by M. M. Kaye
‘Why?’ demanded Lash haughtily. ‘This started out as a business trip, and it can stay that way. You surely didn’t think that I’d cancel it just because you decided to transfer your affections to some gilded Italian gigolo, did you?’
Mrs Gordon tucked a slender, gloved hand under his arm and gazed up at him from a pair of enormous sea-green eyes; her long soft lashes fluttering appealingly.
No one had ever been able to stay seriously angry with Amalfi Gordon for any length of time. Exasperated, yes. But it was an accepted fact that dear, soft-hearted, feather-headed Elf simply couldn’t help it. If she fell into love, or out of it, and hurt people thereby, it wasn’t her fault. She never meant to hurt.
Mrs Gordon made a moue and said: ‘Sweetie, you’re not sulking, are you?’
‘Of course I’m not!’ snapped Lash, descending rapidly from the haughty to the frankly furious. ‘What would I have to sulk about? I am, on the contrary, deeply thankful. And now run along back to your Mediterranean bar-fly, there’s a good girl.’
Amalfi gave his arm a little coaxing tug. ‘Darling, aren’t you being just a tiny bit kindergarten? Eddie’s marvellous!’
‘You mean Eddie’s a Marchese!’ retorted Lash bitterly. ‘That’s the operative word, isn’t it? And you’re just another sucker for a title! Apart from that, what’s he got that I haven’t?’
‘Manners,’ said Amalfi sweetly. And withdrawing her hand she turned away and rejoined her two cavaliers without having even glanced at Dany.
‘How d’you like that?’ demanded Lash indignantly. ‘Manners! I suppose if I bowed and scraped and went about kissing women’s hands____’
He broke off and subsided into deep gloom, from which he was presently aroused by another clutch at his arm. But this time it was Dany, and he saw that she was staring in wide-eyed alarm at a thin, boney, dark-skinned Oriental in a blue lounge suit, who carried a brief-case, a neatly rolled umbrella and very new bur-berry.
‘It’s him!’ said Dany in a feverish, ungrammatical whisper.
‘Who? The one you think you saw in Market-something, or the one you saw in the hotel?’
‘In the hotel. But — but perhaps it’s both!’
‘Nuts! The world is full of Oriental gentlemen — they come in all sizes. And anyway, what of it? He was probably staying at the Airlane. You were. I was. And so, as it happens, were Elf and that slick owner-driver. And we’re all flying to Nairobi. Why not him?’
‘But suppose he recognizes me? I was standing right next to him!’
Lash turned and surveyed her with a distinctly jaundiced eye, and remarked caustically that it was extremely doubtful if her own mother would recognize her at the moment. To which he added a rider to the effect that if she was going to lose her nerve every twenty minutes she had better give up the whole idea after all and run off back to her Aunt Harriet, as he did not fancy the prospect of being saddled with a spineless and probably inefficient secretary who suffered from frequent attacks of the vapours. A trenchant observation that acted upon Dany’s agitated nervous sytem with the bracing effect of a bucketful of cold water, and stiffened her wavering resolution. She cast Mr Lashmer Holden a look of active dislike, and preceded him into the aircraft in chilly silence.
No one had questioned her identity, and if there were any plain-clothes police among the crowds at the airport she did not identify them. The stewardess said: ‘Will you please fasten your seat belts,’ and then they were taxi-ing down the long runway. The propellors roared and the airport slipped away from them: tilted, levelled out and dwindled to the proportions of a child’s toy. They were safely away.
‘Well, it seems we made it,’ remarked Lash affably, unfastening his seat-belt and lighting a cigarette.
He accepted a cup of coffee from the stewardess and added the remains of his flask to it. He seemed surprised that there was no more.
‘Why, hell — I only filled it half an hour ago! No — I guess it must have been earlier than that. Oh well, plenty more where it came from. Happy landings! How are you feeling, by the way?’
‘Sleepy,’ said Dany.
‘That’s odd. So’m I. A very good night to you.’
He settled himself comfortably and was instantly asleep, and Dany, looking at him resentfully, was annoyed to find that her own head was nodding. She had no intention of wasting her time in sleep. This was her very first flight, and although the circumstances under which she was making it were, to say the least of it, unusual, she was not going to miss a moment of it. Soon they would be passing over the Channel. France … Switzerland. Looking down on the snowy peaks of the Alps. On the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc. Over the mountains to Italy. No, of course she could not sleep …
4
Dany awoke with a start to find the stewardess once again urging her to fasten her seat belt. ‘We shall be coming in to land in a few minutes.’
‘Land? Where?’ inquired Dany dazedly.
‘Naples. Do you think you could fasten your friend’s belt? I don’t seem to be able to wake him.’
Dany performed this task with some difficulty, Mr Holden remaining immobile throughout. He did not even wake when the plane touched down, and the stewardess gave up the unequal struggle, and in defiance of regulations, left him there.
Dany climbed over him to join the other passengers who were being ushered out into the dazzling sunlight of the Naples aerodrome, and feeling quite incapable of any conversation, affected not to see Larry Dowling, who had given her a friendly smile as she passed him.
A curious mixture of lunch and tea was served in the dining-room of the airport, but Dany was in no mood to be critical, and she ate everything that was placed before her, surprised to find herself so hungry. Prompted by caution she had selected a table as far as possible from her fellow passengers, and from this vantage point she studied them with interest; realizing that among them, still unidentified, were two more guests bound for Kivulimi. Tyson’s sister, Augusta Bingham, and her friend Miss — Boots? No. Bates.
It was, she reflected, the greatest piece of luck that she should have been suffering from measles on the only occasion on which this new step-aunt had suggested coming to see her, and that she had selfishly put off calling on Mrs Bingham at the Airlane on Wednesday evening. She had so nearly done so. But there had been the film of Blue Roses, and then there had been the choice between doing her duty by introducing herself to her step-aunt, or going to the theatre that evening — and the theatre had won.
Glancing round the dining-room, Dany decided that the two women she was looking for were obviously the two who had seated themselves at Mrs Gordon’s table, for the older one bore a distinct resemblance to Tyson. The same blunt nose and determined chin. Yes, that must be Augusta Bingham: a middle-aged woman whose greying hair had been given a deep-blue rinse and cut by an expert, and whose spare figure showed to advantage in an equally well-cut suit of lavender shantung.
Mrs Bingham wore a discreet diamond brooch and two rows of excellent pearls, and looked as though she played a good game of bridge, belonged to several clubs and took an interest in gossip and clothes. Her neighbour, in marked contrast, conveyed an instant impression of Girl Guides, No Nonsense and an efficiently-run parish. Undoubtedly, Miss Bates.
Miss Bates, who despite the heat wore a sensible coat and skirt and an uncompromisingly British felt hat of the pudding-basin variety, provided a most effective foil for Amalfi Gordon, who was sitting opposite her. Mrs Gordon had discarded her mink cape and was looking cool and incredibly lovely in lime-green linen. How does she do it? wondered Dany, studying her with a faintly resentful interest. She’s old! She was at school with Mother, and she’s been married almost as many times. Yet she can still look like that!
The Italian marquis — or was it marchese? — and Sir Ambrose someone (oil) were giving Mrs Gordon their full attention, and Amalfi was being charming to both of them, as well as to Mrs Bingham and Miss Bates and a couple of openly admiring waiters. Even Larry Dowling was find
ing it difficult to keep his eyes from straying and his attention on what his table companion was saying.
Mr Dowling was sitting two tables away with the dark-skinned man whom Dany had seen at the hotel, and who was talking earnestly and with much gesticulation. His voice came clearly to Dany’s ears: ‘You do not understand! You are not Arab. It is the iniquity of it! The flagrant injustice! Why should a suffering minority be exploited for the benefit of cru-el and blood-sucking imperialists of a dying pow-ah, who mercilessly snatch their profits from the very mouths of the starving poo-er? Now I, as an Arab____’
So people really did talk like that! And, presumably, others listened. Mr Dowling was certainly listening, though perhaps not quite as earnestly as he should. But then he hoped to write a feature, whatever that was, on the elections in Zanzibar, and____. With a sudden sense of acute alarm Dany remembered something far more important. He wanted to interview Tyson! She would have to warn her step-father, and she would have to keep out of sight. It would be disastrous if this Larry Dowling, who wrote for the newspapers, were to find out that she was Tyson Frost’s step-daughter, masquerading as the secretary of a visiting American publisher in order to escape giving evidence at an inquest on murder. It would make an excellent front page story for the newspapers, and Dany shuddered at the thought. Supposing — just supposing — someone were to recognize her? The man whom he was talking to____
Once again panic snatched at Dany. Even if the Arab was not the man she had passed in the mist near Mr Honeywood’s house, he was certainly the man who had stood almost at her elbow in the hall of the Airlane, and if he should recognize her, and ask questions, she might be stopped at Nairobi and sent back.
What were the penalties for travelling on a false passport? Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Lash Holden had made some flippant reference to it, but she had not stopped to think. She should have thought …
Mr Dowling’s companion was talking again, even more audibly, but on a more topical subject. ‘I feel always sick — most sick — in these aeroplanes. It is my stomach. Everything, I take it. It is no good. The height — I do not know. Yes, we do not move, but still I am feeling bad always. But worse over the sea. I am most bad over the sea. For if the engines fail over the sea, what will happen then? We will all drown! It is terrible!’
He’s not airsick, thought Dany. He’s only frightened! Well, so am I …
Larry Dowling caught her eye and grinned, and unaccountably some of the panic left her. He might be a reporter, and dangerous to know, but he was a dependable sort of person, and she had a sudden, strong conviction that Aunt Harriet would have approved of him. Which was odd …
She became aware that passengers for Nairobi were being requested to return to their aircraft, and rising hurriedly she snatched up her coat and bag and hastened out in the wake of her fellow passengers.
Lashmer J. Holden Jnr had not moved, and he did not stir as she squeezed past him to regain her seat. He was, in technical parlance, out for the count; and Dany, vaguely recognizing the fact, was conscious of feeling lost and friendless and very much alone. Until this moment she had felt herself to be a mere member of the crew with Lash in charge and steering the ship, and provided she did what she was told he would bring her safely into port. Now she was not so sure. Viewed dispassionately in the bright Mediterranean sunlight, Lashmer Holden looked a good deal younger. His hair was dishevelled and he looked pallid and unshaven and she studied him with a critical and disapproving eye, and then — her maternal instincts getting the better of her — leant over and loosened his tie, which had worked round somewhere in the neighbourhood of his right ear, and drew down the blind so that his face was shielded from the sun.
The two red-faced gentlemen of unmistakably Colonial appearance who occupied the seats immediately behind her began to snore in gentle and rhythmic chorus, and she wished she were able to follow their example and fall asleep again herself, in order to avoid having to think. But she was by now far too anxious and far too wide awake; and in any case there was that letter to be written. The letter that she must post in Nairobi, explaining herself to the police.
Dany stood up cautiously and removed her attaché case from the rack above her head, noting, with a renewed sense of surprise, the label that proclaimed it to be the property of Miss Ada Kitchell. But with the writing paper in front of her and a Biro in her hand, she found that it was not going to be as easy as she had thought.
Looking back over the last twenty-four hours she wondered if she had temporarily taken leave of her senses. Or had Lash Holden’s alcoholic exuberance exerted a hypnotic influence over her? She had been frightened and confused, and stubbornly determined that nothing should cheat her out of this long-looked-forward-to visit to Zanzibar. And in that state of mind she had been only too ready to grasp at the preposterous line of escape that he had offered. But now that she had plenty of time for thought, the folly of her behaviour was becoming increasingly clear.
She had done precisely what someone had hoped that she would do. Panicked and behaved in a foolish and suspicious manner, and allowed herself to be used as a red-herring to confuse the trail of a murderer. She was an ‘Accessory After the Fact’; and that, too, was a punishable offence. If she had kept her head and rung up the police at once, even though it meant postponing this visit or perhaps sacrificing it altogether, then it would have been the police who would have found that gun — and without her fingerprints on it. And if she had given them what little information she could, it might have helped them to get on the track of the real criminal at once, instead of wasting time trying to trace her.
She had, thought Dany with bleak honesty, been selfish and cowardly and deplorably gullible. She had obstructed justice and played a murderer’s game for him, and she wondered how long it would take the police to find out that Mr Honeywood’s visitor had been a Miss Dany Ashton if she did not write and tell them so herself? Perhaps they would never find out. Perhaps, after all, it would be better to say nothing at all — having let things get this far. Could she get a jail sentence for having used someone else’s passport, in addition to one for having obstructed justice? Yet she had only wanted to see Zanzibar. Zanzibar and Kivulimi …
Lorraine had sent her some photographs of Kivulimi two years ago. They had arrived on a cold, wet, depressing afternoon in November, and brought a breath of magic into Aunt Harriet’s stolidly unromantic house. ‘There are jacarandas in the garden,’ Lorraine had written, ‘and mangoes and frangi-pani and flamboyants, and any amount of orange trees, and they smell heavenly and keep the place nice and cool. I suppose that’s where it gets its name from. “Kivulimi” means “The House of Shade”.’
Dany put away the writing paper and pen and returned the attaché case to the rack. It was all too difficult, and she would wait until she could make a clean breast of it to Lorraine and Tyson. Lorraine would think it was all thrilling, and Tyson would probably be furious. But they would take charge of the whole problem, and know what to do.
She sat down again, feeling cold and forlorn and more than a little ashamed of herself. If only Lash would wake up! But Mr Holden did not look as though he intended to wake up for anything short of the Last Trump, and Dany found herself regarding him with increasing hostility.
It was, she decided suddenly, all Lash’s fault. If it had not been for him — him and that ridiculous stuffed cat! ‘Asbestos’ indeed!
A fragrant breath of Diorissimo competed triumphantly with the smell of cigarette smoke, antiseptics and upholstery, and Dany became aware that Mr Holden’s pleasant profile was silhouetted against a background of lime-green linen.
Amalfi Gordon was standing beside him in the aisle, looking down at his unconscious form with a faint frown and an expression that was a curious mixture of speculation, doubt and annoyance. In the shadow of the drawn blind, and with the light behind her, she looked blonder and lovelier than ever, and it was impossible to believe that she must be a good deal nearer forty than thirty, and ha
d been at school with one’s own mother.
She lifted a pair of long, gilt-tipped lashes that were undoubtedly genuine, and glanced at Dany with the unseeing and entirely uninterested look that some women bestow on servants, and the majority of beautiful women accord to their plain or unattractive sisters.
It was a look that aroused a sudden sharp antagonism in Dany, and perhaps it showed in her face, for Mrs Gordon’s sea-green eyes lost their abstraction and became startlingly observant. She looked Dany up and down, noting her youth and missing no detail of her dress or appearance, and the frown on her white brow deepened. She said without troubling to lower her voice:
‘You must be Lash’s — Mr Holden’s — secretary. I thought he was bringing Ada.’
‘She couldn’t come,’ said Dany shortly, disturbed to find that she was blushing hotly.
‘Oh?’ It was obvious, and in the circumstances fortunate, that Mrs Gordon was not in the least interested in Lash’s secretaries, for she made no further inquiries. But something in Dany’s gaze had evidently annoyed her, for she looked down again at the sleeping Lash, and then lightly, but very deliberately, stretched out one slender white hand and smoothed back an errant lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead.
It was a sweetly possessive gesture that spoke volumes — and was intended to. And having made her point, Mrs Gordon smiled charmingly and went on down the aisle to the ladies’ room.
Dany subsided, feeling shaken and unreasonably angry, and unnerved by the narrowness of her escape. What if Mrs Gordon had asked her name, and she had said ‘Kitchell’? What would have happened then? But you aren’t Ada Kitchell. I know her. How would she have answered that? Two redheaded secretaries, both with the same name, would have been difficult to explain away. Unless they were sisters____? If Mrs Gordon questioned her again she would have to be Ada’s sister. Lash should have remembered that Mrs Gordon had met his ex-secretary, and warned her of it.