‘It’s all right,’ said Smith. ‘I’ve never seen it but I know what it is all right. I’d heard all about it.’

‘You stole it—’ Rua began and Smith, in a great hurry, interrupted him. ‘Not on your life, I didn’t! You haven’t got anything on me. I might have known where it was and I might of told him but I never went curio hunting on the Peak. No bloody fear, I didn’t.’

‘You told Questing where it was?’ Dr Ackrington demanded. ‘Why?’

‘Just a minute, Doctor, if you please,’ Webley intercepted. ‘Now then, Bert. What was the idea, telling Questing?’

‘He asked me.’ And now it was Questing’s large face that showed in the dark.

‘Asked you to find out? And paid you for your trouble, eh?’ said Webley.

‘All right. Put it that way. Nothing criminal in passing on a bit of information, is there? He asked me to find out and I found out. Eru told me. Come on, Eru. You told me, you know you did.’

‘You said it was for the other bloke,’ Eru said breathlessly.

‘What other bloke?’ Webley demanded. Eru once again jerked his head at Gaunt’s rooms. ‘Him,’ he said. And Dikon now saw into the farthest corner of his imaginary room.

In the silence that followed Mr Falls said: ‘There seems to be a multiplicity of blokes all passing on information like a hot potato. Are we to understand, Sergeant Webley, that the deceased, on behalf of Mr Gaunt, bribed Mr Smith to bribe Mr—Saul, is it? Thank you—Mr Saul, to obtain information as to the locale of this exquisite weapon?’

‘It looks as if that’s about the strength of it, sir.’

‘You damn well choose your words!’ said Smith indignantly. ‘Who’s talking about bribes? It was between friends. Him and me were cobbers, weren’t we, Sim?’

‘I thought he tried to put you under the train, Bert,’ said Webley.

‘Oh, my Gawd, do I have to go into that again!’ apostrophized Mr Smith with evident fatigue. ‘We got it all ironed out. Here. Take a look.’ He lugged out his written agreement with Questing and thrust it at Webley.

‘Let it go,’ said Webley. ‘You’ve showed me that before. We won’t trouble you any more just now, Bert.’

‘So you say,’ Smith grumbled and, carefully folding his precious document, wandered morosely into the dining-room.

Webley turned to Rua. ‘Look, Rua. You can see by what’s been said that we’ve got to keep hold of your granddad’s axe. We’ll give you a receipt for it. You’ll get it back all right.’

‘It should not be touched. You do not understand. I myself, holding it, am now tapu.’

‘Rua, Rua!’ chided Mrs Claire softly.