The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax

by Dorothy Gilman

  And then quite abruptly they reached the burial ground.

  It lay in the sun at the edge of a broad savannah, and if Jonesi had not led them it was difficult to see how it could have been found. It was not large. Perhaps it marked the site of some ancient battle, or it was where chiefs or medicine men of this village were buried, for Mrs. Pollifax counted only twelve low mounds. There had once been the village, and people had lived here and guarded the graves, and then the villages had been moved when the land became a game park, but in the people's minds the burial ground still existed, still mattered, for the stakes at either end of each grave stood erect and undisturbed, and no one had touched the round earthenware pots that had been broken at death and lay scattered between the sticks. She liked that touch, thought Mrs. Pollifax, it seemed so much more personal than flowers. A pot would be something of one's own, used every day of one's life, and what better symbolism than to end its existence along with the life of the man who had carried it, drunk from it, cooked in it and eaten from it.

  Cyrus interrupted her trancelike musings with a nudge. She turned and, following his gaze, saw that Jonesi had sat down and was removing the sweater from around his waist. She watched with Cyrus as the man carefully unrolled the sweater, picked a dried leaf from it, blew on it, smoothed it out and then pulled it over his head and shoulders. There was no knife, which left only his cap as a possibility.

  "We wait for Sikota now, he will come within the hour," Simon said, and turning to Mrs. Pollifax, with a triumphant note in his voice, "No one has ever held out against Sikota. He knows many tricks, I promise you." The menace of this unpleasant statement was only slightly undermined when he added, "You are now extended bathroom privileges."

  "Please," said Amy, and jumped to her feet and followed Simon in among the trees.

  When the two of them were out of sight, Mrs. Pollifax looked down at Jonesi, seated cross-legged on the ground, and then at Cyrus, sitting with his back to the tree. Not far away Mainza and Reuben sat talking earnestly together, their rifles beside them. She thought, It's now or never for the cap, and meeting Cyrus' glance she said aloud, "It's now or never."

  "Oh?" he said, puzzled.

  She walked around Jonesi, and when she was behind him she pretended to stumble. She thrust forward her bound wrists, fell against him and shoved his cap from his head. It dropped to the ground in front of him, and just as she recovered her balance a second object fell with it, making a solid plunk as it met the earth.

  It was his jackknife, stained with blood.

  Both Jonesi and Cyrus reached for the knife at the same time. "Hope you don't mind," Cyrus said courteously, picking it up with one hand, and with the other handing Jonesi his cap. "There's a little matter of ropes, if you'll bear with us for a moment. Emily?"

  She sat down next to the poacher and held out her wrists to Cyrus. With his hands bound together it was slow work—"like sawing through a redwood tree with a handsaw," he said grimly—but presently her bonds fell from her wrists and for the first time in twenty-four hours her hands were free. She flexed them with a sense of wonder and then took the knife from Cyrus and went to work.

  "Of course they're going to notice our hands when they come out of the woods," murmured Mrs. Pollifax, hacking at his ropes. "We've not much time, you know."

  "Jonesi is shielding us beautifully from the other two, but I wish he'd stop grinning at me," complained Cyrus. "What do you suggest I do, my dear, take on Simon?"

  "Oh no," gasped Mrs. Pollifax. "Amy, please. Just move her out of the way somehow. Oh dear, they're coming back now. Cyrus—"

  "Yes, m'dear?"

  "Good luck or goodbye, I don't know which, but—"

  "Steady there," he said gravely, and climbed to his feet, keeping his wrists together as if they were still bound.

  Mrs. Pollifax, too, arose, and stood beside the tree, her heart beating tumultuously.

  "Who's next?" asked Amy, walking toward them with Simon close behind her. She came to a stop and smiled up at Cyrus.

  Casually Cyrus leaned over and encircled her with his freed hands, turned her around to face Simon and held her in front of him with a viselike grip. "Well, Simon?" he said.

  Simon's eyes dropped to Cyrus' wrists and one hand moved toward his gun. Before he reached it Mrs. Pollifax stepped out from behind the tree and delivered her very best horizontal slash to the side of his throat. A look of utter astonishment passed over Simon's face, he lifted a hand toward his throat and then sank to the ground like a crumpled paper bag.

  "Incredible," said Cyrus.

  Amy said, "My God, what do you think you're doing?" and then she looked toward Reuben and Mainza, who had seen none of this, and began screaming.

  Mrs. Pollifax snatched up Simon's rifle and called to Reuben and Mainza, "Don't touch your guns or we'll shoot!"

  The two men gaped at her across the clearing, too surprised to move. Amy stopped screaming. Holding her tightly in front of him, Cyrus slowly advanced across the clearing toward the two men. Mrs. Pollifax followed with the rifle and Jonesi danced along beside her laughing.

  "Feel like Jack Armstrong the ail-American boy," growled Cyrus halfway across the clearing. "Damned if it isn't working too. Pick up their rifles, my dear."

  "Gladly."

  Amy, struggling in Cyrus' grasp, cried, "You're fiends, both of you, they could have shot me."

  "Oh stop," said Mrs. Pollifax crossly, "you know very well they'd never have shot you, Amy. I've known it since last night when you thought I was asleep."

  "Oh," gasped Amy. "Oh!" and a string of expletives poured out of her, followed by a number of references to barnyard animals which Mrs. Pollifax thought showed a great paucity of imagination on Amy's part.

  "Amy's wrists are still tied," said Cyrus, ignoring the stream of obscenity. "Need rope now for Reuben and Mainza, and as soon as possible, I think." Looking beyond them he called out, "Jonesi, be careful with that rifle."

  Jonesi had picked up Mainza's gun before Mrs. Pollifax could reach it, and was cradling it lovingly in his arms. Hearing his name spoken, he backed away and sat down on the ground, the rifle across his knees, his face defiant.

  "So long as he doesn't accidentally pull the trigger . . ."

  "Let him play with it for a few minutes, we can get it later," Mrs. Pollifax told him. "We need that rope most of all."

  This problem occupied them for some moments, because there was no alternative but to knot together the sections of rope they'd cut from their own wrists. It was tedious work. When Reuben and Mainza had been rendered inactive Cyrus stepped back and said in a pleased voice, "Very, very good," and then he asked, "Now what, my dear?"

  Mrs. Pollifax looked at him in dismay. "Now what?" she faltered. She realized that his question exposed a dilemma that seemed too distant an hour ago to ever become real. She was confronted with the fact that Sikota was still to be anticipated, they were lost in the bush, and the sun was already very low on the horizon and withdrawing light from the savannah. It would soon be dark. "Now what?" she repeated.

  "I can answer that for you, madam," said a voice behind them. "You will please drop the guns and lift your hands in the air."

  They spun around in astonishment. "Jonesi?" gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

  "Yes, madam," said Jonesi the poacher in excellent English. "You have been most helpful to me, I thank you." Bringing a small object out of his pocket he put it to his lips and blew. A piercing whistle filled the air, and from the copse of trees several hundred yards away a number of men came running. In the growing dusk it was difficult to count heads but she thought there were six or seven of them, all carrying rifles. "Police?" gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

  "Not police, no madam," said Jonesi, looking amused. "The police are in Lusaka far, far away. You are our captives now."

  "Oh no," protested Mrs. Pollifax. "I thought—I hoped—"

  "This," said Cyrus, blinking, "is exactly like being swallowed by a shark, who's then swallowed by a whale, who's the
n swallowed by a—my dear, what is the matter?"

  "I'm not sure," whispered Mrs. Pollifax, staring at the men who had emerged out of the dusk and were fanning out to encircle them. One in particular among them had caught her eye, a man taller than the others, in khaki shorts, puttees, a thick sweater and a felt cavalry hat that heavily shadowed his face. Something about the way he moved. ... He strode toward them now with a rifle slung across his shoulder, stopped to give Amy Lovecraft a long hard look, and then continued on to Jonesi.

  Deep inside of her Mrs. Pollifax began to smile. The smile surfaced slowly, arriving on her lips at the same moment that the man saw her. He stopped in his tracks,

  appalled. "My God I'm hallucinating," he said.

  "Absolutely not," she told him, tears coming to her eyes.

  "But—Duchess?" he said incredulously. "Emily Pollifax from New Brunswick, New Jersey? Here?"

  He began to laugh. "I don't believe it. Duchess, what in the name of all that's holy are you doing in the middle of Africa with this bunch of cutthroats? Or to put it more bluntly," he said, sweeping her off the ground in an exuberant hug, rifle and all, "what the hell are you up to now, Duchess?"

  CHAPTER

  13

  When Farrell joined them some minutes later they were seated at a campfire, built for them by one of his young men. Farrell sat down, crossed his legs under him, and said, "There—business taken care of." He looked at Cyrus and then he looked at Mrs. Pollifax and he grinned. "Never saw you look better, Duchess, except for the bruise that's rapidly blossoming on your right cheekbone."

  "A souvenir from Simon," said Mrs. Pollifax. "Did I hear them call you Mulika?"

  "It's a name they've given me." His smile was breathtaking, a flash of white in his tanned face. She'd forgotten how handsome he was. He looked ruddy and healthy, and his mustache was infinitely more dashing than she remembered. "And by the way, Jonesi begs me to apologize to you both. He asks you to remember that you traveled in bad company and if your hands were tied, so were the hands of the other lady."

  "Has a point there," admitted Cyrus. "He found it a damn puzzling situation. Sorry, incidentally, that we've had to postpone dinner—" "Food?" breathed Mrs. Pollifax. "—but we're expecting Sikota, you know, which is why you've been moved out of harm's way. Now for heaven's sake, Duchess, talk. Tell me how in hell you and Cyrus got here, and why."

  Mrs. Pollifax obligingly talked. She referred briefly to her arrival in Lusaka and then she concentrated on a description of their last twenty-four hours. When she had finished, Farrell looked stunned.

  "I can't believe it," he said. "You just walked into the Times of Zambia office and placed an advertisement for me in the personals column?"

  "It seemed very logical," she told him. "I couldn't find you."

  He shook his head at her. "That directness of yours, Duchess, is going to cost you your life one of these days." "Nearly did," said Cyrus. "Apparently." "And you didn't even see the advertisement," lamented Mrs. Pollifax. "I thought—just for a moment, you know —that you might have come to rescue us! Farrell, what did bring you here in the nick of time? And why shouldn't I have advertised for you? And how do you come to be called Mulika?"

  He hesitated and then he said flippantly, "Believe it or not, mulika means 'shedder of light' in the Nyanga language. Surprise you?" He looked at her and added soberly, "So help me I've tried to shed some, Duchess, because I've fallen in love with this country. You've heard of middle-age passion? Well, mine is directed at Africa in general—uncluttered, still unpolluted—and at Zambia in particular. Actually I came here to farm—"

  "Not an art gallery," said Mrs. Pollifax, nodding.

  "—and I do own two hundred acres in the Southern Province, but I don't see them very often these days because I've been helping train and instruct freedom fighters."

  "Freedom fighters!" exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax. "So that's it ... But surely—" She frowned over this, puzzled. "Surely that's not enough to explain Simon's abnormal interest in you? He and Amy were ready to commit murder to find out what you look like. There must be other men doing this who don't—"

  "Don't have a price on their heads?" He grinned. "A pity you see that, Duchess. Yes, of course there's more, because with passion one always gets involved. You see, it's all very exciting to watch Zambia grow and develop, but next door you have Zambabwe—or Rhodesia, as you probably know it—and the people over there straggle across our border, some of them having been handled roughly, to say the least, most of them just out of prison or about to be arrested and sent off to prison, and the contrast isn't very nice. These people want autonomy too, they wither under apartheid—God, it's such a waste— and they need to be listened to.

  "And so," he went on, his eyes gleaming in the firelight, "I got involved. With my background and my white skin I became something of a spy. You've heard of spies?" he asked, his smile mischievous. "I began traveling back and forth across the border as a fake tourist, oh-ing and ah-ing at Zambabwe's natural wonders, which are considerable, and I helped Jonesi set up a damn good underground escape route. Even lived briefly in Salisbury. Unfortunately it came to be known that a man named Mulika was guiding men out of Rhodesia, and then eventually that Mulika was a white man, and after that they learned my real name, I knew that. But your advertisement, Duchess, so direct and so naive—" He shook his head. "It must have caused a number of tidal waves in more than a few small ponds."

  "Including the Zambian police," she told him. "I was interviewed by a—oh," she gasped, "now I realize what was wrong with that interview. How blind of me! He didn't want to know anything about you at all, only how I came to know that you were in Zambia."

  "Who?"

  "A Lieutenant Dunduzu Bwanausi," she said.

  Farrell burst out laughing. "Dundu? God, you must have alarmed him. I'll bet he thought you were a Rhodesian agent. I'll have to radio him all's well."

  "You know him?"

  "A very good friend of mine. His brother Qabaniso happens to be half owner and partner in my farm."

  Their campfire was small, far removed from the burial ground, and on an incline from which they could watch a larger campfire being built some five hundred yards away. Mrs. Pollifax found her attention distracted now by Jonesi's activities. Amy Lovecraft and her confederates had been placed around the fire, their wrists still bound, and Mrs. Pollifax saw that Jonesi was tying gags across their mouths.

  Following her glance Farrell said dryly, "The goats are being tethered to catch the lion, Sikota being the lion.

  And a rather big one, I suspect, well worth catching."

  "Rather hard on Mrs. Lovecraft, isn't it?" asked Cyrus.

  "No harder than for Simon and Reuben and Mainza," pointed out Farrell, "but of course you're still laboring under the illusion that she's Amy Lovecraft, aren't you. She's not," he said, his voice hardening.

  "Who is she?" asked Mrs. Pollifax.

  "A Rhodesian by the name of Betty Thwaite. She's given us a hell of a time catching up with her, because from what we've been told she certainly didn't come to Zambia to abduct anyone, and the bush country is the last place we thought of looking for her."

  "It's Amy you were hunting for, then?"

  "Desperately," he said. "Night and day and around the clock for the past six days."

  "Why?" asked Cyrus.

  "Well, to give you her background, she's the intelligence behind a fanatical right-wing group in Rhodesia, one of those situations where a group takes a more extreme stance than the government, and then, like the Herstigte Nasionale Party, breaks away to form its own party, which in turn provokes several more spinoffs, and by this time you're deep among the fanatic fringe. That's where you find Betty Thwaite's group, all gung-ho for slaughtering anyone who suggests compromise or reason. Even the Rhodesian Government doesn't claim Betty. All we knew," he said, "was that she'd been smuggled across the border into Zambia last week, either by boat at night across the Zambesi River near Livingstone, or through the swa
mps into Botswana and then into Zambia. We also knew that she'd left Rhodesia with a forged Kenya passport and a change in name and in hair color, but why she decided to switch horses in midstream and kidnap you, Duchess, I just don't know. It certainly wasn't her purpose in coming here."

  "But she did kidnap me!"

  "Yes, and that's what baffles me," he said, scowling. "Oh I have to admit there was some sense in her madness, because if you'd given them what they wanted it would have been a real coup for her, and she's a very ambitious woman. The next time I crossed the border into Zambabwe—" He circled his throat with a finger. "Curtains."

  Cyrus said, "But she didn't arrive here with that in mind?"

  Farrell shook his head. "That's what's so damn puzzling. According to our informant—and he's never been wrong before—she was coming to Zambia for the purpose of assassinating President Kaunda."

  "Assassinating?" said Mrs. Pollifax, suddenly alert

  "Good God," said Cyrus. "Why?"

  "Why assassinate Kenneth Kaunda? Because KK, as he's affectionately called, is a gentle but insistent force against apartheid, Cyrus. He's been making behind-the-scene appeals to both Rhodesia and South Africa for diplomatic talks on compromise, and what's more, they've begun listening to him."

  "Assassinate," repeated Mrs. Pollifax, frowning.

  He nodded. "You can understand our panic. We had only an old photograph to work with, and time's been against us. We batted zero until we found a waiter at the Livingstone airport restaurant who remembered her, and that's when we learned she was a blonde, after which we linked her with the flight to Ngomo airstrip traveling as a Mrs. A. Lovecraft. She stayed a few nights at Ngomo Lodge and then flew to Lusaka, where we discover that she arrived just in time to join—of all things—a safari party." He shook his head. "But it doesn't make sense," he said. "It simply doesn't make sense, her going off on a safari."

  "It could," said Mrs. Pollifax softly, trying to control the excitement that had been rising in her. "It could, Farrell. It's possible that Amy Lovecraft came on safari to meet the real assassin."