Death in Kenya (11 page)

Drew gave her an odd sideways look and said reprovingly: ‘You ought to count up to ten before you make statements like that, Em. It was, I think, the late lamented Sherlock Holmes who announced that in any problem, if the impossible was eliminated, what remained, however improbable, was bound to be the answer. Or words to that effect.'

‘If that is so, Greg had better arrest me at once!' retorted Em with spirit. ‘Of course I
could
have done it! I was here, wasn't I? In fact I was the only person who
was
here. Eden was in Nairobi, and as far as I know no one else called at
Flamingo
that evening. However, I assure you that I did not do it. And now perhaps we can terminate this unpleasant interview. Unless of course there are any more questions that Greg wishes to ask?'

‘A few,' said Greg placidly. ‘These queer incidents in the house – the breakages. Can you remember exactly when they started?'

Em wrinkled her brow in thought and after a moment or two said slowly: ‘Let me see – the first thing was the K'ang Hsi vase. We found it on the floor in bits when we came back from a luncheon party. And there was red ink all over the carpet.'

‘The Langley's party,' said Eden. ‘Eleventh of last month.'

Greg jotted down the date and said: ‘When was the next time?'

‘Only a few days later,' said Em. ‘It must have been a Saturday, because that's the day I give out the
posho,
and I'd just finished doing it when Zacharia came to say that something else had been broken. Mother's Rockingham plates.'

‘Fourteenth,' said Greg, who had been checking the dates in a pocket diary. ‘I gather you had a good many incidents of this kind. Any sort of pattern?'

‘No. After that it was almost every day. Then nothing for several days, and we thought it had stopped, and then it started again. It – it began to get on my nerves.'

Greg said: ‘You ought to have reported it to the police at once.'

‘I know that – now. But at the time I— Well, you know quite well why I didn't, Greg! I won't have my servants taken away and held for questioning or jailed on suspicion. They couldn't all have been in it, and why should the rest suffer because one man had got some queer, twisted African idea into his head, and imagined himself to be paying off a grudge? I thought it would work itself out. If I'd realized——'

Em's voice failed, and Greg said: ‘When did you decide to send for Miss Caryll? Before all this started? Or afterwards?'

‘Afterwards. I think – I think on the day the record of the concerto was broken. That – upset me. I found that I couldn't concentrate any more on the things I usually did myself. And Alice was frightened. I felt I must have someone to help me, and I thought of Victoria.'

Greg turned an enquiring look on Victoria and she answered the unspoken question. ‘Aunt Em's letter arrived about three weeks ago. It gave me just time to have all the inoculations and things done, and that was all.'

Mr Gilbert nodded absently and turned back to Lady Emily. ‘Just one more question. After your dog was poisoned, were there any more acts of vandalism in the house?'

‘No.' Em's voice was a hoarse whisper, and Eden spoke harshly, his back still to the room: ‘Gilly was right: that was one step further and we ought to have realized it. It started with something quite trivial, and finished with – Alice.'

‘If it has finished,' said Greg soberly.

Eden spun round. ‘Why do you say that?'

Greg shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘It has been fairly conclusively proved that someone who kills once, and gets away with it, will kill again. Either to cover the first killing, or because the snuffing out of a human life is like taking to drugs. Terrifying, but stimulating. That's why the initiation rites of any secret society of the Mau Mau description include a murder. Because it's only the first killing that is difficult. After that it becomes progressively easier and breeds a callousness towards human life and a frightening megalomania. There's no reason to suppose that your wife's death will put a stop to whatever ugly business has been going on here, and that is why we have got to find the murderer if we have to screen every African – and every European! – in the Rift. Which reminds me, Em, did the Brandons bring a driver with them when they came over here on Tuesday morning?'

‘Yes. But Samuel has been with them for over twenty years. He would never——'

She was not allowed to finish. ‘Why is it,' demanded Mr Gilbert bitterly, ‘that none of you, in spite of all you have been through, can be brought to believe that a faithful servant can also be someone who has taken a binding oath to rid the country of all whites?'

He slammed his notebook shut, returned it to his pocket, and rose with a sigh. ‘Well I think that's about all for the moment, though I'm afraid we're going to have to interview all your servants and the labour again tomorrow, Em. But Bill Hennessy will be dealing with that. Be gentle with him, won't you? He tells me that ever since you took a stick to him when you caught him playing toreadors in the bull paddock at the ripe age of ten, he's been scared stiff of you.'

‘I wish I could believe that,' said Em bleakly. ‘But I don't suppose that there is any more truth in it than in your inference that we ourselves shall not be called upon to endure any more of these inquisitions.'

There was the faintest possible suggestion of appeal in her voice, but Mr Gilbert disregarded it. He said: ‘Until we find out who killed Mrs DeBrett, I'm afraid we shall have to go on asking questions. And I cannot believe that any of you would have it otherwise.'

He collected his hat, nodded amiably at them, and left.

7

Em leaned forward in her chair listening to the sound of his retreating footsteps, and a minute later, hearing a car start up and purr away down the dusty drive, she sighed gustily and relaxed.

‘Thank heaven for that! I was afraid his driver would not have arrived and that he would fill in the next half-hour upsetting the servants. I am too old for this sort of thing.'

She turned to look at the French ormolu clock that stood on a lacquer cabinet at the far side of the room, and said: ‘Four o'clock already! I suppose we had luncheon very late. Will you take tea with us, Drew?'

Mr Stratton declined the invitation, saying that he must get back, and Em heaved herself up out of her chair and accompanied him to the verandah, Victoria and Eden following.

There was someone on the path beyond the jacaranda trees, walking at a pace that suggested urgency, and Eden shaded his eyes with his hand and after a brief inspection announced with a trace of annoyance: ‘It's Lisa. What do you suppose she wants?'

‘You, I imagine,' said Em with some acerbity. ‘Go and head her off, Eden. I don't want to see anyone else today. All I want is tea and peace!'

She turned to Drew with some query relating to a rumoured outbreak of swine fever on a neighbouring estate, and Eden went quickly down the verandah steps, and along the narrow path that led across the garden in the direction of the plumbago hedge and the manager's bungalow.

Victoria saw the woman break into a little run as he approached her, and reaching him, clutch at his coat sleeve. They were too far away for their voices to be audible above Em's plangent strictures on the inefficiency of quarantine precautions, but even from this distance it was possible to see from the woman's gestures and the very movement of her head that she was either excited or upset.

Victoria saw Eden throw a quick look over his shoulder in the direction of the house, and it seemed to her that his face was oddly colourless against the tree shadows. The woman tugged at his sleeve as though she were urging him to walk away with her, and Victoria caught the high-pitched urgency of her voice, pleading or arguing. Then suddenly Eden grasped her arm, and turning about came quickly back to the house, dragging her with him.

Em, immersed in farming shop, was not aware of them until they reached the foot of the verandah steps, and hearing the click of high heels on stone and the jingle of Mrs Markham's charm bracelets, she turned with a look of undisguised impatience.

‘Well, Lisa? What is it?'

But it was Eden, and not Mrs Markham who replied. There was a white shade about his mouth and his voice was not quite steady:

‘Lisa's got something to say that I think you should hear at once. She——'

Em threw up a hand in an imperious gesture and checked him. Her shrewd old eyes went from one face to the other, and then to the silent figures of Zacharia and a house-boy who were laying afternoon tea in a corner of the verandah. She said coldly: ‘If it is important – and I take it that it is? – then we had better go back into the drawing-room. Goodbye, Drew. Thank you for collecting my niece. It was kind of you. I'll send Eden over tomorrow to look at those calves.'

She nodded at him and turned away, and Victoria said a little stiffly: ‘Goodbye, Mr Stratton. Thank you for all your trouble.'

‘It wasn't any trouble,' said Drew shortly. ‘I happened to be in Nairobi and this was on my way back.'

He went away down the steps to his car, leaving Victoria, who possessed a healthy temper of her own, with an itching palm and an unmaidenly desire to box his ears.

Em was speaking peremptorily to her grandson:

‘My dear Eden, if this is something that concerns us, it must also concern Victoria, since she is now one of the household. By the way, Lisa, you will not have met my niece, Miss Caryll. Victoria, this is Mrs Markham——'

Victoria shook hands and found herself looking into a pair of large violet eyes, expertly enhanced with pencil and mascara and as unmistakably hostile as Drew Stratton's had been. And then Em said: ‘Lend me your arm, dear,' and led the way to the drawing-room with a firm step. But her weight pressed heavily upon Victoria's arm as though she really needed that support, and her bulky body was trembling with fatigue.

She lowered herself into the wing-chair once more, and Eden said: ‘Look, Gran, Lisa didn't want to worry you with this, but it seems to me that it's something you should know. She says——'

His grandmother turned a quelling eye upon him and said firmly: ‘Let her speak for herself, please. Well, Lisa?'

Lisa flumped down sulkily on to the window seat and rubbed resentfully at the marks that Eden's ungentle grip had left on her bare arm. ‘I only thought that Eden ought to know, and then he could decide what to do about it. I wasn't going to tell anyone else. Not even Gilly! Though of course everyone's bound to know sooner or later, as Wambui's sure to tell someone else, and once the servants know it – well, you know how they can never keep anything to themselves.'

Em gave a short bark of laughter. ‘How little you know this country, Lisa. They may not be able to keep a secret from their own people, but they can always keep it from us. Make no mistake about that! What is it that you have to tell me? If it is just some servant's gossip, you may be fairly sure that it is unimportant.'

‘It wasn't gossip,' said Lisa angrily. ‘It was serious.' There was a sudden flash of spite in her violet eyes: ‘
Very
serious! That's why I thought I ought to discuss it with Eden first. But if he prefers it this way, it's his own look out. It was Wambui, if you want to know. My
ndito.
She's been behaving very oddly the last day or two. Dropping things and forgetting things, and jumping as if she's been stung if anyone made a sudden noise. So this afternoon I tackled her about it, and it all came out. She's in a state about Kamau.'

‘You mean
my
Kamau?' demanded Em.

‘Yes. It seems he's been courting her, and they've been meeting every night in the bushes on the far side of the knoll.'

Em stiffened where she sat, and her expression was no longer one of bored patience. She said sharply and a little breathlessly: ‘You mean they saw something? Is that it? They know who did it?'

Lisa shook her head. ‘I don't know. You see Wambui couldn't get away on Tuesday evening, but it seems that Kamau waited for her for quite a time, and now he's hinting to her that he knows something about – Alice's murder.'

There was a sudden silence in the room, and in it Victoria heard a soft sound that was something like the click of a latch and seemed to come from the direction of the door that led out of the drawing-room into the hall. But the next moment her attention was distracted, for Em was speaking again:

‘But the police questioned all the servants!' said Em. ‘They've seen them half a dozen times already. Surely they would have told us if they'd got any information out of them? Why, Greg Gilbert has been here half the afternoon.'

‘Wambui says Kamau told the police that he didn't know anything.'

Em made an angry, impatient gesture. ‘Then I don't suppose he does. He's probably only showing off for Wambui's benefit.'

‘But we know there was someone in the bushes that night,' insisted Eden. ‘Why couldn't it have been Kamau? In fact why couldn't Kamau have been the poltergeist? – and the murderer, for that matter!'

‘Don't talk nonsense, Eden,' said Em crossly. ‘Kamau's father was one of your grandfather's first servants, and Zacharia is his uncle. He would no more harm me than – than Zacharia would! And you seem to forget that he was the one who killed Gitahi. If
that
isn't proof of loyalty, I'd like to know what is!'

‘Oh, all right – all right. I know it's useless to try and persuade you that any of your darling Kukes might be anything but a hundred per cent loyal. But what about the man in the bushes? It squares with that, you know.
Someone
was there!'

‘If it was Kamau, it is proof that he was not Alice's murderer,' said Em stiff with anger. ‘Whoever was there had not approached the body. You know that quite well.'