“That’ll be quite all right, Colly,” said Webley. “Stay handy, will you? I’d like to have a yarn with you.”

“Rapture as expressed in six easy poses,” said Colly. “Yours to command,” He winked at Dikon. “If you’re looking for His Royal Serenity, sir,” he said, “he’s in his barf.”

“We’ll wait,” said Dikon. “In here, will you, Mr. Webley?” They waited in Gaunt’s sitting-room. Colly, whistling limpidly, staggered away under the trunk.

“That kind of joker’s out of our line in New Zillund,” said Webley. “He’s different from what you’d have thought. A bit too fresh, isn’t he? Not my idea of a vally.”

“Colly’s a dresser,” said Dikon, “not a valet. He’s been a long time with Mr. Gaunt, and I’m afraid he’s got into the way of thinking he’s a licensed buffoon. I’m sorry, Sergeant. I’ll just go and tell Mr. Gaunt you’re here.”

He had hoped to get one word in private with Gaunt, but Webley thanked him and followed him out on the verandah. “Going in for the treatment, is he?” he asked easily. “Just across the way, isn’t it? I’ve never taken a look at these Springs. Been here ten years and never taken a look at them. Fancy that!”

He followed Dikon across the pumice.

It was Gaunt’s custom before breakfast to soak for fifteen minutes in the largest of the pools, that which was enclosed by a rough shed. Evidently, Dikon thought, his new abhorrence of thermal activities did not extend to this particular bath.

Closely followed by Webley, Dikon went up to the bath-house and tapped at the door.

“Who the hell’s out there!” Gaunt demanded.

“Sergeant Webley to see you, sir.”

“Sergeant who?”

“Webley.”

“Who’s he?”

“Harpoon police force, sir,” said Mr. Webley. “Very sorry to trouble you.”

There was no reply to this. Webley made no move. Dikon waited uncertainly. He heard a splash as Gaunt shifted in the pool. He had the idea that Gaunt was sitting up, listening. At last, in a cautious undertone, the voice beyond the door called him. “Dikon?”

“I’m here, sir.”

“Come in.”

Dikon went in quickly, closing the door behind him. There was his employer as he had expected to find him, naked, vulnerable, and a little ridiculous, jutting out of the vivid water.

“What is all this?”

Dikon gestured. “Is he there?” Gaunt muttered.

Dikon nodded violently and with an attempt at cheerfulness that he felt rang very false, said aloud: “The Sergeant would like to have a word with you, sir.”

He groped in his pocket, found an envelope and a pencil and wrote quickly: “It’s about Questing. They won’t let us go.” He went on talking as he showed it to Gaunt: “Shall I send Colly in, sir?”

Gaunt was staring at the paper. Water trickled off his shoulders. His face was pinched and looked old, the skin on his hands was waterlogged and wrinkled. He began to swear under his breath.

On the other side of the door Webley cleared his throat. Gaunt, his lips still moving, looked at the door. He grasped the rail at the edge of the bath and stood upright, a not very handsome figure, “He ought to say something,” Dikon thought. “It looks bad to say nothing.” Gaunt beckoned and Dikon stooped towards him but he seemed to change his mind and said loudly, “Ask him to wait. I’m coming out.”

The morning was warm and humid and the pool Gaunt had left was a hot one, but even when he was wrapped in his heavy bathrobe he seemed to be cold. He asked Dikon for a cigarette. Conscious always of Webley on the other side of the thin wooden wall Dikon forced himself to talk. “I’m afraid this appalling business is going to hold us up a bit, sir. I should have thought of it before.” Gaunt suddenly joined in. “Yes, a damned nuisance, of course, but it can’t be helped.” It all sounded horridly false.

They came out of the bath-house and there was Webley, “Hanging about,” thought Dikon, “like Frankenstein’s monster.” He walked up with them to the house and stayed outside Gaunt’s window while he dressed. Dikon sat on the edge of the verandah and smoked. The clouds that had blown up in the night were gone and the wind had dropped. Rangi’s Peak was a clear blue. The trees on its flanks looked as if they had been blobbed down by a water-colourist with a full and generous brush. The hill by the springs basked in the sun and high above it the voices of larks reached that pinnacle of shrillness that floats on the outer margin of human perception. The air seemed to hold a rumour of notes rather than an actual song. Three men came round the path by the lake. One of them carried a sack which he held away from him, the others, rakes and long manuka poles. They walked in Indian file, slowly. When they came nearer, Dikon saw that a heavy globule hung from the corner of the sack. It swung to and fro, thickened, and dropped with a splat of sound on the pumice, It was mud. The rake and the ends of the poles were also muddy.

He sat still, his cigarette burning down to his fingers, and watched the men. They came over the pumice to the verandah and Webley moved across to meet them. The man with the sack opened it furtively and the others moved between him and Dikon. Webley pushed his black felt hat to the back of his head and squatted, peering. They mumbled together. A phrase of Septimus Falls’s came into Dikon’s mind and nauseated him. Inside the house Barbara called to her mother. At once the group broke up. The three men disappeared round the far end of the house, carrying their muddy trophies, and Webley returned to his post by Gaunt’s window.

Dikon heard the creak of a door behind him. His nerves were on edge and he turned quickly; but it was only Mr. Septimus Falls standing on the threshold of his room.

“Good morning, Bell,” he said. “A lovely day, isn’t it? Quite unsullied and in strong contrast to the events associated with it. ‘Only man is vile.’ It is not often that one goes to Hymns A. and M. for profundity of observation but I remember the same phrase occurred to me on the night that war broke out.”

“Where were you then, Mr. Falls?”

“ ‘Going to and fro in the earth,’ ” said Mr. Falls lightly. “Like the devil, you know. In London, to be precise. I didn’t see you after your return last night but hear that your vigil on the hill was an uneventful one.”

“So they haven’t told him I was watching him,” thought Dikon. “And how did you get on?” he asked.

“I? I was obliged to trespass, and all to no avail. I thought you must have seen me.” He smiled at Dikon. “I heard you falling about on your hill. No injuries, I trust? But you are young and can triumph over such mishaps. I, on the contrary, have played the very devil with my lumbar region.”

“I thought last night that you seemed remarkably lively.”

“Zeal,” said Mr. Falls. “All zeal. Wonderful what it will do, but one pays for it afterwards, unhappily.” He placed his hand in the small of his back and hobbled towards Webley. “Well, Sergeant,” he said, “any new developments?”

Webley looked cautiously at him. “Well, yes, sir, I think we might say there are,” he said. “I don’t see any harm in telling you we’re pretty well satisfied that this gentleman came by his death in the manner previously suspected. My chaps have been over there and they’ve found something. In the mud pot.”

“Not—?” said Dikon.

“No, Mr. Bell, not the remains. We could hardly hope for them under the circumstances, though of course we’ll have to try. But my chaps have been there on the look-out ever since it got light. About half an hour ago they spotted something white working about in the pot. Sometimes, they said, you’d see it and sometimes you wouldn’t. One of them who’s a family man passed the remark that it reminded him of the week’s wash.”

“And… was it?” asked Falls.

“In a manner of speaking, sir, it was. We raked it out and are holding it. It’s a gentleman’s dress waistcoat. One of those backless ones.” iv