Riotous Assembly (14 page)

While the case against Jonathan Hazelstone was being prepared, Kommandant van Heerden
wrestled with the problem posed by the continuing disappearance of the prisoner’s
sister. In spite of the most intensive manhunt Miss Hazelstone continued to elude the
police. Kommandant van Heerden increased the reward offered but still no information
worth the telling was telephoned into the Piemburg police station. The only
consolation the Kommandant could find was that Miss Hazelstone had not added to his
problems by communicating with her lawyer or with newspapers outside his province.

“She’s a cunning old devil,” he told Luitenant Verkramp, and was alarmed to note in
himself a return of the admiration he had previously felt for her.

“I wouldn’t worry about the old bag, she’ll probably turn up at the trial,” Verkramp
answered optimistically. His fall had not, the Kommandant noted, deprived the
Luitenant of his capacity to say things calculated to upset his commanding
officer.

“If you’re so bloody clever, where do you suggest we start looking for her?” the
Kommandant growled.

“Probably sitting in Jacaranda House laughing to herself,” and Verkramp took himself
off to compile a list of black cooks known to favour Chicken Maryland.

“Sarcastic bastard,” muttered the Kommandant. “One of these days somebody will fix
him properly.”

It was in fact Konstabel Els whose initiative led to the capture of Miss Hazelstone.
Ever since his battle with the Dobermann, Els had been regretting his decision to leave
the body lying on the lawn of Jacaranda House.

“I should have had it stuffed. It would look nice in the hall,” he said to the Kommandant
during an idle moment.

“I should have thought it had been stuffed enough already,” the Kommandant had replied.
“Besides, whoever heard of having a dog stuffed.”

“There are lots of stuffed lions and wart-hogs and things in the hall of Jacaranda House.
Why shouldn’t I have a stuffed dog in my hall?”

“You’re getting ideas above your station,” the Kommandant said. Els had gone off to ask
the warder in Bottom about getting dogs stuffed. The old man seemed to know about things like
that.

“You want to take it to a taxidermist,” the warder told him. “There’s one in the museum
but I’d ask for a quote first. Stuffing’s a costly business.”

“I don’t mind spending a bit of money on it,” Els said and together they went to ask the
Bishop about the dog.

“I believe it had a pedigree,” the Bishop told them.

“What’s a pedigree?” Els asked.

“A family tree,” said the Bishop, wondering if killing the dog was going to be added to
the list of crimes he was supposed to have committed.

“Fussy sort of dog, having a family tree,” Els said to the warder. “You’d think it would
pee against lamp-posts like any other dogs.”

“Spoilt if you ask me,” said the warder. “Sounds more like a lapdog than a real
Dobermann. I’m not surprised you could kill it so easily. Probably died of fright.”

“It bloody well didn’t. It fought like mad. Fiercest dog I ever saw,” said Els,
annoyed.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said the warder and Els had promptly made up his mind to
fetch the Dobermann to get rid of the slur on his honour.

“Permission to visit Jacaranda House,” he said to the Kommandant, later that day.

“Permission to do what?” the Kommandant asked incredulously.

“To go up to Jacaranda House. I want to get that dog’s body.”

“You must be out of your mind, Els,” said the Kommandant. “I should have thought you’d had
enough of that bloody place by now.”

“It’s not a bad place,” said Els whose own memories of the Park were quite different from
those of the Kommandant.

“It’s a bloody awful place, and you’ve done enough harm up there already,” said the
Kommandant. “You keep your nose out of it, do you hear me?” and Els had vented his anger by
bullying some black convicts in the prison yard.

That evening Kommandant van Heerden decided to make a spot check on the road blocks
around Piemburg. He was beginning to suspect that his enforced absence from the outside
world was having a bad effect on the morale of his men, and since he thought it improbable
that Miss Hazelstone would be out and about at eleven o’clock at night, and wouldn’t be able
to see him in the police car if she were, he decided to make his rounds when it seemed most
likely his men would be asleep on the job.

“Drive slowly,” he told Els when he was seated in the back of the car. “I just want to
have a look around.” For an hour men on duty at street corners and at the road blocks were
harassed by van Heerden’s questions.

“How do you know she didn’t come through here disguised as a coon?” he asked the sergeant
on duty on the Vlockfontein road who had been complaining about the numbers of cars he had
had to search.

“We’ve checked them all, sir,” said the sergeant.

“Checked them? How have you checked them?”

“We give them the skin test, sir.”

“The skin test? Never heard of it.”

“We use a bit of sandpaper, sir. Rub their skin with it and if the black comes off they’re
white. If it doesn’t they’re not.”

Kommandant van Heerden was impressed. “Shows initiative, Sergeant,” he said and they
drove on.

It was shortly after this and as they were driving up Town Hill to inspect the road
block there that Konstabel Els noticed that the Kommandant had fallen asleep.

“It’s only the old man making his rounds,” Els told the Konstabel on duty, and was
about to turn round and return to the prison when he realized that they were quite close to
Jacaranda Park. He looked over his shoulder and regarded the sleeping figure in the back
of the car.

“Permission to go up to Jacaranda House, sir,” he said softly. In the back the
Kommandant was snoring loudly. “Thank you, sir.” said Els with a smile and the car moved
off past the road block and up the hill to Jacaranda House. On either side of the road the
headlights illuminated the billboards which stood like advertisements for macabre
holiday resorts: Bubonic Plague, some sinister beach and Rabies, a game reserve.
Unaware of his destination, Kommandant van Heerden slept noisily in the back as the car
passed through the gate of Jacaranda House, and with a crunch of tyres on gravel, moved
slowly down the long drive.-

Els parked the car in front of the house and stepped quietly out into the night to
collect his trophy. It was dark and clouds obscured the moon, and he had some difficulty
finding the Dobermann’s corpse.

“That’s funny,” he said to himself, as he searched the lawn. “I could have sworn I left
the bugger here,” and continued to look for the beast.

In the back of the car Kommandant van Heerden snored more loudly than ever. He slipped
sideways across the seat and bumped his head on the window. The next moment he was wide
awake and staring out into the darkness.

“Els,” he said loudly, “what have you stopped for and why are the headlights off?” From
the driver’s seat there came no comforting reply and as Kommandant van Heerden sat
terrified in the back of the car and wondered where the hell Els had got to, the cloud
slipped gently from the moon, and the Kommandant saw before him the front door of
Jacaranda House. With a whimper the Kommandant crouched down in the cushions and cursed
his own foolishness for leaving the prison. Above him the facade of the great house loomed
threateningly, its unlighted windows dark with menace. Moaning with terror, the
Kommandant opened the door and stepped on to the forecourt. A moment later he was in the
driver’s seat and searching for the keys. They had gone.

“I might have known the swine would do something like this,” the Kommandant gibbered and
promising himself that more than the Dobermann would get himself stuffed, waited for Els
to return. As the minutes passed and Els continued his search for the elusive Toby, the
Kommandant’s terror grew.

“I can’t sit here all night,” he thought. “I’ll have to go and find him,” and he climbed out
and moving stealthily stole into the garden. Around him bushes assumed strange and
terrifying shapes and the moon which had proved so illuminating but a few minutes
before discovered a convenient cloud to hide behind. In the darkness and not daring to
shout, Kommandant van Heerden stumbled on a flowerbed and fell flat on his face. “Dog
roses,” he thought bitterly, clutching his face and as he clambered to his feet,
Kommandant van Heerden’s ears and eyes caught sight and sound of two things that sent his
heart racing in his breast. The car’s engine had started on the forecourt. Els had found
the Dobermann and was departing. As the car’s headlights swung round floodlighting the
front of Jacaranda House, the Kommandant stood rigid in the flowerbed staring into the
night sky at something far more sinister than the house itself. A faint plume of smoke was
issuing slowly but steadily from one of the chimneys of the deserted mansion.
Kommandant van Heerden was not alone.

Clutching his heart, the Kommandant fell back among the roses and passed out. When he
came round from what he chose to call his first heart attack, it was to hear a voice he had
hoped never to hear again.

“Nights of wine and roses, Kommandant?” it inquired, and as the Kommandant stared up
he saw outlined against the drifting clouds the elegant figure of Miss Hazelstone. She was
dressed as he had seen her first, and not, he thanked heaven, in the dreadful salmon-pink
suit.

“You’re not going to lie there all night, I hope,” Miss Hazelstone continued. “Come
into the house and I’ll make you some coffee.”

“Don’t want any coffee,” the Kommandant mumbled, disengaging himself from the rose
bushes.

“You may not want it, but that’s what you obviously need to sober you up. I’m not having
drunken policemen stumbling about my garden ruining the flowerbeds at this time of
night,” and bowing to that authority he could never resist, Kommandant van Heerden
found himself once more in the drawing-room of Jacaranda House. The room was in darkness
except for the lamp on a film projector which stood on a small table.

“I was just running through some old films I took, before I burn them,” Miss Hazelstone
said, and the Kommandant understood the faint plume of smoke he had seen issuing from the
chimney. “I shan’t be able to see them in prison, and besides I think it’s better to forget
the past, don’t you, Kommandant?”

The Kommandant had to agree. The past was something he would have paid a fortune to
forget. Unfortunately, it was all too present in his mind’s eye. Trapped between his own
terror and a sense of deference made all the more persuasive by the erratic beating of
his heart, the Kommandant allowed himself to be seated in a low chair from which he
expected never to rise, while Miss Hazelstone turned on a reading lamp.

“There’s some coffee left over from supper,” Miss Hazelstone said. “I’ll have to heat it
up, I’m afraid. In the normal way I would have some fresh made, but I’m rather short of home
help at the moment.”

“I don’t need any coffee,” the Kommandant said, and regretted his words
immediately. He might have had a chance to escape if Miss Hazelstone had gone to the
kitchen. Instead she looked at him doubtfully and sat down opposite him in the
wing-backed armchair.

“Just as you like,” she said. “You don’t look unusually drunk. Just rather pale.”

“I’m not drunk. It’s my heart,” said the Kommandant.

“In that case, coffee is the worst thing for you. It’s a stimulant, you know. You should
try to avoid any form of stimulation.”

“I know that,” said the Kommandant.

There was a pause, broken finally by Miss Hazelstone.

“I suppose you’ve finally come to arrest me,” she said. The Kommandant couldn’t think
of anything he would like to do more, but he didn’t seem to have the energy. Mesmerized by
the house and the air of gentle melancholy he found so fascinating in the old woman, he
sat in his chair listening to his palpitations.

“I suppose Jonathan has confessed already,” Miss Hazelstone said by way of polite
conversation. The Kommandant nodded.

“Such a waste,” Miss Hazelstone continued. “The poor boy suffers from such a sense of
guilt. I can’t imagine why. I suspect it’s because he had such a blameless childhood.
Guilt is so often a substitute for good honest-to-goodness evil. You must find that in
your profession, Kommandant.”

In his profession, the Kommandant had to agree it very often was, but he couldn’t see
the relevance in the case of a man who had several prison sentences behind him. He felt
himself once more succumbing not only to deference but also to a sense of unease that
Miss Hazelstone’s conversation seemed to induce in him.

“I never suffered from the same weakness,” Miss Hazelstone continued primly. “If
anything, I had difficulty finding anything to do that wasn’t depressingly good. Like
the Devil, I too have felt how awful goodness is. So boring, but I daresay you don’t have
the same opportunity for being nauseated by it.”

“I daresay you’re right,” said the Kommandant whose feeling of nausea sprang from quite
different causes.

“As you must have gathered, I have done my best to bring a little gaiety into my life,”
Miss Hazelstone went on. “I write for the papers, you know.”

Kommandant van Heerden knew only too well.

“A little column every now and then on fashion and tasteful living.”

“I have read some of your articles,” said the Kommandant.

“I do hope you didn’t follow my advice,” Miss Hazelstone went on. “They were written
with my tongue in my cheek, and I had great fun thinking up the most awful combinations of
colours. Everybody took my recommendations seriously too. I think I can honestly say
that I have made more homes un-liveable in than all the termites in South Africa.”

Kommandant van Heerden gaped at her. “Why on earth should you want to do that?” he
asked.

“A sense of moral duty,” Miss Hazelstone murmured. “My brother has given his life to
spread light and goodness, I have merely sought to redress the balance. If people choose
to follow my advice to put maroon wallpaper next to orange curtains, who am I to say
them nay? People who believe that having a pink skin makes them civilized, while having a
black one makes a man a savage, will believe anything.”