I’ve been asked to stay by several of the surrounding station-holders, so I shall see something of the North Island. They’re an amazingly hospitable people, these New Zealanders, very anxious that one should admire their country, rather on the defensive about it, but once they accept you, extremely friendly. I am asked, embarrassingly and repeatedly, about “the accent” and don’t know how to answer. The intelligentsia, who seem to be a gentle distillation of the Press and the universities, speak a queerly careful language and tell funny stories with the most meticulous regard for the mot juste. Their views are blamelessly liberal. What a damn’ superior ass I sound, talking like this about them. After this case is cleared up I go south to a high plateau encircled by mountains. I have fallen in love with the sound of this place, and indeed, with the country altogether. The air really is like wine, balmy and exciting. The colour is clear and everything is exquisitely defined—no pretty smudging.

Well, my old Fox, all this is a long cry from the case. There’s no more to say except that I await your air-mail letter with composure and confidence. I shall end this letter by running my pen round the little greenstone tiki so that you will have an idea of his shape and size. He will not appear in evidence, I hope, but you will see that in his own way he has played a not inconsiderable part in the affair. Carolyn Dacres tells me she still wants to have him. May he bring her better luck.

Good-bye, you old devil. It must be so exciting to be a detective.

Yours ever,

RODERICK ALLEYN.

EPILOGUE

ON AN EVENING three months after the close of the case Alleyn, stretched luxuriously on a widely-spread tussock, looked across Lake Pukaki to where Aeorangi, the cloud-piercer, shone immaculate against the darkening sky. He would smoke one pipe before turning back to the little wooden hotel. With a sigh he put his hand in his pocket and took out three letters with English stamps on the envelopes. His holiday was nearly over, and here was old Fox saying how glad they would be at the Yard to see him again. The second was from his Assistant Commissioner—very cordial. He dropped them on the warm, lichen-surfaced earth, and once again he read the final paragraph in the third letter:

I felt I should like to tell you that Hailey and I think we shall be married in a year’s time. Please give us your blessing, dear Mr. Alleyn. One other thing. There will be a step-child for Hailey. So you see that the greenstone tiki has fulfilled its purpose and I shall have the best possible remembrance of my dear Alfie-Pooh.

For Allan Wilkie and Frediswyde Hunter-Watts in memory of a tour in New Zealand.