by R. W. Heber
They drove back in a small convoy, out through the gate in the electrified fence, and then to the workshop, with Gilroy thankful that the park had been closed early on account of the darting and there were no visitors around.
“So what exactly happened?” Morton demanded, when the corpse had been laid down on the floor of the room where Ted had prepared for his fatal mission.
* * *
THEY had driven out from the park’s offices around six-thirty. Ted was in his own Land Rover, the darting rifle secure in its clamp. He was towing a high-sided trailer, on which to lift the sedated lion, and had the specially fabricated stretcher in the back of his truck. A grown lion weighed all of five hundred pounds and the men would have to roll the lion sideways onto the stretcher before lifting it into the trailer. Then they would take it back to a cage and deal with the injured foot. The operation required three or four men.
Gary had gone in a second vehicle, two more rangers in a third. They were aggravated at running late, thanks to the detective, and to be missing good drinking time in the local pub. They had handheld walkie-talkies and they only had to drive along the park’s winding roads for a few minutes to locate the pride. A male, two females, and several cubs were out in the open, lazily enjoying the last warmth of the sun, while Caesar lay apart from them beneath his favourite tree, occasionally licking his front paw.
They all looked somnolent and inactive, but Ted knew this was an illusion. In the wild they only killed every few days, and they had not been fed today.
“Are there any others around?” he asked over the radio.
“Can’t see any,” Gary reported.
“Then go between Caesar and the pride and we’ll get going.”
The rangers had driven off the road and positioned themselves on the grass, ready to head off any move by the other lions. Not that things would happen fast. The drug could take half an hour to act. They were facing the pride, their backs to Ted, but they knew what he would be doing.
Ted manoeuvred to within a few yards of Caesar and stopped, keeping his engine running, while he checked the rifle and loaded the steel cylinder of the dart. He had made up the dart himself with great care. The “cocktail” he had mixed up in one of his laboratory vials consisted of four millilitres of an opiate powder called Rompen and one millilitre of a liquid named Vetallar, plus a tiny amount of water, which produced a colourless solution of great potency. It would only need a drop, if he had a cut on his hand, to put him in serious danger of death, and the substance would have to be washed away with copious quantities of water immediately, before he injected himself with what the veterinary journals cheerfully called “an antagonist.”
This concoction went into a cylinder only a quarter inch thick, fitted with an explosive charge and a plunger. The final item, the hypodermic needle, was then screwed into the cylinder’s top end, before the dart was fired like a low-velocity bullet. Firing a hypodermic into a lion’s thigh was not the most elegant way to deal with the King of Beasts. The one certainty was that Caesar was not going to like it.
What happened after that could vary. The lion might career off, he might charge the Land Rover, he might react with fury at the dart itself and try to pull it out with his teeth, he might do anything. And Ted would proceed very cautiously until Caesar was definitely sedated. As his mentor in South Africa used to say, “There are good lions and bad lions, but no safe lions.”
Ted wound down the window and took aim at the fleshy, muscular part of Caesar’s hind leg. Since the lion was recumbent, it was an angle shot. Caesar raised his great, dark-maned head and looked at him indolently as Ted fired.
There wasn’t much of a bang. The rifle was only an adapted .22-caliber. But Caesar took off as if the Concorde had broken the sound barrier behind him. Growling, his tail thrashing, he charged the Land Rover, the dart firmly embedded in his rump. Ted hastily wound up the window. At the last moment Caesar sprang clear over the vehicle, walked around it growling angrily, then loped away.
The Lion Park wasn’t densely wooded or large enough for him to vanish and Ted followed at a distance in the Land Rover, until Caesar sat down. Ted thought he was trying to extract the dart. Then he realized it was no longer embedded in the skin and must have dropped off along the way. At last, Caesar lay down, looking sleepy. It was thirty-five minutes since he’d been darted. Taking a normal rifle with him, Ted got out of the vehicle and approached cautiously. When he was satisfied that the lion was out for the count, he would radio the others, who were keeping the rest of the pride away.
Caesar stirred and came to when Ted was only four yards away. He lolloped groggily to his feet, then suddenly gathered himself and sprang, knocking Ted onto his back. There was no time to fire, only to fight with legs and arms against the lion’s crushing, clawing biting weight.
* * *
EVEN though Inspector Morton’s words about the Lion Park had been sotto voce, the way Gilroy left the room so rapidly with him caused immediate comment, from the self-centered to the curious.
“I suppose we’ll have to wait for dinner until he’s back, damn it,” Hamish complained to no one in particular, still smarting from having had his belongings searched earlier.
“Not at all,” Dee Dee said. “We shall dine at eight, with or without my husband.”
“What’s happened?” Loredana asked. All of them except the Savages were together in the library. Loredana had been making stilted conversation with Priscilla, whose principal concern was catching the butler’s eye for more gin.
“There’s a small problem down at the Lion Park,” Dee Dee said.
“Nothing serious?” Loredana sounded concerned.
“I hope not.”
“Your keeper is such a nice man.”
“Aren’t all men nice?” Dulcie asked innocently.
“What a silly thing to say.” Loredana gave her an icy look. “Trevor can be an appalling bore. Men are just a necessary nuisance, in my opinion.”
“Well, you’re the expert.”
Sitting a little way away, Jim and Jemma listened to this exchange.
“There’s going to be a show-down there before long,” Jim commented softly. “I might just have a word with Mrs. McMountdown.” He got up, leaving his daughter to read a glossy magazine, and went across.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Please do,” Dee Dee said, making room on the sofa. Savage was one of the very few people on this weekend whom she liked and, better, still trusted. Then it occurred to her that with him around she could temporarily cease shepherding Adrienne and get on with more important things, like working out cheaper menus with the cook, and she left them.
After a little small talk Savage casually asked Dulcie, “Had any luck finding that contract?”
He could hardly have grabbed everyone’s attention faster if he had sprouted donkey’s ears and begun braying. Adrienne looked flustered and Dulcie drew in her breath sharply, as if this were an unexpected lapse of taste. Even Hamish looked interested, while Loredana abandoned her stilted conversation with Priscilla.
“Since you ask, the answer is no,” Dulcie said. “But why do you ask?”
“You’ve mentioned it several times,” Jim said, as if defensively. “I merely had a sudden thought about where it might be.”
“It was nowhere in George’s room,” Adrienne said, as she had many times before.
“Oh, no. I’m sure you’re right about that. And I don’t think the police have it either.”
“Well, spill the beans then, old chap,” Hamish said. “Don’t keep us all in suspense.”
“Your wife might prefer to hear my ideas in private.” Jim smiled confidentially at Dulcie.
“I think I might,” Dulcie agreed, giving her husband a stony look.
“Why don’t we go for a short stroll before dinner? It’s a beautiful evening.”
“If that’s allowed.”
“We can but try.”
Jim led her through to the hall, where
they ran into Sergeant Timmins, who had just received the first results of inquiries about the Savages. Their neighbours all regarded Jim as reliable, if quiet. His former employers gave him good references. There was nothing conclusive about all this, but it inclined Timmins to respond positively. In any case Morton had emphasized that if the guests’ freedom was too curtailed, they might well insist on their rights and leave. Both officers remained equally wary of the lawyer. So Timmins wished them a pleasant evening and they walked out onto the lawns that led down to the lake and the landscape of the late George Welch’s development dreams.
When they returned twenty minutes later, Dulcie had the expression of someone to whom a truth has been revealed. Not an eternal truth, but a significant one. She now knew that she’d slept like a log last night because she’d been doped. Furthermore, Savage had explained his theory about the contract.
“Let’s hope you’re right,” she said, before they rejoined the others, “and at least I now know why I’m the only person who heard nothing during the night. Whatever that woman put in the cocoa was powerful stuff.”
As they re-entered the library Dodgson, who had been waiting for them, announced dinner and they all trooped through to the servants’ hall. No matter what anyone might do to improve the room—and Dodgson had done his best with linen and silver—the servants’ hall remained a gloomy, high-ceilinged cavern. Its cream paint was peeling, and below the dado-rail the walls were an ugly tone of chocolate. The ceiling lights had white plastic shades, like an old-fashioned railway waiting-room. The builder of Wittenham Park had seen no reason for the staff either to be or feel comfortable. Gilroy’s grandfather had not been a mine owner for nothing, and Gilroy had not bothered to redecorate a room that was very seldom used. Few of his acquaintances travelled with a valet or a lady’s-maid these days.
It was a relief when the meal was over and Dodgson told them coffee and liqueurs were available in the library.
Jim Savage, however, told Jemma he wanted to talk to the maid and went through to the kitchen. As he had expected, Tracy was clearing dishes into a catering-sized washing-up machine.
“Hullo, sir,” she said brightly, turning around with a plate in her hand. “Isn’t that dreadful about poor Ted?”
For a moment Jim couldn’t think who Ted was, but was reminded when she went on with morbid enthusiasm.
“Imagine being torn to pieces by a lion! He was such a nice man, too.”
“He what? You mean the lion keeper? What happened?”
To his horror Tracy related what she knew, adding, “Can’t have been drugged can it? Not properly. No way.”
“The experts will find out soon enough.” Jim re-assured her, thinking that two deaths in twenty-four hours seemed to be extraordinary. “Have they had trouble with the lions before?”
“Ooh yes. One of Ted’s men got mauled last year. I don’t go anywhere near the place myself. They had to shoot the lion.” She resumed stacking plates and asked over her shoulder, “You looking for Mr. Dodgson?”
“No.” He put the lion park tragedy out of his mind. “In fact, I wanted to ask you something. This morning were all the early morning teacups washed up?”
“I put them in the machine myself.”
“Including Mr. Welch’s? Did you go into his room to fetch the tray?”
“No way! Not after what he’d tried to do yesterday.”
“So where was it?”
“Outside his door.”
“And the cup had been used? I mean, he’d drunk his tea?”
She had to think about this. “He must have done because I gave him the nasty old blue teapot set and the cup was dirty.”
“What time d’you think you collected the trays?”
“I waited till they’d all gone down to breakfast.”
“So it was after nine o’clock?”
“Oh yes.” She remembered something. “Except that tall, thin lady, the one who thinks she’s God Almighty. She brought her own tray down at about twenty to nine.”
“Tall and thin?” He realized she must be talking about Loredana. “The lady in the Chinese Room whose husband didn’t come?”
“That’s her. She made a big thing about how she wanted to save us work! What difference does one tray make, I ask you? And you should see her room. Enough bottles for a perfume shop.” Tracy suddenly stopped her brief tirade and looked at him curiously. Inspector Morton had been asking her very similar questions and policemen had been going through everything, even the dustbins. “You’re not a detective, are you?”
He laughed gently. “No. Just interested. I was supposed to play the detective this weekend, but that was before Mr. Welch died. My daughter writes for a crime magazine.”
“Are you serious?” Tracy was enthralled. “Can I talk to her?”
“I’m sure she’d like that. I’ll tell her.”
When Jim rejoined the others his mind was still concentrated on what Tracy had said and he felt a definite sense of progress. He told Jemma about the lion quietly, then outlined his theory. Unless he had got the sequence of events completely wrong George Welch had placed his early-morning tea-tray outside his room shortly before he died. If whatever poisoned him had been fast-acting, that was exceptionally unlikely. Nor was it in Welch’s character to put a tea-tray, or anything else, out for collection by the maid. He was too bad-mannered and selfish. So if he hadn’t put it out, who had?
“Could have been his wife,” Jemma suggested. “Who else would have wanted to go into his room?”
“Whoever wanted him dead?”
“You mean we’re back to square one? Come on, Daddy. Who had the motive, who had the means and who had the opportunity? That’s what we need to know. That’s what our heavy-handed inspector will be asking himself.”
“Then it’s what I’d better ask myself again,” Savage said, “which means rewriting my notes.”
While he did so, Jemma picked up a magazine to flip through.
“How beastly of someone!” she said after a few minutes, disturbing her father to show him the magazine. “The horoscope page has been torn out. Just when we needed it.”
Having learned to react immediately to things his daughter said, Jim put aside his notebook and looked obediently at the page. Only a section of it had been removed. It was still headed, “Your stars this June.” The missing parts covered from Pisces to Leo.
“Amazing how obsessed some people are by the stars,” he commented and tried to resume his note-taking.
“Daddy! Haven’t you got any imagination? Someone wanted to know if this was a propitious time.”
“That could apply to just about everyone here, from Lord Gilroy wondering about contracts, or the actress worrying about her next job.” He examined the page more carefully. The missing paper had not been roughly torn, but quite neatly removed, perhaps with a slightly blunt knife. “Well,” he said, “that’s one more thing to keep an eye open for.”
They were interrupted by Hamish, who joined them apparently casually, but soon asked if they had any idea where the missing contract was. “My wife’s very concerned about it,” he explained.
“Does it affect you?” Jim asked.
“Only through her.”
Why did Hamish sound evasive, when it was he who had raised the subject? Jim’s thoughts went back to the row they had overheard before dinner last night. Welch had bellowed out, “You bloody well will, or else.” And another voice, which might have been Dulcie’s, had added, “You haven’t any option.” So was it Hamish who’d had no option? And then, during dinner, he had forced the subject of Lloyds losses into the conversation. Was that what he had been told to do? And it had a bearing on the contract, because Gilroy’s losses might make him feel compelled to raise money through the sale of land. Jim decided to cast a metaphorical fly over these deep waters.
“I imagine quite a few people will be glad to know George Welch is dead,” he suggested.
Hamish smiled his thin, inward smile. “No one
would disagree with that.”
“A bit of a bastard in business?”
“As tough as they come.”
“But your wife knew how to handle him?”
“My wife is quite a strong character,” Hamish admitted. It sounded to both Jim and Jemma that there were times when he wished she weren’t. “But not always. He could be incredibly rude.”
At that moment Gilroy walked in, looking harassed and slightly dishevelled. Everybody looked up. He hesitated, then addressed them.
“I’m sorry to tell you that Ted, our Lion Park keeper, has been killed by one of the lions.”
“Oh no!” Loredana burst out emotionally. “How horrible. He was such a nice man. What happened?”
“A lion he thought was sedated attacked him. The lion has had to be shot.” Gilroy almost mentioned the thousands of pounds that an adult male lion was worth, and that he had now lost, but thought better of it. “There will be a full investigation.”
That was all he felt it necessary to say. During the flurry of talk that followed he went across to his wife and they went through to the servants’ hall to find him some food.
Next Adrienne excused herself, saying that she hoped never to have another day like this in her life, and was escorted upstairs by Priscilla Worthington. Dee Dee had suggested, virtually ordered, Priscilla to look after the newly widowed woman.
Across the room Loredana was telling Hamish and an unreceptive Dulcie that she couldn’t believe such a tragedy had happened, though she knew, from having been on safari herself, that lions could never be trusted.
“Hamish, I’m exhausted,” Dulcie said eventually, cutting brutally into the flow of Loredana’s safari knowledge. “For heaven’s sake, let’s go to bed.”
After they had gone, Jim found himself yawning and earning an instant reprimand.
“Daddy! Please! I can’t bear your falling asleep after dinner.”
“Sorry, darling.” Jim made an effort to sit upright, but knew it was a lost cause. “I think I’ll go up too.”