Dikon reflected that surely nobody in the world but Mr Questing would have had the gall, after what had happened by the lake, to attempt another three-cornered conversation with Barbara and himself. In some confusion, and because he could think of nothing else to say, Dikon murmured something about the arrival of an anonymous present. Mr Questing took it very quietly. For a little while he made no comment, and then, with a foxy look at Dikon, he said: ‘Well, well, well, is that so? And the little lady just hasn’t got a notion where it came from? Fancy that, now.’

‘I believe,’ said Dikon, already regretting his indiscretion, ‘that there is an aunt in India.’

‘And the pretty things come from Auckland, eh?’

‘I don’t think I said so.’

‘That’s quite all right, Mr Bell. Maybe you didn’t,’ Mr Questing conceded. ‘Between you and me, Mr Bell, I know all about it.’

‘What!’ cried Dikon, flabbergasted. ‘You do! But how the devil…?’

‘Just a little chat with Dorothy Lamour.’

‘With…?’

‘My pet name for the Dusky Maiden,’ Mr Questing explained.

‘Oh,’ said Dikon, greatly relieved. ‘Huia.’

‘Where do you reckon it came from, yourself?’ asked Mr Questing with an atrocious wink.

‘The aunt, undoubtedly,’ said Dikon firmly, and on the wings of a rapid flight of fancy he added: ‘She’s in the habit of sending things to Miss Claire who writes to her most regularly. A very likely explanation is that at some time or another Miss Claire has mentioned this shop.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ said Mr Questing. ‘Accidental-done-on purpose, sort of?’

‘Nothing of the kind,’ said Dikon furiously. ‘The most natural thing in the world…’

‘OK, OK, Mr Bell. Quite so. You mustn’t mind my little joke. India,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘That’s quite a little way off, isn’t it?’ He walked away, whistling softly and waving his cigar. Dikon uttered a few very raw words under his breath. ‘He’s guessed!’ he thought. ‘Blast him, if he gets a chance he’ll tell her.’ He polished his glasses on his handkerchief and stared dimly after the retreating figure of Mr Questing. ‘Or will he?’ he added dubiously.

II

Although it had been built with European tools, the meeting house at the native settlement followed the traditional design of all Maori buildings. It was a single room surmounted by a ridged roof which projected beyond the gable. The barge boards and supporting pillars were intricately covered in the formidable mode of Polynesian art. Growing out of the ridge pole stood a wooden god with out-thrust tongue and eyes of shell, squat, menacing, the symbol of the tribe’s fecundity and its will to do battle. The traditional tree-fern poles and thatching had been replaced by timber and galvanized iron, but nevertheless, the meeting house contrived to distil a quintessence of savagery and of primordial culture.