Murder on Safari (19 page)

“Why don’t you quit holding out on me this way?

It isn’t getting you anywhere. Take yesterday.

You left camp before six in the morning, and got back after seven at night. I know it doesn’t take that long for the round trip to Malabeya, and you know I know it. Why don’t you tell me what you did?”

“I have told you,” Cara answered. Her tone was flat and lifeless. “We drove to Malabeya. We

weren’t in a hurry, and we stopped for breakfast on the way.”

“Quite a breakfast, I should day. Took three —

four hours to eat.”

“It wasn’t only breakfast. We stopped again,

not far from Malabeya. Luke saw a kudu from the 192

road that he thought might have a record head, so he went after it. That took some time, and then he had to skin the kudu after he’d shot it.”

“Too bad. What did he do with the skin?”

“What on earth does it matter?” Cara said, irritation sharpening her voice. “You do ask the most

fatuous questions. He took it with him, of course.

Can’t you stop cross-examining people for a

second?”

“Sure,” Vachell said equably. “I beg your

pardon. Maybe you’d rather I told you something for a change. Sir Gordon tried to leave a message for you when he died, but couldn’t get it over. It had something to do with Englebrecht.”

Cara dug her toe in the soft wet sand and threw her cigarette stub into the river. Her face was a white blur in the darkness.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“Not quite. Sir Gordon’s death was not an accident.

I shouldn’t tell you this, but I guess you can take it. It was another murder.”

“But the buffalo — ” Cara exclaimed. She

shrank back against the rock, and tried to grip it with her hands.

“The buffalo killed him, sure. But dead

buffaloes don’t trample people to death, and that buffalo would have been dead before it ever

reached Sir Gordon if the bullet I hit it with had penetrated the skull. It didn’t, because the

cartridge only had half a charge of powder. The rest had been taken out.”

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“Then it was meant for you?” Cara asked.

Vachell got the impression that she had expected something else. “I mean, you were supposed to be the Ч the victim?”

Vachell nodded, and flicked his cigarette into the water. It hissed faintly, and disappeared.

“Poor Gordon,” she said, “He butted in once

too often… . How did the murderer do the

trick?”

“He emptied half the powder out, replaced the bullet, and then he put the cut cartridges back in my belt last night, sometime after eleven o’clock.”

He thought he heard Cara catch her breath, but the evening was so full of noises that he couldn’t be sure. “What sort of cartirdges were they?” she asked.

“You mean the bore? They were .470’s. What

makes you ask that?”

[This time there was no mistake. She gave a sort of gulp, and her body went rigid against the rock.

“Noting,” she said. Her voice was hoarse and

hard. “Let’s go in; I’m cold.”

They walked in silence back to camp. Cara

poured herself a stiff drink of gin and drank it neat. She walked off to her tent, calling to her boy to bring a bath.

Hot water was gloriously soothing to Vachell’s bruised ribs and aching limbs, even though the rubber tub accommodated only half of him at a time. His scratches, under the plaster, were sore 194

and itching. He dressed slowly, in a pair of grey slacks and a dark sweater. There might yet, he suspected, be work to do.

As he sat on the bed to pull on his shoes, the lid of the wooden box containing his detective outfit, standing on the ground opposite, caught his eye.

It wasn’t quite closed; and he had left the box safely locked. He jumped up and went over to

inspect it. Then he swore tersely and flung back the lid. The lock had been roughly forced, and from the box had been taken the packaging

containing all the potential exhibits relating to the Baradale case. Nothing else, so far as he could see, had been touched.

He squatted on his heels by the box, tabulating in his mind the thief s haul. One used bullet, the bullet fired by de Mare into Catchpole’s lion; one Player’s cigarette stub; one pair of pliers, with traces of cupro-nickel dust on their gripping surfaces; one empty .470 shell, with scratches, from the cartridge that hadn’t killed the buffalo; three doctored .470 cartridges, with part of their powder gone; and two walnuts.

That was all. Yet one of these unpromising

objects must have been the thief s objective. One of them must be a vital clue, whose destruction was essential for someone’s safety. One of them had been worth risking detection to secure.

And, for the life of him, Vachell couldn’t think which.

Tents could not be locked, and any one might

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have walked into his during the last two hours, after he had gone out with Rutley to the drift.

That meant that anyone in camp could have

burgled the box — anyone, in fact, except Lord Baradale and de Mare, who were still somewhere on the Malabeya road. There was nothing to be gained by thinking along those lines. Kimotho, summoned for inquiries, could contribute nothing. He had seen no suspicious character

hanging round his master’s quarters, loitering with intent.

Vachell was puzzling over the matter when he

joined Chris Davis under the acacia and poured himself out another Scotch. She had changed into the usual dinner dress of the camp, and looked fresh and self-possessed in a black and crimson dressing-gown over black silk pyjamas. Her hair was like a golden halo in the lamplight.

“I see the lorries got back,” she said. “You must have had fun and games with them in the drift.”

“We sure did,” Vachell said. “They went down

the river to look for Englebrecht, but the rain came on and they had to turn around before they found anything.”

“He must be down the river if he’s here at all,”

Chris said. “There’s no other water for fifty miles.

If you like, I’ll take you out tomorrow morning in the plane. If we fly downstream we can’t miss him, and then you can go after him in the car.”

“That’s a swell suggestion,” Vachell said. “I’d like to call that a date. How did you make out to196

day?”

Chris recounted three adventures: locating the elephants; finding the rhino carcase with a

Timburu feather and an empty rifle shell beside it; and getting stuck in the mud. She handed him the cartridge shell and a sheet of paper on which the time and distance between camp and the elephants were written.

“How does that fit in with your theory?” she

asked.

He grinned and raised his glass to her. “You

flatter it. It isn’t an adult theory yet; it’s just a moppet. But what you found out will stimulate its growth. You’ve been a big help, and thanks a lot.”

“You don’t give much away, do you?” Chris

said.

“I may be going cheap myself in a couple of

days. Something tells me the Commissioner will be headed this way when he gets my telegraphed report, and I don’t anticipate that he’ll be falling over himself with satisfaction at the way things are shaping.”

“Don’t worry,” Chris said consolingly. “If we can’t get out, he can’t get in. He’ll stick in the mud.”

Vachell looked at his watch in the strong light of the petrol-lamp which hissed softly on the table.

“Mind if we turn on the radio?” he asked. “The news is just coming on, and I asked headquarters to slip in a message for me at the beginning if there was anything hot.”

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He brought the portable radio out of the messtent and set it on the table. He tuned in to Marula, and they listened in silence to a symphony

orchestra record and a lot of atmospherics. A voice announced the second news bulletin, copyright reserved. There was a pause, and it came through again.

“Before the second news,” it said, “I have a

police message for Superintendent Vachell,

Chania police, believed to be somewhere on the Kiboko river, Western Frontier province. Calling Superintendent Vachell, Chania police. Message begins. Your report received. The Commissioner is leaving Marula tomorrow and hopes to reach Malabeya the following day. He will proceed to your assistance as soon as road conditions permit.

The following information received to-day from Malabeya is transmitted for your information. The District Commissioner, Malabeya, reports that at 4 p.m. yesterday the Honourable Cara Baradale and Luke Englebrecht called at his office with the intention of obtaining immediately a special

marriage licence. This was refused. Englebrecht has not yet been reported out of the Western

Frontier province. You are further warned that a number of Timburu warriors, one or more of

whom is wanted for the murder of a Game Department scout, is believed to be at large in your area.

Message ends. I will now repeat. Police message for Superintendent Vachell, Chania Police. …”

The stilted voice droned on in the darkness,

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punctuated by the crackle of static and the

croaking of frogs. The two listeners sat in silence, glasses clasped in their hands, staring at the radio.

A slight breeze ruffled the leaves above them and an owl hooted in the distance. The repeat ended, and the voice said: “This is the B.B.C. Empire Service, second news bulletin, copyright reserved.

Heavy casulaties are reported from Canton today, where the Japanese launched a fresh aerial attack.

?╗

Vachell got up and switched it off without

comment. His face was set and thoughtful in the hard white light. A white-clad form materialized out of the night and started to clear bottles and glasses off the table in readiness for dinner.

“Poor kid,” Chris said. “I wonder why on earth she tried to do an idiotic thing like that?”

“I can think of one reason,” Vachell answered.

“What’s that?”

“Because a wife can’t testify against her

husband in a court of law,” he said.

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FR1;FR2;CHAPTER

NINETEEN

It was after eight o’clock when an angry voice, shouting loudly in Kiswahili for a hot bath, proclaimed the return of Lord Baradale and de Mare.

As soon as they entered the pool of light under the acacia Vachell could see why they were late. It was clear that they had made the last part of the journey on foot. Lord Baradale was thickly

encrusted with black mud, and it was only too evident that at some stage he had slipped and fallen headlong into a particularly wet patch.

“What in God’s name have you been up to in

that drift?” he demanded furiously. He seized the whisky bottle and splashed some of the contents into a tumbler. “Having an all-in wrestling match with an elephant? The whole damned place is

chewed to bits. You could no more get a car

through there than up Mount Everest. Mine’s

stuck over the axles, and I should be obliged if you’d kindly have it brought in before it’s washed away… . Where’s my daughter?”

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“We had a bit of trouble with the trucks,”

Vachell said, “Miss Baradale is in her tent, I guess. She isn’t feeling very well. She’s had a shock, sir. I’m afraid it will be a shock to you, too.

I hate to tell you this, but the fact is Ч “

“For God’s sake, man, out with it!” Lord

Baradale barked. “Do you think I’m an hysterical old woman who’ll throw a fit if she gets a shock?”

“Sir Gordon Catchpole has been killed,”

Vachell said shortly. He added, after a momentary pause, “By a buffalo.”

De Mare said, “Oh, my God!” and dug the butt

of his rifle into the soft ground with a gesture of impotent anger or despair. “This is the last straw.

How did it happen?”

Lord Baradale said nothing for a moment. He

stood and stared at Vachell, his small black eyes wide with astonishment and consternation. He

seemed, for once, at a loss for words. He shut his mouth with a snap and sat down heavily in a chair, pulling his glass of whisky towards him and

gulping the contents before he spoke.

“Gordon dead!” he excalimed dully. “Lucy Ч

then Gordon… .There’s something behind this!

Are you sure it was a buffalo?”

Vachell told the story briefly, omitting all

mention of his mutilated cartridges. The faces of his listeners were set and strained in the harsh light of the hissing petrol-lamp that stood on the centre of the table. A big brown moth banged

itself persistently against the lamp-glass while he 201

spoke, until Chris shot out a hand and knocked it I to the ground, where it lay stunned.

“God damn it!” Lord Baradale exploded. “You

had no right to let him go with you! You, a detective, who’s here to protect us — you’re responsible for his death!” |

“Vachell couldn’t help it,” de Mare said. He , pulled a chair close to the table and sat down. He 1

was as precise as ever in his actions, but his voice was flat and dispirited. His face seemed to become more lean and hawk-like every day, and his eyes to grow larger in their sockets. “Of all big game, I’d sooner meet anything than a buffalo hit too far back. They’ve killed better men than Catchpole before — better hunters, I mean — and they will again.”

Vachell glanced across the table at de Mare and tried to put gratitude into the look. He thought again how curiously sensitive to other people’s feelings the hunter sometimes was, for a man

whose life was spent in action.

“That bull must have done the old trick of

circling round to cut across his own back trail, and then lying in wait,” de Mare went on. He seemed to feel that some one ought to speak to fill the silence. “They wait until you’re on top of them, and then let you have it. They mean to get you when they do that. They’ve killed a good many people that way. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Rutley.

He ought to have been able to tell that he’d hit something from the sound of the shot.”

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Lord Baradale said nothing and stared at his drink. He was breathing heavily. When he spoke at last his bluster had given way to a helpless acceptance of the situation that surprised and almost shocked the others.