by M. M. Kaye
‘But you were a friend of Tyson’s,’ explained Dany patiently. ‘You told me you were. And you were going to stay at Kivulimi — like me.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ demanded Lash unfairly. ‘You can’t go two-timing the police and skipping out of the country on a stolen passport — well, a borrowed one, then! — just because I happen to know your step-father. Don’t you understand? It’s illegal! It’s criminal! It’s — it’s — Good grief, it’s sheer, shrieking lunacy! You can probably go to jail for it. And so can I!’
‘Well, after all,’ said Dany, ‘it was your idea.’
Lash stood stock still and glared at her for a full minute in a silence that was loud with unprintable comment, and then he sat down very suddenly on the sofa and shut his eyes.
‘I give up,’ he said, ‘I am just not strong enough to compete with you — or this situation. And to think,’ he added bitterly, ‘that this was to have been my honeymoon! My romantic, orchids-and-champagne-and-tropical-moonlight honeymoon! Dear God, what have I done to deserve this?’
‘Drunk too much,’ said Dany unkindly.
Lash opened one inflamed eye and regarded her with strong revulsion. ‘One more crack like that out of you,’ he said dangerously, ‘— just one! and I shall ring up the nearest police station and spill the whole dam’ story, and let them deal with you!’
‘And if you do,’ said Dany sweetly, ‘I shall tell them that you persuaded me into it; and then if anyone goes to jail it will be you. For kidnapping a minor!’
There was a brief silence.
‘Why you little____!’ said Lash very softly.
Dany rose briskly. ‘I don’t think I know what that means,’ she said, ‘but I can guess. And I’m afraid that calling me names isn’t going to be any help. You got me into this, and you’re going to get me out.’
‘Am I, by God!’
‘Yes, you are! So it’s no use saying “Am I, by God!” Once we’re in Zanzibar, and at Kivulimi, you can wash your hands of me, or tell the police, or do anything else you like. But until then I’m your secretary, Miss Kitchell. And I’m going to go on being Miss Kitchell — or else! Do you see?’
‘O.K. I get it,’ said Lash grimly. ‘All right, Miss Kitchell, you win. And now, as I am not in the habit of sharing a bedroom suite with my secretary, will you kindly get the hell out of here?’
Dany studied him with a faint smile. He was looking completely exhausted and exceedingly cross, and once again it occurred to her how pleasant it would be if she were able to put her arms about him and kiss away his tiredness and ill-temper. She felt, suddenly, a good deal older than him, and that it was unkind of her to confront him with any more problems. But it couldn’t be helped.
‘I’m afraid,’ she said carefully, ‘that I can’t do that either. You see, there are no other rooms.’
‘Oh yes there are. There was one booked for Ada.’
‘Yes, I know. But they thought I was your wife, and when that receptionist asked you about the “other lady” — meaning your secretary — you said there wasn’t one.’
‘So what?’
‘So I’m afraid they’ve given the other room to someone else.’
‘Then they can dam’ well give you another,’ snapped Lash.
Dany shook her head regretfully. ‘I’m afraid not. There aren’t any more rooms. Not even mine! A Mr Dowling’s got that. He told them I’d cancelled my passage, and he’d taken it, and could he have my room as well. There isn’t a hole or corner to spare anywhere, though the manager was very kind when I explained that I was only the secretary and not the bride, and he rang up at least eight other hotels. But it seems we’ve chosen a bad time to arrive. There’s some special week on at the moment, and the town is packed out. I said I was sure you wouldn’t mind.’
Lash looked at her for a long moment, and then he rose and crossed the room, and planted his thumb firmly on the bell.
‘What are you ringing for?’ inquired Dany, a trifle anxiously.
‘Rye,’ said Lash grimly. ‘I intend to get plastered again. And as quickly as possible!’
6
Dany ate a solitary luncheon in a corner of the cool dining-room, and drank coffee on the hotel verandah with Mr Larry Dowling, whose conversation she found both restful and entertaining. He appeared to be aware that she was feeling worried and distrait, and cheerfully took it upon himself to do all the talking: for which she was profoundly grateful, as it enabled her to relax and enjoy the view, while the necessity for paying some attention to what he was saying prevented her from brooding over her own problems.
‘I must get me a suit of white drill and a panama hat,’ said Larry Dowling. ‘It’s obviously that sort of climate. I suppose you wouldn’t be really kind and come and help me do a bit of shopping would you, Miss — Miss____?’
‘A — Kitchell,’ supplied Dany, almost caught off guard. ‘Yes. I’d like to very much, thank you. I want to see something of Nairobi, and I have to send off a cable.’
‘That’s grand,’ said Larry gratefully. ‘Let’s go.’
They set out on foot in the bright African sunlight, and found the Telegraph Office without much difficulty. Dany had dispatched a brief affectionate message by deferred cable to Aunt Harriet, reporting her safe arrival (after first making quite sure that it could not be delivered in England before she herself reached Zanzibar) and Larry Dowling had cabled an even briefer one, express, to an address in Soho. After which they had visited several shops, and Mr Dowling had duly acquired a tropical suit, a panama hat and a pair of beach shoes. He had also bought Dany an outsize box of chocolates, as a small return, he explained, for her invaluable assistance. But Dany was becoming uncomfortably aware of pitfalls.
It was proving no easy matter to talk for any length of time, even to an attractive stranger, without finding oneself mentioning things that belonged to Miss Ashton rather than to Miss Kitchell. And although Larry Dowling had no more than a friendly interest in Miss Kitchell, he was intensely interested in Tyson Frost and anything and everything to do with him, and the indignant Dany found herself being compelled to listen to a candid thumb-nail sketch of her step-father’s career and her mother’s marriages, with a brief reference to herself.
‘I’ve heard that there’s a child somewhere,’ said Larry, strolling beside her. ‘Kept well in the background, it seems. Not Frost’s — hers. But the Lorraine type don’t like being bothered by brats: spoils their glamour. Besides, it makes people start doing sums. Difficult to go around looking barely thirty when you’ve a lumping great deb of eighteen or nineteen summers tagging along in tow. Ever seen her? Mrs Frost, I mean?’
Dany blinked and opened her mouth, and then shut it again, but his question appeared to be purely rhetorical.
‘She’s a honey!’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I saw her in London last year at a Press reception for Frost. Tiny, with dark curly hair like a baby’s and blue eyes the size of saucers. Looks as though you could pick her up with one hand. Married at least half a dozen times, and when you see her you aren’t surprised. Like that friend of hers on the plane — Mrs Gordon. Now there’s another charmer! Though for all her looks she’s had a pretty tragic life, poor girl. Her last husband fell down their cellar steps in the dark and broke his neck. Tight of course. And as if that wasn’t enough, the man she was going to marry last year, Douglas RhettCorrington, took a header out of a top-storey window on the eve of the wedding. Seems someone had been writing him anonymous letters, or else she threw him over at the last minute, or something like that. But whichever it was it must have been sheer hell for her, and she deserves a break with the next one. I wish I were in the running!’
‘Are you rich?’ inquired Dany, startled to find herself feeling so angry and uncharitable.
‘Ah! but she’s not one of those. They say she only marries for love — even if she doesn’t love ’em for long! It just happened that the ones she married had money, because those are the only kind she meets. And if it
was only money she was after, she’d have married your boss. A week ago there were rumours that they were going to stage a surprise wedding at Caxton Hall. But now it looks as though it was off. What went wrong.?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Dany coldly. ‘Mr Holden does not discuss his private life with me.’
Mr Dowling’s attractive triangular face lit with amusement. ‘The perfect, loyal little secretary!’ he said, and smiled his swift, disarming smile. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. But there’s no need for you to clam up on me. I’m not a gossip writer, you know. Young Holden isn’t news as far as I’m concerned. It’s men like Tyson Frost who are my bread and butter. Him and the Zanzibar elections! That was why I was so dam’ pleased about getting on that plane: there were two people on it who might have been very useful to me. An Arab agitator who hopes to become a little Hitler one day, and Tyson Frost’s step-daughter — a Miss Ashton. The one I was telling you about.’
‘Oh … really?’ said Dany, swallowing a lump in her throat.
‘Yep. And I’d rather hoped I might be able to scrape an acquaintance with the girl,’ confided Larry Dowling with rueful candour. ‘It shouldn’t have been all that difficult, and I might have got a lot of inside information, and even wangled an invitation to stay if I’d played my cards right. I did everything I could to get on that plane, but not a hope. And then at the last minute someone cancels a seat, and I get it. And then you know what?’
‘No. I mean — what?’ said Dany nervously.
‘It’s the Ashton girl who’s cancelled it! Probably contracted whooping cough or measles or something. A pity. I’d like to have met her. Her step-daddy is news in any language just now.’
‘Why just now?’ inquired Dany, curiosity getting the better of a strong conviction that she ought to change the subject at once.
‘Surely you know? Why, I thought that must be what your boss was after. It’s his father who publishes Frost’s books in the States, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. But____’
‘Then you can take it from me that’s what he’s here for. The Emory Frost diaries. They were released this year. Emory was the old rolling stone who was deeded the house in Zanzibar by one of the Sultans. He seems to have been quite a lad by all accounts. There were a lot of curious stories about him — that he was mixed up in the Slave Trade or the smuggling racket, and went in for a bit of piracy on the side, with a spot of wrecking thrown in. He left a whole heap of papers and diaries that he said were not to be read until seventy years after his death, which was June this year. Tyson Frost has had ’em for a couple of months now, so he should have had time to go through them. The betting is that they make pretty racy reading, and that Frost’ll publish them in book form. If I can only get him to talk about them I shall be sitting pretty. Is Holden out to get the exclusive rights?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Dany, trying the effect of a cautious answer.
‘Ah!’ said Larry Dowling. ‘I thought so! It’ll go down well in the States. The Yanks had a lot of influence in Zanzibar in the eighteen hundreds, and the first treaty the Sultanate ever made with a foreign country was with America. And then there’s some story that Emory ran away with an American girl — rescued her from pirates who attacked Zanzibar, and blockaded the American Consulate in eighteen-sixty something, and ended up by marrying her. What a film that’d make! She must have been Frost’s grandmother. They say she was a stunner, and that after she married him Emory become a reformed character and…’
He broke off. ‘Wait a minute … Isn’t that one of the women who were on the plane over there? Mrs Bingham? The manager of our hotel told me that she’s Tyson Frost’s sister. I wonder if____’
He caught Dany’s arm, and hurrying her along the crowded pavement, dived into a shop that appeared to sell everything from shoes to saucepans, and went up to a counter piled high with sponges which Mrs Bingham and Miss Bates were prodding speculatively under the bored gaze of an Indian saleslady. Two minutes later Dany realized that she had been quite right when she had decided that Aunt Harriet would have taken to Mr Dowling. Mrs Bingham had instantly done so, and in an astonishingly short space of time he was involved in an animated discussion on the rival merits of natural versus foam-rubber sponges.
Dany had attempted to beat an unobtrusive retreat, having no desire to make her step-aunt’s acquaintance before it was absolutely necessary. But she had not been quick enough, and before she could prevent it, Larry was introducing her.
‘This is Miss Kitchell, Mrs Bingham. Mr Holden’s secretary and a fellow-traveller to Zanzibar. She will be staying with the Frosts. Tyson Frost, the novelist, you know. What’s that? … Your brother? Now that really is a coincidence!’
He met Dany’s accusing eye with a wicked twinkle in his own, and grinned at her, entirely unabashed. But the remainder of the afternoon proved to be trying in the extreme, for he had not permitted her to separate herself from the company, and her step-father’s sister had turned out to be one of those exceedingly talkative women who delight in asking endless personal questions, and handing out endless personal information in exchange.
Mrs Bingham wished to know all about America; a country she had not yet visited but hoped to one day. Dany, who had not visited it either, did not come well out of this catechism, and could only pray that Larry Dowling and the brisk Miss Bates were equally ignorant.
To Mrs Bingham’s loudly expressed surprise at her lack of a transatlantic accent she replied glibly that her parents had only emigrated to America within recent years, and that she herself had been partly educated in England.
‘Ah!’ said Gussie Bingham with the satisfaction of one who has solved a problem. ‘Then that of course is why Mr Holden selected you to come to Europe with him. You would understand us. I don’t think I ever met this Mr Holden, but his father stayed with me once — let me see, was it in ’38 or ’39? He is a great friend of Tyson’s, my brother’s. A very pleasant man — for an American. Oh, I beg your pardon, my dear! How very rude that sounds. Do forgive me.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Dany bleakly, wondering how long it was going to be before she was asked something that was so impossible to answer that discovery was inevitable. What a fool she had been to talk to people: any people! She should have kept well out of sight and out of danger. Lash was quite right: she had no sense. All she had thought of was that a stroll round Nairobi with Larry Dowling would be a pleasant way to spend the long afternoon, and that it would be quite easy to keep off dangerous topics. And now look where it had landed her!
Gussie Bingham said: ‘Do you suppose this is all there is of Nairobi? Perhaps I should have accepted Mr Ponting’s offer to show us round. My brother’s secretary, you know. He was here to meet me, and he took us out to luncheon at some club. It was really very pleasant. But as the poor man had spent half the morning in a dentist’s chair I insisted that he take a couple of aspirins and lie down this afternoon, and that Millicent and I would look after ourselves. I feel sure he was grateful. You must have met him, of course, when he was in the States with my brother. What did you think of him?’
Dany’s heart appeared to jump six inches and then sink at least twice that distance. Had Ada Kitchell met this Mr Ponting when Tyson had been over in the States? Certainly Lash had met him, and therefore probably Ada. Why hadn’t Lash warned her? Why hadn’t she thought of asking him? Why had they both forgotten that angle, and what on earth was she going to do when she did see this man, and he refused to recognize her as Ada Kitchell?
Fortunately Gussie Bingham did not wait for an answer: ‘He has been with my brother for several years, but I had not met him before — though he has been to the house, of course. But that was when Tyson was in England a year or two ago and Millicent and I were having a little holiday in Jersey. Still, it was thoughtful of Tyson to arrange for him to meet me. Though I suspect he is really here on Dany Ashton’s account — my brother’s step-daughter, you know. She was to have been on the plane, but she was not a
t the airport, and when we made inquiries they told us that she had cancelled her seat. Very odd. Chicken-pox or mumps or something, I suppose.’
It was clear that in this matter Augusta Bingham’s mind moved in much the same grooves as Larry Dowling’s: school-girl diseases. But fortunately for Dany’s nervous system, Mrs Bingham abandoned the subject of the missing Miss Ashton and turned to a less dangerous topic:
‘We shall be quite a party at Kivulimi, shall we not? You know, I haven’t stayed there since Father died. That seems a very long time ago. We spent almost a year there, as children. But Father never really took to the place. Not like his eldest brother, old Uncle Barclay, who was completely besotted with the house. He had a thing about it — and about Zanzibar. He loved the place, and hardly ever left it. I suppose that was why he never married.’
‘Was he the eldest son of Emory — the first Frost?’ inquired Larry Dowling.
‘The first Frost to visit Zanzibar,’ corrected Mrs Bingham gently. ‘Yes. The family place is in Kent, of course. I live there now, because Tyson is so seldom in England. Millicent and I keep it warm for him, we say. I don’t know what I should do without Millicent. She came to stay with me when my husband died, and she simply runs everything.’
‘Does your brother live much in Zanzibar?’ asked Larry, steering the conversation firmly back to Tyson Frost.
‘Not really. He’s such a restless person. Always on the move. He only lives in it by fits and starts. Asks some of his friends there, and then off he goes again. I’ve always thought it was such a romantic thing to have a house in Zanzibar, but Tyson never really stays in it very long.’
‘Probably finds it jolly uncivilized,’ said Miss Bates. ‘Romance is all very well, but give me H. and C. every time! I always say there’s absolutely nothing to beat “All Mod. Cons”.’
‘I’m afraid Millicent doesn’t care for foreign travel,’ confided Gussie Bingham in an undertone to Dany. ‘She detests the East. And she misses the Institute and the Girl Guides and things like that. She has so many interests: a tower of strength. Our vicar often says that he doesn’t know how Market-Lydon would get on without her, and I’m sure she agrees with him. Oh! I didn’t mean — that sounds unkind of me. What I meant____’