A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa (5 page)

‘Well, perhaps –'

This time it was Mr Patel who
interrupted.

‘Perhaps a third-hand account of a
conversation twenty years after the event isn't worth much? Couldn't agree
more, Malik old chap.'

‘Yes, but … no. I mean,
can't we just agree that no one knows – that it is an unsolved crime? After all,
it happened sixty years ago. It's dead. They're all dead.'

‘Ah yes,
mortua omnia
resolvit
,' said Tiger Singh. ‘And yet to the law an unsolved crime
is never dead.'

‘It's not unsolved as far as
I'm concerned,' said Mr Patel. ‘Full confession, case
closed.'

‘
Alleged
confession, Patel.
My money stays on the
femme fatale
.'

‘Did I hear “money”? Are
we talking about a bet?'

Tiger Singh held up a hand.

‘If I may say so, gentlemen, it seems
to me as if this argument is going nowhere. Each side is simply maintaining a fixed
position while trying to denigrate or ridicule the opposing view. And without further
evidence a wager is out of the question – wagers demand proof. Now, Khan old chap,
what'll you have to drink?'

‘Bootleg liquor,' said Mr Gopez.
‘That's what
they
used to drink, you know. June Carberry's
husband used to brew it up at their place in Nyeri. Isn't that right,
Malik?'

Mr Patel shook his head.

‘Yes, but that's not what they
were all drinking on the night of the murder. There may have been a war on but it
was champagne as usual at the Muthaiga Club – crates of it.
Isn't that right, Malik?'

‘Gentlemen,' said Tiger Singh.
‘Will you please allow Mr Khan to tell me what he would like to drink?'

‘Yes, A.B., and stop interrupting poor
Malik. He's probably dying of thirst too.'

‘Better than being shot by a jealous
lover.'

Mr Malik cleared his throat.

‘If I may make a suggestion,
Tiger.'

All eyes turned towards him.

‘I've been thinking.
You're quite right, Tiger – this argument about the Erroll murder never seems to
go anywhere. But on the other hand it does need settling once and for all, and
I've just had an idea. What if we could do something here at the club?'

‘A re-enactment, you mean?' said
Mr Patel. ‘You know, I've always thought A.B. could make a very good Earl of
Erroll. And I could be Broughton – but where, at such short notice, could I get hold of
a loaded pistol?'

‘No, no, I was thinking of a sort of
trial. Well, not a trial, exactly – more of a debate. Now that the lecture's been
cancelled, we could do it tomorrow.'

‘That's what I said,'
agreed Mr Gopez, reaching into his pocket.

‘He said debate, A.B., not a
bet,' said Mr Patel. ‘Pros and cons, all that kind of thing. Like at
school.'

‘What exactly did you have in mind,
Malik?' said Tiger Singh.

‘That we stage a debate about the
Erroll murder here at the club. A.B. and Patel each presents his case, the other is then
allowed the right of reply. And there'll be
an adjudicator, of
course – to keep things in order. Then a vote is taken, and the person who gets the most
support is considered to have won the argument.'

‘What, no money?' said Mr Gopez,
removing his hand from his pocket.

‘No, A.B., no money. Perhaps you,
Tiger, would –'

‘Would adjudicate? I'd be
pleased to. Well, Patel, A.B. – what do you say?'

‘Broughton,' said Mr Patel.

‘Diana,' said Mr Gopez.

‘Then I take it,' said Mr Malik,
‘that we are agreed. Now, I was wondering – would anyone like a game of
billiards?'

‘Sounds great, Jack,' said Harry
Khan. ‘Speaking of whom, that'll be a Mr Daniel's on the rocks for me,
please, Tiger. Make it a double.'

The Asadi Club, motto
Spero
meliora
, has a proud history. As the registration certificate above the bar
attests, it was founded in 1903 when Nairobi was little more than a few tin sheds beside
the railway track. It was originally a social club for homesick immigrants to Nairobi of
Indian descent, most of whom had arrived as indentured labourers to help the British
build the ‘lunatic line' from the Indian Ocean to Lake Victoria. Originally
built on a modest five acres of ground on the outskirts of what was then known as the
‘Indian Quarter', it was by now surrounded on all sides by a modern city.
Instead of a bare track in front, there was a sealed road; instead of a wire fence round
it, there was a thick hedge; instead of coffee plantations on three sides, there were
the mansions of the rich and powerful. It boasted a large bar, a dining room and a
purpose-built photographic darkroom (though, with digital photography, who uses a
darkroom these days?), as well as six squash courts, two tennis courts, a swimming pool
and a billiard room with four full-sized tables (only one at the Muthaiga Club now,
alas).

Those of you unfamiliar with billiards might
think that
a game played between two people with two sticks and three
balls on a twelve-foot table would not be the most thrilling of pastimes. You might
imagine that it would not have quite the excitement of snooker, say, with its fifteen
red balls and six colours, or the pizzazz of American eight-ball, with all those spots
and stripes and dreaded black ball packed on to a nine-foot table. But billiards is a
game of great subtlety and skill. Sinking balls is only part of it; the in-off shot is
usually of more value than the straight pot, and you can also score with a cannon
(hitting both the other balls with your cue ball). To some extent it is a game of simple
physics – of force and momentum, angles and spin. But, above all, billiards is a
philosopher's game – and I suspect that this is largely why it has long been the
game of choice among members of the Asadi Club. Though billiards may be a simple game,
it is by no means easy.

‘Foul stroke,' said the Tiger.
‘Two points to Khan. Khan eighty-six points, Malik fifty-three.'

‘Getting a little excited there,
Jack.'

The annoying thing was that Harry Khan was
quite right. Mr Malik had no one to blame for the miscue but himself. He had been doing
well throughout the game so far – nothing ambitious, nothing rushed. But now, in trying
to push his cue ball through for a simple follow-on cannon, he had hit it twice. No, he
had no one to blame but himself.

Here's a tip I learned from my friend
Kennedy. If you elect to take a spot after your opponent has played a foul, place your
own ball one and a half ball-widths from the right side of the D, then line up on the
right edge of your opponent's white ball and play your own ball straight – bottom
or side spin is not required for this shot. Your ball
will bounce off
your opponent's and sink neatly in the top right pocket. If you calculate the pace
correctly the other white will, at the same time, trickle up the table, bounce off the
top cushion and come to rest near enough the red to offer a cannon for the next shot, or
even another in-off. Harry Khan must have known this too. He took the spot and
calculated the pace correctly. He sank his ball, hit the cannon, then another. Three
more reds made the winning score of 101.

‘Looks like you lose this time, eh,
Jack?'

‘Yes. Well played, Khan. Can I buy you
a drink?'

‘JD on the rocks. No, wait a
minute.' He looked at the gold Rolex on his wrist. ‘Make that a rain check,
I've got to get back to town.'

‘Well, come back, won't
you?' said Mr Patel. ‘Malik can always use another lesson.'

‘You know, I might do that. I kind of
like this old place.' He looked around the room. ‘But ever thought of having
it spruced up a bit? Like, modernized?'

Mr Malik followed his gaze. Well, perhaps
some of the rooms could do with some fresh paint – though the whole place had been
redone after the kitchen fire and that was only … gosh, was it really twelve
years ago?

‘It's not easy to get things
changed around here, I'm afraid,' said Tiger Singh.

‘That's right,' said Mr
Patel. ‘There's been a plan before the management committee to turn the old
darkroom into a computer centre for nearly a year now, but most of the members think a
megabyte is what you get from a large mosquito and hard disks come with old
age.'

‘Then you need to get some younger
members, right?
These old saggy armchairs and that moth-eaten lion by
the front door – not exactly hip, know what I mean? Not exactly twenty-first
century.'

Tiger Singh looked around him.

‘I'm sure you're right,
Harry, though we can't get rid of the lion. Club mascot, you know. Guards the
door. Keeps the club safe. Isn't that right, Malik?'

‘That's right, Tiger. And so far
it's never shirked a day's duty.'

‘Apart from that time it
disappeared,' said Mr Patel.

‘Ah yes.' Mr Malik smiled.
‘But it didn't really disappear – just went out to get some fresh
air.'

‘Our friends are referring to an
incident a few years ago,' said the Tiger to a mystified Harry Khan, ‘when
the lion was found on the club roof. No one ever found out how it got there but Sanjay
and Bobby Bashu were strong suspects. Anyway, hope to see you here again, Harry. In
fact, there's that debate on tomorrow night. Would you be interested in
–?'

‘That guy you were talking about?
Sorry, guys, dead white males are not my scene. Besides, I've got a dinner
date.'

Harry Khan racked his cue and with a wave of
his hand and a white, white smile bid them all a good night. Pausing on his way through
the front door only to pat the head of the stuffed lion, he climbed into a shiny new red
Mercedes CLK cabriolet and departed the car park of the Asadi Club in a small shower of
dust and gravel.

Inhabitants of Chicago may be familiar with
the ‘Maneaters of Tsavo', whose stuffed and snarling forms have
so long bewitched children and bemused parents visiting the Field
Museum of Natural History. The story of these two Kenyan lions goes back to the late
1890s when the railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria was being built. The tracks had
reached nearly halfway to Nairobi when Railway Superintendent Lieutenant-Colonel J. H.
Patterson, DSO, began noticing an increase in absenteeism among the Indian labourers.
Not known for his enlightened attitude towards his employees, at first he didn't
believe the stories the workers told him about screams in the night and blood on the
tent flaps. No, he thought, damned coolies were probably sneaking off down the line to
open another grocer's shop in Mombasa. But when they brought him a dusty sandal
which still contained the foot of its wearer, he realized that something must be done.
What happened next you can read about in the lieutenant-colonel's best-selling
1907 memoir
The Maneaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures
. In a
later chapter of the same book you can read about another maneater – the so-called Kima
Killer.

On the 4th of June 1900, Superintendent C.
H. Ryall of the Nairobi Railway Police received a telegram that had been sent up the
line from Kima railway station, not far from Tsavo. ‘Lion fighting with
station,' it read. ‘Send urgent succour.' Eager for some sport, Ryall
ordered that his personal carriage be attached to the next down train and set off,
accompanied by two friends. On arriving at the station he arranged that the carriage be
left in a siding overnight. He and his companions, well armed with heavy rifles, would
take it in turns to stay awake and keep watch from within. But perhaps the night was too
hot – or the
whisky too strong – because during his watch Ryall dropped
off to sleep with the sliding door still wide open. No one in the carriage saw the gleam
of yellow eyes in the moonlight; no one heard the pad of four soft paws.

Because the track where the carriage was
parked was not well ballasted, the carriage had ended up leaning very slightly to one
side. When the hungry lion jumped in, his weight was enough to tilt it a fraction more.
The door slid closed, the latch clicked shut, and three men and a lion were locked
inside the carriage. The noise was heard by a certain Mohammed Khan, the very man who
had sent the telegram in the first place and who was now crouched safely in a water tank
opposite the siding, observing the whole business.

His first thought was that this Ryall chap
was a genius. To improvise so clever a trap, then to bait it with your very own self.
That took a lot of British skill, and a lot of British pluck. What would the brave sahib
do now that he had captured the beast – shoot it with his revolver or strangle it with
his bare hands? Mohammed Khan heard a commotion but no shots. It looked as though the
sahib was going for the bare-handed option.

You can imagine his surprise, therefore,
when the next thing he saw was two trouserless gentlemen leaping from a window on the
near side of the carriage, followed a minute later by the lion – though the latter was
exiting backwards and seemed in less of a rush. The reason for the animal's
unusual orientation and unhurried pace soon became clear. The lion was dragging behind
him through the window the lifeless body of Superintendent Ryall.

Mohammed Khan was a sensitive soul and knew
immediately
what he must do. He must find those trouserless
gentlemen some clothes quick-smart. Heedless of personal risk, he climbed out of the
water tank and in loud whispers indicated that if the two men followed him he would see
what he could arrange.

It was not until after eleven o'clock
the next day, when the Maasai search party had found what was left of Ryall's body
and killed the lion, that his two friends could be persuaded to retrieve their own
clothing from the carriage. They returned to Nairobi on the two-forty up train, properly
dressed in khaki suits, boots, gaiters and sun hats, though still carrying with them the
new red cloaks that had been lent to them by Mohammed Khan and which he insisted they
keep as a memento of their adventure. In appreciation of his kindness they, in turn,
insisted that he keep the skin of the lion.

It was this Mohammed Khan who three years
later, and now the owner of a successful grocer's shop and general emporium in
Nairobi, banded together with some chums (including, as it so happened, Mr Malik's
grandfather) to form the Asadi Club. As you enter the hallway of the club you will still
be greeted by the lion in question. In deference to local African tradition the dead
animal is pointing to the north – so that its spirit can find its way to the celestial
hunting grounds – and the legend has grown up that as long as it stands guard, the club
will continue to prosper. Mohammed Khan stuffed the lion skin himself and didn't
do a bad job – though after more than a hundred years of sentry duty the Kima Killer
does look a little tired and, despite its lips being drawn back to reveal an impressive
set of teeth, it appears to be not snarling, but smiling.
On his own
way through the lobby of the Asadi Club later that night, Mr Malik looked around him.
Perhaps Harry Khan was right. Perhaps the place was looking a little shabby – but
nothing some new chair covers and a lick of paint wouldn't fix. He'd have a
word with the manager, get a few quotes to put to the committee. As for the lion, though
– no. The lion had to stay.