Murder on Safari (26 page)

place seemed to be full of people. Cara Baradale’s voice said: “You win, Mr Vachell. I didn’t think you’d find him. But it doesn’t help, you know. He didn’t murder Lucy.” She looked thinner and

more emaciated than ever, and her face was

unnaturally flushed. She poured herself out a glass of neat gin. Englebrecht stood woodenly by her side. Lord Baradale walked over from his tent, looking tired and worn.

“You gave us a nice fright,” he said to Vachell.

“The camp’s been in an uproar all day, and de Mare has only just got back from hunting for you over half of Africa. I suppose you crashed the plane into a tree, or something. You had no right to take her up — an inexperienced pilot. Now I suppose I shall be expected to replace it, since it wasn’t Mrs Davis’s fault. Six or seven hundred 263

quid gone west to pay for the caprices of a

foolhardy young policeman. I shan’t let it rest there, I can assure you. I shall speak to the Governor, and hold the police responsible for the cost.”

“The engine stalled,” Vachell answered wearily.

“Some one monkeyed around with it last night.”

“The engine stalled,”

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There was an awkward silence, broken by a

snort from Lord Baradale. “Stuff and nonsense!”

he exclaimed. “The plane took off all right. You’re using that as an excuse to cloak your own incompetence.

I’m delighted to hear that the Commissioner

is arriving tomorrow. Then, perhaps, we

shall see an end to this ridiculous situation. You seem to forget, young man, that so long as you fail to do your job and arrest the criminal, we have a maniac amongst us, and our lives are in grave danger. Geydi! Bring dinner immediately.” He sat down angrily at the head of the table.

“Let’s try to forget this ghastly murder, if it’s only for an hour.” Cara said. “I shall go bats if things go on like this, with everybody suspecting everybody else. Can’t we talk of anything else for once? Shoes, ships, sealing-wax — where’s

Danny? He always thinks of something.” She

waved her glass in the air, and sat down abruptly in her chair. It was obvious that she had already had several drinks.

Danny de Mare arrived with Peto at the same

time as the soup. He had bathed and changed, but he looked worn out. His temper however, still seemed unshaken. White hunters, Vachell

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thought, certainly knew how to take it.

“Glad to see you,” he said to Vachell. “This

camp is getting like a Drury Lane stage with a trap-door and people disappearing down it one by one. I thought you were a goner to-day. I’ve been pushing cars through the mud ever since noon

trying to find you, If this is modern detective work, give me Sherlock Holmes in the quiet of his Baker Street flat, or that American fellow who drinks iced beer — Nero Wolfe. Have you got to detect by air?”

“This is the last time I try it,” Vachell

answered. “But I found what I wanted.”

“Englebrecht, you mean?”

“Maybe,” he said.

Peto was a strong man, but not silent. At dinner he kept them entertained with stories of his last solitary trip by camel through the desert, accompanied only by half a dozen askaris and his

personal staff, in the course of which he had encountered a foreign military force, officered by a colonel, a major, three captains, and a quartermaster-sergeant, trespassing on British territory

across the boarder. He had ordered them off

without any effect, and then invaded their camp under cover of darkness and cut the guy ropes of the officers’s tents, escaping in the pandemonium that followed. Afterwards he heard that several soldiers had been shot in the confusion that

followed, for a mutiny had been suspected; but the next day the force retreated in good order, led 265

by the colonel in full uniform, with sword and spurs, mounted on a white donkey. More important, he had discovered a Stapelia which he

believed was new to science.

His audience was not very responsive. Lord

Baradale merely grunted, and complained loudly about the food. Cara talked spasmodically and at random, and once she turned on Englebrecht, who maintained a stolid silence, and almost shouted: “For God’s sake, can’t you say something?” Only de Mare made a serious effort to back up the D.C.

in his attempts to keep the conversation going. It petered out altogether with the coffee, and a silence broke only by the distant voice of the radio from the messtent fell on the party. A crooner was singing “The love bug will get you if you don’t watch out.” Englebrecht opened his mouth almost for the first time during the evening to say that he was tired, and proposed to go to bed. He walked off without saying good night to Cara, looking sulky and upset.

Vachell was thinking over the words of the

announcement that he intended to make when a

commotion from the boys’ quarters made them all turn their heads and stare across the darkness towards the kitchen. There were several shouts, and a black form raced through the shadows and halted by Peto’s side. It was the tribal policeman, and the expression on his broad shiny face was agitated and afraid.

“Bwana,” he gasped, “there is bad news. The

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prisoner, the Timburu uncircumcised youth — he is gone!”

“Gone!” Peto echoed. “What are you saying?

How can he be gone? He was fastened with handcuffs to theaskari.”

“Yes, bwana, but a man has beaten the head of the askari, and now he lies on the ground as if he were dead. He went with the prisoner to eat food.

They were in a tent together with the food in front of them when I saw them. I went away for a little, and when I returned I found the askari lying dead and the Timburu gone like a bird.”

Peto leant forward, his arms gripping the sides of the chair. “Is he dead?” he demanded

“I think not, bwana, not yet, but he cannot

speak. He was hit on the side of the head by a very strong man who crept up behind, and then opened the handcuffs with the key so that the Timburu could escape. Tonight it is very dark, and no one saw him go.”

Peto leapt to his feet. “Show me,” he

commanded. “Turn out the askaris and all the

boys, bring them all from their tents. We’re going to find out who hit that askari if we have to flay you all alive to do it.” He disappeared into the darkness, bellowing for the other askaris.

“What the devil!” Lord Baradale exploded.

“Vachell! What does this new outrage mean?”

“It means, sir,” Vachell answered, “that

someone in this camp has gone to work in earnest to see that the Timburu boy doesn’t tell his story.”

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The askari was sitting up ruefully rubbing the side of his head when the white men found him. An

empty steel bracelet dangled uselessly on his left wrist, and he looked sheepish, bewildered and sick. He was bleeding slightly from a cut over the temple. There was no weapon in the tent, and a thorough search failed to reveal one anywhere close at hand.

Peto questioned him sharply, but could get no useful information. He and the Timburu boy had been sitting by themselves in the opening of one of the natives’ tents, sharing a bowl of boiled maize flour and beans, when a violent blow on the side of the head had laid him out unconcious; and he knew no more.

The boys, assembled in a circle with Peto and Vachell in the centre, were questioned one by one, but they had seen nothing Ч or, if they had, they would not speak. They were awed and nervous,

for the D.C. was the Government, and this

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particular D.C. was known to be a savage man when the Government’s authority was defied.

Their solemn, broad-nosed faces shone like onyx in the firelight. Each native shook his woolly head gravely, and echoed: “No, bwana. I did not see a person with a piece of iron in his hand, nor a person hitting the askari. No, I do not know who did this thing.”

Only Geydi appeared perfectly self-possessed.

He stood before Peto, his hands hanging limply at his sides, and gazed straight into the D.C.‘s eyes with a faintly contemptuous smile on his full, effeminate lips. He answered, as usual, in monosyllables. Peto’s voice was edged with exasperation, but Geydi’s smile remained.

“Where did you go,” Peto demanded, “after

you had taken coffee to the Europeans’ table?”

“To my tent.”

“Because?” Geydi shrugged his shoulders.

“Answer me,” Peto barked.

“To remove my kanzu.”

“Was any one with you in the tent?”

“No.”

“How long did you remain there?”

“I don’t know.”

Peto swore under his breath, and looked round at the circle of impassive black faces surrounding him. “Did you others see Geydi go to his tent?” he asked. “Do any of you know where he was?”

No one broke the silence.

“Are you all idiots?” Peto demanded. “Are you 269

unable to speak? Answer me, someone, or it will be very bad.”

The encircling line wavered in one place, and Kimotho stepped forward into the ring. He stood at attention in front of the D.C., looking nervous but at the same time rather smug. “I saw Geydi after he returned from taking coffee to the white folk,” he said. “I do not think that he went to his tent. He went over there” — he waved an arm —

“towards the motor-cars. His tent is in the other direction.”

Vachell regretfully detected a distinct note of satisfaction in his servant’s voice. Altogether, it was a good day for Kimotho, what with the cook under arrest and his other bete noire getting in bad with the D.C.

Peto looked again at Geydi. The Somali’s face did not change.

“Well,” he demanded. “What do you say?”

Geydi made no reply. “Answer me, you, or I shall have you handcuffed like the Timburu and tied to лл

a tree.”

Geydi turned his big eyes, soft as velvet, in Kimotho’s direction, and looked away again as though the sight offended him. “That savage lies,”

he remarked.

“Askari!” Peto shouted. A uniformed policeman stepped forward smartly, snapped his bare

heels together, and stood stiffly at attention.

Vachell observed that two of Peto’s force of four askaris were missing from the muster, and knew 270

that the D.C. had kept his word, “Arrest this man!” Peto ordered. “Take him to his tent and keep him in custody until further orders. The charge is assulting a police constable, conspiracy to commit a felony, and obstruction.”

Geydi did not move, but a subtle change came

over his face. It looked, suddenly, evil and

malevolent, and his eyes, fixed unblinkingly on Peto’s face, gleamed in the lamplight like an animal’s. The askari saluted, turned smartly, and seized Geydi’s arm with such force that the Somali could not restrain a wince. The prisoner offered no resistance. He turned and walked with grace and a studied insolence beside the big policeman.

He reminded Vachell of a leopard being led away by a lumbering bear.

Peto heaved a sigh, and wiped his face with a large silk handkerchief. “There’s something about that boy that gets under my skin,” he said. “I know he’s mixed up in this. I could cheerfully strangle him with my own hands. Well, I’ll leave him to stew for the night, and we’ll get down to brass tacks tomorrow morning. Boy! Bring

coffee.”

They rejoined a silent and anxious group at the table, and reported briefly. Englebrecht, his curiosity aroused by the commotion, had rejoined the party. He had not, evidently, retired to bed for he was fully dressed. The air of tension that had hung over the party all evening had grown

stronger, now than ever.

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“Damn it, sir, you’ve no right to arrest my

servant!” Lord Baradale exploded. “This is

iniquitous! You’ve no charge against him whatever.

I can assure you that he knows nothing of

these Timburu fellows. How the devil could he? I demand his instant release!”

Peto’s mouth was set in a firm line below his clipped white moustache. “I’m sorry, Lord

Baradale, but that’s quite impossible. He’ll be perfectly all right, so long as he behaves himself.

If he doesn’t that’ll be just too bad for him. The askari who’s looking after him won the police heavyweight boxing championship five years ago, and he hasn’t forgotten much. And he’s a very intelligent man — one of the few police askaris I’ve ever had who can tell a Hibiscus from a Pavonia. Geydi should find him an interesting companion.”

Vachell glanced at his watch and saw that it was after ten o’clock. Zero hour, he thought; time now to play the last card. Time for the trap to be baited with the living goat. He lit a fresh cigarette, cleared this throat, and plunged into the silence.

“I have an announcement to make,” he said. All heads turned towards him and seven pairs of eyes were fixed upon his face. “I’ll make it as briefly as possible. It is this: the case is almost over. Tomorrow I hope to arrest the murderer of Lady

Baradale.”

Several people caught their breath sharply in the silence that followed, but no one spoke. A gust of 272

wind made the table-cloth flutter and the petrol lamp flare up suddenly. De Mare stretched out a hand and turned it lower, and Vachell went on: “I know now who murdered Lady Baradale,

and why, and I’m prepared to prove it. I know who took her jewels, and who shot her to silence her suspicions; and I know how it was done. I know who tried to murder me later, by cutting the powder in my cartridges, and who murdered Sir Gordon Catchpole instead. I know who bust open the box in my tent and stole the evidence I had collected there, and why it was necessary to do so.

One of you who’s listening now knows that the game is over, and the price is due. And this

collector travels with a rope.”

“If you know so damned much,” Lord Baradale

said sharply, “why don’t you arrest the fellow, and stop talking like a parson reciting the Shorter Catechism to a confirmation class?”

“Because I haven’t got a warrant,” Vachell said evenly. “I’ll have one by noon tomorrow, but a lot can happen before then. I’ve told you what I know, and now I’ll tell you what I don’t know Ч