by M. M. Kaye
Blast! thought Mr Holden with quiet and concentrated bitterness. And was visited by inspiration. He half rose and bowed at Mrs Bingham. ‘Ma’am, you put me to shame. You’re dead right. I’m a slave-driver, and Miss Kitchell certainly needs a rest. But she’s going to get one. I don’t happen to need her for the next week or so, and she’s going to stay right here, grab herself a nice long vacation, and join me later when I’m due back in the States.’
And now, thought Lash with some satisfaction, just try and gum up that one!
Tyson did so.
‘It looks,’ he said blandly, ‘as though you will be spending it right here with her, my boy.’
‘Oh no, I shan’t,’ began Lash firmly. ‘I intend____’
Tyson said crossly: ‘If you will all have the goodness to lay off interrupting me every time I open my mouth, perhaps I can get on with what I was saying?… Thanks! About that plane reservation. I’m afraid you’ll have to cancel it, boy. In fact, I have already done so on your behalf. The police have requested that you all remain in situ for a day or two.’
‘The police?’ Amalfi dropped the glass she was holding, and it fell with a little splintering crash, sending a red stream of claret across the table. ‘What police? Why?’
‘Josh Cardew. He was over this afternoon. He says it’s just a routine matter, but that they’ve been asked to check up on everyone who was on the Nairobi–Zanzibar plane this morning, and more particularly, on the London–Nairobi one. So it would help if you’d all stay around for a bit. It’s that chap Jembe.’
‘Salim Abeid?’ inquired Larry Dowling. ‘You mean the man who died in the airport at Mombasa this morning?’
‘I mean the man who was murdered in the airport at Mombasa this morning,’ corrected Tyson. ‘It would appear that someone added a good-sized slug of cyanide to his coffee, and they somehow don’t think he did it himself.’
Gussie gave her glass of wine a horrified look and put it down hurriedly. ‘But how dreadful, Tyson! I remember him quite well. He was on the London plane too. But why on earth should the police want to question any of us? Too ridiculous, when it must have been someone in the airport. The barman who gave him the coffee, I expect.’
‘They’re checking up on all that. Needle-in-a-haystack job, I’d say. I gather the airport was pretty crowded.’
‘Packed,’ said Gussie Bingham, and shuddered. ‘Besides being abominably hot, in spite of all those fans and things.’
Larry Dowling said reflectively: ‘It can’t have been all that easy to drop something in a man’s drink without being spotted; even in a crowded room. Bit of a risk. It must have been someone he knew.’
‘I don’t see why,’ said Nigel, mopping up claret with a clean handkerchief. ‘Anyone — simply anyone — could have jogged his elbow or distracted his attention as they went past. Too simple. You knock the man’s newspaper on to the floor, or stumble over his briefcase, and while he’s picking them up and you’re apologizing — plop!’
He dropped an imaginary pellet into an imaginary glass, and Eduardo di Chiago said: ‘Brr — ! this is a most unpleasant conversation. For myself, I do not like to talk of death. It is unlucky.’
‘Oh, I do so agree with you,’ said Lorraine earnestly. ‘Dreadfully unlucky. And now I suppose there’s bound to be a third.’
‘A third what?’ demanded Gussie Bingham, startled.
‘Murder of course, darling. Things always go in threes. Haven’t you noticed that?’
‘But there’s only been one murder so far,’ objected Millicent Bates.
‘My dear — but haven’t you heard? Why, I thought we only hadn’t because we don’t get the English papers for days, but I thought you two must have seen all about it.’
Tyson cast his eyes up to heaven, and thereafter, realizing it was too late to intervene, shrugged his shoulders and circulated the port.
‘Seen all about what?’ demanded Millicent sharply.
‘Why, about Mr Honeywood. Tyson’s solicitor. He’s been murdered.’
‘Honeywood — old Henry Honeywood?’ The thin stem of Gussie Bingham’s wine-glass snapped between her fingers, and once more there was a dark pool of wine winking in the candlelight. But she did not appear to have noticed it. She leant forward to stare down the table at Lorraine, and her voice was suddenly strident: ‘Where did you get that story?’
But Lorraine was not paying attention. She reached out, and picking up an empty tumbler, lifted it and dropped it deliberately on to the floor, where it shivered into fragments.
‘That’s the third one,’ she said reassuringly. ‘And it was an odd one anyway, so it means we needn’t bother about losing any more of the set. I do apologize, Gussie darling — what were you saying?’
Gussie turned towards her brother with a rustle of lilac satin and a clash of bracelets.
‘Tyson, what is this preposterous nonsense that Lorraine has got hold of?’
‘It isn’t nonsense,’ said Tyson, helping himself liberally to port. ‘Only heard it myself today. The poor old boy’s been murdered. Shot in his study on the morning of the day you left for London. I daresay you missed seeing it in the papers because of the move — last minute shopping and all that sort of flap. And it wouldn’t have been front page stuff.’
‘No, I didn’t see it. And I still can’t believe____ What would anyone want to murder old Henry for?’
Tyson shrugged. ‘Ask me another. Theft, I suppose. The safe was opened. I don’t really know any details.’
‘And where,’ demanded Millicent, ‘did you get all this from? If you’ve got the home papers, I’d like to see them.’
Tyson looked disconcerted, and Lash thought with a trace of malice: That’ll teach him to watch his step!
‘They’ll be around somewhere,’ said Tyson, rallying. ‘But as a matter of fact, I had a letter by the afternoon post. Have some port, Gussie.’
‘Who from?’ inquired Millicent Bates.
‘Oh — a man you wouldn’t know,’ said Tyson hastily.
‘What did he say? When did it happen? How…’
Tyson rolled a wild eye in the direction of Lash, who refused to meet it, and found himself enduring a lengthy catechism which he replied to as well as he could.
‘Why are you so interested anyway?’ he inquired irritably. ‘He wasn’t your family solicitor.’
‘He happened to be both honorary treasurer of our Wednesday Women’s Guild and treasurer to the Market-Lydon Lads of Britain League, and as such was a personal friend of mine,’ snapped Millicent. ‘What time did you say it happened?’
‘For Pete’s sake, how am I expected to know? It’ll be in the papers.’
‘Eleven forty-eight, precisely,’ put in Larry Dowling gently. ‘They know the time because the murderer evidently pressed the muzzle of the gun against the victim’s body — it would have helped to muffle the shot — and the shock of the explosion damaged a repeater watch the old gentleman carried in his breast pocket, and stopped it.
‘Good God,’ said Tyson heavily. ‘The Press! I’d forgotten we had a newshound in our midst.’ He glared at Larry Dowling as though he had found a slug in his salad. ‘Did you by any chance cover this case, Mr Dowling? You appear to know a hell of a lot about it.’
‘No. Not in my line. But I read the papers. It was in most of them on the 13th. I must have seen five accounts of it at least.’
‘Umm,’ grunted Tyson, and returned to the port.
‘Eleven forty-eight,’ said Millicent Bates, and repeated it slowly. ‘Eleven … forty … eight.’
‘And what exactly does that mean?’ inquired Nigel of the table at large. ‘It sounds just like the Girl with the Golden Voice “On the third stroke it will be eleven forty-eight and twelve seconds precisely”.’
Millicent Bates scowled at him across the table. ‘If you really want to know,’ she said tartly, ‘I happened to pay a rush visit to a friend of mine on the morning of the 12th. I’d forgotten to give her the key of the Wolf
Cubs’ hut, and we were leaving that afternoon. She lives at the end of Mr Honeywood’s road — it’s a cul de sac — and I was wondering if I might not actually have passed the murderer. He must have come down that road.’
Nigel smiled with maddening tolerance. ‘Do you know, I hardly think so, dear Miss Bates.’
‘And why not?’ demanded Millicent Bates, bristling.
‘But surely it stands to reason that a murderer would not go prancing along a public highway and in at the front door by daylight? He’d be far more likely to creep in by a shrubbery or something.’
‘Which just goes to show,’ said Miss Bates, ‘how little you know what you’re talking about. You could possibly creep out of Mr Honeywood’s house through a shrubbery, because you could use the kitchen-garden door. But it has a slip lock and you can’t open it from the outside. And as there is a high wall around the house, the only way in, for anyone who didn’t want to do some jolly conspicuous climbing, is through the front gate. And I do know what I’m talking about, because I happen to know the house well.’
‘So well,’ said Nigel gaily, ‘that you will soon have us shivering in our little shoes, wondering if you couldn’t have done it yourself!’
Millicent Bates’ weather-beaten countenance flushed an unbecoming shade of puce, and Gussie rushed angrily to her defence.
‘You appear to look upon murder as a joke, Mr Ponting. But the death of an old acquaintance is hardly a joking matter to us.’
‘Oh dear! Oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear!’ wailed Nigel. ‘What can I say? I do apologize. Dear Miss Bates, you must know that I didn’t mean it! My wretched, distorted sense of humour. Do say that you forgive me?’
Millicent made a flapping gesture with one large and capable hand, in the manner of one waving away an irritating insect, and said gruffly: ‘Don’t talk rot! My fault for harpin’ on it. But I couldn’t help being interested — realizing that I might well have passed the man.’
‘Or woman,’ put in Larry Dowling softly.
Millicent Bates turned swiftly to face him. ‘Why do you say that?’ she demanded sharply.
‘No reason. Just that it may have been a woman. Nothing to show it wasn’t — if the papers were anything to go by. You didn’t read them, or you’d have seen that he had a female visitor that day. She even took the precaution of leaving a handkerchief behind her — complete with monogram.’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Bates doubtfully. ‘I didn’t think of that. Yes, I suppose … it could be.’
‘Some winsome ornament of the Wednesday Women’s Guild, stealing through the mist on the track of the funds!’ tittered Nigel. ‘Oh dear — there I go again! My wretched sense of humour. I won’t say another word!’
Millicent made no retort, beyond staring at him long and malevolently. But there was suddenly something in her face — in her frown and her narrowed eyes, that suggested that his words had reminded her of something. Or suggested something. Something quite impossible, and yet …
No one spoke, and for the space of a full minute there was a curious, strained silence in the room; and then Millicent nodded at Mr Ponting. The brief, brisk nod of someone who has been presented with a fresh viewpoint and accepted it.
On the opposite side of the table Larry Dowling leant forward with a small, swift movement that somehow had the effect of a pounce, and said sharply: ‘So you do think it might have been a woman — a woman he knew!’
But if he had expected to startle Miss Bates into any admission he was disappointed. Millicent turned to look at him, and having successfully conveyed the impression of not liking what she saw, inquired blandly: ‘What did you say, Mr Dowling?’
Larry Dowling flushed and sat back. ‘Er — nothing.’
‘For which relief, much thanks!’ boomed Tyson. ‘I am getting bored with this murder. Let us talk about something else.’
‘Yes, do let’s,’ said Nigel. ‘Murders are not precisely one’s idea of sparkling dinner-table chit-chat. So gruesomely proletarian. I can never think why anyone should want to hear about them.’
Amalfi laughed her lovely throaty laugh, and said: ‘Don’t be so affected, Nigel darling. Everyone adores a good murder. Look at the way they always get into all the headlines and fill the Sunday papers. And what about the way you’ve been going on about this one? No one else has had a chance to get a word in edgeways!’
She turned to her host and said: ‘Tyson, you ought to be entertaining us. If you don’t like murders, talk about something else. Anything. Tell us about this house.’
‘What about it?’ inquired Tyson. ‘It was allegedly built about a century and a half ago by a harassed husband whose second wife couldn’t get along with the first. But if you want to swot up on it, my late Uncle Barclay wrote an exceptionally tedious book about it which he published at his own expense in the late 1890s and inflicted on his friends. You probably saw one at Gussie’s — she has it bound in red morocco and displayed on the piano, to atone for the fact that she’s never read it. You’ll find several copies lying around here. All the historical and architectural dope down to the last deadly detail. I do not advise it for light reading. But don’t let that stop you if you’re really interested.’
‘I’m not,’ said Amalfi. ‘Not to that extent, anyway. You are all being very dull tonight, and I want to be flattered and entertained.’
She turned and smiled meltingly at Eduardo, who accepted the invitation with alacrity, and not long afterwards they had all left the dining-room and gone out to drink Turkish coffee on the terrace in front of the drawing-room windows, where Gussie had again demanded the home papers.
Tyson had departed in search of them, and had returned saying that he could not find them, but a few minutes later Nigel had drifted languidly across the terrace with a wrapped package in his hand which he had handed to his employer with an eloquent lift of the eyebrows that had not been lost on at least one member of the party.
The London newspapers had arrived on the same aircraft that had brought the Frosts’ guests from Nairobi that morning, and had not been delivered at Kivulimi until the late afternoon. The wrapping was still unbroken. ‘I thought you said you’d read them?’ said Gussie Bingham accusingly.
Tyson affected not to hear her, and removed himself hurriedly to the far side of the terrace where Amalfi Gordon, temporarily deserted, was leaning on the stone balustrade and looking out between the trees to where the moon had laid a shimmering golden carpet across the quiet sea.
‘Pleasant, isn’t it?’ said Tyson, coming to anchor beside her. ‘And peaceful. There can’t be many places like it left in the world. Or there won’t be soon. Progress can be a loutish thing.’
‘Don’t be pompous and gloomy, darling,’ chided Amalfi. ‘There are thousands of places just as lovely as this. And as peaceful.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said Tyson, leaning his elbows on the warm stone. ‘I’ve seen a lot of the world. A hell of a lot of it! But there’s something special about this island. Something that I haven’t met anywhere else. Do you know what is the most familiar sound in Zanzibar? — laughter! Walk through the streets of the little city almost any time of the day or night, and you’ll hear it. People laughing. There is a gaiety and good humour about them that is strangely warming to even such a corrugated, corroded and eroded heart as mine, and this is the only place I have yet hit upon where black and white and every shade in between ’em appear to be able to live together in complete friendliness and harmony, with no colour bar. It’s a living proof and a practical demonstration that it can be done. They are all, whatever their race or caste or religion, loyal subjects of His Highness the Sultan — may he live for ever! — and they get on together. But it won’t last. In the end one of the Jembe kind will manage to destroy it. Yes — there are times when I am prepared to agree with that bigoted old bore, my late Uncle Barclay, that Progress is a lout!’
Amalfi had been picking jasmine buds and smelling them absently, wearing the abstracted smile of one who i
s not in the least interested in the conversation, but the name ‘Jembe’ caught her attention, and she dropped the flowers and turned quickly:
‘Tyson darling, that reminds me. I’m sorry to go on about this sort of thing, but did you really mean that we can none of us leave this house until the police find out who gave that tedious little Arab agitator a dose of poison in Mombasa?’
‘God forbid!’ said Tyson piously. ‘If that were so I might find myself permanently stuck with the lot of you, and I’m not sure that my constitution could stand it. Or yours! No, it’s only a question of a day or two, while they make a few inquiries. They might want to ask if any of you by any chance remember seeing someone speaking to him at the airport. Or standing near him. Something like that. Why? Were you thinking of cutting short your visit? I thought you were supposed to be staying with us for at least three weeks.’
Amalfi smiled at him, and reaching up to pull his greying blond beard said: ‘But you know quite well that I never do what ‘I’m supposed to do, and I never know how long I shall stay anywhere. If I’m enjoying myself madly, I stay, and if I’m not, I move on. It’s as simple as that!’
‘It must come expensive,’ said Tyson.
‘Oh, frantically. But I don’t always have to pay for it myself.’
Tyson bellowed with sudden laughter. ‘That’s what I like about you, Elf. No deception, is there?’
‘Masses, darling. You’ve no idea how much! But not in that way. After all, money is rather madly important. Don’t you agree?’
‘I work for mine,’ said Tyson dryly.
‘Oh, but so do I. One has to sing for one’s supper, you know; and I sing — charmingly!’
‘I’ll grant you that,’ said Tyson with a grin. ‘But hasn’t it been a bit trying at times? Johnnie Leigh, for instance.’
Amalfi’s mermaid eyes clouded. ‘Oh but darling — I never can think of money when I marry them. It’s always love. And it’s only later that one____ Oh … wakes up to reality.’