Death in Zanzibar (19 page)

‘No she won't!' declared Tyson unexpectedly. ‘Here, Dany
____
' he picked up the discarded spectacles and replaced them firmly on her nose. ‘I'm sorry if it worries your mother and fails to please the United States Marines, but it seems to me that you'd better stick to that fancy dress and go on being Miss Kitchell for the next few days. It'll save a lot of explaining. And the less explaining we have to do once that scribbling journalist is on the premises, the better.'

‘Are you really going to ask him over?' inquired Lash.

‘Certainly,' said Tyson, bristling. ‘Any objections?'

‘None at all. It's your funeral. But it seems to me that your sense of proportion has slipped a disc. If you import this Dowling guy you can watch to see that he doesn't start in digging up grandpop's dollars, but if he starts digging any of this dirt instead, how are you going to stop him splashing it all over the tabloids?'

‘Murder him!' said Tyson succinctly. ‘Now let's get on up to the house and have some food.'

12

The House of Shade stood three storeys high on a wide stone terrace that was approached from the garden by short flights of steps set at regular intervals about it. Each of its storeys was of a different height, for the ground floor had once been a colonnade surrounding an open central courtyard about which the house was built, and the rooms on the first floor had been large and long, and were abnormally high. It had been Tyson's father — who had a mania for improvements — who had divided them into bedrooms, bathrooms and dressing-rooms.

The top storey, by comparison, appeared unduly low, and the rooms were hotter than those on the floor below, for the sun beat down strongly on the flat Eastern roof and the shade of the trees did not reach them. But the breeze did, and by night they were cool.

There was a lily pool in the courtyard, where lethargic goldfish idled in the shade of the flat green leaves, and on each floor the rooms led out on to pillared verandahs that faced each other across it, in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a courtyard in Seville.

Curious, curving stone staircases with shallow, disproportionally wide treads, their heavy banisters of hammered iron wrought in an odd geometrical design and barely a foot and a half in height, rose from each corner of the courtyard, inside the verandahs and leading up on to the next. Dangerous looking things, depending for their support only on the stout metal and the proportion of stone that had been built into the thickness of the wall, and proof that some long-dead Arab builder had known his trade as well as Adams or John Nash.

At the edge of each verandah, stone jars filled with sweet-scented creepers and flowering shrubs stood between the tall supporting pillars, and gave an entrancing impression of hanging gardens. But from the outside the house looked far less decorative and unusual: a square, white, very high building with a flat crenelated roof and rows of green-painted shutters.

It was sometime during the afternoon, and shortly before Tyson left to take a letter in to the Residency, that Mr Cardew, the Police Superintendent of the Zanzibar Division, called briefly at the House of Shade.

His car came and went again, making so little sound on the white coral dust of the palm-shaded road that no member of the house-party heard it, and apart from Tyson, only a Somali servant, a somnolent gardener's boy, and a drowsing cat on the wall above the main gate, had seen him.

He had stayed less than a quarter of an hour, and it was not until much later in the day, when night had fallen and the house-party were seated at the dining-room table in a glow of candlelight, that Tyson had chosen to bring up the subject of his visit.

The dining-room at
Kivulimi
was a long narrow room, with a row of arches along one side that had once been open, but which Tyson's father, Aubrey, had converted into french windows. They stood wide tonight, letting in a heady scent of flowers and luring moths and other nocturnal insects to a fiery death in the candle flames, and from her seat between Nigel and Larry Dowling, Dany could see out into the garden where the tree shadows and the moonlight formed a complicated mosaic patched with gold from the lighted windows.

She had plenty of leisure to enjoy the sight, for Lorraine, in the interests of playing safe, was keeping Larry Dowling engaged in conversation, while Nigel was hotly defending a modern masterpiece, recently purchased for the nation, in the face of Gussie Bingham's assertion that it was a shocking waste of the taxpayers' money (by which she meant her own) and indistinguishable from a pool of spilt ink and a squashed tomato — which would have come cheaper.

Larry Dowling had arrived in a taxi shortly after luncheon, and much to her surprise Dany had found herself not only pleased, but more than a little relieved to see him. Which was foolish of her, she knew, since Larry's profession made him a danger to all of them. But for some indefinable reason she felt a greater sense of safety and a lessening of tension while he was within reach. Larry, she thought, would not let one down.

Lash Holden had greeted Mr Dowling with a marked lack of enthusiasm, and having commandeered his taxi had returned in it to the airport to inquire into the possibility of reserving a seat for himself in a Nairobi-bound plane on the following day. He had not been back by four-thirty, when Lorraine's guests had assembled for tea on the shaded terrace outside the drawing-room windows, but he had joined them later when they had gone down to explore the sea shore and exclaim over the weird, wind-worn shapes of the coral rocks, and watch the sun go down in a blaze of rose-tinted splendour.

He had not spoken to Dany, and had in fact appeared to avoid her, and she looked at him now across the width of the wide table in the glow of the candles, and wondered if she would ever see him again. I suppose I could always get a job in America, she thought. Tyson or Lorraine could fix that; they've got loads of friends there, and Lash's father is Tyson's best friend. I'd be able to see him. But if Mrs Gordon decides that she likes him better than Eduardo after all …

Dany turned to look at Amalfi, who was being charming to Tyson and prettily petulant to Eduardo, and her heart sank. She knew that she herself had little to complain of in the way of looks, for she had inherited them from her father who had been an outstandingly handsome man. But Ada Kitchell's unfortunate hair-style did not suit her, and neither did Ada Kitchell's spectacles. They combined to reduce her from a pretty girl to a nondescript one, and even the dress she had chosen to wear did not help, though once she had thought it entrancing — a short, smoke-grey dress whose wide skirt, ornamented with two enormous patch pockets appliquéd with white magnolias, reduced her slim waist to hand-span proportions. She had been charmed with it when she bought it; but now it only appeared rather ordinary, and what Aunt Harriet would have termed ‘suitable for a young girl'.

Amalfi, looking anything but ordinary, was wearing pale gold chiffon that exactly matched her pale gold hair, and her jewels were an antique set of topazes set in gold filigree. It was a colour that did charming and complimentary things to her sea-green, mermaid's eyes, and she was using them now with dazzling effect on Tyson.

I don't know how Mother stands it! thought Dany resentfully: and turning to look at Lorraine was instantly answered.

Lorraine, wearing a fragile confection of black spider-lace, with diamonds that were a magnificent reminder of the brief reign of Dwight P. Cleethorpe, was, in her own and entirely different way, as entrancing as Amalfi, and she was engaged in employing all her charms on Larry Dowling; who was looking equally dazzled.

They can't help it, thought Dany, feeling depressed and deplorably gauche. They were born with charm. They just turn it on like a tap, and half the time it doesn't mean a thing. They can't help having it, or using it, any more than Millicent Bates can help being — Millicent Bates!

Millicent was sitting opposite her between Lash and Eduardo di Chiago, and ‘Dressing for Dinner' meant only one thing to Miss Bates. A long dress, and she was wearing one. An undatable garment in solid blue marocain that made no concessions to frivolity and did nothing for her flat-chested, square-shouldered figure. She was engaged in giving Lash, as an unenlightened Colonial, a lecture on the advantages of a National Health system, when she was interrupted by Tyson who at last elected to broach the subject of the Superintendent of the Zanzibar Division's afternoon call. His voice boomed down the lengh of the table and successfully terminated an anecdote concerning scheming foreigners in search of free false teeth.

‘By the way, Lash, about that plane reservation you wanted for tomorrow, I'm afraid you'll
____
'

Amalfi turned sharply: ‘What plane reservation? Lash, you aren't leaving? Not when you've only just arrived! Darling, don't be silly!'

Nigel gave his little giggling laugh. ‘It's all this American passion for hustle. Here today and gone tomorrow! So enervating.'

‘On the contrary,' snapped Lash, ‘it's a strong instinct for self-preservation.'

‘Darling, I'm not all
that
dangerous,' cooed Amalfi dulcetly. ‘Are you frightened?'

‘Terrified!' said Lash promptly. ‘But apart from that, as I find that the business side of this trip can be dealt with in half an hour — provided our host will sit still that long — I don't feel justified in wasting too much time idling; however pleasantly. I have a lot of commitments.'

Mrs Bingham said: ‘Poor Miss Kitchell! And I feel sure that you were so looking forward to seeing something of Zanzibar. What a slave-driver your Mr Holden is!'

She beamed sympathetically at Dany, and Lash looked startled. It was a point that had somehow escaped him. If Dany had to continue masquerading as his secretary he could hardly leave without her. Or with her.

Blast!
thought Mr Holden with quiet and concentrated bitterness. And was visited by inspiration. He half rose and bowed at Mrs Bingham. ‘Ma'am, you put me to shame. You're dead right. I'm a slave-driver, and Miss Kitchell certainly needs a rest. But she's going to get one. I don't happen to need her for the next week or so, and she's going to stay right here, grab herself a nice long vacation, and join me later when I'm due back in the States.'

And now, thought Lash with some satisfaction, just try and gum up that one!

Tyson did so.

‘It looks,' he said blandly, ‘as though you will be spending it right here with her, my boy.'

‘Oh no, I shan't,' began Lash firmly. ‘I intend
____
'

Tyson said crossly: ‘If you will all have the goodness to lay off interrupting me every time I open my mouth, perhaps I can get on with what I was saying?… Thanks! About that plane reservation. I'm afraid you'll have to cancel it, boy. In fact, I have already done so on your behalf. The police have requested that you all remain
in situ
for a day or two.'

‘The
police?
' Amalfi dropped the glass she was holding, and it fell with a little splintering crash, sending a red stream of claret across the table. ‘What police? Why?'

‘Josh Cardew. He was over this afternoon. He says it's just a routine matter, but that they've been asked to check up on everyone who was on the Nairobi–Zanzibar plane this morning, and more particularly, on the London–Nairobi one. So it would help if you'd all stay around for a bit. It's that chap Jembe.'

‘Salim Abeid?' inquired Larry Dowling. ‘You mean the man who died in the airport at Mombasa this morning?'

‘I mean the man who was murdered in the airport at Mombasa this morning,' corrected Tyson. ‘It would appear that someone added a good-sized slug of cyanide to his coffee, and they somehow don't think he did it himself.'

Gussie gave her glass of wine a horrified look and put it down hurriedly. ‘But how dreadful, Tyson! I remember him quite well. He was on the London plane too. But why on earth should the police want to question any of us? Too ridiculous, when it must have been someone in the airport. The barman who gave him the coffee, I expect.'

‘They're checking up on all that. Needle-in-a-haystack job, I'd say. I gather the airport was pretty crowded.'

‘Packed,' said Gussie Bingham, and shuddered. ‘Besides being abominably hot, in spite of all those fans and things.'

Larry Dowling said reflectively: ‘It can't have been all that easy to drop something in a man's drink without being spotted; even in a crowded room. Bit of a risk. It must have been someone he knew.'

‘I don't see why,' said Nigel, mopping up claret with a clean handkerchief. ‘Anyone — simply
anyone
— could have jogged his elbow or distracted his attention as they went past.
Too
simple. You knock the man's newspaper on to the floor, or stumble over his briefcase, and while he's picking them up and you're apologizing —
plop!
'

He dropped an imaginary pellet into an imaginary glass, and Eduardo di Chiago said: ‘
Brr — !
this is a most unpleasant conversation. For myself, I do not like to talk of death. It is unlucky.'

‘Oh, I do so agree with you,' said Lorraine earnestly. ‘
Dreadfully
unlucky. And now I suppose there's
bound
to be a third.'

‘A third what?' demanded Gussie Bingham, startled.

‘Murder of course, darling. Things always go in threes. Haven't you noticed that?'

‘But there's only been one murder so far,' objected Millicent Bates.

‘My dear — but haven't you
heard?
Why, I thought we only hadn't because we don't get the English papers for days, but I thought you two must have seen all about it.'

Tyson cast his eyes up to heaven, and thereafter, realizing it was too late to intervene, shrugged his shoulders and circulated the port.