“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“The local police have heard the story of your conversation with Hambledon. They know where the tiki was found. They will learn, soon enough, that you had it on your person after the supper-party. And believe me, they will regard any further attempts at evasion with the very greatest suspicion.”

“What have I done!”

“Shall I tell you what I believe you to have done last night? After the catastrophe you went to your dressing-room. At first the shock was too great for you to think at all clearly, but after a minute or two you did begin to think. Hambledon had taken you to your dressing-room. In a minute I would like you to tell me what he said to you. Like everyone in the cast but yourself, he had been told about the champagne bottle, and knew how it was to be worked. Whatever he may have said, you sent him away saying that you wanted to be quite alone. I think that almost at once the suspicion came into your mind, the suspicion that Hambledon may have brought about the catastrophe. I know that as you left the stage you heard Gascoigne repeating that there had been foul play, that it could not have been an accident. You have told me that you are familiar with the mechanics of the stage, that very often you have actually helped with the scenery. I wonder if you thought you would go up to the grid and find out for yourself. Everyone else was in the dressing-rooms except Mason, Gascoigne, Dr. Te Pokiha, and myself, and we were still on the stage, hidden behind the walls of the set. Perhaps you were still too shocked and agitated to think very coherently or wisely; but overwhelmed with this dreadful suspicion, scarcely aware of the risk you ran, you may have slipped round to the back of the stage and climbed the ladder to the gallery.”

He paused for a moment, watching her. Her head was bent down and inclined away from him. Her fingers plucked at the fringe of the rug.

“Stop me if I’m wrong,” said Alleyn. “I fancy you climbed up to the grid and saw the end of rope close to the pulley, and perhaps tripped over the weights which had been left on the gallery floor. With your knowledge of stage mechanics you at once realised what had been done. The counterweight had been removed and the bottle had fallen unchecked.”

A strand of the woollen fringe broke in her fingers.

“At this moment we had all moved off the stage into the wings. With some distracted notion of trying to make the whole thing look like an accident you hooked a weight to the ring. While you stooped to pick up the weight, the tiki fell from your dress on to the platform, and lodged between the slats where I found it soon afterwards. Am I right?”

“I–I—would rather not answer.”

“That is as you choose. I must tell you that I am bound to lay this theory before the local police. I have perhaps exceeded my duty in talking about it to you. You asked me last night if I was your friend. I told you that I would give you my help if in return you would give me your confidence. I assure you very solemnly that it is as your friend I urge you to tell me the truth and — really it is the only phrase that fits— the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

“They can’t prove any of this,” she said vehemently.

“Why shouldn’t this weight have been there all the time? Why shouldn’t it have been an accident? If it was too light—”

“But how did you know it was too light?”

She caught in her breath with a sort of sob.

“You see,” said Alleyn gently, “you’re not cut out for this sort of thing. So you knew it was much too light when you hooked it on? That was very quick and very intelligent. How did you know that? I wonder. The whole scheme had been kept a secret from you—”

Suddenly he stopped, resting his elbow on the ground beside her, and looked into her averted face.

“So you knew about the plan all the time?” he said softly.

She was trembling now, as though she were very cold. He touched her hand lightly, impersonally.

“Poor you,” said Alleyn.

Then she was clinging to his hand and weeping very bitterly.

“I’ve been wicked — a fool — I ought never — now you’ll suspect him more than before — more than if I had done nothing. You’ll think I know. I don’t know anything. He’s innocent. It was only because I was so shocked. I was mad, even to dream of it. He couldn’t do that — to Alfie. You must believe me — he couldn’t. I was mad.”

“We don’t suspect Hambledon more than anyone else.”

“Is that true? Is it? Is it?”

“Yes.”

“If I hadn’t blundered in, perhaps you would never have suspected him? It’s my fault—”

“Not quite that. But you have made it a bit more complicated; you and your fancy touches.”

“If only you would believe me — if only I could put it right—”

“If Hambledon is innocent you can put a number of things right by answering my questions. There, that’s better. Look here, I’m going to give you ten minutes to dry your eyes and powder your nose. Then I’ll come back and finish what I’ve got to say.”

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.”

He lit his pipe and leant against the great column of a tree. The stillness of the place was like the expression of some large and simple personality. It seemed to say “I am” with a kind of vast tranquillity. “It is quite inhuman,” he thought, “but it is not unfriendly.” He remembered hearing tales of bushmen who were brought far into the forest to mark trees for the sawmills, and who were left to work there for a week but returned in three days, unable to endure the quiet of the forest