Death in Zanzibar (12 page)

‘What are you looking for?' inquired Lash.

‘H-handkerchief, of course.'

‘If you'll let go of me, I'll get you one.'

He freed himself from Dany's clutching fingers, and setting her down on one end of the sofa, collected a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his discarded dinner jacket, and handed it over.

‘I seem to remember that nightgown,' he remarked, lighting himself a cigarette and smiling at her through the smoke. ‘You were wearing that and a sheet of newspaper when we first met. This is quite like old times. I'll admit that right now your face isn't looking up to much, but if it's any consolation to you, the rest is a treat to the eye.'

This observation produced no reaction whatever, and the smile died out of Lash's grey eyes, to be replaced by concern. ‘You have had a bad time of it, haven't you, brat? But everything will be all right now. You'll see. Come on, you're awake now.'

Dany dropped the handkerchief and stared up at him with shocked tear-blurred eyes. ‘You still think it was a dream, don't you? But it wasn't. There was someone in my room. I heard a noise and woke up, and — and then I … then I saw the clock. It's — I could see it in the dark. It's luminous. And then … then suddenly I couldn't see it any more, because someone was standing in front of it
____
'

The sentence ran out into a violent shudder that made her teeth chatter, and Lash's face changed suddenly and startlingly. He flung his cigarette away and was at the bedroom door in two swift strides, feeling for the light switch. It clicked on, revealing the tumbled bed and the curtains stirring idly in the soft dawn wind. But there was no one there.

The room was empty and the light twinkled on the little pearl and diamond brooch and the narrow gold wristwatch that Dany had worn. She had left them on the dressing-table, and near them, face downwards, lay the gilt travelling-clock.

‘Nuts!' said Lash brusquely, relief giving place to irritation. ‘You dreamt it. If there'd been a thief in here he'd have taken care of that stuff, and
____
' He stopped. There was something lying on the floor by the dressing-room door, and the door itself was ajar.

He crossed the room quickly and stooping, picked it up. It was a torch, of a type that is cased in heavy black rubber and capable of being focused.

Lash turned to find Dany at his elbow, white-faced and shivering. ‘This yours?'

‘No. Of course not.'

‘Umm,'
said Lash thoughtfully, and vanished into the dressing-room. He did not return for several minutes, and Dany sat down on the edge of the bed, still trembling violently and wondering if she were going to disgrace herself by being sick. It seemed only too likely.

Presently Lash returned, looking puzzled. He said: ‘Nothing seems to have gone. It looks screwy to me. Why didn't he grab what he could, and scram?'

‘Because he didn't w-want anything like that,' quavered Dany, shivering. ‘He didn't come for t-that. He was looking for m-me. He was going to m-murder me.'

‘Oh, baloney!' snapped Lash exasperated. ‘Will you just lay off carrying on like a character out of a soap-opera? It was obviously only some little African sneak-thief. A town like this is probably full of them! It may even have been one of the hotel staff trying a bit of light burglary.'

‘It wasn't,' insisted Dany obstinately. ‘It
wasn't.
B-burglars don't want to murder people, and he meant to murder me. I know he did!'

‘Now see here,' began Lash patiently. ‘You haven't a shred of evidence that he intended to do you any harm at all — beyond relieving you of any cash or jewellery you'd left lying about. He probably hadn't gotten around to that when you woke up, and the chances are that you scared him worse than he scared you: which is plenty! Now why don't you just
____
'

He broke off and looked about him, wrinkling his nose. ‘What's that smell?'

‘I d-don't know. It was in here before.
He
brought it
____
'

‘Chloroform, by God!'
said Lash in a whisper. ‘That's what it is! Chloroform
____
!'

He swept the bedclothes to one side with a single savage jerk, and the smell was suddenly stronger and more clearly identifiable as something fell to the carpet with an almost inaudible plop.

It was an ordinary polythene bag of a size and type frequently used to pack sandwiches in for a picnic, and it appeared to contain nothing more than a pad of cotton wool and gauze.

Lash stooped rather slowly and picked it up, and opening it, jerked his head back sharply with a grimace of distaste as a strong waft of anaesthetic flowed out from it.

He rolled it up again swiftly and pushed it into an empty drawer of the dressing-table, and Dany said, also speaking in a whisper: ‘I told you. I
told
you! That was m-meant for me, wasn't it?'

‘Maybe,' said Lash curtly.

‘Well then why don't you do something? Why are you just s-s-standing there?'

‘What do you suggest I do?' inquired Lash coldly.

‘Call someone! Wake up the manager. Telephone the police. Something — anything!'

Lash turned away and walked towards the open door into the sitting-room. He said: ‘Don't be a fool, Dany. You know damned well that we are in no position to go bawling for the cops.'

He held the door open for her, and having shut it again behind her, went across to the armchair that contained his discarded clothes and picked up his dressing-gown.

‘You'd better borrow this again. In fact, if this sort of thing is going to become a part of the daily round, I guess you'd better keep it. Your need would appear to be greater than mine.'

Dany said tonelessly: ‘No. You have it. I can use this.'

She wrapped herself in a blanket off his makeshift bed, and sat down in a shivering huddle on the nearest chair, feeling limp and boneless from shock and fatigue and the aftermath of abject panic.

Lash put on his dressing-gown and helped himself to a drink, and sat silent for a time, staring ahead of him in frowning concentration while Dany watched him and did not speak. Presently he stood up abruptly, finished his drink at a gulp, and putting down the empty glass went back into the bedroom.

He was away for perhaps ten minutes, and though Dany would have liked to follow him, merely from terror of being left alone, she found that she was too exhausted to move. She kept her frightened gaze on the open door instead, and presently saw his shadow move once more across the wall.

He came back into the sitting-room, frowning blackly, and mixed another drink which he handed to Dany. ‘You'd better take that. You look as though you could do with something stronger than water, and you can't fold up now. I want to talk to you.'

He poured out a second and considerably stronger one for himself, and then sat down on the sofa, facing her.

‘I'm coming round to the idea,' said Lash, ‘that there is more in this than meets the eye. It looks as though that guy in there had gone to quite a bit of trouble. And he wasn't after cash.'

‘I
told
you
____
' began Dany again.

‘
Ssh!
Now I'm telling you. He didn't come in by the bedroom window. He broke the one in the bathroom, and came in that way. There was quite a bit of my stuff, and most of yours in the dressing-room, and he's had a darned good look at it. Forced every lock on the ones that weren't open, and gone through every little thing. But as far as I can see he hasn't taken anything. Unless, of course, you were carrying a clutch of diamonds or something? Did you have much money in your bags? Or jewellery?'

‘No,' said Dany in a hoarse whisper. ‘I haven't much jewellery. Only that brooch and the watch, and a pearl necklace, a diamond bar pin and some costume stuff that were in my dressing-case.'

‘And still are,' said Lash. ‘They haven't been touched. And neither have my pearl studs and a rather flashy assortment of cufflinks, or a gold and platinum cigarette case and lighter, and one or two more far-from-inexpensive trifles. Not to mention a good few traveller's cheques. All, or any, of those things are just the size to go comfortably into any guy's pants' pocket. Yet he didn't take 'em. Now why?'

‘I told you,' said Dany for the fourth time.

‘Look, just quit talking will you? This is a soliloquy, not a dialogue. I'm sorting out the facts. That dressing-room and everything in it has had a real going over. The sort of frisking that it would only get if someone were looking for just one thing: one special thing. And it's my guess that if it had been found, your visitor would have got out the way he came in and there'd have been no more trouble. But because he didn't get what he was after, he came into your bedroom; and as you can't search a bedroom thoroughly while the owner is occupying the bed, that's where the chloroform was going to come in. If you hadn't woken up just then you wouldn't have known a thing about it: you'd have passed out cold, and when you woke up you might have felt a little sickish — but that'd have been all. Except that while you were out for the count your bedroom would have gotten the same treatment as the dressing-room. Now am I right, or aren't I?'

Dany merely shivered and drew the blanket more closely about her, and Lash answered his own question: ‘I'll bet I am! But where do we go from here? that's the six-hundred-thousand-dollar question. Well, I'll tell you. Backwards!'

He drank deeply, and Dany said morosely, her gaze on the glass in his hands: ‘Yes. I can see that!'

Lash grinned at her. ‘The point is taken, honey. But you don't have to worry. I intend to stay strictly sober. This is merely medicinal: an aid to thought. And right now we're going to have to do some fast and fancy thinking, because I see I was way off the line in my first assessment of the situation.'

‘I don't know what you mean,' said Dany. The whisky Lash had given her was beginning to make her head swim a little, and she felt better. But not much.

‘You're not concentrating,' said Lash. ‘Remember how I met you? You'd gotten yourself locked out of your room, and while you were out of it someone took it to bits. But they didn't take your money or your jewellery, which shows that they were after something else.'

‘My passport,' said Dany impatiently.

‘I don't believe it. Not now; though I admit I did once. It seemed the obvious answer at the time, and that, I guess, is where we tripped up. Why should anyone take a room to pieces looking for something that is exactly where they'd expect to find it? in your handbag and right under their nose. We ought to have seen that one: it stands out a mile. Those balcony rooms at the Airlane were a darned sight too easy to get into — always provided one was a resident. Someone probably meant to try that chloroform trick around six in the morning. Easier than poking about in the dark, and most people are dead asleep at that hour. They were probably already on the balcony or behind a curtain when you saved them a lot of trouble by going to fetch that newspaper, and getting locked out. Taking your passport and planting that gun was probably merely an afterthought, when they couldn't find what they were after. To stop you leaving the country with something that you've got and they want.'

‘But I haven't got anything!' protested Dany, beginning to shiver again.

‘You must have. And I'm willing to bet you five grand to a stick of bubble-gum that I know what it is! What have you done with the letter that Tyson's solicitor gave you? — that guy who got shot?'

Dany's eyes widened until they were enormous in her white face, and she stood shakily, clutching the blanket about her. ‘No! No, it couldn't possibly be that. It was just a letter. It couldn't possibly
____
'

‘Of course it is. It couldn't possibly be anything else! The question is, have you still got it?'

‘Yes. I — I think so.' Dany's voice was hoarse and breathless.

‘Where?'

‘I think it's still in the pocket of my coat. The camel-hair one that's hanging in the cupboard.'

Lash got up and went into the bedroom, and returned carrying a light-coloured loose overcoat. ‘This it?'

Dany nodded, and he thrust a hand into one of the deep silk-lined slit pockets and unearthed a crumpled slip of paper, two pink bus tickets, a receipted bill and three ha'-pennies. The other pocket was more productive. It contained, along with a face tissue and a card of bobby pins, a plain envelope addressed to
‘Tyson Frost, Esq. By hand'.
Lash dropped the coat onto the floor, and slitting open the flap, drew out the contents.

It was another envelope, but of a different variety. This one was a piece of hand-made paper, yellowed with age and folded and sealed in the manner of a day when there were still a few people who did not use manufactured envelopes. There was no address on it. Only the heavy seal bearing the crest of the Frosts over the arrogant motto
‘I Tayke Wat I Wyll',
a number, 74389, and the initials E.T.F. written in faded ink.

‘Women!'
said Lash. ‘And you had it in your pocket the whole time!'

He sat down on the sofa and gazed at her, shaking his head, and then looked down at the sealed envelope again. ‘What beats me is why he didn't find it when he went through your things at the Airlane. I guess he can't know anything about women, or you'd have thought
____
Say, wait a minute! Didn't you say something about leaving some coat in a powder room? Was this it?'

‘Yes,' said Dany, still having some difficulty with her voice. ‘I — I forgot it. It was there all night.'

‘So that's why. Then it all ties up.'

He stared at the small sealed packet that he held, and was silent for what seemed a very long time.