‘The t’s would sound very like a collection of o’s and m’s,’ said the Colonel.

‘I never heard such high-falutin’ piffle in my life,’ added Dr Ackrington.

‘I don’t profess to read Morse,’ said Dikon huffily.

‘And you never will if you take lessons from Falls and his pipe. He’s a reputable person and not altogether a fool on the subject of comparative anatomy. I may add that we have discovered friends in common. Men of some standing and authority.’

‘Really, sir?’ said Dikon demurely. ‘That, of course, completely exonerates him.’

Dr Ackrington darted a needle-sharp glance at Dikon and evidently decided that he had not intended an impertinence. ‘I consider,’ he said, ‘that Falls has behaved with admirable propriety. I shall speak to Simon tonight. It’s essential that he should not go shouting about this preposterous theory to anyone else.’

‘Quite,’ said the Colonel. ‘We’ll speak to him.’

‘As for the interloper at Taupo-tapu, it was doubtless one of your Maori acquaintances, Edward, disobeying orders as usual. By the way, you must have been there at the time. Did you notice any suspicious behaviour?’

The Colonel rubbed his hair and looked miserable. ‘Not to say suspicious, James. Odd. They see things differently, you know. I don’t pretend to understand them. Never have. I like them, you know. They keep their word and so on. But of course they’re a superstitious lot. Interestin’.’

‘If you found their behaviour this evening so absorbing,’ said Dr Ackrington acidly, ‘perhaps you will favour us with a somewhat closer description of it.’

‘Well, it’s difficult, you know. I expected to find they’d all gone to bed, but not a bit of it. They were hangin’ about the marae in groups and a good many of them seemed to be in the hall; not tidyin’ up or anything—just talkin’. Old Mrs Te Papa seemed to be in a great taking-on. She was in the middle of a long speech. Very excited. Some of them were at that beastly wailin’ noise. Rua was on the verandah with a lot of the older men. Funny thing,’ said the Colonel and stared absently at Dikon without completing his sentence.

‘What, my dear Edward, was a funny thing?’

‘Eh? Oh! I was going to say, funny thing he didn’t seem surprised to see me.’ The Colonel gave a rather mad little laugh and pointed at his brother-in-law. ‘And funnier still,’ he said, ‘when I told them what we thought had happened to Questing, they didn’t seem surprised about that, either.’

Chapter 10
Entrance of Sergeant Webley