The Artful Egg (27 page)

“
Disguises
? They didn’t have any idea where he had vanished to?”

“Not last night, but they did put out a description to all SAP stations, the Railway Police, the municipal police and all the rest. Do you want to see it?”

“Too right. I can’t imagine how that poor fool couldn’t have been caught by now.”

“Then, I think you’ll find a carbon of the Telex in Gagonk’s wire basket on his desk,” said Mkosi, licking his cigarette-paper.

Zondi found the carbon copy lying right on top. He read no more than the first two lines before beginning to chuckle.

“What’s so funny, Mickey?” asked Mkosi, folding his long thin legs under him. “I didn’t notice any Gagonkish spelling mistakes.…”

Catching up the carbon copy, Zondi turned to him and said: “
Where
did they get this amazing description? Where? Pillay’s forty, if a day, and no mention of his needing to wear glasses, or what kind they are. But that’s nothing when you come to his height and weight! One-seventy-six centimetres and eighty-one kilos! This makes him tall and sound a real muscle man, whereas he’d be lucky if he weighs half so much, and his height is only—”

“The figures are wrong?” gasped Mkosi, beginning to share the joke.

“Wrong?” said Zondi, suddenly aware that he was jeopardising a golden opportunity to settle a few more old scores. “Oh, no, my friend, pretend I never said that.”

“You never said that,” said Wilfred Mkosi happily, picking up his guitar again. “And anyway, if you did, what a pity I was singing my new song too loudly to hear it.…”

Kramer had to bend almost double to fit under the stage in the main hall of the University. Wilson shuffled ahead of him, pushing aside the wicker baskets of costumes and tea-boxes of props that kept getting in his way, and eventually reached an old plastic rubbish-bin in which an assortment of stage weapons was standing, point down.

“As you see, Lieutenant, they’re the very devil to get at.”

“Ja, but what I also see is that this place under the stage isn’t locked, it hasn’t even got a bolt on it, there’s a notice on the door saying ‘Drama Club Store,’ and the hall was wide open, too.”

“Yes, but one simply doesn’t think of anybody wanting to—”

“Have you no Bantus working on the premises? What if one of them gets upset with his boss and comes here to get himself a—”

“Our Africans just aren’t like that!” said Wilson, shocked.

“Oh, so they’ve all got degrees, too?”

“I don’t think this argument is entirely apposite, quite frankly.”

“You’re right,” agreed Kramer, picking over the other swords in the bin. “We’ve already established that anyone could come in here, with an excellent chance of not being noticed, and help themselves to whatever they liked.”

“Er, the main building
is
locked after dark.”

“Always?”

“Well, not when there’s a function on, either here in the main hall or perhaps in one of the side rooms.”

“And how often is that?”

“During term-time?”

“It’s been term-time ever since the play was on, hasn’t it?”

“Every other night at least, I suppose,” said Wilson lamely.

Kramer took out a sword with a cup over the hilt to protect the hand. “Why didn’t Lay-whatsit use this one?”

“Laertes? Funnily enough, he rehearsed with that one, but our costume designer wanted something more in keeping with the flamboyance—”

“So who adapted the murder weapon?”

“Er, I did—from another foil that was a bit battered. I think that, as the producer, one should remain infinitely flexible, catering to the—”

“So that’s why you know the thing backwards and it’s still going round in your head?”

“ ‘These are but wild and whirring words.…’ I become, as I admitted earlier, besotted, obsessed—on top of which,
Hamlet
is one of our examination pieces this year, and Shakespeare
is
my special study.”

“How do you test somebody on watching a play?”

“Oh, they don’t have to watch it so much as read and reread it.”

“But aren’t books the things you read? I thought the whole idea of a play was to sit there and see—”

“The
ideas
can be—well, just take the raw plot of the thing. A son who discovers his father was murdered so that his mother can marry his—”

“It’s a murder story?”

Wilson gave a little laugh. “Well, in a way—a bit of a ghost story, too, if we’re resorting to such terms, plus a sad love story in which Hamlet’s girlfriend is driven mad and he loses her.”

“ ‘God in Heaven,’ ” said Kramer.

The men in white brought in a cross-eyed old Hindu who had burned his feet in an attempt to simulate the fire-walking ceremony, held every Good Friday at the temple down Harber Road, by standing on his daughter-in-law’s electric stove with one foot in the curry and another in the rice. He screamed and shouted a great deal, not because he was in pain—he denied having felt a thing—but because he resented having been interrupted in the middle of a spiritual exercise.

But Ramjut Pillay was barely aware of his presence. He was wrestling with his conscience, and it had him pinned to the mat, demanding that he find a way to get the anonymous letter on cheap blue paper with ruled lines into the hands of the CID without further delay. An impossible task, of course, for a poor fellow locked behind bars and with high walls surrounding him.

For an instant, he toyed with the idea of going to Nurse Chatterjee and telling him that, quite frankly, he was as sane as the next man, and had only
pretended
to be a parachutist to get himself out of a bit of a fix. But the problem was that Nurse Chatterjee would doubtless want to know more about this bit of a fix before he’d let him go, and that could lead to even sorrier complications.

If only, Ramjut Pillay reflected bitterly, he had taken up that course he’d seen offered in mental telepathy, then he could send his thoughts out through those bars to that nice understanding fellow, Sergeant Zondi, telling him where the letter could be found. He was sure that Sergeant Zondi would be so delighted to be put on the right track in finding the murderer that he would arrange for his release from Garrison Road Mental Hospital and no questions asked. But, having stupidly neglected to take the course, just as he’d neglected to take one in self-hypnosis before having a tooth out, he had only himself to blame again for his unnecessary suffering.

Ramjut Pillay sat up in his cot with a jerk, filled with the joy of a marvellous inspiration that only his rather remarkable mind would be capable of. It must have been thinking of correspondence courses that had done the trick, for he had suddenly realised
there was a way
of sending his thoughts out between those bars without his needing to accompany them. He would post Sergeant Zondi a map, giving the location of the clueful letter in the hole beneath the tree, and enclose a short note explaining its significance! A short
anonymous
note, perhaps? Yes, yes, even better! Later, when the murderer was caught, and the police were pleased with him, he might then reveal the note-writer’s identity, but in the meantime he would remain safely where he was, with a beautifully clear conscience worthy—dare he think it?—of the Mahatma.

Jumping out of his cot, Ramjut Pillay felt for a pen. But he had no pen, and what he’d also overlooked was that he had no
paper, envelope or stamp.
Then, just go and see if Nurse Chatterjee has what you want in the drawer of the duty desk
, whispered another side to him.
Go quickly, while he is distracted by that noisy old fool in the corner
.

Ramjut Pillay nipped over to the desk, then hesitated. What good would this act of theft be to his conscience?
Look
, grumbled another side to him,
I have just about had enough of your cowardly scruples
.

“Peerswammy?”

“Nurse Chatterjee! I did not see—”

“Is there something I can do for you? Something you’d like?”

“I—er, was partially wondering, um, if it would be all right for me to, providing it causes no inconvenience.… I would like to write a letter.”

“Why, of course, a letter,” said Nurse Chatterjee, with a kind smile, just as though he’d been half-expecting such a request. “I have only the humble-type stationery available in the hospital shop, but you are most welcome to it. An envelope, too?”

“Many, many thanks,” said Ramjut Pillay.

Then gaped when Nurse Chatterjee handed him a pad of cheap blue writing-paper with ruled lines.

“ ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.…’ ”

“You’ve taken the words right out of my mouth,” said Kramer, as he and Wilson walked back across the campus to the English Department. “Mind you, we can’t go assuming there is a connection between the murder and this Hamlet bloke.”

“I thought you said Naomi Stride’s husband was dead and that the girl—”

“Ja, but there’s no proof she was messing around with any uncle that would make her son get all upset about it.”

“What do you know of the circumstances of her husband’s death?”

“A heart surgeon who had a heart attack.”

“Poetic irony!”

Kramer frowned, not being aware of having said anything that rhymed, but he was getting more used to Wilson’s ways by now, and let it pass. “No, the mad part is really the bloke using a sword that could be traced so easily.”

“What if the culprit
is
mad and indifferent to the consequences?”

“H’m, you’ve got a point there, but only maybe. Who had this sword in the play?”

“Murray James was Laertes—a nicer, more harmless boy you couldn’t wish to come across.”

“Would he have known Naomi Stride?”

“I very much doubt it! And, anyway, he’s been in hospital since the last performance. Broke his leg, silly bugger, during the party afterwards.”

They went into the English Department building and back into Wilson’s ivory tower. A dark-haired man, with fierce brown eyes and a big beard, was standing at the window, smoking a pipe.

“Ah, Aaron,” said Wilson, stopping short. “Come about those essays?”

“You’re bloody right I have. I’m not going to be accused of marking too high when what’s happened is that I’ve managed actually to
teach
the bastards something. Which is more than can be—”

“But, er, could this wait until a little later? I’ve someone with me.”

“So I see. Who is he?”

“Say about half-past four?”

“A fencing instructor?” said the man, smiling unpleasantly as he pushed past Kramer and the sword. “Or your new bodyguard, Wilson? Very wise, because when I come back you’re going to bloody need one.”

“Now, Aaron, there’s no call for—”

“By the way, I’ve just read your paper on J.M. Coetzee. It’s crap.”

The door slammed.

Wilson took a seat on his throne and got his bounce back. “ ‘So full of artless jealousy is guilt’! That was Aaron Sariff—didn’t introduce you as the man’s enough of a screaming paranoid as it is, without telling him you were a policeman. You’ve heard of the Jew being persecuted down the ages?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, that’s the Jew they mean—you’ve just met him!”

And Wilson did another of his castrated-donkey impressions, making it sound as though the delicate operation had been performed by banging together two house bricks, while Kramer lit a Lucky Strike.

If he hadn’t become burdened by a strong hunch this man could be useful to him, he’d have been off like a shot long ago.

Knowing nowhere else that he might pick up the missing postman’s trail, Zondi had headed for Gladstoneville. It had been just his luck to come across a serious accident at the point where the dirt road began, which had meant having to stop and give assistance until the ambulances came.

But now at last, his suit stained with blood and his tie left behind on someone as a tourniquet, he was on his way again. He’d never thought he would hold a young Indian beauty in his arms, which had somehow made it worse when she’d died there.

Ramjut Pillay’s house had no number, and he had twice to ask directions, before finding it at the foot of a low hill topped by wattle-trees. A fierce-faced old crone, with a bright dab of scarlet between her eyebrows, sat in a cane chair on the sloping veranda. She glared at him as he climbed out of the car, and took up a fly-whisk.

“Police, mama.”

“No menfolk are here, no men,” she quavered. “You would not hurt an old woman.”

“Where are your menfolk, mama?”

“My son is run away and my poor aged husband goes looking for him.”

“Where does he look?”

She made a gesture with her fly-whisk that seemed to take in the best part of the Southern Hemisphere.

“Much too tiring, mama,” said Zondi. “I will just take a look in the house, so I can say to my boss that I have been here, and then I will leave you in peace again.”

“Peace? What peace can there ever be,” she wailed, deftly killing a fly, “for the mother of Ramjut Pillay?”

The telephone rang, and Kramer was surprised when Dr. Wilson held it out to him, saying: “Someone for you, Lieutenant—Baksteen, is it?”

“Kramer here.”

“Tromp, it’s Piet, ringing you from the lab. I thought this was where I might find you, and the switchboard lady—”

“Piet, your guess was right. This is where the sword came from. Only next time wait until I get a chance to get in touch myself. I’m in the middle of—”

“I was right? Good God, now I won’t be able to sleep tonight! But the sword wasn’t why I’ve rung. I thought you were in a hurry for a result on those pine-scented samples you gave me at the mortuary this morning, and it’s after four.”

Kramer needed a moment to switch thought-tracks. “Oh ja, the Zuid—the stuff you were happy to say wasn’t semen?”

“Believe it or not, Tromp, Van Rensburg was spot on—it
is
DH-136, the detergent he claimed it was. I had to start somewhere, and it matches up exactly. What’s more, I’ve been in touch with the distributors, and they assure me there’s not
another detergent on the market with exactly the same components, as the stuff’s patented.”

“Well, I’m buggered! These distributors, what are they called?”