‘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—that—about Questing?’ asked Gaunt. ‘Why in heaven’s name?’