Snare of Serpents (48 page)

I told him about the handkerchief and Mrs. Prost.

He was shocked. “I don’t think there can be any doubt,” he said. “What an escape!”

“I believe he killed a little native boy who must have seen him push his wife down the stairs. The child was both deaf and dumb. He was often in the house. Nobody took much notice of him. His mother worked there. He made carved figures which he put in the Model House. I must tell you about that. I discovered it in one of the dilapidated rondavels where I saw wood chippings. Roger Lestrange must have found out the boy did them. Perhaps he caught him in the house … putting that figure there. Then he would have guessed that the boy knew something. It is all falling into place and it is horrible.”

“You should never have come here, Davina.”

“I know now.”

“I cannot forgive myself for introducing you to that Society.”

“It seemed a good idea at the time and we might have gone to Australia or America which was what we planned in the beginning.”

“As soon as I had suggested it I was furious with myself. But you wanted to get away.”

“I thought it was the answer. I now know that there is no safe escape. As you see …”

He nodded.

“I tried to get out here before.”

“You have come all this way … ?”

He smiled at me. “Yes, I have come all this way. It is miraculous that everything turned out as it did. It could have been so different.”

“I am sure he was going to suggest that I hoped to marry him and therefore removed his wife.”

“He was probably hoping that he would get away with it, as he had on two other occasions. Perhaps he thought that the second time in the same house might have aroused suspicions … even though he had used different methods. It seems reasonable to suppose it was a good idea to have you standing by, as an escape route for him, if anything went wrong. He would, of course, have hoped that it would not have been necessary to use you in that way, as the less fuss the better. But he wanted you at hand just in case you should be necessary.”

“It is so cold-bloodedly calculated.”

“He
was
calculating … cold-bloodedly so. How thankful I am that he was not able to carry out his diabolical schemes. He lived violently. It was rough justice that he should die so.”

“Two people had marked him down for death: the father of the murdered boy was so upset because someone killed him before he could.”

“But we should be rejoicing, Davina. I could have come too late to save you.”

“I don’t think I could have gone through all that again. The court … the dock. It is the terrible stigma that I find so hard to bear.”

He stood up and came to me. He drew me to my feet and put his arms about me. On impulse I clung to him.

“Thank you, Ninian,” I said. “Thank you for coming.”

“I could not forget you,” he told me. “You haunted me. That verdict. Not Proven. They should have known you could not have done it.”

“The evidence was there against me.”

“That woman, Ellen Farley. They never found her, you know. She just disappeared. Why should she have disappeared?

She could have come forward. Heaven knows, we tried hard enough to find her. Her evidence would have been so important.”

“I can’t forget that you came all this way.”

“I felt a letter was not enough. I asked you to come home before. I knew it would be difficult to come, because of the war. But here I am.”

“And that personal reason you were going to tell me?”

“I realised after you’d gone what it meant for me not to see you again. I knew then that I was in love with you.”

“You … in love with me?”

“Couldn’t you guess?”

“I knew you had taken a special interest in my case … but advocates have to be interested in their cases. I thought you were rather taken with my stepmother.”

He smiled. “The enchanting Zillah!” he murmured. “I had a feeling that she knew more than she let us know. It was due to her that we got the verdict we did. She was a vital witness. But I still felt there was more. I wanted to find out what. That was why I cultivated her acquaintance. What I wanted more than anything was to get to the truth. I know what it feels like to come out of the courts Not Proven.”

“Well, thank you, Ninian. You have been wonderful to me. You have helped me so much.”

He shook his head.

“I have not done enough,” he said. “I should have shown my devotion to you. I want you to know exactly how I feel. I love you and want you to come back to Scotland with me.”

I stared at him in amazement.

“I want you to marry me,” he added.

I thought I must have misunderstood.

“I have been hoping that you might care for me,” he went on.

I was silent. I was too deeply moved for speech. I had longed to be with him. I remembered how his interest in Zillah had hurt me. When I had seen him standing at the door I could not believe my eyes. I could not get used to the idea that he had come all this way to see me.

Did I care for him? I had always cared for him. He it was who had drawn me from the slough of despond, who had sustained me with his determination to defend me. When I had left England, as I thought never to see him again, my desolation had been so deep that I had forced myself not to admit it. I had insisted to myself that my depression was due to the fact that I was leaving my native land. But it was not that so much as leaving Ninian.

I said: “I have never forgotten you.”

He took my hands and kissed them. “In time,” he said, “you could care for me.”

“I don’t need time,” I told him. “I care for you now. The moment when I opened the door and saw you there was the happiest in my life.”

He looked suddenly radiant. “Then you will come back … now. You will marry me … ?”

“Go back with you … to Edinburgh? You can’t mean that!”

“But I do. It is the reason why I came here … to take you back with me. I intend that we shall never be parted again.”

“You haven’t thought of this seriously.”

“Davina, for weeks I have thought of little else.”

“But have you considered what this would mean?”

“I have considered it.”

“You, a rising figure in law, married to someone who has been tried for murder … the case Not Proven …”

“Believe me, I have considered all that.”

“It would be very bad for your career.”

“To be with you will be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I should have expected you to show more calm common sense.”

“I am doing so. I know what I want and I am doing my best to get it.”

“Oh, Ninian, how foolish you are, and how I love you for your folly! But it could not be. I should go back to Edinburgh … the place where it all happened. How could I? Everyone knows me there. It is bad enough here to be aware that Mrs.
Prost knows who I am. But back there … they would all know. And if you married me … it would all be brought back. They would suspect me, Ninian. We have to face the truth. There will always be those who believe that I killed my father. It would ruin your career.”

“If I couldn’t stand up to that I don’t deserve much of a career.”

“I should prevent your rising. I could not do it, Ninian. But I shall never forget that you asked me.”

He took me by the shoulders and shook me gently.

“Stop talking nonsense. We’re going to do it. We’re going to defy them all. I know that you love me … and I love you. That is at the root of the matter. The rest … well, we’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

“I couldn’t let you. It’s wonderful … it’s quixotic … it’s noble …”

He laughed. “It indulges my own wishes. I want to marry you. I shall never be happy again if you refuse me. Listen, Davina, there will be difficulties. I know that. There may be unpleasantness now and then. But we shall be together. We’ll face it together … whatever it is. I want that, Davina, more than anything in the world. I cannot explain to you what these last months have been like for me. All the time I have been thinking of you in this place … here … under siege. It was more than I could endure. And then I learned about Roger Lestrange … I thought of his efforts to get you here. I could not imagine what his motives were. I had to come out here … I had to see you … I had to explain my feelings … and now I am not letting you go again. I am going to be with you for the rest of my life.”

“It is wonderful to contemplate,” I said sadly. “But it cannot be … I know …”

“You do not know. Whatever there is to face, it is better for us to face it together.”

“But there is no need for you to face it at all. You should go back to Edinburgh … carry on your successful career … become Lord Justice …”

“Without you? Certainly not. I am going to sweep away all your excuses.”

“But you know they are … sensible.”

“Maybe, in some respects. But we are talking about love. Now, Davina, will you marry me?”

“I want to say yes … more than anything I want to.”

“Then that is enough.”

So I gave myself up to dreaming.

Lilias returned with John Dale. There had to be introductions and explanations. There was a great deal of talk about the war and the feeling about it home in Britain.

Ninian said there were some enthusiastic and some dissenting voices. But there was always great rejoicing at the victories; and Kitchener and Roberts were the heroes of the day. He explained the difficulties of travel in wartime and how he had been trying some time to get a passage.

The men left together—John Dale to his home and Ninian to his hotel. He said he would see me tomorrow morning. There was a great deal to discuss.

When they had gone Lilias looked at me questioningly.

“That was a surprise,” she said. “He’s come out here to see a client. What does that mean? He’s come out here to see you, hasn’t he?”

“Yes,” I said. “He has confirmed a great deal of what we thought about Roger Lestrange. He had another wife in Australia who died by drowning.”

Lilias stared at me.

“And,” I went on, “I think our theory about what my role was to be in his scheme was the correct one.”

She closed her eyes and clenched her hands together.

“What an escape!” she murmured. “So Ninian found this out.”

“Yes, there was some court case over his first wife’s money and Ninian had some records.”

“So he thought you might be in danger. It was a long way to come. I suppose he thought he’d defend you … if necessary.”

“He has asked me to marry him.”

“I see. And … ?”

“How could I accept? How could I go back to Edinburgh … his wife? It would ruin his career.”

“Well?”

“Lilias, how could I accept?”

“He’s asked you. My goodness, he’s come right here to tell you this. That gives you some idea of the depth of his feelings, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said happily. “It does. But all the same, I can’t accept.”

“Yes, you can,” she said. “And you will.”

How
COULD
I
HELP
this feeling of intense happiness which had gripped me? I could not suppress my true feelings. I was happy. Ninian loved me. He had come all this way at this most difficult time because he feared I was in danger.

What could I do? I could never escape from my past … nor would Ninian, if he shared it. He knew this. None could know it better. And yet he chose it … it was what he wanted.

So I was going home.

Ninian was making plans. We were to be married in Kimberley. Then we would travel home together as husband and wife.

There was no point in delay. The journey home might be long and difficult. We should have to get to Cape Town and wait for a ship. But we knew where we were going and it did not matter as long as we were together.

I had wondered about leaving Lilias, but everything seemed to be working out neatly. With one wedding in view it seemed only natural that there should be another. I had known for a long time that there had been a special relationship between Lilias and John Dale. He asked her to marry him—and how delighted I was when I heard the news.

There would be two marriages on the same day which would be appropriate as we had come out together.

Myra was sad at the prospect of my going. She did not know everything about her husband. We did not speak of him. The murder of the deaf-mute was revealing, for there was the indisputable evidence of the button from one of Roger Lestrange’s
coats to prove the case against him. Umgala had obviously witnessed the crime and was attempting to reveal what he knew— so he had had to die. And now Roger himself was dead and Myra was no longer a wife. She had been fascinated completely by her husband—but at the same time she had been fearful of him. She could not be aware that she had come close to death herself.

But we did not speak of it. She had been bemused and bewildered, but gradually she seemed to realise that she must start a new life. Strangely enough she turned to Paul. Together they made Njuba their concern. They looked after him and Luban and it brought them close together.