Murder on Safari (3 page)

wiped his forehead and remarked:

“Gee, these boys know how to hustle. Am I a

hunter now, or do I have to take a course in

making crepes suzette and mixing cocktails?”

De Mare smiled, and led the way out into the

street. “That’s all for the present, I think. Simba ^| Ltd has changed a lot since I first knew it. They started life by taking foot safaris from the coast to the Great Lakes before the days of railways. It took six months for the round trip. There were three or four hundred porters, sometimes, each one with his sixty-pound load and a pair of boots slung round his neck. They had to carry beads and cloth to trade for food with the upcountry

natives. Now, of course, everything’s done in lorries, even planes sometimes, with all home comforts laid on. Simba Ltd do everything, from the moment you get to Chania with your chequebook to the moment you leave with your trophies.

That’s the demand, and they meet it.”

“With so much efficiency,” Vachell said, “they should make nothing of finding Lady Baradale’s jewels.”

“She was a fool to take them on safari,” de Mare answered. “She’ll live to regret it, I think.”

Neither of them knew, of course that de Mare

was wrong.

20

The last glow of the sunset was fading out of the sky above a grey and darkening plain when de

Mare and Vachell reached the Baradale camp at six-thirty the next evening.

The camp was pitched on a flat and grassy piece of land on the left bank of the Kiboko river, facing north. A cluster of large tents was centred round a magnificent flat-topped acacia tree which stood on the edge of the bank. Ten feet below it lay a broad white ribbon of sand, so white and gleaming that it hurt the eyes when the sun beat down at noon.

The Kiboko river, a shallow stream nowhere more than twenty yards wide, had cut a channel down the middle and flowed smoothly over rocks,

eddying in and out of little pools. At the far side the bank rose gently out of the sand and merged into a wide bush-speckled plain which rolled away to a far flat horizon.

To the east, a range of hills towered about the camp. Thick bush grew up the sides, and the

21

summit was crowned with forest. Many watercourses straggled down the hillside, cutting the

slope into smoothly rounded shoulders, and gentle foothills ran almost to the edge of the camp.

Behind, to the south, lay a stretch of broken bushclothed veldt, rising in the distance to form a long, low range of hills. The Kiboko river flowed past the tents from east to west.

The camp was symmetrically arranged, and

kept tidy as a London square. A big messtent near the acacia was partially surrounded on the landward side by a group of four more tents which housed the four principals of the party. To the east, the far side of the acacia, was a cluster of three more tents occupied by the two hunters and the European chauffeur. The Maid and Chris

Davis, the gamespotting pilot, comprised a third group on the other side of the Baradale party. All these tents faced the river. Behind them lay an open grassy space, and beyond that, partially concealed by some scattered bush, was a group of a dozen smaller tents where the natives slept and where the cooking was performed.

The car park was perhaps the most impressive

sight. A long line of shining lorries and cars was drawn up along the western boundary of the

camp, at right angles to the river, their ranks as straight as a column of Guards. Two lorries stood apart, drawn up close to the tents. They were the power-houses. One operated the refrigerator, and the other was joined to the tents by long flexes 22

carrying electric current.

“I guess the tents of Israel had nothing on this outfit,” Vachell said.

De Mare drove the car, one of the Baradale

Fords, into its place in the line, and switched off the engine.

“When you’ve got half East Africa to spread

over, there’s no point in being too matey,” he said.

“We’ve arrived at the right time. The sun’s gone down, and it’s time for the shy, retiring whisky bottle to emerge.”

Several natives materialized round the car and a brisk, clean-shaven young European in shorts and a dark red sports shirt came up, swinging a stick in his hand.

“Evening, Mr de Mare,” he said. “Have a good

trip? Car all right, I hope? I’ll give a hand with the kit.” He took a suitcase out of the back and

handed it to an African. He was dark-skinned and good-looking, with healthy ruddy cheeks and

thick black wavy hair that refused to lie down properly.

De Mare looked at him in surprise. “Kind of

you, I’m sure, Rutley,” he said. “This is Mr

Vachell. He’s taking Mr Englebrecht’s place.”

“Evening,” he said. “Yes, I know. Englebrecht’s leaving first thing tomorrow. You had a

puncture, I see. Have any trouble with it?”

“I managed to change the wheel, thanks,” de

Mare said drily. Rutley opened the tool-box on the running-board and rummaged about in it. Then

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he straightened up, looking sullen.

“There’s a spanner missing out of here,” he

said. “And you’ve brought back a different footpump.

This one isn’t ours.”

De Mare looked up from extracting baggage out of the back of the car. “The footpump was

missing out of the Ford when I started,” he said, “so I borrowed a pump from one of the lorries. I left the car at the garage in Marula to be greased and oiled. I expect they put back the wrong pump after they’d mended the puncture, and pinched a spanner.”

“That pump belongs to one of the trucks,”

Rutley said. “You’ve no right to go changing the tools without telling me. I get the blame if

anything’s missing. This pump isn’t half as good as the one you took down. And what became of

that spanner?”

De Mare took his pipe out of his mouth and

spoke sharply. “These cars belong to Simba Ltd,”

he said, “not to you. This camp is lousy with pumps and spanners. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing’s the matter with me,” Rutley

answered aggressively. “I’m responsible for these tools, that’s all. I ought to be told when things are shifted about and lost through other people being careless. What’s happened to that footpump and that new spanner?”

“I dug a hole ten feet down on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro and buried them in a Union Jack,” de 24

Mare said. His voice was curt and strained. “You can dig them up if you like.” He turned on his heel and stalked angrily away towards the tents.

“I shall lose my temper with that bastard,” he remarked, “one of these days. He’s getting more and more intolerable. I suppose one can’t expect anything else in the circumstances. But it’s getting very hard to bear.”

“What do you mean, in the circumstances?”

Vachell asked.

“You’ll soon see,” de Mare said.

They found the party sitting round a table

outside the messtent, looking over the river towards the shadowy veldt beyond. The water

below them glowed softly, reflecting the last pink from the western sky. A newly lit campfire was beginning to crackle nearby, and a blue spiral of smoke rose through the still evening air.

Vachell got the impression that restraint and a little awkwardness were in the air as he shook hands all round. It didn’t surprise him. Although no one but Lady Baradale knew he was a detective, every one knew that he’d come to replace

Englebrecht. And Englebrecht was still there — a hefty, flaxen-headed, coarse-boned lad, with a trace of Dutch accent, good-looking in a commonplace sort of way. He had a clear, healthy

complexion, and his bare brown arms and legs

looked as hard as marble. After he greeted the two new arrivals he hardly spoke half a dozen words all the evening, except when he asked Vachell what 25

sort of rifles he had bought; and he got up and left the group shortly after de Mare joined it. Vachell couldn’t tell whether he was sulky or just shy.

But he could tell who was boss around the camp before he’d been there ten minutes. Lady Baradale let there be no mistake about that. She had a face like a mask, and rarely smiled; when she did, it looked more like a deliberate facial contortion than an expression of amusement. She had regular,

even features, high cheekbones, and deep-set eyes.

She was lavish with make-up and her perfectly waved silver hair was set in a wide sweep off the forehead. It was a humourless, calculating face with a mouth like the slit between the shells of an oyster. She was thin, and held herself very

upright. She looked well in khaki slacks and a drill shirt, the uniform of safari.

“Very glad to know you,” she said to Vachell.

She had a metallic voice, and spoke slowly. “It’s too bad Mr Englebrecht can’t stay on with us, but we’re all delighted to have you take his place. I want you to meet my stepdaughter, Cara

Baradale.”

Vachell glanced at Englebrecht. The young

hunter stirred slightly in his canvas chair, and reached for his glass. The table was covered with bottles. That was a dirty crack, Vachell thought.

Cara Baradale nodded to him across the table

and said, “How d’you do,” curtly. She was lying back in a campchair with a tumbler clasped in both hands, and a pair of perfectly shaped legs, 26

smooth and white below navy-blue shorts,

stretched out in front. She looked up at him for an instant and returned to a concentrated study of the contents of her glass. She’s a good-looker, Vachell thought, but sulky as a thunderstorm that won’t burst. The light was fading quickly and he

couldn’t see her face distinctly, but he could tell that she was pale and clear-skinned and that her eyes were large and dark. One lock of dark hair had fallen over her forehead, but she did not trouble to push it out of the way.

“Cara is engaged to be married to Sir Gordon

Catchpole,” Lady Baradale gave the impression of dropping the words, one by one, into the silence, like stones dropped into a pond to create a ripple.

A young man seated in a chair next to Cara

Baradale nodded his head and said: “Pleased to meet you, Mr Vachell.” He sounded affable, but his voice suggested affectation. He was fair and slender and looked delicate. He hadn’t been

hunting that day, evidently, Vachell thought; he wore rustred corduroy trousers, a chocolatebrown linen sports shirt, and a red-and-yellow silk scarf knotted round the neck.

Lord Paradale was left to the last. Not that he seemed to notice; he was too absorbed in the

dissection of a small camera to be conscious of his surroundings. It lay in bits all over the table. His wife had to repeat his name twice before he came to.

“Good evening, good evening, delighted you

27

were able to come.” He shook hands warmly and pulled up a chair. He was a short man, not more than five foot six or seven, and rather stout. He was clean-shaven and nearly bald, and the dome of his head shone like a billiard ball. His face was fleshy, his nose long and slightly hooked, his eyes small and pale. She didn’t marry him for his looks, Vachell thought. His title, probably. He poured out two whiskies for the newcomers with hands that were deft, restless, and neat.

Conversation was not, at first, very lively.

Catchpole asked for news of Marula. De Mare, in no doubt as to the type of news required,

responded with a summary of such gossip about visitors and local celebrities as he had managed to collect in the capital.

“Marula’s crop of ripe, rich scandal never fails,”

Catchpole said. “It’s my favourite city. It’s so baroque. A good, mid-west. Main Street town

with delusions of Mayfair grandeur Ч the sort of place where the bartender at Dane’s claims to have been the head waiter at the Cafe de Paris. Don’t you think, Mr Vachell, it has a sort of jejune charm?”

“I never got just that slant on it before,” Vachell said cautiously.

Lady Baradale came to his rescue. “I hope you will enjoy being with us, Mr Vachell,” she said, “Cara will monopolize most of your time, I expect.

She likes to start at dawn and be out all day.”

There was a dash of malice in her tone, like the 28

flavour of bitters in a cocktail.

Cara Baradale lumped down a little further in her chair, “It’s a nice change from being out all night,” she said. “Anyway, I shan’t monopolize Mr Vachell tomorrow. I’ll leave a clear field for you, Lucy. I’m going into Malabeya with Luke to drive the car back.”

“You are not!” The command came from Lord

Baradale like a small explosion. He lifted himself half out of his chair. “You’ll do nothing of the sort, Cara. I’ve never heard such damned

nonsense in my life. Do you think I’m going to let you go driving cars all over Africa by yourself?”

“Cara would be perfectly safe for the part of the trip, she made by herself.” Lady Baradale’s tone was quite expressionless. “I will talk with Cara.”

“You can talk yourself sick,” the girl said. She tossed the straying lock of hair out of her eyes with a jerk of the head, and drained her glass. “You make me tired. I can’t prevent you giving Luke the sack, but if you think you can stop me seeing him when I want to, you’re crazy. I know

perfectly well what’s going on here. You’re such a lot of damned snobs you want to get Luke out of the way. Well, you’re wasting your time, and

you’ll soon know it.” She jumped to her feet and walked, quickly but unsteadily, towards her tent.

“Good Lord,” Catchpole remarked. “Cara gets

more and more Katherine Hepburn every day.

Someone ought to warn her, or she’ll wake up and find she’s been turned into a lonely little gamin.

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He got up and helped himself to another gin-andFrench.

“Someone!” snorted Lord Baradale. “Someone

be damned! If you had the guts of a ferret,

Gordon, you wouldn’t stand back and let this sort of thing go on in front of your nose. Why don’t you — “

“Thomas! Remember where you are!” Lady