Mark of the Lion (24 page)

Pili bowed again in acknowledgment of this implied compliment to himself. “It is no problem for me, Bwana Colridge, but who will watch over you while I am gone?”

Colridge “pish toshed” any need for extensive care as the doctor allowed he could walk with a cane for short distances. As to dressing himself or serving his meals, there were other house servants. In the end, there was little the young man could do but acquiesce. Madeline promised that Neville would come round and lend a hand later next week, and they took their leave. Outside, Jade spoke further with Pili.

“I don’t need a personal servant, Pili. I’m more interested in your expertise with African game. As far as I’m concerned, you’re an equal partner in the expedition.”

Jade watched his face closely for any signs of disgust, respect, fear, uncertainty, or plain and simple tolerance but found few clues. His wide-set hazel eyes never betrayed any symptom of emotion. At least, not until Madeline asked one last question, where to find the privy.

Pili began to point the way, hesitated, and blushed. “Memsahib must wait outside first. I must correct something before you may enter. It would not be proper.”

Jade and Madeline followed him. “Now what do you suppose the old coot keeps in there that wouldn’t be appropriate?” Jade asked. “French postcards?”

“Well, he is a widower,” answered Madeline, “and maybe, if half those tales are true …” Just then Pili emerged from the privy with a huge coiled gray snake in his arms.

Madeline screamed, and Jade stifled a shout.
Something’s queer about all this,
she thought. No one would keep a poisonous mamba in the privy, and even if they did, no one would be able to tote it around like that. She looked more closely. “The blasted thing is stuffed!” she shouted.

Pili put the mounted specimen in a shed and closed the door. Then he turned back to Jade with a grin on his well-chiseled face. “Yes, memsahib, it is stuffed. Bwana Colridge likes to play jokes on people. He enjoys watching them run screaming from the privy, but it would not be proper for Mrs. Memsahib to do so. Especially,” he added with a bow to Madeline, “for the friend of the lady who killed the witch’s hyena.” Madeline excused herself.

“Pili, do
you
believe the hyena was controlled by a witch?” asked Jade.

“Memsahib, I believe it was controlled by a very bad person. I do not know how. But I have seen men with dogs trained to fight. So I ask myself, why not a hyena?”

Jade nodded. “Why not, indeed. Have you heard any of the men speak about this
laibon
? Do any of them know who it is? Because I think he needs to be punished.”

Pili shook his head. “The Kikuyu men do not speak freely in front of me either for fear that the witch will overhear or for fear that I am the witch.”

“You? The witch?” Jade found that hard to believe. “I thought the
laibon
was a Maasai or from one of those related tribes.”

“Do you believe in him, memsahib?” asked Pili.

“Please, call me Jade, and I’m not sure. Like you, I’m inclined to think someone wicked has trained a hyena to frighten others. I admit I have a very hard time believing in actual sorcery.”

Just then, Colridge bellowed from within and Pili grinned. “The old bull stirs, and I must attend.” He hastened inside.

Jade waited for Madeline by the ponies. She took out her pocketknife, picked some gravel from their hooves, and thought about Pili’s idea of a trained hyena. It was interesting to compare it to an attack dog; she had even said as much herself before. But from the recesses of her mind she recalled stories of Navajo skin walkers who reportedly turned into wolves. Her father had told her those tales and other ghost stories around the campfire when she was an impressionable child. Now she no longer believed someone could shape-shift, but it was curious that such a wide variety of cultures held on to stories of witches and animal familiars. If someone could train a hyena, could he control other beasts? She wondered if those lion encounters were not just accidental meetings, but animals trained to her scent intent on killing her!

As she pocketed her knife, a Kikuyu man ran to her. “Memsabu Simba Jike,” he called, “the jackal who harmed Bwana Pua Nywele, it was a
laibon
’s jackal.”

“Did you see markings on it?” asked Jade.

The man shook his head. “No, memsabu, but why else would a night animal attack during the day? The
laibon
is angry with the bwana. You must stop him.” Before Jade could respond, the man ran back to the fields.

Madeline returned. That was when the breeze picked up, and Jade noticed a rank smell. She looked around and spied a vulture landing a few hundred yards away in the citrus orchard.

“Maddy, let’s go see what’s causing that smell.” They remounted their ponies.

Madeline grimaced but followed Jade towards the trees. The smell of rotting meat became stronger, and Jade wondered if one of Colridge’s goats had gotten loose and died here. Suddenly she reined in her pony and held up a hand, warning Madeline to stop.

“Stay there, Maddy.” Jade took her rifle from its saddle bag, slid off her mount, and listened for the sound of a predator hiding in the other grove. Nothing but the sound of a vulture scrambling about. She sidestepped lightly around another tree and stopped abruptly. Madeline, who had followed her anyway, gasped. The vulture hopped away into the open and took off.

Buzzing flies covered an elongated form in a seething mass before them. Jade kicked the swarm, and the flies lifted momentarily, bringing a fresh stench up with them. “Sweet heaven,” she murmured and picked up a torn, bloody shoe. A rotting foot fell out at her feet and hit the rock with a sodden thud. “I think we just found the remains of Godfrey Kenton.”

Madeline promptly disposed of her lunch behind the nearest tree.

 

Jade stood next to her car and watched the native
askari
put another body part into a wooden box. So far they’d found his head, both arms, and most of the torso in addition to the booted foot. Scavengers had disposed of the rest. After discovering the corpse, Jade had informed Colridge, then ridden with Maddy back to her farm. There, Jade had left the horse behind and taken her car into town to fetch the commissioner.

“We’ve combed the area, Miss del Cameron,” said the commissioner “and there’s no sign of a weapon, no spent cartridge, no knife. Of course, the doctor will have a look at the, er, remains, but all the marks appear to be made by teeth. No question in my mind, he’s a victim of an animal attack.”

Jade was less than impressed. She scowled. “How did he get out here? Where’s his car?”

“What do you mean?” asked the commissioner. His voice indicated he didn’t care to be questioned by this American female.

“I heard Kenton tell his wife that the Woodards would drive her home, so presumably he wanted his car for himself. Where is it?” The commissioner frowned and rubbed his chin. When he didn’t speak, Jade continued. “His wife said he had a business meeting. I heard him tell her that, too. Who was he meeting? Where are they?”

“Miss del Cameron,” said the commissioner with a patronizing smile. “You’re a young lady, inexperienced perhaps in the ways of the world. Mr. Kenton was well known to be a ladies’ man. It is highly likely that he had
business
of a different sort, an assignation, if you will.”

“He was a rounder and cheating on his wife,” said Jade bluntly.

“Exactly. And if this was a married woman he was meeting, she wouldn’t want her husband to know.”

“This doesn’t look like the place to have an affair,” Jade said, pointing to the orchard.

“It’s rather obvious he was attacked on his way home,” retorted the commissioner.

“Which brings me back to the fact that we haven’t found his car abandoned nearby.” Jade’s voice rose with increasing impatience. “His Lordship said he heard no car.”

“His Lordship,” countered the commissioner, “was probably sound asleep. Besides, wild predators frequently drag their kill back to a lair. His car could be a mile away.”

One of the
askaris
brought a bundle of bloodied and torn clothing to them. “These are the victim’s clothes not associated with his body, Commissioner.” Jade recognized the silken scarf among the scraps.

“Put it in a sack and then add it to the body box,” ordered the commissioner.

Jade held up her hand. “Kenton wore a diamond stickpin on that scarf,” she said. “You might look for it. His wife would surely want it back.”

The commissioner sighed with evident impatience. “Miss del Cameron, I have your statement and His Lordship’s. There is no further need for you to be here.”

Jade recognized the suggestion as a curt dismissal. She plopped onto the running board and sat there a moment, thinking. Pili came from the house and joined her.

“Do you need help, miss, with cranking the car?”

Jade shook her head. “No, thank you, Pili. I’ve done it many times. I suppose the commissioner talked to you, too?”

Pili nodded. “I was in attendance on Bwana Colridge all evening.”

“And you heard nothing, either?” she asked. Pili shook his head.

Jade thought aloud. “The body parts were scattered, but small scavengers would do that. There were a lot of remains, too. More than I’d expect if a big predator killed Kenton for food.”

“So you do not think it was a predator, miss?”

Jade shrugged. “The rip on the throat certainly looked like a killing bite. I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t know enough about African predators to make a fair conclusion.” She sighed and rose. “We’re scheduled for a safari in a few days. Maybe I’ll learn something about them there that will help me make more sense of this.” And, she thought, more sense of what happened to Gil.

BEVERLY ARRIVES TODAY WITH AVERY.
JADE hopped into the Ford and drove into Nairobi. Her mellow contralto voice broke into song as she neared the station.

“It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go …”
To hell with witches and hyenas.
For the first time since the war began, she felt truly excited and happy. She was a child on Christmas Eve, and Beverly’s friendship, complete with all its brusque, open mannerisms, was her gift. “Good-bye, Piccadilly, farewell, Leicester Square, it’s a long, long way to Tipperary and my heart lies there.” She pulled in at the railway station and waited for the train to arrive.

While she waited, Jade studied the people on the platform with a writer and photographer’s eye. The same cluster of African women she’d seen when she first arrived still hugged the same section of the platform and hawked their chickens and fruits. Jade took her Graflex out of a canvas shoulder bag, inserted a film sheet, and waited. She caught the dangling, squawking chicken just as it targeted a succulent papaya and lunged for it.

Rickshaw boys arrived with their carts and jockeyed for position. A small troop of King’s African Rifles dressed in khaki shorts, shirts, and fez hats lined up smartly to receive some expected dignitary. Various Happy Valleyites strolled about arm in arm and discussed the prospects of a good cricket match later. Jade had just finished photographing them with a handsome Maasai in the foreground when she heard the whistle blast from down the track.

The small locomotive with its unique front bench seat hissed into the station. Lord and Lady Dunbury sat like royalty in the open air on the bench dressed in unpretentious bush clothing, including a split skirt for Beverly. Both were nearly free of the ubiquitous red dust that assailed everyone in the cars behind them. Beverly spotted Jade and waved furiously.

“Darling, here we are.” Her husband, afraid she would leap from the bench in front of the still-moving locomotive, took a firm grip on her arm when she tried to rise. “Avery, please let go of me,” scolded Beverly. “I want to see Jade.”

“Yes, and I daresay she would like to see you, too, but in one piece and not mangled under the engine.” Beverly sat down again until the train stopped, then leaped off, ran to Jade, and hugged her.

“Jade, darling, you look wonderful.” She pulled back and held her nose. “But you smell a trifle ripe. I hope that isn’t a new cologne you’re wearing.”

Jade removed her hat and held it out for Beverly to see and sniff. “No. It’s a magic potion. It keeps witches away.”

“Oh?” said Avery as he strolled up. He kissed Jade on the cheek. “Perhaps we should get some, Beverly. Maybe it will keep your sister, Emily, away.”

“Avery, dear,” said Beverly with a rippling laugh. “She said it keeps
witches
away. You are confusing
witch
with another, very similar word. Emily is a b—”