Murder on Safari (8 page)

“There’s a terrific storm going on towards

Malabeya,” she said. “I’m not sure that Cara will get back tonight.”

“Oh, dear, this is too ghastly,” Catchpole

wailed. “I wish I’d never come to this awful country.”

Chris stepped back to make way for Geydi, tall and impressive in his turban and silk robe,

carrying the tea things on a tray. She poured out tea and they sat for a while, awkward and depressed, in a silence broken only by the clinking of

cups and saucers.

Five minutes later they heard a step outside and then Vachell’s tall, lanky form appeared in the opening. He stooped a little and came in, looking serious and taking nervous puffs at a cigarette. He halted in front of the table and glanced quickly at each face in turn.

“De Mare is talking with Lord Baradale,” he

said. “He’ll be out in a moment. We found out how Lady Baradale died.” He paused for a

moment, the focus of four unwinking pairs of

eyes. “She was shot through the head.’

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For a moment no one spoke. Then Catchpole

pulled himself half out of his chair and shouted: “That isn’t possible! She was found quite close to us Ч we should have heard the shot!”

“She was shot through the forehead,” Vachell

went on, “and from the front. It isn’t suicide, because there’s no weapon near. The bullet must have killed her outright.”

Paula gave a gasping cry and started to sob.

Chris put one hand on the girl’s arm, but her eyes never left Vachell’s face.

“Did you find the bullet?” she asked.

Vachell shook his head. “No. It came out at the back of the head Ч drilled a neat round hole clear through the skull. She wouldn’t have suffered any.”

“There wasn’t a rifle in the car,” Rutley

exclaimed. “Ask any of the boys, they’ll tell you.”

He was standing near the opening, breathing hard.

“Who said there was a rifle in the car?” Vachell 74

asked.

“No one. But you all think — ” he checked

himself abruptly and stood there, glowering like an angry bull.

Catchpole stood up suddenly, jerking the table so that the tea slopped over into the saucers.

“There’s only one explanation!” he exclaimed.

“Of course, that’s it. Lucy was shot close to where I got the lion. Then Danny fired, a second after I did, and missed. The lion was only hit once.

Danny’s bullet must have ricocheted off something, and hit poor Lucy. Chris, don’t you see?”

<(

((

The tent darkened momentarily and they all

looked up, as though their necks had been

manipulated by a single cord, to see de Mare in the opening of the tent. He took off his hat and

walked with long, jerky strides to the table.

“What’s the excitement, Gordon?” he asked.

“Oh, my poor Danny,” Catchpole exclaimed,

compassion in his voice. “It’s too awful for you.

It’s one chance in a million, and it’s too cruel, but it must have happened. The shot you fired at the lion, the one that missed, was the fatal shot. You killed Lucy!”

De Mare’s mouth tightened into a hard line and he thrust his hands into the pockets of his shorts.

It was a gesture of sudden selfcontrol.

“Save your sympathy,” he said. “You might

need it for yourself. If either of us shot her, it was you.”

“But it couldn’t have been, Danny. It was my

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bullet that killed the lion. Your gun-bearer brought it to me himself — he’d cut it out of the carcase. Look, I’ve got it here!”

Catchpole dug his hand into his pocket and

threw a twisted, shapeless scrap of metal on to the table. It was a spent bullet. “My rifle’s a .315,” he went on, “and that’s a .315 bullet. So it couldn’t have been my bullet that killed Lucy. It was

yours.”

“You did not shoot that lion,” de Mare said. He spoke slowly and distinctly. “I did. My job as a white hunter is to see that my clients shoot the animals they want to shoot, and have paid for on their licence. It they’re such damned bad shots they couldn’t hit the Albert Hall at twenty yards, I have to shoot the animals for them. But I have to be careful that they don’t know I’ve done it. That lion was killed by a bullet through the vertebrae of the neck at eighty yards while he was moving. Do you seriously think you could make a shot like that?”

“But the bullet,” Gordon wailed. “They found

my bullet!”

“They found nothing of the sort,” de Mare said.

“That bullet on the table was dug out of a zebra you shot a week ago. When I gave instructions to my gun-bearer about skinning the lion this morning, I gave him that bullet and told him to bring it to you, saying that he’d found it in the lion’s heart.

You missed that lion completely. Your shot went high,”

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Catchpole’s face was white and contorted. He gripped the edge of the table and looked as though he was going to cry.

“I don’t believe it!” He stamped one foot on the ground.

“I’d suggest that you call your gun-bearer to confirm that,” Vachell said.

De Mare walked to an opening and bellowed

“Japhet!” in the direction of the boys’ quarters.

The gun-bearer came running — a tall, beefy

African with an intelligent, friendly expression, who carried himself like a soldier. He was dressed in khaki shorts, a bush shirt, and sandals made from an old car tyre. He stood smartly at attention in the opening of the tent and said “Bwana,” in a crisp military tone.

De Mare nodded to Vachell. “You ask the questions,”

he said.

“Listen, Japhet,” Vachell began. “Who shot the lion that died this morning?”

“Bwana Danny shot it,” Japhet answered

without hesitation.

“And this other bwana, bwana Catchpole, did

he shoot it also?”

Japhet shook his head emphatically. “No.

There were two shots, but only one bullet in the lion’s body.”

“Did you see the bwanas fire?”

“No, because I was walking through the bush

close to the river, with a man who works as a tracker. Bwana Danny told me to stay close to the 77

river so as to drive back the lion if he tried to escape in that direction, and then to walk up the gulley so as to drive him ahead. I was going slowly up the river when I heard the rifle speak twice, very close together, and I ran up quickly, and I saw the lion lying in the grass — quite dead.”

“You only heard the rifle speak twice?”

“Yes, twice only. The first time very close, and the second time very near to it. Then I stayed with the lion to drive away the vultures and the tracker went back to camp to fetch the skinners. The skinners came and did their work, and I found the

bullet from bwana Danny’s rifle in the neck.”

“Was that the bullet you brought to bwana

Catchpole, and said was his?”

“No, bwana.” Japhet shook his head. “Bwana

Danny told me to throw away the bullet that killed the lion, and to bring instead a bullet that he gave me, and that had been fired from bwana Catchpole’s gun. So I smeared it with the lion’s blood,

and then I took it to bwana Catchpole, and I said what I had been told to say.”

“Are you positive that the bullet you found in the lion’s neck was from bwana Danny’s gun?”

“Yes, bwana,” Japhet spoke emphatically, and

his voice rose several keys. “Have I not been bwana Danny’s gun-bearer for ten years? Have I not cleaned his rifle every day, and seen him kill many, many animals — lions, elephants, and

buffaloes?”

“Have you got the bullet still?”

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Japhet hesitated and looked rather embarrassed.

Then he grinned, showing a fine array of white pointed teeth. “Yes, I kept it because a bullet that has killed a lion brings strength and good luck to the owner.”

5╗

“Show it to me, then.

Japhet groped in the breast pocket of his shirt and extracted a slug of metal, which he handed to his interrogator. Its tip was slightly flattened from impact with the bone but its shape was intact, and Vachell had no difficulty in establishing that it was of the same bore as a cartridge from de Mare’s pocket which fitted the hunter’s MannlicherSchonnauer .375 magazine rifle.

“I guess that proves the story,” Vachell said.

De Mare nodded dismissal to Japhet. The gun

bearer turned on his heel like an askari and left the tent.

“I’m sorry, Gordon,” de Mare said. “But you

needn’t worry. That’s one of the commonest

hunter’s tricks on this sort of safari. We all do it on occasion. And it couldn’t have been your bullet that killed Lady Baradale. You fired straight ahead across the gulley and her — remains were found a hundred yards to the right, up the slope.”

“Were you with Sir Gordon all morning?”

Vachell asked the hunter.

“Yes, after we left camp a little before ten. We tracked the lion from the kill and beat the gulleys for about an hour and a half, I should think, before we got a shot. You and Chris flew over the 79

hippo pool, quite close to us, about five minutes after we got him — that ought to help you fix the time. Lucky it wasn’t five minutes before, incidentally; you made an awful racket starting up the

engine. After we shot him, we hung about taking measurements and so forth for a bit, and we got back to camp between twelve and half past. We were together all the time.”

“And you didn’t hear another shot?”

De Mare shook his head. “No, I can swear to

that.”

“Do you confirm that statement, Sir Gordon?

You were with de Mare all morning?”

“Of course I was with Danny every instant^ Catchpole exclaimed, “and I know I didn’t hear another shot. Your mind is full of the most degrading innuendoes! I don’t see what it’s got to do with you, either. I think you’re being absolutely horrid.”

“Not I,” Vachell said. “There’s some one else around here who’s being horrid.”

“Yes, but that’s no reason to pick on me,”

Catchpole complained. “I didn’t shoot poor Lucy.

Since no one heard another shot, she couldn’t have been killed there, could she? No one saw her after she left Rutley at the drift. We’ve only got

Rutley’s word for it that she ever went to the drift at all.”

Rutley stepped forward from the side of the tent where he had been standing, his jaw thrust out and his fists clenched. “If you’re suggesting that I 80

had anything to do with this — ” he said, and stopped.

Gordon Catchpole hit the table with the flat

palm of his hand. “I’m not suggesting anything!”

he said hysterically. “You’re all suggesting things.

First Danny says I never shot the lion at all, and now Vachell tries to make out that I sneaked off and killed Lucy when Danny wasn’t looking. I

won’t stand it, I tell you, I won’tV

“Take it easy, Sir Gordon,” Vachell said. “No one’s picking on you.” He turned to Paula, who was sitting, stiff and scared, rigidly in her chair.

“Did you hear those two shots here in camp this morning?” he asked.

She shook her head, “No, not those. That is, I don’t think so. I wasn’t listening.”

“The camp’s up-wind of where we got the lion,”

de Mare put in. “I don’t think you’d be likely to hear the shots up here.”

“What time was it,” Vachell asked slowly,

“when you heard the other shot?”

Paula ran her tongue over her lips and swallowed hard. “I never said I heard another shot,”

she said in a dry voice. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

“What the hell has it got to do with you?”

Rutley demanded. His fists were still clenched and his jaw thrust forward. “You keep out of this.”

Vachell turned and looked at him steadily. His face was grave and set.

“You thought I came up from Marula to replace Englebrecht,” he said. “Well, I didn’t. I’m a 81

detective from the Chania C.I.D. I was called here by Lady Baradale to investigate the theft of her jewels three days ago. Now it’s turned into a murder case, and there’s going to be an investigation.

From now on, I’m in charge.”

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Shadows from the thorn trees were lying in dark bars across the bleached pale-green grass, and the evening light was clear and golden, when Vachell finished his investigation on the spot. The storm had spent itself in the west, and the sun was setting like a shining dove in a fleecy nest of red and violet shreds of cloud over the hills towards Malabeya.

The examination yielded negative results.

Vachell ruled out a ricochet from Catchpole’s rifle, for there were no rocks or trees so placed as to deflect the bullet. Nor, apparently, could the possibility that Catchpole had shot Lady Baradale deliberately be entertained. De Mare had picked out, without hesitation, the place where they stood to fire at the lion across the gulley; and from this spot Lady Baradale, advancing through the bush, would have been invisible. A rocky knoll on the right cut off the view. In any case, Catchpole had been slightly in the lead, and if he had swung his 83

rifle round to aim at a target to his right, de Mare could not have failed to see the movement. The hunter was emphatic on this point. As for de

Mare, since his bullet had been recovered from the lion’s backbone it could not, obviously, have killed his employer as well.

“God, what a mess,” de Mare commented as

they walked back together towards the camp. “If I hadn’t seen the bullet-hole in her skull with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. How can a woman be shot without any one hearing the

report? It isn’t possible.”

“There isn’t any evidence to show where she

was when the killer shot her,” Vachell reminded him. “Dead bodies get shifted around.”

“I suppose so. But it’s a bit of a coincidence that it should be shifted so close to that lion.”

“I don’t care for coincidences in a murder case.

Maybe this isn’t one.”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you ever find a dead body in the

African bush?” Vachell countered.