He jumped lightly to his feet, and without another word strode off towards the little gorge where the bush came down to the lip of the stream. He turned uphill, and after a short climb, he entered into the bush. It was all that remained of a tall forest. Boles of giant trees stood like rooted columns among the heavy green underbrush, and rose high above it into tessellated clusters of heavy green. Light and dull green were the tree-ferns, light and dull green the ferns underfoot. There was something primal and earthy about this endless interlacing of greens. It was dark in the bush, and cool, and the only sound there was the sound of trickling water, finding its way downhill to the creek. There was a smell of wet moss, of cold wet earth, and of the sticky sweet gum that sweated out of some of the tree trunks. Alleyn thought it a good smell, clean and pungent. Suddenly, close at hand, the bird called again—a solitary call, startlingly like a bell. Then this unseen bird shook from its throat a phrase of notes in a minor key, each note very round with something human in its quality.

The brief song ended in a comic splutter. There was a sound of wings. Then the call rang again and was answered from somewhere deep in the bush, and back into the silence came the sound of running water.

To Alleyn, standing there, it suddenly seemed absurd that he should have withdrawn into such a place as this, to think of criminal investigation and to allow a woman time to recover from the effects of her own falsehoods. It was an absurd juxtaposition of opposites. The sort of thing a very modern poet might fancy. “The Man from the Yard in the Virgin Bush.” “I should have worn a navy blue suit, tan boots and a bowler, and I should complete the picture by blowing on a police whistle in answer to that intolerably lovely bird. Some avant-guardist would do the accompanying decorations. I’ll give her another five minutes to think it over, and, if the spell works, she’ll come as clean as the week’s wash.” He felt in his pocket for his pipe and his fingers encountered the box that held the tiki. He took the squat little monster out. “This is the right setting for you, only you should hang on a flaxen cord against a thick brown skin like Te Pokiha’s. No voluptuous whiteness for you, under black lace, against a jolting heart. That was all wrong. You little monstrosity! Sweaty dark breasts for you, dark fingers, dark savages in a heavy green forest. You’ve seen a thing or two in your day. Last night was not your first taste of blood, I’ll be bound. And now you’ve got yourself mixed up in a pakeha killing. I wish to hell I knew how much you do mean.”