5.

By the time Justin Tolliver had changed his clothes, he was called back to the police station. An Indian storekeeper was being held hostage at knifepoint by his brother-in-law over a business dispute. Tolliver much preferred a Hindu with a cutlass to facing the D.C. But soon the welcome distraction was settled and the brother-in-law disarmed and locked up until he cooled off. Evening had descended, in that sudden way it did in Africa. Tolliver knew he could no longer avoid reporting to Cranford, and he knew exactly where to find him at this hour.

As soon as Tolliver entered the Nairobi Club, he found the district commissioner descending the broad central stairway.

He approached. “Sir?”

“My boy! What have you found out about that hideous business of Pennyman?”

“I wonder, sir, if I might have a private word.”

“Certainly. What are you drinking?”

“Gin and quinine water, please, sir.”

“Always good to take your quinine.” Cranford led Tolliver through the airy gentlemen’s bar and stopped to order drinks from Arjan, the red-turbaned majordomo.

He took Tolliver into the small, dark-paneled library, which was blessedly empty. They drew leather armchairs into a pool of light under a standing hurricane lamp. It had a leather shade on which the big five game animals had been drawn in black. Other lamps were lighted in the corners.

Cranford took out a pipe and silver pipe tool and began his ritual of reaming out the bowl. “Tell me then, do we know which bloody savage robbed the good doctor of his young life?” He dumped the contents of the pipe bowl into a marble ashtray on the square mahogany table between their chairs. “I’ll see him swing.” He rapped the pipe on the tray with a sharp tap as if it were the gavel of a judge pronouncing the death sentence.

“Well, District Commissioner, I don’t think this will be the open-and-shut case we wish it were. The circumstances don’t lend themselves to an immediate conclusion.”

Cranford paused to fill his pipe from his tobacco pouch. “We must have a quick conclusion. We can’t ruin the reputation of the whole country by allowing people to believe that an important European doctor can be slaughtered with impunity. Find the native who owns the spear and let’s get on with it, man.”

A tall, slender servant in a white robe, brown brocade vest, and red fez entered. Tolliver and Cranford waited in silence while he drew a wide leather hassock in front of them and set the drinks tray on it.

Tolliver took up his glass but did not drink. “You see, sir, the natives thereabouts around the mission are Kikuyu, but the doctor was killed with a Maasai spear. The only native in the area who had a motive to kill Dr. Pennyman is a Kikuyu witch doctor. There is considerable doubt that he would have used a Maasai weapon to do the deed.”

The D.C. lit and puffed on his pipe. Fragrant blue-gray smoke swirled around his head. It matched the color of his hair and of his eyes, which at this second were wide with disbelief. “Why ever not?”

Tolliver sat forward with his forearms on his knees, holding the cut crystal tumbler in both hands. “It seems his motive for the killing would have been a matter of honor. Evidently, he would never use the weapon of an enemy tribe to defend his honor.”

“Poppycock! I know full well that a lot of those settlers down there in the Kikuyu territory ignore that tribe’s faults. They say they are scoundrels only on surface, that deep down they are one solid mass of virtues. I disagree, completely. If you told me that story about a Maasai, I might be inclined to accept it. Your Maasai are a violent bunch of beggars, but they are courageous and straightforward. But except for their fecundity and a certain amount of intelligence, the Kikuyu are a blight on our society. They lie, they steal, they poison, they conspire, they are intensely lazy and callously cruel.” He picked up his glass, drained the inch or so of whiskey in the bottom, and poured himself another from the decanter on the tray. He sat back and sighed. “No. Your murderer is the Kikuyu mumbo-jumbo man. You can be sure of it.”

Tolliver kept his head down to hide his dismay. In a way, he tended to agree with Cranford that swift justice in such a case as this would be best. Local savages mustn’t be allowed to harm subjects of the crown with impunity, but faulty justice was no way to truly civilize the African people. “Certainly, your conclusions are likely to be justified, sir, but hadn’t we better prove we have the right man to show the natives the fairness of His Majesty’s government?”

Cranford did not hide his annoyance. “Curse it, Tolliver, who else could have done such a dastardly deed but some barbarian with vengeance on his mind?” He looked into his empty glass as if he wanted another refill, but he did not take one.

Tolliver steeled himself for the outburst his next revelation was likely to provoke. “There is another possibility, as it happens, sir, and if we are to be completely thorough we must consider it.” Tolliver took a deep breath and finished off his drink.

“Out with it, man.”

“Pennyman, it seems, was having an affair with Lucy Buxton. Perhaps—”

“Now, just wait a minute.”

Tolliver did just that, though the intervening silence made him want to say something, anything.

“You have heard of Pandora’s box.”

“Yes, sir, I have, but I—”

“She is a beauty, that Lucy Buxton.”

“Yes, sir, she is, and very, very sad at the moment.”

“You saw her out there?” Cranford looked into the bowl of his pipe, which had gone out.

“No, sir. I stopped by Buxton’s office for a moment when I came back to town, just to get an inkling of where he stood on this.”

“And?”

“Mrs. Buxton came in, and they had a row.”

Cranford sucked on his pipe, and looked into the bowl again. He tapped out the dead ashes and put the pipe in the breast pocket of his jacket. He looked disappointedly into his empty glass and rose. “Have it your way if you must, but do it with the least amount of noise and trouble. Eliminate that business as quietly and quickly as you can and get the native bugger into custody. The sooner we hang him for this, the less damage it will do.”

“Yes, sir,” Tolliver said with less enthusiasm than the D.C.’s exalted rank warranted.

Passing through the lobby of the club on his way to his quarters, Tolliver was dismayed to be accosted by Lucy Buxton, herself, tipsy and teary.

“I have to talk to you,” she said. Before he could say a word in response, she drew him into the deserted tearoom, lit only by one lamp that sat on a table near the door. She threw her arms around him and started to weep openly.

He tried to pry her from around his neck. “Mrs. Buxton, please, may I get you some water? A coffee?”

She held on so tightly that he was sure he would hurt her if he tried to drag her off him. “You saw my husband, what a plain old fat man he has become? He was beautiful when we met. He’s Irish, you know. He was handsome in that way that only Irish men can be.”

She threw her head back and looked up at him. He had his hands on her forearms. Her eyes were bright, the shade of blue he saw in his own mirror when he shaved. “Let us try to find you a coffee, Mrs. Buxton.”

“You are not Irish, are you?”

“No.”

“You are beautiful, though. You are very beautiful.” She lifted her knee and rubbed it up the inside of his thigh.

He tightened his grip on her forearms.

At that moment, D.C. Cranford and Lord Delamere came to the darkened doorway. “Why in God’s name are you doing that in here?” Delamere demanded.

“Tolliver,” Cranford said with a smirk. “I will ask you to be in my office at eight in the morning. We will speak before we go to that confounded funeral.”