by M. M. Kaye
Dany stood up, brushing off sand, and went across to murmur in her mother’s ear, and Lorraine said vaguely: ‘Yes, of course. But why not just behind a rock, darling? There are lots about.’
Dany withdrew, flushed and indignant, and once out of range of the dying firelight began to walk quickly, hurrying without running, until at last she reached the rocks that bounded one end of the Kivulimi beach, where she paused briefly to look back. But she could no longer see the glow of the drift-wood fire or any of her fellow picnickers, and the only thing that moved in the moonlit world were the ghostly little crabs, the lazy, lapping tide, a soft breeze and the lateen sail of an idling dhow.
Once on the far side of the rocks the Kivulimi beach lay before her, quiet and deserted, and Dany ran across the white, open sand and up the short rock path to the door in the garden wall.
The heavy wooden door with its flaking paint and iron nail heads creaked as it opened, and the sound was suddenly daunting. Dany stood still under the stone archway, listening intently, but she could hear nothing more than the soft breathing of a little breeze that whispered among the leaves of the garden and rustled the palm fronds.
There were no lights on in the house, but the white-washed walls and the window-panes caught and reflected the moonlight so that it gave the impression of being brightly lit and awake and watchful. An impression so strong that for a moment Dany found herself wondering if it was still looking seaward, as it had in a past century, for the sails of ships — merchant ships, pirate ships, whaling ships, ships from Oman and the dhows of the slave traders. Then I’ll go sailing far, off to Zanzibar …
Dany caught her breath in a small sob, and looking resolutely away, turned to follow a path between the orange trees, skirting the pool and keeping parallel to the wall until she reached the flight of steps that led up to the guest-house.
The top of the wall was bright with moonlight, but the steps were in black shadow, and Dany was half-way up them when she heard the gate creak again.
She froze where she stood; listening with every nerve strained and alert for the soft crunch of crushed shell and coral that would tell her that she had been followed. But it did not come, and as the gentle breeze lifted the fringe on her forehead she remembered that she had left the gate open, and the breeze would have swung it on its hinges. And turning again she ran up the remaining steps, careless of noise and only aware of the necessity for speed.
The guest-house too was in darkness, and Dany turned the handle of the door, and pushing it open, felt for the switch.
The light seemed startlingly garish after the cool white night outside, and she turned it off again; realizing that she did not need it, for it was not here that she meant to search. She did not even glance about the room, but went straight to the window and looked out and up.
The bougainvillaea swung down from the roof edge in a mass of blossom whose colour had been almost lost in the moonlight, and it was not going to be nearly as easy as she had thought to stand on the narrow window-ledge and reach up.
The wall itself was built up on a little rocky cliff, and there was a drop of at least thirty feet from the window-ledge on to more rocks. Looking down on them Dany felt a cold qualm of vertigo, but it was too late to draw back, and she might not get a chance like this again.
She set her teeth, and having climbed cautiously on to the narrow ledge, holding desperately to the wooden frame, found that the worst part was turning round to face the wall. But once that was accomplished the worst was over, and with her back to the horrifying drop below her she found that she could look up into the mass of creeper above her with comparative ease.
She reached up and felt among the leaves, but could find nothing; and then her wrist touched a round edge of stone. There was a gutter some distance above the window; a narrow curve of stone, choked with dust and dead leaves and jutting out a few inches from the wall in the shadow of the overhanging creeper.
Dany found that she could just reach into it, and probing with shrinking fingers, fearful of snakes or spiders, she touched something that was not a dead leaf. And knew with a dreadful, sinking despair that she had been right. It was Lash who had taken the letter.
She drew it out from its hiding place and looked at it in the moonlight. A man’s white linen handkerchief wrapped neatly about something that could only be a small folded piece of paper.
She felt a little sick and oddly light-headed, and for a moment she swayed against the wall, pressing her cheek against the rough stone, and afraid of falling. Her left hand, gripping the window-pane, felt cramped and numb, and she knew that she must make the effort to get down and back into the room while she had the power to do so. She could not stand here, silhouetted against the lamp light, where anyone passing on the beach below could look up and see her.
She bent her head and her knees, and sliding her left hand down the frame, stepped down on to the low window-seat.
And it was only then, looking down at her scarlet linen sandals on the gaily coloured cretonne cover of the window-seat, that she remembered that she had turned out the light only a few minutes ago. But it was on now.
Dany stood quite still: unable to move or breathe. Unable even to lift her head.
Then someone had seen her leave, and had followed her. Someone had come up the steps and into the guest-house; but standing on the window-ledge with the rustling of the creeper in her ears she had not heard them. And in the shock of finding the thing that Lash had hidden she had not even noticed that the light had been switched on, or known that someone was standing in the doorway, watching her …
She lifted her head very slowly and stiffly, as though fear had frozen her muscles, and looked into the cold eyes that were watching her from across the room.
20
‘There now! I knew you’d lead me to it if I gave you the chance,’ said Nigel Ponting in a self-congratulatory tone. ‘Really, too simple.’
He tripped across the room and held out a thin, elegant hand. A hand as curved and predatory as the claw of a bird of prey.
‘That’s a good girl.’
He twitched the handkerchief from between her nerveless fingers and unwrapped it, disclosing a small folded square of yellowed paper which he opened and favoured with a smiling, comprehensive glance. ‘Yes, indeed. The goods — as advertised. How very satisfactory! And now, darling, if you’ll just stay right where you are____’
Dany shrank back and clutched at the sides of the window as he came towards her. ‘Nigel — what are you going to do? You can’t tell them! Not yet. He — there must be some explanation. He must be — be in the F.B.I., or something like that. You said so yourself! He couldn’t be a murderer. He couldn’t! Don’t tell anyone. Give him a chance to explain first. Or — or to get away…’
‘What are you babbling about, dear girl?’ inquired Nigel. ‘Don’t tell who what? Give who a chance to explain?’
‘Lash. Oh, I know he took it, and I suppose it looks bad, but it can’t be. And even if it were, I don’t want the police to get him, whatever he’s done! Nigel, please____!’
Nigel stared at her for a long moment, and then burst out laughing. ‘My dear girl____! Oh, this is too delicious! Do you mean to say that you still haven’t got it? Well, well! don’t they teach you anything at these expensive schools? Perhaps it’s a pity to disillusion you. But why not? It isn’t your American dreamboat whom the police would want to interview. Alas, no. It would be yours truly — Nigel P.’
‘You? But you can’t — It couldn’t be____’
‘Oh, but it could. It was! I read that peculiar document of Emory Frost’s (your respected step-father is not aware that I possess a duplicate key to his locked box!) and also the letters to Honeywood. Even — I blush for it — your mother’s to you. It was all laughably simple. Then all I had to do was to ask for a holiday, slip off to Kenya, and get a dear friend to flip me across to Egypt where there are simply dozens of nasty men who will do anything to annoy the Great White Raj.’
/> ‘Egypt____’ repeated Dany in a dazed, foolish whisper. ‘But Mr Honeywood wasn’t____’
‘Tch! Tch!’ said Nigel reprovingly. ‘You don’t really suppose I stayed there, do you? No, they merely fixed me up with the necessary papers and popped me on to the plane for Naples, where I was met by a fascinating character; quite unscrupulous and madly talented. He used to be top make-up man in a film company before the war — and what a loss to the trade! You simply wouldn’t have recognized me boarding the London plane a couple of hours later. I made a ravishing Signora. Too chic! I wasn’t nearly so alluring on the return journey; but perhaps just as well, as we had some rather impressionable Oriental potentates on board. Direct to Cairo that time: and by a different line of course — you’ve no idea how efficient the whole set-up is! The staff work was quite beyond praise. As slick as a Sputnik. One was most impressed.’
A sudden hysterical wave of relief swept over Dany, drowning all other considerations. ‘Then it wasn’t Lash! It was you — it was you!’
Her knees buckled under her and she collapsed on to the window-seat, weak with tears and laughter.
‘Of course it was,’ said Nigel with a trace of impatience. ‘Who else would be likely to know everything that went on in this house? And the whole affair would have gone off swimmingly if only you’d done what you were told. Really, very tiresome of you! I had it all worked out. Honeywood knew me, and he’d have had the packet ready and handed it over like a lamb when I explained that Tyson had sent me for it because you couldn’t come. But you had to change the time and go and see the old fool in the morning instead, and mess everything up. So vexing and unnecessary.’
He frowned at the recollection, and then his face cleared and he laughed. ‘Ah well____! “All’s well that ends well”. And now, darling, as we haven’t got all night____’
Dany scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and looked up. And then, suddenly, terror was back. A crawling, icy terror that widened her eyes until they were dark pools in her white face.
She had been too stunned by shock and relief to take in more than a fraction of what Nigel had said, but now, staring up at him, she realized that he had been saying things that he would never have said unless … unless …
Her mouth was so dry that it was an effort to speak at all, and when the words came they were only a harsh whisper:
‘What … are you going … to do?’
‘Only give you one little push,’ said Nigel gaily. ‘It’s a thirty-foot drop, and on to rocks, so it ought to do even better than that cunning little staircase trick. And Holden will be able to tell them just exactly how it happened. You were standing on the sill to reach into his private cache and you must have slipped and fallen. Like this____’
His hands caught her, forcing her back over the low sill, and then the dreadful numbness left her and she began to fight, twisting and clawing. But the ledge was low and her back was to the uncurtained window, and there was nothing to grasp at but wood and stone.
Her finger-nails scraped and broke and her screams were no more than harsh, gasping breaths: she was no match for Nigel’s five-foot-nine of lean bone and muscle, and those thin white hands, that had once felt so limp, were astonishingly strong and curiously smooth — as though they were encased in silk. They gripped her shoulders, pulled her forward and then jerked her head back violently against one side of the window embrasure so that it hit the stone and stunned her.
A savage pain seemed to slice its way through her skull: coloured lights shot before her eyes, and the strength went out of her. She heard Nigel’s little giggling laugh, but it seemed to come from a long way off, and to be cut off suddenly and sharply. And then the grip on her shoulders relaxed and she was falling … Falling down miles of echoing darkness from the window … No, not the window … Down a well. An underground well. Deep and cold and black, where there was black deep water in which she would drown …
The water filled her eyes and nose and mouth, choking her, and something burned her throat and choked her afresh. She struck out wildly, struggling to swim and to keep her head above water, and her hand touched something and clutched at it frantically.
A voice that hurt her head abominably said: ‘Hi! — look out! Let go of my ear!’ And she opened her eyes with an enormous effort and found herself looking up at Larry Dowling.
Mr Dowling, who also appeared to have been in swimming, was tenderly massaging the side of his head and holding a dripping water jug, the contents of which he had evidently poured lavishly over Dany.
She stared up at him, blinking the water out of her eyes and wondering why he was there and where she was. Nothing made any sense except that, somehow, he had saved her from drowning.
‘Are you all right?’ inquired Larry Dowling anxiously.
Dany attempted to give the matter her consideration, and after a moment said childishly: ‘I’m wet.’
‘I’ll say you are!’ said Mr Dowling fervently, taking the words in an uncomplimentary sense. ‘You must be mad! Going off like that on your own when____’
‘You’re wet too. Did you jump in with all your clothes on?’
‘I fell into that bloody bird-bath — that’s why I didn’t get here a lot sooner. I’m sorry about that. But at least you’re not dead. It was a near thing though — phew!’
He took out a sopping handkerchief and mopped his wet forehead and Dany said: ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘Here____! don’t do that,’ said Mr Dowling, alarmed. ‘Try another swig of this.’
He reached for a bottle that had been standing on the floor beside him, and lifting Dany’s head poured a liberal quantity of some fiery liquid down her throat.
Dany gasped and choked, but the stuff warmed her stomach and helped to dull the excruciating pain in her head. Larry Dowling, having laid her back, took a long pull at the bottle himself and said: ‘Gosh, I needed that!’
He put it down, and lifting Dany, carried her over to the divan and lowered her on to it carefully. ‘Are you feeling any better?’
‘I don’t know. What happened? Was I going to drown?’
‘Drown? No. He was stuffing you through the window, and in one more minute____ However, don’t let’s think of that. Can you stand up?’
‘Who was stuffing me through a window? I don’t know what you’re — Nigel!’
Dany attempted to rise and once again a blinding wave of pain and nausea lashed out at her.
‘Here, take it easy,’ urged Larry Dowling anxiously. He sat down beside her and put a dripping arm about her, supporting her.
Dany leant against his wet shoulder and said without opening her eyes: ‘Where is he?’
‘Over there,’ said Larry briefly. ‘It’s all right. He won’t move for hours — if ever. I cracked him over the head with a bottle of gin.’
Dany forced open her eyes again and saw for the first time that Nigel’s limp body was lying face downwards on the floor near the window. She could not see his face, but there was a lump on the back of his head the size of a healthy orange, and his hands were joined behind him by links of metal.
She said slowly and stupidly: ‘Handcuffs. Where did you get them?’
Larry Dowling looked slightly embarrassed. ‘As a matter of fact, I thought at one time I’d have to use them on you.’
‘On me?’
‘Yes. I’ve been tailing you for days, young woman. And a tedious dance you’ve led me. You actually bumped into me once in London — rushing out of the dining-room at the Airlane. I was afraid you might recognize me next day, but you didn’t.’
‘Tailing me? To get a story? But you’re____’
‘Only a simple cop, I’m afraid. I’m sorry if it’s a disappointment to you. We were going to grab you in London, and then, what with one thing and another, it seemed a better scheme to see where you went and what you led us to. The M.I.5 boys had a few ideas of their own on the whole situation, and wanted us to play it their way. So we radioed all the proper people to
let you through on that borrowed passport, and I was sent along to find out what I could.’
‘Oh,’ said Dany; and added after a pause for thought: ‘Lash isn’t going to like that.’
‘Lash has got a lot of explaining to do,’ said Larry Dowling.
‘I have, have I?’ said a furious voice from the doorway. ‘Well let me tell you that it’s nothing to the explaining you’re going to have to do!’
Dany said: ‘Lash____ Oh, Lash!’
‘I’ll deal with you later,’ said Lash savagely. ‘When I’ve taken care of this double-crossing ten-cent Romeo of yours!’
He covered the distance between them in two hasty strides, and before the startled Mr Dowling had even grasped the implications of his remarks he had thrust Dany to one side, gripped her rescuer by the collar, jerked him to his feet and slugged him scientifically on the jaw.
Mr Dowling went down for the count and Dany started to laugh, burst into overwrought tears, and quite suddenly slid off the divan on to the floor in a dead faint. Making it three in all.
* * *
Lorraine was saying: ‘… raw beef steak. It’s the only thing. I put it on Tyson once when he got into an argument with some men in San Francisco, and it worked wonders. Didn’t it, darling?’
‘Yes,’ said a resonant voice. ‘I ate it. And where do you think you’re going to get raw beef steak at this hour of the night, I’d like to know?’
Dany winced and opened her eyes. She was lying in her own bedroom and there seemed to be a lot of people in it. Lorraine, Tyson, Gussie Bingham … She tried to turn her head, but finding that it was too painful, gave up the attempt and lay still.
At least she was not wet any longer, for someone had removed her drenched clothes and put her into a nightgown. She wondered if anyone had removed Larry’s, which had been a good deal wetter, and she must have made an attempt to inquire, for suddenly they were all leaning over her, looking at her anxiously, and Lorraine was saying: ‘Darling, how do you feel?’