regained his poise completely, it seemed. “Remember I am a materialistic general practitioner.”
“You are also a rangitira,” answered Alleyn. “What would your grandfather have thought?”