Colour Scheme (22 page)

“Just a minute, Mr. Bell.”

Webley had been stolidly conning over his notes, and Dikon, in his embarrassment, had almost forgotten him. He now rose to his feet, a swarthy official in an ugly suit. “You were thinking of leaving this morning were you, Mr. Bell?”

“Yes,” said Dikon. “This morning.”

“You and Mr. Geoffrey Gaunt and Mr. Gaunt’s personal vally?” He wetted his thumb and turned a page of his note-book. “That’d be Mr. Alfred Colly, won’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Well, now, we’ll be very sorry to upset your arrangements, Mr. Bell, but I’m just afraid we’ll have to ask you to stay on a bit longer. Until we’ve cleared up this little mystery, shall we say?”

With a sense of plunging downwards in a lift that was out of control, Dikon said: “But I’ve told you everything I know, and Mr. Gaunt had nothing whatever to do with the affair. I mean he was nowhere near. I mean…”

“Nowhere near, eh?” Webley repeated. “Is that so? Yes. He didn’t drive home in his car, did he? Which way did Mr. Gaunt go home, Mr. Bell?”

And now Dikon was back in the meeting-house, and Gaunt, shaking with rage, was pushing his way out along the side aisles as if propelled by an intolerable urge. He was engulfed in a crowd of people who stared curiously at him. He showed for a moment in the doorway and was gone.

Dikon was recalled by Webley’s voice. “I was asking which way Mr. Gaunt went home from the concert, Mr. Bell.”

“I don’t know,” said Dikon. “If you like I’ll go and ask him.”

“I won’t trouble you to do that, Mr. Bell. I’ll ask Mr. Gaunt myself.”

We are slow to recognize disaster, quick to erect screens between ourselves and a full realization of jeopardy. Perhaps the idea of something more ominous than accident had lain dormant at the back of Dikon’s thoughts. As there are some diseases that we are loath to name, so there are crimes with which we refuse consciously to associate ourselves. Though Dikon was oppressed by the sense of an approaching threat, his conscious reaction was to wonder how in the world under these new restrictions he was to cope with Gaunt. Thus, by a process of mental juggling, the minor was substituted for the major horror.

He said: “If you’re going to see Mr. Gaunt perhaps I may come with you. I don’t know if he’s up yet.”

Webley looked thoughtfully at him and then with an air of heartiness which Dikon found most disconcerting he said: “That’ll do very very nicely, Mr. Bell. We like to do things in a friendly way. If you don’t mind introducing me to Mr. Gaunt, I’ll just explain the position to him. I’m quite sure he’ll understand.”

“Are you, by God!” thought Dikon, and led the way along the verandah.

As they approached Gaunt’s rooms, Colly came out staggering under the weight of a wardrobe trunk. Webley gave him that hard stare with which Dikon was to become so familiar. “You’d better take that thing away, Colly,” said Dikon.

“Take it away?” asked Colly indignantly. “I’ve only just brought it out. What am I supposed to be, sir? Atmosphere in the big railway-station scene or what?” He glanced shrewdly at Webley. “Pardon me, Chief-Inspector,” he said. “There’s no corpse in this trunk. Take a look if you don’t believe me, and don’t muck up our underwear. We’re fussy about details.”

“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

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!”