The rest of the party was already seated. Dikon joined his employer. Dr Ackrington and the Claires, with the exception of Simon, were at the large family table. Simon sat apart with his friend Mr Smith. Mr Falls, when at last he and Webley came in, went to his own table close by.

‘Do you mind if I join you, sir?’ said Webley and did so.

‘But I am honoured, Sergeant. As my guest, I hope?’

‘No, no, sir, thanking you, all the same,’ said Webley. I see there’s a place laid, that’s all.’

He had made a mistake, it seemed. There was no second place laid at Mr Falls’s table but Huia, still very woebegone, rectified this, and he sat down.

‘Nice of you to join me, Dikon,’ said Gaunt loudly. ‘I appear to be in disgrace.’

Barbara turned her head swiftly and as swiftly looked away again.

‘I forgot to say,’ Gaunt added, ‘that Questing asked fifty guineas for the adze. I shall wonder if the price was excessive. I must ask the embarrassing old gentleman.’

Nobody answered this sally. Gaunt thrust out his chin and gave Dikon one of his hard bright glances.

Luncheon went forward in a silence that was only broken by Sergeant Webley’s conscientious attention to his food. At an early stage of this uncomfortable meal Dikon, who faced the windows, saw two of Webley’s men come round the shoulder of the hill carrying a covered stretcher between them. They disappeared behind the manuka hedge, taking a roundabout path to the cabins. This unmistakable incident killed what little appetite he had. In a minute or two the men, without their burden, appeared on the verandah. Here they were joined by a young man in grey flannel trousers and a sports coat whom Dikon had no difficulty in recognizing as a representative of the press. This new arrival, with an air of innocent detachment, stared in at the windows. Webley looked at him with lack-lustre eyes and shook his head. The two plain-clothes men hung about near the door. The pressman sat on the verandah step and lit his pipe. The party in the dining-room, though aware of these proceedings, paid no attention to them. ‘The resemblance to the monkey house at feeding time grows more pronounced every second,’ thought Dikon. Huia collected the plates and, when Mrs Claire was not watching her, tipped uneaten pieces of cold meat on to one dish. As if by agreement, Mrs Claire and Barbara went out together. Smith sucked his teeth savagely, muttered ‘Excuse me’, and slouched out to the verandah. The pressman looked up hopefully and spoke to him but evidently got an uncompromising answer. He let Smith move off, looking wistfully after him.

In heavy silence the remaining seven men finished their meal.

‘One can hardly hear oneself speak for the buzz of gay inconsequent chatter,’ said Gaunt. ‘I think I shall relax for half an hour.’