Vintage Murder by Ngaio Marsh Read Free Book Online

instantly gazed about her with an air of flabbergasted delight that suggested the joy of a street waif receiving a five-pound note.
    “It’s for
me
!” she cried. “For
me
, for
me
, for
me
.” She looked brilliantly at Alleyn and at her guests. “You’ll all have to wait. It must be opened now. Quick! Quick!” She wriggled her fingers and tore at the paper with excited squeaks.
    “Good Lord,” thought Alleyn, “how does she get away with it? In any other woman it would be nauseating.”
    His gift was at last freed from its wrappings. A small green object appeared. The surface was rounded and graven into the semblance of a squat figure with an enormous lolling head and curved arms and legs. The face was much formalised, but it had a certain expression of grinning malevolence. Carolyn gazed at it in delighted bewilderment.
    “But what is it? It’s jade. It’s wonderful— but—?”
    “It’s greenstone,” said Alleyn.
    “It is a tiki, Miss Dacres,” said a deep voice. The Maori, Dr. Rangi Te Pokiha, came forward, smiling.
    Carolyn turned to him.
    “A tiki?”
    “Yes. And a very beautiful one, if I may say so.” He glanced at Alleyn.
    “Dr. Te Pokiha was good enough to find it for me,” explained Alleyn.
    “I want to know about it — all about it,” insisted Carolyn.
    Te Pokiha began to explain. He was gravely explicit, and the Forrests looked embarrassed. The tiki is a Maori symbol. It brings good fortune to its possessor. It represents a human embryo and is the symbol of fecundity. In the course of a conversation with Te Pokiha at the hotel Alleyn had learned that he had this tiki to dispose of for a
pakeha
a white man— who was hard up. Te Pokiha had said that if it had been his own possession he would never have parted with it, but the pakeha
was
very hard up. The tiki was deposited at the museum where the curator would vouch for its authenticity. Alleyn, on an impulse, had gone to look at it and had bought it. On another impulse he had decided to give it to Carolyn. She was enthralled by this story, and swept about showing the tiki to everybody. Gordon Palmer, who had sent up half a florist’s shop, glowered sulkily at Alleyn out of the corners of his eyes. Meyer, obviously delighted with Alleyn’s gift to his wife, took the tiki to a lamp to examine it more closely.
    “It’s lucky, is it?” he asked eagerly.
    “Well you heard that he said, governor,” said old Brandon Vernon. “A symbol of fertility, wasn’t it? If you call that luck!”
    Meyer hastily put the tiki down, crossed his thumbs and began to bow to it.
    “O tiki-tiki be good to little Alfie,” he chanted. “No funny business, now, no funny business.”
    Ackroyd said something in an undertone. There was a guffaw from one or two of the men. Ackroyd, with a smirk, took the tiki from Meyer, Old Vernon and Mason joined the group.
    Their faces coarsened into half-smiles. The tiki went from hand to hand, and there were many loud gusts of laughter. Alleyn looked at Te Pokiha who walked across to him.
    “I half regret my impulse,” said Alleyn quietly.
    “Oh,” said Te Pokiha pleasantly, “it seems amusing to them naturally.” He paused and then added: “So may my great grandparents have laughed over the first crucifix they saw.”
    Carolyn began to relate the story of Meyer’s adventure on the train. Everybody turned to listen to her. The laughter changed its quality and became gay and then helpless. Meyer allowed himself to be her foil, protesting comically.
    She suddenly commanded everyone to supper. There were place-cards on the table. Alleyn found himself on Carolyn’s right with Mrs. Forrest, for whom a place had been hurriedly made, on his other side.
    Carolyn and Meyer sat opposite each other, halfway down the long trestle-table. The nest of maidenhair fern and exotic flowers was between them, and the long red cord ran down to Carolyn’s right and was fastened under the ledge of the table. She instantly asked what