Murder on Safari (9 page)

“By the vultures, in the daytime,” de Mare

answered promptly, “if you find it at all.”

“Right. Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that Lady Baradale was shot some place else, and the killer just left the body where it lay. Pretty soon the vultures would start to come around.

Natives are lynx-eyed on details like that. The chances are they’d spot these vultures right away, and just as soon as Lady Baradale was reported 84

missing, they’d go along there to investigate.

Check?55

“I see,55 de Mare said slowly. “You mean that she may have been shot somewhere else and the body moved close to the dead lion? Every one

would expect vultures to collect there in any case, so no one would suspect there was a second kill, and with a bit of luck the body would never be found.‘5

“You got the idea,5’ Vachell agreed.

“It didn’t work.”

“Not altogether. It did to this extent Ч by the time we found her, it was too late to decide just how long she’d been dead. That’s always to a

murderer’s advantage.55

The camp came into sight, its white tents

gleaming like mushroom tops in the slanting

sunlight. It looked peaceful, and full of the normal activities of evening. Blue columns of wood smoke rose into the air in graceful spirals, and an inviting smell of burning logs and cooking drifted towards them on the wind.

“Now for Lord Baradale,” Vachell said. “I

guess he’ll be hard to handle. How did he react when you found the body?”

“Characteristically. He’s only got one reaction to anything unpleasant or unintelligible Ч he loses his temper. It’s a sort of hangover from the feudal system, I think, when barons were barons, and lost tempers got results. He upped with his rifle and picked off three vultures from an adjacent 85

tree. It was rather pathetic.”

“It was good shooting,” Vachell said.

Lord Baradale had emerged from his tent, and

was sitting at the table under the acacia tree, watching the shadows fall ^)ver the sands and the gurgling river. The shrikes were sending their pure and mournful notes clearly through the still air, and a pair of flycatchers were chirping cheerfully among the myriad pale flowers of the acacia.

He didn’t, Vachell thought, look particularly bereaved; but then he was not the sort of man to parade his sorrow, if indeed he felt it. Vachell didn’t know much about the English aristocracy, but reserve before strangers and an unshaken front in the face of disaster were, he’d always heard, two of their chief characteristics. Lord Baradale seemed to be displaying both, together with a third, and perhaps more plebeian, trait —

recourse to artificial stimulation at a time of crisis.

A bottle of champagne was open on the table, and his complexion was a little flushed.

Vachell pulled up a chair and uttered some

stock phrases of sympathy as sincerely as he could.

Lord Baradale bobbed his head in a formal bow of acknowledgement and poured out some more

champagne.

“Most amazing thing I ever heard of in my life,”

he said. “My wife had no enemies, nothing to fear.

It musfhave been an accident.”

“I think not, sir,” Vachell said. “She may have had no personal enemies, but there’s one guy in 86

this outfit who had every reason to be scared to death of her.”

“Who the devil do you mean?” Lord Baradale

demanded.

“The man — or woman, maybe — who stole

her jewels.”

Lord Baradale sat up suddenly in his chair, spilling his wine. His surprise at the news of the theft seemed to be genuine. He listened, bug-eyed with astonishment, to Vachell’s account of the situation.

“So you see, sir,” the superintendent concluded, “I reckon Lady Baradale was murdered

because she guessed who stole her jewels, and guessed right. Have you any idea who she

suspected?”

Lord Baradale took several gulps of champagne and glared ferociously at the peaceful scene below him. “I’ve got a damned good idea who took

them,” he said, “the blasted parasite. But you must find that out for yourself. You say you’re a policeman, and that’s your job. I’ve no proof, no proof at all.”

“There are a number of routine questions we

have to ask,” Vachell went on. He lit a cigarette and pushed the charred match into the ground.

“About the will, for instance. Who inherits Lady Baradale’s money?”

“So far as I know, my wife left half her fortune to her daughter by a previous marriage, and half to me — apart from various bequests, of course.”

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“How big were the sums involved, sir?”

Lord Baradale frowned and lit a small cigar

before replying. It was clear that he resented the questions.

“That’s got nothing to do with the matter at

issue,” he snapped. “My wife was a rich woman.”

“Then I take it you’ll inherit a pretty sizeable fortune — over the million mark, maybe.”

Lord Baradale poured himself out another glass of champagne with a shaky hand. He reminded

Vachell of a kettle on the boil, with jets of steam struggling to push up the lid.

“You can take it as you please, young fellow,”

he said.

“Thanks, sir,” Vachell continued easily.

“Where is Lady Baradale’s daughter’s home?”

“She’s married to a young man in Hollywood

who’s got something to do with the films. Not an actor, thank God — writes scripts, whatever they are. My wife goes over to California to see her sometimes. She’ll be a rich woman now, I

suppose, if that damned fellow Roosevelt doesn’t pinch everything before she gets it. American death duties are nearly as bad as ours now.”

“About these bequests,” Vachell persisted.

“Does your daughter Cara get anything in the

will?”

“Confound you, sir, how the devil do you dare to ask questions like that!” the angry peer

exploded. “What the blazes has it got to do with you how much — ” He checked himself in mid88

sentence, took a puff at his cigar, and then smiled — a pleasant, friendly smile which banished his ferocity in a flash.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “It’s hard to

remember that you’re a police officer doing your duty, and not a white hunter being inquisitive.

Yes, my daughter does receive a bequest. I see no reason to disclose its amount, but the sum is, by most standards, a large one.”

“Thanks a lot,” Vachell said. “There’s one more question. What were your movements during the morning?”

“I was in my tent, developing,” Lord Baradale replied. “I’ve been experimenting with a new

colour film on the Leica. It’s a patent just got out by a small company I’m interested in, and the developing, though simplified, is still a tricky business. But I’ve got good results with some excellent studies of a pair of golden orioles and their nest, which ought to be unique.”

“You didn’t see Lady Baradale at all?”

“No. She never disturbs me when I’m busy

with photography.”

“Did you hear any rifle shots during the morning?”

“No, not that I can remember.” Lord Baradale

frowned, sipping his wine. “Wait, though, I think I did. Yes, now you come to mention it, there were two shots, close together — soon after

eleven, I think it was. That was when Gordon got the lion, I suppose.”

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‘You heard no shots,” Vachell persisted, “from any other direction?”

Lord Baradale shook his head and winced at the movement. He drained his glass and rose, a little unsteadily, to his feet.

“What the devil’s become of that girl!” he

exclaimed. “Damned little idiot, going off with that half-witted lout of a Dutchman, and coming back from Malabeya alone. I won’t have her

driving about all over Africa by herself. …” His voice tailed off to an indistinct mumble as he walked, with a good deal of concentration to his tent.

Vachell looked at his watch in the failing light.

It was six-thirty. The camp was unusually silent, and though the table was loaded with bottles ready for sun-downers, the chairs were empty. He

helped himself to a Scotch-and-soda and tried not to think of his sunburnt knees. They were bright red, and felt like twin furnaces. The pain, he found, made concentration difficult. He walked across to his tent, unearthed a bottle of Pond’s Extract, and dabbed some on his sore knees with cotton wool. A few minutes later Kimotho came in carrying a four-gallon petrol-tin full of steaming water, announcing firmly that he had brought the bath. Vachell frowned at his knees, thinking how much they would sting in hot water.

“All right, Kimotho,” he said. “What is the

news?”

The boy arranged an inflated rubber bath-tub in 90

the end of the tent which had been partitioned off as a bathroom, and shook his head.

“The news is bad,” he said. “Very bad. This

camp is not good. These Europeans have great

wealth, but their cook refuses to give me rice to eat. He gives me maize meal, as if I was a savage.”

“Perhaps I will speak to him,” Vachell said,

dabbing on more Pond’s. “But I do not wish to hear about food. What do the boys here say about the memsahib who was killed today?”

Kimotho shrugged his shoulders. “They say

much, but they do not know. How should we

know? We were here in camp all day.”

“Who else was in the camp this morning — the white folk, I mean?”

“You went far away and high up in the sky in

the bird with a memsahib, and then — “

“Listen, Kimotho,” Vachell said patiently, “I know where I went. I do not walk in my sleep. I want to know about the others. Did you see bwana Lordi today?”

Kimotho shook his head. “No. Perhaps he was

in his tent. No one is allowed to go near him but the Somali, Geydi. He is a very bad man.”

“Why?”

“He thinks that he is greater than a white man, and he goes with lying stories to Europeans. It is true that he knows English and can take photographs and drive a car and make European drinks

and shoot with a rifle, but others can do these things too. He — “

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“All right, all right. Enough. Now tell me about bwana Rutley. Did you see him today?”

“Yes. I saw him go out in a car with the

memsahib who is now dead. I did not see him

return, but later he went out with a gun.”

Vachel sat up suddenly on the bed and spilt

some of the Pond’s. “He did, huh? Did you see him? Where did he go?”

“Yes, I saw him,” Kimotho said. “I had gone

down to the river to wash one of your shirts. The work in this camp is very hard. I went upstream until I found a good place, and then I sat down to wash. Presently, I saw bwana Rutley walking

along in the sand beside the river, with a gun in his hand.”

“By himself?”

“Yes, by himself. He went up the river towards the hills,”

“At what time was this?”

“Perhaps eleven o’clock. Later on I heard the gun speak from above, in the hills, and I thought that perhaps he had shot a buck.”

“You heard a gun speak!” Vachell exclaimed.

He was sitting bolt upright on the bed, his

sunburn forgotten. “What time was this?”

Kimotho shrugged his shoulders again. “It was not yet mid-day. I have no clock.”

Vachell thought for a few moments, rubbing the back of his neck. “Did you hear the noise of two guns from down the river?” he asked.

Kimotho shook his head. “No, only the gun

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that spoke from the hills. I could hear it because the wind came from that side. If a gun spoke or a man shouted from down the river, I would not

have heard, unless it was close, because the wind would blow the sound away to Malabeya.”

Kimotho emptied the contents of the petrol-tin into the tub with a splash. He seemed to imply that this idle chatter had gone far enough. “The bath is ready,” he remarked, and made towards the exit. “The cook says that there is no more meat for the boys.” he added. “It would be good if you were to shoot some, bwana. Here we are without meat, and there are antelope all round us. If I went to a wedding feast, should I be without beer?”

The question was clearly rhetorical, for

Kimotho left without waiting for an answer.

Vachell sat on the bed for a few minutes longer, pensively rubbing his knees and staring at the ground-sheet. Something that de Mare had said in Marula about the art of hunting came into his mind. “Watch the wind Ч that’s the first rule,”

the hunter had told him. He reflected, as he

kicked off his shoes and tested the heat of the water, that Lord Baradale had been foolish to ignore such sound advice.

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It was Rutley’s melancholy task to make the

coffin. Vachell found him in his workshop, a grass hut that had been erected near the carpark to house the tools and implements needed to keep the mechanical side of the camp in working order.

With fourteen lorries, four cars, an electric light plant, a twelve-valve radio, a plumbing system and a network of electric bells connecting the tents with the natives’ quarters, there was a good deal to be kept in order.

Rutley looked up when Vachell entered and

nodded curtly. He wore a pair of navy-blue shorts and a white shirt stained in places with engine oil.

His hair lay in dark, thick waves over a wellshaped head. A cigarette drooped from the corner

of his mouth and smoke rose in a lazy spiral

towards the naked electric light bulb overhead.

Tools and pieces of machinery lay about, and the sharp smell of engine grease was in the air. Rutley was knocking together a long box out of three 94

semi-demolished packing-cases with Gordon’s

London Gin stencilled on them in tall black

letters.

“Evening,” he said, and went on with his work.

Vachell peeled a piece of gum, folded it into his mouth, and watched the chauffeur for a few

moments, chewing steadily.

Rutley stood it for a little and then said irritably: “Must you do your chewing here? It’s like a