Dikon, at his employer’s request, was present at the interview between Gaunt and Webley. Gaunt was at his worst, alternately too persuasive and too intolerant. Webley remained perfectly civil, muffled, and immovable.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to stay, sir. Very sorry to inconvenience you but there it is.”

“But I’ve told you a dozen times I’ve no information to give you. None. I’m unwell and I came here for a rest. A rest! My God! You may have my address and if I should be wanted you’ll know where to find me. But I know nothing that can be of the smallest help to you.”

“Well, now, Mr. Gaunt, we’ll just see if that’s so. I haven’t got round yet to asking you anything have I? Now, perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me just how you got home last night.”

Gaunt beat the arms of his chair and with an excruciating air of enforced control said in a whisper: “How I got home? Very well. Very well. I walked home.”

“Across the reserve, sir?”

“No. I loathe and abominate the reserve. I walked home by the road.”

“That’s quite a long way round, Mr. Gaunt. I understand you had your car at the concert.”

“Yes, Sergeant, I had my car. That did not prevent me from wishing to walk. I walked. I wanted fresh air and I walked.”

“Who drove the car, sir?”

“I did,” said Dikon.

“Then I suppose, Mr. Bell, that you overtook Mr. Gaunt?”

“No. It was some time before we left.”

“Longer than fifteen minutes after the concert was over, would you say?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought.”

“Mr. Falls puts it at about fifteen minutes. It’s a mile and a quarter by the main road, sir,” said Webley, shifting his position in order to face Gaunt. “You must be a smart walker.”

“The car can’t do more than crawl along that road, you know. But I walked fast on this occasion, certainly.”

“Yes. Would that be because you were at all excited, Mr. Gaunt? I’ve noticed that when people are kind of stimulated or excited they’re inclined to step out.”

Gaunt laughed and adopted, mistakenly, Dikon thought, an air of raillery. “I believe you’re a pressman in disguise, Sergeant. You want me to tell you about my temperament.”

“No, sir,” said Webley stolidly. “I just wondered why you walked so fast.”

“You have guessed why. I was stimulated. For the first time in months I had spoken Shakespearean lines to an audience.”

“Yes?” Webley opened his note-book. “I understand you left before the other members of your party. With the exception of Mr. Questing, that is. Mr. Questing left before you, didn’t he?”

“Did he? I believe he did.” Gaunt put his delicate hand to his eyes and then shook his head violently as though he dismissed some unwelcome vision. Next he smiled sadly at Mr. Webley, extended his arms and let them flop. It was a bit of business that he used in “Hamlet” during the penultimate duologue with Horatio. Mr. Webley watched it glumly. “You must forgive me, Sergeant,” said Gaunt. “This thing has upset me rather badly.”

“It’s a terrible affair, sir, isn’t it? Was the deceased a friend of yours, may I ask?”

“No, no. It’s not that. For it to happen to anyone!”

“Quite so. You must have seen him, I suppose, after you left the hall.”

Gaunt took out his cigarette case and offered it to Webley, who said he didn’t smoke. Dikon saw a tremor in Gaunt’s hand and lit his cigarette for him. Gaunt made rather a business of this and as they were at it, said something not so much in a whisper as with an almost soundless articulation of his tongue and teeth. Dikon thought it was: “I’ve got to get out of it.”

“I was saying—” said Webley heavily, and repeated his question.

Gaunt said that as far as he could remember he had caught a glimpse of Questing outside the hall. He wasn’t positive. Webley kept him to this point and he grew restive. At last he broke off and drew his chair closer to Webley.

“Look here,” he said. “I’ve honestly told you all I know about this poor fellow. I want you to understand something. I’m an actor and an immensely well-known one. Things that happen to me are news, quite big news, at Home and in the States. Bell, as my secretary, will tell you how tremendously careful I have to be. The sort of things that are said about me in print matter enormously. It may sound far-fetched, but I assure you it is not, when I tell you that a few sentences in the hot-news columns, linking my name up with this accident, would be exactly the wrong kind of publicity. We don’t know much about this unfortunate man but I’ve heard rumours that he wasn’t an altogether savoury character. That may come out, mayn’t it? We’ll get hints about it. ‘Mystery man dies horribly after hearing Geoffrey Gaunt recite at one-eyed burg in New Zealand.’ That’s how the hot-columnists will treat it.”

“We don’t get much of that sort of thing in this country, Mr. Gaunt.”

“Good Lord, man, I’m not talking about this country. As far as I’m concerned this country doesn’t exist. I’m talking of New York.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Webley impassively.

“See here,” said Gaunt, “I know you’ve got your job to do. If there’s anything more you want to ask, why ask it. Ask it now. But for God’s sake don’t keep me hanging on here. I can’t invite you to come out and have a drink with me but —”

Dikon, appalled, saw Gaunt’s hand go to the inside pocket of his coat. He got behind Webley and shook his head violently, but Gaunt’s note-case was now in his hand and Webley on his feet.

“Now Mr. Gaunt,” Webley said with no change whatever in his uninflected and thick voice, “you should know better than to think of that. If you’re as careful of your reputation as you’ve been telling me, you ought to realize that anything of this nature looks very bad indeed if it gets known. Put that case away, sir. We’ll let you go as soon as possible but until this black business is cleared up nobody’s leaving Wai-ata-tapu. Nobody.”

Gaunt drew back his head with a certain characteristic movement which Dikon always associated with an adder.

“I think you’re making a mistake, Sergeant,” he said with elaborate indifference. “However, we’ll leave it as it is for the moment. I’ll telephone to Sir Stephen Johnston and ask him to advise me what steps to take. He’s a personal friend of mine. Isn’t he your Chief Justice or something?”

“That’ll be quite in order, Mr. Gaunt,” said Webley tranquilly. “His Honour may make some special arrangement. In the meantime I’ll ask you to stay here.”

“Great God Almighty!” Gaunt screamed out. “If you say that again I’ll lose all control of my temper. How dare you take this attitude with me! The man has been killed by a loathsome accident. You behave, my God, as if he’d been murdered.”

“But,” said a voice in the doorway, “isn’t it almost certain that he has?”

It was Mr. Septimus Falls, standing diffidently on the threshold. v

“Do forgive me,” said Mr. Falls in his rather spinster-like fashion. “I did tap on the door, I promise you, but you didn’t notice. I came to tell Sergeant Webley that he is wanted on the telephone.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Webley, and went out.

“May I come in?” asked Falls, and came in. “As that large efficient man has tramped away, it seems a propitious moment to review our position.”

“Why did you say — that — about Questing?” said Gaunt. “Why, in heaven’s name?”

“That he has been murdered? Because of several observations I have made. Let me enumerate them. A, the attitude of the police seems to me to be more consistent with a homicide investigation than with an inquiry into an accident. B, the circumstances surrounding the affair appear to be suspicious; as, for instance, the bite out of the path. Have you ever tried to dislodge a piece of that solidified mud? My dear sir, you couldn’t do it unless you positively danced on the spot. C, I observed by the light of my torch that the displaced clod had fallen to the foot of the bank. It held the impression of a nailed boot or shoe. Questing was the only man in evening dress, at the concert. D (and, dear me, how departmental I sound), the clod had contained a white flag which lay beside it, the only white flag on that side of the mound. As far as I could see the grooves on the edge of the gap and down the sides of the clod must have been the hole made by the flag standard. I am certain Webley and his satellites have discovered these not inconsiderable phenomena. Which would account for their somewhat implacable attitude towards ourselves, don’t you feel? I too have been forbidden to leave Wai-ata-tapu. A tiresome restriction.”