The Crocodile's Last Embrace (20 page)

“And help you find my uncle,” added Mary.

“Clarice and Lily wanted to come, too,” added Elspeth, “but there wasn’t room for all of us.”

“You left them with your sister?” Jade asked Beverly.

Bev shrugged from behind the wheel. “She’s perfectly capable of staying at camp with them for a short while. I left her with my rifle. She can shoot.”

“When you didn’t come back, we thought there might be trouble,” said Helen. She held up a roll of bandages. “We heard your shots and we came prepared to render aid.”

“Have you found Mr. Holly yet?” asked Beverly. “We found and picked up his hat and wig.”

Jade shook her head. “His trail leads this far.” She pointed to the dress, took it down from the branch, and tossed it into the Overland. “I think he went on to Harry’s old house, but an elephant blocked my path, so I haven’t been able to get much farther. All your noise must have annoyed him, because he left just as you arrived.”

“Well, get in and let’s go find Mr. Holly,” said Bev.

Biscuit jumped up onto the hood and then the roof, where he sprawled out, tongue lolling. Mary, who’d been sitting next to Beverly, slid over and made room for Jade in the front seat. The girl twisted her fingers together and chewed on her lower lip.

“I’m sure your uncle is fine,” Jade said to reassure her. “He probably just walked too far and is waiting for us to bring him back. I should have driven one of the vehicles myself instead of setting out on foot.” She pointed ahead. “There’s Mr. Hascombe’s old house now.”

Jade stepped out of the vehicle first, making certain that the elephant wasn’t loitering. She didn’t see him anywhere. Deeming it safe, she motioned for the others to join her.

“Stay behind me,” she cautioned. “Bev, take the rear. Biscuit, stay.”

That there had been traffic here, Jade could tell by the trampled grasses in front of the door and several fresher prints around the building. They overlapped enough that Jade couldn’t tell if they were all made by Holly or if Hascombe had also been here recently. The wooden bar, which had been placed across the door to keep it from blowing open when the house wasn’t in use, lay on the ground. A faint breeze stirred and the door creaked open a few inches, then slapped shut.

Jade pulled the door open and took a half step onto the threshold.

“Girls, stay back. I found Mr. Holly, but—”

Mary pushed past her and almost tripped over her uncle. He lay facedown on the floor, his arms thrown out to the sides.

“Uncle Steven!” she called as she knelt beside him.

“Mary, get back,” ordered Jade. “Don’t do anything until I’ve made certain that he’s—” She bit off the rest of her words when she saw Mary’s face blanch.

The girl obeyed her and slipped to Beverly’s side. Beverly put a protective arm around Mary while Jade felt for a pulse on Holly’s right wrist.

“He’s alive,” Jade announced. “His pulse is strong.” She noticed there was no canteen near him. “He probably needs water.”

The three girls scurried forward in one mass, each jabbering at once. “I’ve got a canteen.” “We need to examine him for broken bones.” “I have the Girl Guide manual here. We should follow the instructions for treating an unconscious man.” They huddled around the manual as Helen flipped to the appropriate page.

“Oooh!” said Helen. “The girl on page one hundred ninety-four is resuscitating a man by pressing on his back with Schafer’s system.” She peered at the illustration again. “He has no shirt on.” She slapped the book shut. “We must take his shirt off first.”

“I’ll do that,” said Elspeth.

“No!” snapped Mary. “This is my
uncle
. You can’t take his shirt off. It wouldn’t be proper. Besides, that’s for drowning victims.”

“Then we must check for broken bones and bandage him up,” said Elspeth. She knelt down and started feeling Holly’s legs, starting at the calf and working up to the thighs.

At that point, Mr. Holly stirred. “I say, where am I?” he muttered as he struggled to sit up despite the three young ladies doing their best to push him back down in a prone position.

“Mary, give your uncle some water,” said Beverly. “The rest of you, please allow Mr. Holly some air.”

Mary held the canteen for her uncle while the other two girls stepped back, their faces downcast. Jade couldn’t decide if they were more disappointed at not being able to practice their nursing skills or at not getting his shirt off. Elspeth and Helen were clearly interested in more than his health.

“Can you get up, Mr. Holly?” Jade asked. “We’ve got a car here to get you back to camp.”

“What? Oh, yes. Jolly good of you to think of a car. Dreadful walk, that.”

Then why did you go so far?
Jade kept her questions to herself. Better to wait until she could talk to him alone. The girls, however, peppered him.

“What happened?” “Did you fall?” “Were you lost?” “Why did you wander off?”

Holly put a hand to his forehead and groaned. “Please, girls. Not now. I have the most horrid headache. So thirsty. Mouth feels as if I ate sand.”

“You’re dehydrated,” said Beverly. “Come along. You can lie down in the back on a blanket.”

They led Holly out and assisted him into the rear storage bed of the Overland. Biscuit climbed into the back and stretched out next to him. The three girls piled in next to the cheetah and Beverly took her place behind the wheel. “Come along, Jade,” she called.

“Coming,” Jade replied. But she took a moment to look around Harry’s front room. The dust on the floorboards lay thick in spots, but there were more footprints than just those made by the girls and Holly, some leading to a back storage room, which, if she remembered correctly, also led outside to the separate kitchen. Jade was about to step into what had been Harry’s bedroom of his two-room house when she heard the car horn honk.

She stepped out of the house and waved at Bev before replacing the door bar. Jade had been at Harry’s house only once, but she remembered him having a good well and pump in the far corner. It was still there. Why hadn’t Holly seen that if he needed water?

“Just a moment,” Jade called. She trotted over to the pump and noticed the damp soil beneath it. When she took hold of the handle and pumped, water came out after only two primings, hardly what she’d expect if it hadn’t been used in a long while.

“Everything in order?” asked Beverly.

“I think a rat ate the fan belt,” Jade replied, with an eye on the girls. She hadn’t used the phrase since their days in the Hackett-Lowther ambulance corps. That event had actually happened once, and the phrase had become a code for something inexplicably amiss.

“Indeed?” Bev replied. She arched her brows. “Do you know how large a rat it was? Perhaps only a mouse?” She put the Overland in gear.

“By the marks, I’d say a big one.”

“Well, we’ll have to flush it out then. Shall we?” said Bev. She focused her attention on turning the car around and driving back along the rough trail.

Jade folded her arms across her chest. Message delivered and understood.

Beverly took the rough terrain slowly and by the time they made it back to camp, the girls had wrapped bandages around Holly’s head.

“In case he had a concussion when he fell,” explained Helen.

“Help Miss Emily and your friends with dinner,” ordered Beverly, sending the three would-be nursemaids out of the way.

“I’ll feed Pepper,” said Mary. She carried the caged bird over to her tent.

“Leopold’s an ass!”

“Lovely girls,” said Holly as he rubbed the bandages.

“Knock off the pretense, Mr. Holly,” said Jade. She kept her voice low so the girls wouldn’t overhear, but it sounded more like a growl. Biscuit detected it and positioned himself beside her, his golden eyes fixed on Holly. “You’re not injured, so I want to know what in the name of holy Moses’ compass is going on. Why did you wander off so far? Why did you leave the dress on the tree? Why did you pretend to be dehydrated when you’d obviously been at the well?” She punctuated each question with another step closer to him until she was within a few inches of his face.

Holly backed up two steps, tripped on a rock behind him, and fell down, Jade and Biscuit looming over him. He glanced towards Beverly for support, but she folded her arms in front of her and tapped her foot.

Holly scrambled to his feet and dusted off his rear. Then, pulling himself to his full height, he stuck out his chin in defiance. “I don’t believe I deserve or appreciate this interrogation. I told you that someone threatened my life. When you made it clear that my presence around the camp was a danger to the girls, I took it upon myself to distance myself from them. I’ll admit that I had no idea where I was going. I believe I’d heard of some old ranches in the area and hoped to come across one sooner than later.”

He tugged on the bandages around his head and pulled them off in one lump. “It was quite frightening, if you must know. I had no firearm.”

“So you intended to hide out in one of the old ranches,” Jade said. “Then why advertise yourself by leaving the disguise scattered on your trail like so many bread crumbs?”

Holly flung the bandages onto the ground. “I suppose it was rather unconsciously done. I must have thought I might get lost and have to find my own way back.”

“But instead you found an empty house. What were you doing on the floor? Why pretend to be in a faint when we found you?”

“I believe I passed out from dehydration.”

“Was that before or after you visited the well pump?” asked Jade. Her expression of bored disbelief did nothing to put Holly at ease.

“I . . . I have no recollection of any well pump. I barely recall the house.”

“Then that cigarette on the floor must have been someone else’s,” mused Jade. “Were you meeting someone there?”

Holly’s pale face blanched even whiter. “No, I was completely alone. I swear. That was
my
cigarette. I remember now. I had been smoking it when I got there. Must have fallen out of my hands when I fell.”

“You’re very lucky it didn’t burn the house down around you then,” said Jade. “You’re without your disguise now, though. You’d better lie low in the back of the Overland and decide where we can take you tomorrow.”

She turned away from him as though she’d just dismissed an underling. Holly shuffled over to the campfire to sit down.

“Into the Overland, Mr. Holly,” said Beverly. “We’ll bring you supper.”

He glowered at Bev and crawled into the backseat of the newer car.

“What was that all about, Jade? I don’t recall seeing any cigarette stub.”

“There was none. But did you see how he backpedaled to cover his tracks when he thought we found one? He met someone there, or planned to, and he’s lying about it.”

“Or knows someone was there before him,” suggested Beverly. “Maybe he was waiting for this person to return when he heard us.”

“And fell into his fake faint to avoid suspicion? Either way, he’s up to something. Someone
had
used that well pump recently. That’s why I didn’t tell him we had his disguise. It’s an excuse to keep him shut away in the motorcar. I wish I could lock him in there.”

“What shall we do, Jade? It’s nearly sundown. I don’t care to take him back to Nairobi tonight.”

Jade shook her head. “No. But we had better take turns at the watch tonight. Do you think Emily could take a shift?”

Beverly shrugged. “If I ask her to, yes, but she’s so besotted by Mr. Holly that he could convince her of anything.”

“Then it’s up to us, Bev. I wish I had some coffee. I need something to help me stay awake.” She rummaged through the supplies and pulled out her tin of South African tea.

“You could drink some of our black tea instead. It keeps Avery awake,” said Beverly. Her nose wrinkled as Jade opened the can. “Are you certain that your tin hasn’t molded? It smells
much
stronger than ours does.”

Jade took a whiff and felt that same inexplicable sensation of danger tingle along her arms and legs and prickle at her neck that she’d felt when Hascombe had been in camp. “You know I hate ordinary tea, Bev. You should have considered that when you took away my coffee. I meant to ask you about . . .” She stopped when she saw Beverly’s wide-eyed look of alarm.

“I didn’t take your coffee, Jade.”

Jade capped the tin and dropped it onto the ground. “Then who did?”

—The Traveler

EVERY HOUR OF THE NIGHT WATCH felt like three. Emily had volunteered for part of the watch, so Jade gave her from nine until midnight, but noticed that Beverly kept her company for the last two hours before taking her own shift. The two chatted softly as one might expect of two sisters, their conversation punctuated by occasional laughter. Jade knew in her heart that Bev was staying up so that Jade wouldn’t worry about Emily on guard and could catch at least a few hours of sleep. But Jade, restless and ill at ease, relieved her yawning friend at one o’clock instead of three and held the long dawn watch with only Biscuit for company.