“Such as the little green tiki? I understand what you mean.”

“Ah—the tiki.”

He paused and Alleyn had the impression that he had been going to say more about the tiki but had stopped himself. It was growing dark. Te Pokiha’s head was silhouetted against a background of green hills and very dark blue mountains.

“To the north are Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe,” he said. “My grandfather would have told you that the volcanic fires of Ngauruhoe were caused by the youngest son of the Earth Mother who lay deep underground with her child at her breast. The fire was given him for comfort by Rakahore, the rock-god.”

They drove on in silence until the mountains were black against the fading sky.

“My house is not very far off now,” said Te Pokiha quietly. And in a minute or two they crossed a clanking cattle-stop and plunged into a dark tunnel where the head-lights shone on the stems of tree-ferns.

“I like the smell of the bush,” said Alleyn.

“Yes? Do you know I once did a very foolish thing. It was when I was at the House—my first year at Oxford, and my first year in England. I became very homesick and wrote in my letters of my homesickness. I said that I longed for the smell of burning bush-wood and begged them to send me some. So my father sent me a case of logs. It was a very expensive business as you may imagine, but I burnt them in my fireplace at the House and the smoke of Te-Ika-a-Maui hung over the famous Dreaming Spires.” He burst out laughing. “Ridiculous, wasn’t it?”

“Did you take your medical degree at home?”

“Yes, at Thomas’s. I was a thorough pakeha by that time—almost. Here we are.”

They pulled up in a wide open space before the dark shape of a long one-storied house. From the centre of the front wall projected a porch with a gable roof, and Alleyn saw that this porch was decorated with Maori carvings.

“An affectation on my part,” said Te Pokiha. “You may question the taste of joining an old-time porch on to a modern bungalow. At least the carving is genuine.”

“I like it.”

“You must see it by daylight. Come in.”

They dined in a pleasant room, waited on by an enormous and elderly Maori woman, who showed a tendency to join in the laughter when Alleyn cracked a modest joke. After dinner they moved into a comfortable living-room with an open fireplace where an aromatic log fire reminded Alleyn of Te Pokiha’s story. The furniture was of the solid smoking-room type—very English and non-committal. A mezzotint of Christ Church, Oxford, an undergraduate group or two, and a magnificent feather cloak decorated the walls.

When, after some excellent brandy, they had lit their pipes, Alleyn asked Te Pokiha if his practice was a general one.