‘After all,’ said Simon, ‘they’ll only have your word for it that you didn’t know what happened. Bell heard Questing scream and went out there. And what did he find? You. Alone.’

‘I was not wearing hobnail boots, however.’

‘Lucky for you, I reckon. And talking about these boots, there’s something else I’ve got to tell you. Questing owned a pair of boots with sprigs. I can prove it.’

Dikon had seen enough of Simon by this time to know that a piece of portentous information burnt holes in the pockets of his reticence. He frowned at Simon. He even tried to stave him off by an effort of the will but it was no good. Out came the story of their climb up Rangi’s Peak, out came a description of the hobnailed footprints.

‘And if the police show me this clod of mud I reckon I can tell if it’s the same print. Anyway, they can go up the Peak and look for themselves. With any luck the prints’ll still be there.’

With this recital he bounded into popular favour. Dr Ackrington, after a comparatively mild blast on the danger of withholding information, declared that Simon, by his vigil on the rock, had gone far towards proving that Questing was the signaller. If Questing was the signaller it was almost certain, said Dr Ackrington, that the prints on the ledge were his prints. If these corresponded with the impression on the detached clod then they might well prove to be a determining factor.

‘You may depend upon it,’ cried Dr Ackrington, ‘the damned blackguard’s a hundred miles away if he hasn’t got clean out to sea, and wherever he is, he’s wearing these blasted boots.’

Steps sounded outside, followed by a muffled grumble of voices. Dikon turned to look. Through the wide windows of the dining-room the men at the table watched Webley’s three assistants cross the pumice and come towards the verandah. Dikon was visited by a sensation of unreality, a feeling that the mental and physical experiences of this interminable morning were repeating themselves exactly. For the men walked in the same order that they had adopted when he last saw them. They carried again their muddy rakes and poles, and one of them held away from him a heavy sack from which a globule of mud formed and dropped. And just as before, his heart had jolted against his ribs, so it jolted again: As the men drew near the verandah they saw the party in the dining-room. They paused and the two groups looked at each other through the open windows. A car came down the drive. Webley and an elderly man got out. The men with the sack moved towards them and again there was a huddled inspection.

Mrs Claire and Barbara, who sat with their backs to the windows, followed the direction of their companions’ gaze, and half turned.