Death in Zanzibar (35 page)

‘And very well chaperoned,' said Larry, ‘so you can keep your hands in your pockets! Have you brought the doctor?'

‘Of course. I also gave him your letter.'

‘Thanks. Where is he now?'

‘Ministering to that murderous louse, who has apparently surfaced — worse luck!'

‘Good: I'll send him up to see Miss Ashton as soon as he's finished down there.'

Larry's footsteps retreated and Dany sat up dizzily as the door opened and Lash came in.

He paid no attention at all to Lorraine, Gussie or Tyson, but came straight across to the bed and took Dany into his arms.

‘Don't mind us,' remarked Tyson caustically.

‘I don't,' said Lash, ‘— much.'

He turned his head to look over his shoulder at Lorraine, and said: ‘The doc will be up here as soon as he's through with Ponting, and after that, if I know doctors, he'll throw me out on my ear. So I'd be deeply obliged if you'd all scram.'

‘Of course, dear,' said Lorraine. ‘Come on Gussie. Tyson
____
' The door closed behind them.

Dany said: ‘Lash, you aren't a G-man, are you? I thought you might be — or a murderer — because you'd taken that letter, and Nigel said
____
And I knew I ought to hate you if you were a murderer, but I couldn't — and I'm so glad you're not a G-man! I didn't want you to be, and I'm so sorry. Lash, I'm sorry — so sorry
____
'

Lash said: ‘All right, honey, all right. You're sorry. For Pete's sake, how much brandy did they give you?'

‘Lots,' said Dany. ‘Lots and lots and lots. Firs' Larry, then you, then Tyson … It's good for you. I shouldn't have listened to Nigel. Lash, you will forgive me, won't you? because I couldn't bear it if you didn't … I couldn't bear it
____
'

‘This is just about where we came in,' said Lash. ‘Only it was me last time. It's a judgement on me! Darling, you're plastered! All right, I'll forgive you — but after this if I ever catch you drinking anything stronger than a chocolate-soda, so help me, I'll take a strap to you! Darling — my darling —
my darling…
'

*   *   *

The African police-constable on guard saluted smartly and ushered Mr Dowling into a small ground-floor room leading off the central courtyard, where the window shutters were further reinforced by iron grille work and the doors were stout. A room that was, oddly enough, the self-same one to which Tyson's grandfather, Rory Frost, had brought his share of Sultan Saïd's treasure for temporary safe-keeping on a wild, rainy night over ninety-five years ago. No one now alive was aware of this; yet, strangely, a superstition survived that the room was, for some obscure reason, a place of ill-omen: which perhaps accounted for the fact that until an hour or so ago it has been kept locked and unfurnished.

Now, however, having been hastily denuded of dust and innumerable spiders-webs, it contained a heavy brass bedstead, a couple of cane armchairs loosely covered in faded chintz, a bedside table, and an ornate, marble-topped Victorian wash-hand-stand complete with an imposing array of flower-patterned china utensils. It also contained — in addition to the doctor — Nigel Ponting and Mr Cardew: the former lying prone upon the bed with his right wrist securely handcuffed to a brass bedpost, while the latter, who had arrived at the House of Shade in response to an urgent telephone call from Larry Dowling, occupied one of the cane chairs, pad and pencil at the ready.

Mr Dowling noted with approval that the doctor had wasted no time. The wet towel that some amateur hand had hastily wound about the secretary's head, in the manner of an untidy turban, had been removed, together with his coat, and a shirt sleeve that had been rolled back disclosed the mark of a recent injection on Nigel's bare arm. An empty syringe lay on the bedside table, and Nigel's eyes were open. He was muttering to himself, and watching someone whom he could see, but the others could not, moving about the room.

‘Is it going to work, Doc?' inquired Superintendent Cardew in an undertone.

‘I don't know,' returned the doctor shortly. ‘I've never had occasion to use it before. And, if it does, I don't guarantee that you'll get the truth. It's more likely to be a load of old rubbish or else pure fantasy. And, what's more, I'm not at all sure that this business isn't illegal and that I won't wind up finding myself struck off the Medical Register!'

‘Nonsense. Besides, if anyone hears of it — and they won't — you can always say that you were only carrying out the orders of the police, and put the blame on us. We're used to that.'

‘And how!' endorsed Larry feelingly. Adding a trifle anxiously that he hoped that the quality and volume of the sound was going to improve, because at present he could not make out a word that the prisoner was saying.

‘Give him time,' urged the doctor, busy replacing the discarded turban with an elaborate and highly professional bandage. ‘You can't expect that stuff to act with the speed of light.'

Larry sighed, and pulling up the vacant chair, seated himself gingerly in its creaking depths, produced his own notebook and pencil, and sat waiting to take down anything relevant that the prisoner might say.

Mr Ponting continued to mutter unintelligibly and the doctor, having completed the bandage to his satisfaction and felt his patient's pulse again, picked up the syringe and wrapped it in a square of surgical gauze. He was stowing it away in his bag with some ostentation — as if to forestall any request from the guardians of the law for a further injection of the drug he had been asked to administer — when Nigel Ponting began to talk: aloud and clearly…

‘… There is no proof,' declared Nigel, addressing the unseen person whose movements he had been watching, and who was now apparently standing at the foot of the bed. ‘I've been too clever for them. There isn't an atom of proof, and they'll never think of looking under Tyson's floorboards for that duplicate key … Right under his nose! And of course for any serious work I always took care to wear gloves — that pair of silk ones to match my skin that Don had specially made for me in Cairo. They've proved invaluable. There'll be no prints on the stair mechanism, or anywhere else. They teach you to cover your tracks, as you know. They're very insistent about that. Old Honeywood never noticed the gloves even though it was mid morning. Though of course it was a grey day, and I have to admit that the mist was a bonus — one might almost call it providential — if one believed in Providence, which luckily I don't …

‘A pity it wasn't thicker … If it had been, that Bates woman would never have recognized me — silly bitch!
I never forget a face!
That really was bad luck. Hers not mine. Tiresome, beady-eyed old busy-body! I certainly didn't remember hers. But of course after that I had to get rid of her as quickly as possible … I must tell you about that. It was laughably easy and I really do pride myself on it … It was a stroke of genius. All I had to do was type an urgent little note on the Ashton girl's typewriter, push it under Bates's door, set the stair trap and wait for her to fall into it. Which of course she did —
plunk!

‘… Yes. Terrible about Jembe — I don't know how I'm going to manage without him. I wonder who did it? We shall have to find out. I suppose the police will have searched his luggage. Let's hope he was careful: his type so often aren't … too conceited. It's our weakest link. Oh, well, I shall have to find a replacement. It shouldn't be difficult — three million will buy almost anything!… We could swing the elections for a fraction of that. It's after we've done it that the trouble will start. I know we need islands and that this one is the best one to begin on … but the snag is going to be the Zanzibaris. They're too damned easy-going. They'll have to be educated … taught to kill. And to hate. That's the important thing. Hate … to hate … to hate. And after that…'

The harsh, unfamiliar voice, that contained no trace of those high-pitched and carefully cultivated fluting tones that had been part of a successful disguise for so long, talked on and on, while the horrified doctor (who had been more than half inclined to take all he had been told about Ponting with a large helping of salt) frowned and fussed and muttered oaths that were certainly not Hippocratic, and Messrs Cardew and Dowling scribbled swiftly, filling page after page of their official notebooks. Jotting down names that would later be identified and their owners traced, together with dates and details that were to prove damning …

When at last the hoarse voice slurred to a stop, the doctor — having declared that the performance was over and that the prisoner would now sleep for several hours — departed upstairs to see what he could do for Miss Ashton, and Mr Cardew mopped his brow with a pocket handkerchief and announced that he would be jiggered.

‘If you'd told me that, and I hadn't heard it with my own ears, I wouldn't have believed a word of it,' confessed Mr Cardew. ‘And, whatever the Doc's reservations are about using that drug, there was nothing phoney about that performance! If ever anything came straight from the horse's mouth, that did! But I didn't follow that stuff about the three million that's going to give Jembe's dupes a walk-over in the elections, and turn Zanzibar into a Communist paradise and a base for Russian spy-rockets and atom-subs and all the rest of it. Whose three million?'

‘Tyson's grandfather's,' said Larry. ‘The old reprobate reportedly stashed away roughly that amount as his share of Sultan Saïd's treasure, which he and a subsequent Sultan, Majid, somehow got their hooks on. And all this murder and mayhem was apparently sparked off by a map that shows where he hid it. It seems to have turned into a nasty adult version of that popular children's party game, “Hunt-the-slipper”, and to date three people — if one can count “the thin man” as one of them — have been murdered for the sake of that map.'

‘Who's got it now?'

‘Mr Frost, I imagine. Unless it's still on the floor of young Holden's room in the guest annex. I forgot to ask.'

‘Do you think they'll find it? — the loot, I mean.'

‘I expect so. That is, if it's still there. It may not be. But if it is, at least it won't be going to swell the coffers of some local Dictator and his Commissars, and their home-picked brand of the K.G.B.'

‘No, thank God! Well, Dowling, now that that's over, I'll be off to dig the Resident out of bed and see what can be done to ensure that this murderous fellow-traveller gets sent back under guard to stand trial at the Old Bailey. And a very good night to you!' The door banged behind him.

‘Some hope!' sighed Larry sadly. And resigned himself to spending what remained of the night in a creaking and far from comfortable cane armchair.

Postscript from ‘Kivulimi'.

… it sounds to me a very dull place for a honeymoon, baby. Though I do see that you both felt you'd had enough of romantic places for a bit. It's a pity we didn't buy you a mackintosh and some sensible shoes, but anyway, I expect you can get them there, and I'm sure you're both having a heavenly time, even if you are only on parole or bail or something. And by the way, Larry said to remind you that if you don't turn up in London on the right date and the right time he'll have you both arrested and never speak to you again. So you won't go all starry-eyed and forget, will you darling?
(
Tyson says that if I'm referring to your husband, I mean pie-eyed. But of course I don't.
)

I think we've got rid of the police at last, which is a blessing
(
except for darling Larry. I wish he could have stayed
)
and we had a bit of drama over Elf. I expect you saw the announcement in the papers. She's going to marry Sir Ambrose Yardley. She says that Tyson advised her to marry someone like that. Very naughty of him, as of course Eduardo was simply
heart
broken, and we had the most exhausting scenes — and right on top of everything else: I can't tell you! Still, they've both gone, and if I know Eddie, he's already in love with someone else.

Everything else seems to have been sorted out, except for the Jembe business. I don't suppose we shall ever know about that, but it seems that Nigel didn't do it, and Tyson says he's quite sure that Seyyid Omar did. He was dining with us here the other night and mentioned that Jembe suffered from air sickness, or nerves or something, and that he'd given him something to take for it. And then he looked at Tyson with that bland smile of his and said: ‘Like your revered uncle, one does what one can.' And then they both drank Barclay's health. Really
— men
! How could they? When one thinks of all that lovely money. Oh I forgot you wouldn't know about that — I must tell you
____

It wasn't nearly as easy as they thought to find it, the treasure I mean, because of course Tyson's father had bricked up all those walls.
(
Tyson says he was always messing up the place with improvements.
)
And when we got there at last, all we found was a rather pompous letter from Barclay. It was a bit difficult to read, as it had got damp, but we read it and it seems that the silly old man had come on the gold when he was poking about in the foundations for material for that boring book of his, and believe it or not, he had carried it all out, bit by bit and night after night, and dumped it into the sea from one of those little fishing carracks, about a mile offshore.
Really,
darling!

He said money in a place like Zanzibar was a source of evil, because all it led to was Progress; and he was against progress, because it seldom led to happiness, and more often only meant hideous buildings, ugly factories, dirty railway yards and noisy motor cars, and things like strikes, lockouts and exploitation. He preferred coconuts, cloves and charm.