Dikon said in a voice of ice: “But it’s quite impossible, sir.”

“What the devil do you mean!”

“There’s no parity between Barbara Claire and an understudy at the Unicorn.”

“I should damn well say there wasn’t. The other little person had quite a lot to start with. She was merely incredibly vulgar.”

“Which Barbara Claire is not,” said Dikon. He looked at his employer, noted his air of peevish complacency and went on steadily. “Honestly, sir, the Claires would never understand. You know what they’re like. A comparative stranger to offer their daughter clothes!”

“Why the hell not?”

“It just isn’t done in their world.”

“You’ve become maddeningly class-conscious all of a sudden, my good Dikon. What is their world, pray?”

“Shall we say proudly poor, sir?”

“The suspicious-genteel, you mean. The incredibly, the insultingly stupid bourgeoisie who read offence in a kindly impulse. You wish me to understand that these people would try to snub me, don’t you?”

“I think they would be very polite,” Dikon said, and tried not to sound priggish, “but it would, in effect, be a snub. I’m sure they would understand that your impulse was a kind one.”

Gaunt’s face had bleached. Dikon, who knew the danger signals, wondered in a panic if he was about to lose his job. Gaunt walked to the door and looked out. With his back still turned to his secretary he said: “You will go into Harpoon and give the order over the telephone. The bill is to be sent to me, and the parcel to be addressed to Miss Claire. Wait a moment.” He went to his desk and wrote on a slip of paper. “Ask them to write out this message and put it in the parcel. No signature, of course. You will go at once, if you please.”

“Very well, sir,” said Dikon.

Filled with the liveliest misgivings he went out to the car. Simon was in the garage. Gaunt had been granted a traveller’s petrol license and Simon had offered to keep the magnificent car in order. Gloating secretly, he would spend hours over slight adjustments; cleaning, listening, peering.

“I still reckon we might advance the spark a bit,” he said without looking at Dikon.

“I’m going into Harpoon,” said Dikon. “Would you care to come?”

“I don’t mind.”

Dikon had learnt to recognize this form of acceptance. “Jump in then,” he said. “You can drive.”

“I won’t come at that.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not my bus. Not my place to drive her.”

“Don’t be an ass. I’ve got a free hand and I’m asking you. You can check up the engine better if you’re driving, can’t you?”

He saw desire and defensiveness struggling together in Simon. “Get on with it,” he said and sat firmly in the passenger’s place.

They drove round the house and up the abominable drive. Dikon glanced at Simon and was touched by his look of inward happiness. He drove delicately and with assurance.

“Running well, isn’t she?” asked Dikon.

“She’s a trimmer,” said Simon. As the car gathered speed on the main road he lost his customary air of mulishness and gained a kind of authority. Bent on dismissing the scene with Gaunt from his thoughts, Dikon lured Simon into talking about his own affairs, his impatience to get into uniform, his struggles with Morse, his passionate absorption with the war in the air. Dikon thought how young Simon would have seemed among English youth of his own age and how vulnerable. “I’m coming on with the old dah-dah-dit, though,” Simon said. “I’ve made my own practice transmitter. It’s got a corker fulcrum, too. I’m not so hot at receiving yet, but I can get quite a bit of the stuff on the short wave. Nearly all code, of course, but some of it’s straight English. Gosh, I wish they’d pull me in. It’s a blooming nark the way they keep you hanging about.”

“They’ll miss you on the place.”

“We won’t be on the place much longer, don’t you worry. Questing’ll look after that. By cripey, I sometimes wonder if it’s a fair pop, me going away when that bloke’s hanging round.” They drove on in silence for a time and then, without warning, Simon burst into a spate of bewildered protest and fury. It was difficult to follow the progress of his ideas: Questing’s infamy, the Colonel’s unworldliness, Barbara’s virtue, the indignation of the Maori people, and the infamy of big business and vested interests were inextricably mixed together in his discourse. Presently, however, a new theme appeared. “Uncle James,” said Simon, “reckons the curio business is all a blind. He reckons Questing’s an enemy agent.”

Dikon made a faint incredulous noise. “Well he might be,” said Simon combatively. “Why not? You don’t kid yourself they haven’t got agents in New Zealand, do you?”

“Somehow he doesn’t strike me as the type — ”

“They don’t knock round wearing masks and looking tough,” Simon pointed out with an unexpected touch of his uncle’s acerbity.

“I know, I know. It’s only that one hears such a lot of palpable nonsense about spies that the whole idea is suspect. Like arrow poison in a detective story. Why does Dr. Ackrington think — ”

“I don’t get the strength of it myself. He wouldn’t say much. Only dropped hints that we needn’t be so sure Questing’d kick Dad ofï the place. Were you in this country when the Hippolyte was torpedoed?”

“No. We heard about it, of course. It was a submarine, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. The Hippolyte put out from Harpoon at night. She went down in sight of land. Uncle James reckoned at the time that the raider got the tip from someone on shore.”

“Questing?” said Dikon, and tried very hard to keep the note of scepticism from his voice.

“Yeah, Questing. Uncle James dopes it out that it’s been Questing’s idea to get this place on his own ever since he lent Dad the money. He reckons he’s been acting as an agent for years and that he’ll use the Springs as his headquarters with bogus patients and as likely as not a secret transmitting station.”

“Oh, Lord!”

“Well, anyway he’s acted pretty crook, hasn’t he? I don’t think it’s so funny. And if the old dead-beats at Home hadn’t been too tired to take notice, perhaps we wouldn’t have been looking so silly now,” Simon added vindictively. “Chaps like Questing ought to be cleaned right up, I reckon. Out of it altogether. What’d they do with them in Russia? Look here,” Simdn continued, “I’ll tell you something. The night before the Hippolyte went down there was a light flashing on the Peak. Some of the chaps over at the Kainga, Eru and Rewi Te Kahu and that gang, had gone out in a boat from Harpoon and they said they saw it. Uncle James has seen it since. Everybody knows there’s a reinforcement sailing any time now. What’s Questing doing, where does he go half the time? He’s messing round on the Peak isn’t he? Why did he try to put Bert Smith under the train?” Dikon attempted to speak and was firmly talked down. “Accident my foot,” said Simon. “He ought to be charged with attempted murder. The police round here seem to think they amount to something, I reckon they don’t know they’re born.”

“Well,” Dikon said mildly, “what action do you propose to take?”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” Simon roared out. “If you want to know what I’m going to do I’ll tell you. I’m going to stay up at nights. If Questing goes out I’ll slip after him and I’ll watch the Peak. My Morse’ll be good enough for what he does. It’ll be in code, of course, but if it’s Morse he’s using I’ll spot it. You bet I will, and by gum I’ll go to the station at Harpoon and if they won’t pull him in on that I’ll charge him with attempted murder.”

“And if they don’t care for that either?”

“I’ll do something,” said Simon. “I’ll do something.”