Murder on Safari (24 page)

The footprints led to the water’s edge, and there were none coming back. He collected some clods of earth and loose stones and hurled them into the river with a series of splashes, and then shifted his cartridges, matches, and notebook to the breast pocket of his shirt. Armed with a long branch cut from the bush he waded in, holding his rifle above his head and praying that there were no

crocodiles. The water came over his waist, but he got across, and picked up the footprints on the other side. They led up a steep bank and into the bush. After that it became more difficult. There was nothing to go on but a faint trail of bent stems in the thick grass. The man had walked through, evidently, while the grass was still soaked with rain that morning. Now it was dry as tinder.

The trail grew steadily fainter, and in an open patch between two belts of bush Vachell lost it altogether. He was casting around, in hope rather than in confidence, when the smell of decaying flesh assailed his nostrils. It was strong and foetid.

He tested the wind with some grass seeds and

explored up-wind. In a small open glade he came upon a skeleton. Shreds of flesh still hung from the bones, and a cloud of vultures, gobbling and tearing at the meat, surrounded the carcass.

The vultures rose in a black cloud as he walked forwards, flapping their big wings in protest. They perched in the tops of trees, or sat a little way off on the ground, and watched the invader with a 242

malevolent glare. Vachell approached and

examined the scene. Bits of striped hide and some detached hoofs lying about showed that the dead beast was a zebra. So it was a kill, not the victim of Englebrecht’s rifle. It was only partially eaten.

The two hind legs were gone, and the neck, but there was meat still on the forelegs and ribs. Last night’s kill, obviously; the lions, as was their custom, had kept hyenas away. The ground round about was trampled and bloody. Vachell knelt

down to examine it, and on a branch of bush

nearby he was rewarded by the find of a long

tawny hair from a lion’s mane.

He wondered whether Englebrecht had been

tracking the lions, or whether they had just

happened to kill close to the camp. He prayed earnestly to the gods of fortune. He was weary, hungry, footsore and bruised. The idea of a foodless night in the open didn’t appeal Ч especially, he thought, with all these lions about.

Lions, he had heard, always returned a second night to their kill. Often they lay up close at hand during the day, and came back at dusk. It was after five o’clock now. No sense in taking risks.

He slung his rifle off his shoulder and slipped back the bolt to see if it was properly loaded. Smiling at his own caution, he took out the cartridges, held them up in the sunlight, and examined them

closely to make sure that they hadn’t been got at.

There was no scratches on their copper cases. He took two soft-nosed cartridges from his pocket, 243

slipped them into the breach, and transferred his ammunition and other possessions from his breast pocket back into his shorts. Perhaps, he thought, it would be best to fire a couple of shots into the air to attract Englebrecht’s attention. The hunter’s camp couldn’t be far off, and the noise might bring him out to investigate… .

Then, suddenly, something seemed to click in

his brain. One glaring, obvious discrepancy in the evidence leapt into his mind and, once there, filled it to the exclusion of every other thought. Now that he had seen the one flaw in the murderer’s plan, he could see nothing else; it stood out as blatantly as a nudist at a Royal garden party.

Everything suddenly fitted into place; the method, the motive, and the subsequent events. It was so simple, so obvious, even crude. His own elaborate theory of the case tumbled about him in ruins, like a building hit directly by a bomb. He saw it all Ч

saw everything, except the slightest shadow of proof. He realized, as he trudged on with renewed energy through the bush, that he had encountered the almost perfect crime Ч a murder that,

however much the truth might be suspected,

never could be proved.

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Englebrecht’s camp consisted of a small tent, without a fly, pitched directly underneath a large acacia with a spreading top, and nothing else. No one could have seen it from the air. Had it not been for a curl of smoke rising above the bush from the kitchen fire, Vachell might have walked within ten paces of the tent without knowing of its presence. But the fire had been lit to cook an evening meal, and he stumbled on the camp just before sunset.

He stood for a few minutes in the shelter of the bush, taking in the scene. The sun was hanging low above a long purple line of hills in the west, and the shadows of the trees were long and deep.

The young hunter was seated on a folding campchair by the side of the fire, cleaning a rifle.

Vachell could see, then, why Cara Baradale had found him so attractive. There was no doubt about his good looks. He sat there with a sort of quiet grace, unconscious of scrutiny, and the slanting 245

sunlight turned his bronzed face, knees and arms and his blond hair the rich red-gold colour of a ripening peach. He looked the embodiment of

health and fitness — like, as de Mare had

suggested, a model of the perfect young Nordic male. Perhaps, Vachell thought, even his Teutonic stolidity and lack of humour had counted as a virtue with Cara, in contrast to Gordon Catchpole’s sophistication and malicious nimbleness of

tongue.

“Nice evening,” he said conversationally, and stepped forward from the shadow of the bush.

“I’m glad I found you home,”

Englebrecht jumped like a startled antelope,

bringing his rifle halfway to his shoulder in a flash. He might look slow and stolid, but he could act on the instant, and his movements had the quick co-ordination of those of an athlete. His round, youthful face betrayed, in quick succession, astonishment, fear, and bewilderment. He

lowered the rifle slowly, and seemed at a loss for words. Finally he challenged:

“Who are you? What is it you want?”

Vachell laughed, realizing that his appearance must indeed look wild and strange. His clothes were torn to tatters and his face and arms covered with scratches and adhesive tape.

“An arm of the law,” he said, “It’s getting

longer all the time,”

Comprehension showed in Englebrecht’s face.

“I didn’t recognize you,” he said. “How did you 246

get here? I heard no car. How did you know… ?”

Vachell sat down wearily on a chop-box that was lying near the fire, and explained. Englebrecht appeared delighted. “I knew you would use the aeroplane,” he said, “That’s why I pitched the tent under this tree, so that it would be hidden from the air. I was successful, then. The car, too, is safely hidden.”

He frowned and flushed a little, realizing that he had made an admission. His unlined, freshcheeked face reflected faithfully each of his

emotions.

“You did a good job,” Vachell said. “Now it’s your turn to answer questions. Why did you sneak out of Malabeya on the day that Lady Baradale was bumped and hide yourself away in the bush so you couldn’t be found? And why did you come

snooping around the camp in the night like a

hyena, the same night some one busted into the tent where the dead body was lying and crowned me with a blunt instrument and took away the key to Lady Baradale’s safe?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Englebrecht said quickly. His slightly guttural voice was urgent. “Lady Baradale’s death, I mean. I knew you would come here to question me. I told Cara it was foolishness to hide. You found out that we had been to the D.C.‘s office, eh? I told Cara it would be better to come to you, and that you

would believe that I was innocent, but she

wouldn’t let me. She said that you Ч “

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“Suppose we start the story at the beginning,”

Vachell interrupted. “Right after you left camp at six in the morning.” He stretched out his aching legs and sat limply on the chop-box, every muscle relaxed. A delicious smell of cooking meat

tantalized his nostrils and made his mouth water.

Englebrecht remained standing, staring at him apprehensively. He still held the rifle in one hand, and his arm was trembling.

“Yes, that is best,” he agreed. He was clearly flustered and the words came rapidly. “I met Cara just outside the camp. That was her idea, too.

Lady Baradale had forbidden her to go, so she left her tent when it was still dark and waited for me a little way along the track. She brought some

stores, as much as she could carry; we had

arranged for this camp, you see. She didn’t want me to go away. She thought that if I stayed somewhere near, perhaps the new man — that was you

— would not please the others, and then Cara would tell her father that she loved me, and then I would come back again to join the safari as a hunter. Besides, she didn’t want to do what the old woman said. She hated her, you see — at least, that is …”

Englebrecht’s voice tailed off and he looked

acutely embarrassed again. Vachell lent his elbows on his knees, cupped his chin in his hands, and said: “Skip it. Stick to what you did.”

Englebrecht hesitated for several seconds,

looking acutely uncomfortable. “Well, Cara

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wanted to get married, you see,” he finally blurted out. “At least, I did too, you understand, only not at once. I wanted to wait until I had saved money, had some good jobs all fixed Ч you know. So that she could have something, a house, perhaps, when I was on safari. Lady Baradale thought I couldn’t make enough to keep a wife, that I wanted Cara for her money, but I tell you Ч I’m as good as Danny, and soon I shall make as much as he does.

He has the reputation, but as a hunter …”

Englebrecht shrugged his broad shoulders. “Once he was good, yes, but now it is all conceit. He thinks he is the greatest hunter who ever lived, but he is over, finished, done with, really. I can do better … but Cara didn’t want to wait. She was afraid of the old woman, who wanted to make her marry Catchpole. So we went to the D.C.‘s office, but the D.C. wouldn’t do it. He said we must wait three weeks. Cara was very angry, but I think, perhaps, it was just as well.”

“It’s a four-hour journey to Malabeya,” Vachell said. “You left at six and you got here at four in the afternoon. You have six hours to fill to make an alibi. How about it?”

“I can explain,” Englebrecht said eagerly. Now that he had broken through the wall of silence, he spoke fluently and seemed anxious to talk. “First, we stopped for breakfast, you see. Then, we went on towards Malabeya, but when we got near we

passed a hill on the left of the road where lesser kudu sometimes come. I don’t know why, but ask 249

any of the trackers, they will tell you it is so Ч

they call it Kilima Marua, even. I saw a fine bull through the glasses, feeding in thin bush near the top. He had a good head, you see, and I thought perhaps it was a record. Well, I went after him. I had a stalk, longer than intended, he moved on all the time, you see, just out of range; he was a wily one. It took a long time. When I had shot him it took more time to skin him and bring him back to the car. We were delayed for several hours, you see, and that made us late in reaching Malabeya.”

“And was the head a record?” Vachell asked.

Englebrecht shook his head. “No, several

inches short. I was disappointed. It was only fit to throw away. “

“What did you do with the skin?”

“The skin? Oh, I threw that away too.”

“I guess you felt kind of reckless on your

wedding day,” Vachell remarked. “Kudu skins

are worth quite a bit of money in Marula, I

believe.”

“Oh, it is very little; only a few shillings.”

Englebrecht sat down again on his folding chair and laid the rifle on the ground. He seemed to have recovered confidence and to be more at ease.

“And then?” Vachell persisted. “Where did you go from there?”

“I had left my own car with an Indian in his

warehouse, so I took it out and drove back here, and then I made camp. Cara went back on her own Ч her car is much faster than mine, and I had to 250

stop on the way to shoot a Tommy for meat. So, you see, I know nothing about the accident to Lady Baradale. How could I? I was close to

Malabeya when it happened.”

“How did you know about it at all?” Vachell

asked. He looked up from his contemplation of the grass at his feet and fixed his sharp blue eyes on the hunter’s earnest face.

“I went to the camp that night, to see Cara. We had arranged it before, of course. She said I wasn’t to admit to that, but I don’t see. … I didn’t know anything was wrong. I left the car at the drift and walked up, and then she told me about the Ч the murder, you see. I wanted to come back at once to help her, but she wouldn’t listen to that. She said I was to stay hidden until the safari went back to Marula, or else the police would arrest me… .

But it wasn’t me. I didn’t shoot her Ч you believe that, don’t you? I don’t know who it was. It must have been an accident, I think.”

Vachell paid no attention to the question. He kept his eyes fixed on the hunter’s face and

massaged one ear-lobe gently between finger and thumb. “You loaned Rutley your heavy gun,” he remarked. “A smaller rifle would have been right for buck.”

“I wanted the other rifles to keep myself in

meat; the .470 was the only one I could spare. I was sorry for Rutley. He wanted to shoot, but they never gave him a chance. The old woman didn’t treat him right, considering … well, you know.

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She was a mean old skinflint.”

“She was pretty generous to Cara in her will,”

Vachell said. “No funny business with cat’s homes or new classrooms for her Alma Mater. It all

stayed in the family.”

Englebrecht flushed slightly and looked

morosely at his questioner. “I don’t know

anything about that,” he replied. “I haven’t been back to the camp since then. Cara told me to keep away, that it wasn’t safe, and that she would come to me when she could sneak off without being