‘That’s a big lie,’ said Huia blandly. ‘He’s all right.’

‘What’s he doing at night on the Peak? He’s got no business on the Peak.’

‘Talk, talk, talk. All the time.’

‘You tell him if he doesn’t look out he’ll be in for it. How’ll you like it if he gets packed up?’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Don’t you? Don’t you?’

‘Oh, you are silly,’ cried Huia, stamping her foot. ‘Silly fool! Now get out of my way and let me go home. I’ll tell my great-grandfather about you and he’ll makutu you.’

‘Kid-stakes! Nobody’s going to put a jinx on me.’

‘My great-grandfather can do it,’ said Huia and her eyes flashed.

‘Listen, Huia,’ said Eru. ‘You think you can get away with dynamite. OK. But don’t come at it with me. And another thing. Next time this joker Questing wants to have you on to go driving, you can tell him from me to lay off. See? Tell him from me, no kidding, that if he tries any more funny stuff, it’ll be the stone end of his trips up the Peak.’

‘Tell him yourself,’ said Huia. She added, in dog Maori, an extremely pointed insult, and taking him off his guard slipped past him and ran round the hill.

Eru stood looking at the ground. His cigarette burnt his lip and he spat it out. After a moment he turned and slowly followed her.

Chapter 2
Mr Questing Goes Down
for the First Time

‘We’ve heard from Dr Forster, sir,’ said Dikon Bell. He glanced anxiously at his employer. When Gaunt stood with his hands rammed down in the pockets of his dressing-gown and his shoulders hunched to his ears one watched one’s step. Gaunt turned away from the window, and Dikon noticed apprehensively that his leg was very stiff this morning.

‘Ha!’ said Gaunt.

‘He makes a suggestion.’

‘I won’t go to that sulphurous resort.’

‘Rotorua, sir?’

‘Is that what it’s called?’

‘He realizes you want somewhere quiet, sir. He’s made inquiries about another place. It’s in the Northland. On the west coast. Subtropical climate.’

‘Sulphurous pneumonia?’

‘Well, sir, we do want to clear up that leg, don’t we?’

‘We do.’ With one of those swift changes of demeanour by which he so easily commanded devotion, Gaunt turned to his secretary and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I think you’re as homesick as I am, Dikon. Isn’t that true? You’re a New Zealander, of course, but wouldn’t you ten thousand times rather be there? In London? Isn’t it exactly as if someone you loved was ill and you couldn’t get to them?’

‘A little like that, certainly,’ said Dikon drily.

‘I shouldn’t keep you here. Go back, my dear chap. I’ll find somebody in New Zealand,’ said Gaunt with a certain melancholy relish.