by M. M. Kaye
Dany said in a brittle, breathless voice: ‘What do you mean by that?’
Nigel gave his little tittering laugh and looked down at the newspaper that lay on the floor beside his chair, and then up again at Dany:
‘Suppose you tell me that one?’
Dany said jerkily: ‘I don’t see why I should, but — but I will. If you want to know, Mr Holden happened to be staying at the same hotel as I was in London____’
‘So convenient,’ murmured Nigel.
‘Do you want me to go on?’
‘But of course, darling. I am enthralled. And I promise I won’t interrupt again.’
‘His secretary, Miss Kitchell, had developed mumps, and I had — had lost my passport, and hadn’t time to get another before the plane left. So he suggested I should use hers. For — for a lark.’
‘“Ha-ha”!’ said Nigel. ‘What a cut-up the boy is! He must have lots in common with those Northern ’varsity students who think up all the sparkling and sophisticated pranks for the installation of a new Rector. But seriously, darling — did she have mumps? Or was it just sleight of hand?’
‘I don’t____’ began Dany.
‘The Ace of Spades,’ explained Mr Ponting with a trace of impatience. ‘“Hey presto — why, what a bit of luck!” That sort of trick. So simple really; if you know how it’s done.’
‘But there wasn’t any trick about it,’ protested Dany. ‘Of course she had mumps.’
‘How do you know? Because you are a nice, unsophisticated Innocent who believes everything she is told?’
The words were an echo of something else that Dany had heard that day. Lorraine had said almost the same thing. And she too had been talking about Lash____
Nigel said: ‘So easy to say something like that. And almost as easy, one imagines, to see that you lose your passport! You did say that you’d lost it, didn’t you? How — if one may ask another intrusive little question? It isn’t a thing one just casually drops on the nearest counter, or leaves in the loo.’
‘Well, it was — I mean, I…’
Nigel tittered again. ‘You seem confused. But it was probably all too simple. Like the card trick. You palm one passport, and Hey presto! — here’s another! What a happy coincidence. See?’
‘No, I don’t! And I don’t believe a word of it. And anyway, why should Lash — Mr Holden — do anything like that? Why bother to bring me here when I was coming anyway?’
Nigel shrugged his shoulders and flung out his hands in an affected gesture: ‘Well, darling — I did advance a little theory about that, didn’t I? But as you trampled on the poor thing most harshly, I won’t risk making it again. Perhaps he just wanted to keep you under his eye. And why not, indeed? Though I must admit that as the honeymoon was off it was perhaps a teeny bit tactless of him to tag along after his ex-love and the new Italian model, and one would have imagined that he would cancel the trip. Oh, well, I expect it will all be as clear as Vichy water one of these days — and equally innocuous. It’s much more fun wondering, isn’t it? I adore mysteries! Have another cup of tea?’
He peered into the tea-pot, clicked his tongue regretfully and announced that there wasn’t any and that the hot water was cold. ‘Just as well, really, as it’s almost drinking time. I’d no idea it was so late and I’m dining out tonight with some enchanting Parsees. They serve the most delicious curries, which one can never resist but which play havoc with the digestive juices. Still, better that than eating a picnic meal by moonlight, which is sheer hell. Sandy sausages and mosquito-repellent getting into every glass. I do pity you all.’
He rose gracefully. ‘Will you forgive me if I leave you to entertain yourself a bit while I hurry off and change? And don’t worry, dear Miss Kitchell. Your guilty secret is quite safe with me. I promise I won’t even drop the teeniest hint to anyone. Cross my heart!’
He retrieved the fallen newspaper, folded it carefully, and tucking it under his arm, tripped away, leaving Dany alone in the empty drawing-room with the tea cups and some most unpleasant thoughts.
19
Lash. No … It isn’t possible! But it was. Unthinkable, but not impossible.
Lash … She must speak to him. She would ask him …
You don’t have to believe everything he says.
But she had believed everything. Why?… Because he was Lash, and she had fallen in love with him. Because he was almost the first attractive man she had ever met, and any girl in love for the first time is convinced that this is the real thing — this is for ever. And find that it is neither.
‘That your first kiss?’ ‘Yes, how did you know?’ ‘I’ve been around.’
She hadn’t stopped to analyse the significance of that reply, but she did now. It meant that he had made love to a good many other girls: and kissed a good many women. He would know just how to handle them. How to string them along.
She would, she realized, have been perfectly prepared to believe that anyone else might commit murder: Gussie, Seyyid Omar, Eduardo di Chiago, Amalfi Gordon and perhaps even Larry. But not Lash.
She had worked out ways and means and theories, and had heard Lash do so, in the case of other suspects: but it had never occurred to her for one moment that Lash himself might be one. And yet he was surely the most obvious one. He had even pointed it out himself — and she had rejected it: brushed it aside instantly and with impatience.
Was that why he had done so? To ensure that she would reject it? A form of bluff? And yet — he could have done everything …
Dany dropped her head into her hands, pressing them over her eyes and trying to think back. To think clearly.
His father knew Tyson probably better than anyone else, and Tyson might well have written to him about the discovery he had made among the Frost papers, and also told him what he intended to do. Lash could have gone down to see Mr Honeywood, and been seen by Millicent, who would not have recognized him, or he her — until later.
He had booked a room at the same hotel as Dany, and the rest would have been easy enough to contrive. He might even have been on the fire-escape or the balcony outside her room, and seen her leave it, and walked quietly across the room, and shut the door behind her. Then, taking her own key off the dressing-table, left by the window and come up the stairs, pretending to be the worse for drink.
He would have had plenty of time to search her room while she was waiting in his, and, when he could not find what he was after, to remove her passport and plant that gun. And now that she came to think of it, he had turned up right on cue, when she found it. ‘Hey presto and here’s the Ace of Spades! now how on earth did it turn up here?’ That sort of trick! … And it had been Lash’s idea that she come with him in the place of Miss Kitchell.
Had Miss Kitchell really had mumps? Or had she merely been informed at the eleventh hour that her presence was not required — because her passport was?
But there had been that night in Nairobi, and the man who had meant to chloroform her. That could not possibly have been Lash. He had been sound asleep on the sofa. No, the whole thing was nonsense! A wild figment of Nigel’s jackdaw imagination, that did not stand up to a moment’s sober examination.
But … but there were two people who wanted that letter. Or two groups of people. One who was still looking for it, and the one who had it. The sealed envelope that bore Emory Frost’s initials had been taken out of her coat pocket, the seal broken and the letter abstracted. And it could only have been done by one person — Lash Holden.
‘No — no — no!’ said Dany, aloud and desperately. ‘He wouldn’t. He didn’t. I don’t believe it and I won’t believe it!’
Who else? whispered a small, remorseless voice in her brain. How else? You don’t have to believe everything he says …
Dany stood up quickly and began to walk up and down the darkening room, arguing with herself: trying to remember; trying to persuade herself that someone else could have taken it. But there was no way out. No loophole of escape. It had to be Lash.
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It was just conceivably possible that a skilful pickpocket could have stolen the whole thing; chiffon scarf and all. But to take it out, remove the letter and return it, was utterly impossible. But Lash could have done it with ease. Either while she was in her bath that morning, or when she had given him her coat to hold on the plane.
‘No!’ said Dany again, speaking pleadingly into the unheeding silence. But even as she denied it she knew that the answer was ‘yes’, for she had remembered something else____
Lash standing on the window-sill of his room last night, reaching up into the mass of bougainvillaea that grew above it. Lash’s face when she had said: ‘If Seyyid Omar hasn’t got it, who has?’ His face had changed and become blank and expressionless, and he had looked away from her and would not meet her eyes. Yes, Lash had got the letter. She was suddenly and wearily sure of it. He had probably carried it in his pocket, and been startled by the realization that pockets can be picked, when he had seen her ruined handbag, and had decided to find a better hiding place for it.
What did he want it for? If, as Seyyid Omar had said, there were men in Zanzibar whose ultimate object was a dictatorship under Soviet domination, was Lash a Secret Service man whose task was to prevent this? Or did he want Seyyid Saïd’s treasure for himself?
Jembe … Millicent Bates … It could have been Jembe who had meant to search her room at Nairobi, and Lash could have known it, or guessed it. Millicent had said that she never forgot a face, and Lash had said that she had died because she talked too much. Lash’s father almost certainly possessed a copy of The House of Shade, and the note that had lured Millicent to her death had been written on Ada Kitchell’s typewriter.
‘A rakish heel who could hook the average woman with the ease of a confidence trickster getting to work on a frustrated small-town spinster…’ Someone had said that — about Lash. Was she, Dany, a frustrated small-town spinster? Lorraine too had suggested that she was young and inexperienced and naïve — and too romantic! — and Nigel had begged her not to be so ingénue. So perhaps she was all those things.
A tear crept down Dany’s white cheek and she brushed it away impatiently. Crying would not help her, but there was at least one thing that would. She could make sure. She could go to the guest-house and look for Emory Frost’s letter. Not now, because it was getting late and the others would be back soon. But as soon as another opportunity offered and she was certain of Lash being out of the way.
The cars returned not five minutes later, and as Dany had no desire to see or speak to anyone at the moment, she ran up to her room and locked the door, and only opened it when Lorraine knocked on it to ask if she were all right, and had she had a good sleep?
‘You know, darling,’ said Lorraine worriedly, observing her daughter with some anxiety, ‘you’re looking very washed out. Or perhaps it’s that hair. I really do think we should____’
‘Mother,’ interrupted Dany tersely, ‘did Tyson ever write to Lash’s father about that letter of Emory Frost’s? The one I fetched from Mr Honeywood?’
‘Darling, I’ve no idea. He may have done — they’ve always been such bosom buddies. Why?’
‘Nothing,’ said Dany quickly. ‘I only wondered if — if anyone else knew about it.’
‘I don’t think so. Except of course that someone must have known, mustn’t they? Really, it’s all very worrying and upsetting, and I often wish — Oh, well — don’t let’s talk about it.’
She sat down on the dressing-table stool, and looking at her charming reflection said: ‘I look a mess. I wonder if there’s time for a bath before we start off on this picnic? No, I suppose not. We didn’t mean to be back so late, but Tyson brought a friend of Elf’s along to the hotel. It seems he flew to Mombasa only the day after you, and joined George Wallingborne’s yacht, and they got here late last night. Tyson’s been out fishing with them. A man called Yardley, Sir Ambrose Yardley. And if you ask me, he’s only come here because of Elf. He should have been doing something or other in Khartoum, but he only stayed there about a day and a half, and followed her down here. I suppose I should have asked him back to the house: he was angling for it. But Eduardo was being rather rude and silly about the whole thing, and I really felt that I could not cope with any more dramas. And anyway, we’re all lunching with them tomorrow.’
She dabbed her face absently with some of Dany’s powder, rubbed it off again, and rose with a sigh.
‘Don’t put on anything too nice darling, because we’re having a picnic supper on the beach. Tyson’s idea. He’s gone all Boy Scout and wants to build a drift-wood fire and fry sausages. Ugh! I can’t think of anything much less alluring, but he’s feeling energetic and all hearty-and-outdoor. Don’t be too long, will you baby?’
The sky was rose-pink and apricot with sunset and the house was full of shadows by the time Dany returned to the drawing-room. She had expected to find the entire house-party assembled there, but there were only two people in the room: two people standing so close together that for a moment, in the dim light, they had looked like one.
They moved quickly away from each other as they heard the soft sound of Dany’s sandalled feet on the thin Oriental rugs, and Amalfi Gordon came towards her, her face and her slender figure dark against the wash of sunset that burned beyond the french windows. She passed Dany without speaking, and went out of the room and across the darkening hall, her high heels clicking on the polished stone.
Lash said: ‘Why the old-fashioned look, bambina? Did you think you’d walked in on a Grand Reconciliation scene? Because if you did, you’ve got it wrong. I’m not as polygamous as I look.’
Dany said coldly: ‘I can’t see that it is anything to do with me if you feel like hugging Mrs Gordon.’
‘Now wait a minute! I was not hugging her!’
‘No? Well that’s what it looked like to me. Where has everyone else got to?’
‘I don’t know, and I can’t say I care. Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself all the afternoon? I didn’t like the idea of leaving you on your own, but Lorraine said to let you sleep, and that Nigel would keep an eye on you. Did he?’
‘Yes,’ said Dany briefly.
She turned to leave the room and Lash came quickly after her and caught her arm. ‘What’s the matter, honey? You aren’t really sore at me, are you? Look, I can explain____’
‘Can you?’ said Dany bleakly. ‘But then I don’t have to believe your explanations, do I?’
Lash’s fingers tightened painfully on her arm and he jerked her round to face him, and then released her abruptly as someone came quietly through the open door behind her.
‘Hullo,’ said Larry Dowling, his casual, pleasant voice in marked contrast to the quietness with which he had moved. ‘Am I late? Where is everyone?’
‘In the garden, I guess. Why don’t you go and look for them?’ snapped Lash.
‘Yes, let’s,’ said Dany thankfully. ‘I’ll come with you, Larry.’
She caught at his arm and they went out past Lash through the french windows and on to the terrace, where they were joined a few minutes later by Gussie and Tyson.
Dany had hoped to find some opportunity to speak privately to her step-father, but it was obvious that she was not going to get it tonight. Tyson had spent a strenuous day fishing and drinking, but it did not appear to have exhausted his energy. He herded his guests down to the shore and along the wet sands in the last of the sunset, and having selected a suitable spot in a little bay less than a quarter of a mile from the Kivulimi beach, set them to collect drift-wood for a fire.
‘He gets these hearty fits at intervals,’ explained Lorraine in a resigned aside. ‘Very exhausting while they last, but fortunately they don’t last long. You shall all have a lovely smoked salmon and caviar meal tomorrow to make up for it. But I do think this view is rather heavenly, don’t you? Look at those fantastic rocks. And that dhow out there — isn’t it enchanting? I wonder where it’s bound for? Hejaz or Samakhand…’
; Gussie said tartly: ‘They’d have some difficulty in navigating her there, unless she’s amphibious!’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean literally. Her cargo, perhaps. But those are such lovely names.’
As the sunset faded and the sky turned from pink to lilac, lavender and green, the firelight gained strength and lit up the weird shapes of the coral rocks and the fronds of pandanus as though they had been stage scenery. And presently the moon rose, lifting into the quiet sky like some enchanted Chinese lantern and filling the night with magic.
The sausages, as Nigel had predicted, were both sandy and underdone; but honour and Tyson being satisfied, Lorraine had produced an excellent selection of cold foods that had been carried down to the beach by one of the house-servants. And later, when the remains had been carried back again, they played what she called ‘suitable moonlight music’ on a portable gramophone, and explored along the shore.
Tyson and Lash went off armed with flashlights and fish spears to peer into the rock pools further down the beach, and Dany, watching them go, suddenly made up her mind that this was as good an opportunity as any to visit the guest-house. They would obviously be occupied for at least half an hour, and it would not take her much more than ten minutes to get back to the house, where there would be only the servants, who at this hour would have retired to their own quarters. She would be back again before anyone had troubled to notice that she had gone, and she could not endure the thought of another night — or even another hour — without knowing.
Gussie was discussing cookery with Lorraine, while Larry Dowling was lying on his stomach on the sand and putting records on the gramophone, and Amalfi and Eduardo had strolled away along the beach in the wake of Lash and Tyson. It would be quite easy.