Love and Death Among the Cheetahs

by Rhys Bowen

Babe gave him a pitying smile. “Because his wife used to be married to him, of course.”

  “Sheila Tomlinson was married to Lord Cheriton?” The words just burst out. I felt myself blushing.

  “A long time ago now,” Tusker said. “He went home to England after the war. He met Sheila and married her. Then they sailed back to Africa but when she arrived she didn’t exactly approve of the living arrangements. Shocked her, I don’t wonder. Well, it would, coming from a nice upper-class upbringing, wouldn’t it? He quickly found she was no fun and his attentions turned elsewhere, so there she was, poor girl, stuck in Africa with no one to turn to. And that’s when Tomlinson stepped up and took her off Bwana’s hands.”

  “Good gracious,” I said. “So he dumped her to marry Angel?”

  “Oh no, sweetie pie,” Tusker said, chuckling. “Angel is a recent addition, when Bwana decided he needed an infusion of capital into the farm. There have been a couple more Mrs. Hartleys in between, and I bet they are both kicking themselves that they didn’t stick around to become Lady Cheriton.”

  “And who were they?” I asked.

  “Well, one went home to England and is probably living happily with a stockbroker, and the other is Camilla Rutherford.”

  “Camilla Rutherford?” This was getting more complicated by the second.

  “Oh yes. But she was as bad as he was. Chops Rutherford is her third husband since Bwana, I seem to remember.”

  “Golly.” The forbidden word just slipped out. Well, it would, wouldn’t it? There is only a certain amount of shock I can take.

  “Is there no woman around here that has not been involved with him?” Darcy asked.

  “Idina is the only one who turned him down—a proposal of marriage, I mean,” Tusker said. “She hasn’t been above accepting an offer for a quick roll in the hay. But I think he’s always retained a soft spot for her.”

  I was still mulling what Babe had said earlier. “If Sheila was married to Bwana but then she married Tomlinson why would you think that he’d want to kill Bwana now? It all happened a long time ago and presumably she is happy with her current husband. Haven’t things turned out for the best for both of them?”

  “Bwana has taken great delight in needling Tomlinson for some reason,” Tusker said. “He was like that. He’d pick on someone he didn’t like and find clever ways to upset them. I think he was rather annoyed that Sheila was actually happy with someone else—especially someone as boring and solid as Tomlinson. Anyway recently Tomlinson had ordered a prize bull from South Africa. However, then Bwana ordered a bull at the same time from the same place. They both arrived together. Of course, only one was the prize animal for which Tomlinson had paid considerably more. But Bwana got there first and had the prize bull delivered to his estate. Tomlinson tried to prove Bwana had taken the animal that should have been his, but of course all bulls look quite alike in photographs and a photo can’t prove which one was the better stud. He tried. He took Bwana to court, but he lost.” He paused, grinning as if he appreciated this, in spite of his feelings about Lord Cheriton. Then he added, “Bwana enjoyed a good court battle. He usually won.”

  “But must have made a lot of enemies,” Darcy pointed out.

  “There have been plenty of people who wanted him dead at one time or another,” Tusker said, “but you know in spite of everything it was hard not to admire him.” He looked up as a servant stood in the doorway. “Ah jolly good. Breakfast is ready. Shall we go through?”

  “Breakfast?” Babe looked horrified. “How can you think of eating anything, knowing that his body is so close? I doubt if I’ll ever feel like eating again.”

  “Suit yourself,” Tusker said. He headed out the door and she followed.

  As they went ahead of us into a long dining room a thought occurred to me. Had we actually mentioned where Bwana’s body had been found when Babe was in the room? So either she knew more than she was letting on or she had been listening outside the door before she made her entrance.

  Chapter 24

  STILL AUGUST 12

  AT THE EGGERTONS’ ESTATE AND THEN ON THE ROAD BACK TO IDINA’S HOUSE

  I am beginning to wish we had not volunteered to drive Freddie to see the body. And especially that I had not gone with them, when I had been given the chance not to. My stupid pride again. Not wanting to seem any less brave than my husband. And now we have to go back to the aftermath of the party and face all those people again and be questioned by the police. Oh crikey—another awful thought just struck me. A crime like this could make the newspapers. Queen Mary would know all too well what sort of parties went on in this part of Kenya and if she knew that Darcy and I had attended, she’d definitely be less amused than my great-grandmother had been.

  Thank heavens the Prince of Wales had been persuaded to stay away. At least he wouldn’t be involved in any scandal this time!

  We had only just started to tuck into an excellent array of breakfast dishes when Freddie arrived back. He tried to insist that we should head back to Idina’s immediately, so that he was there when the police arrived and so none of the guests had escaped, but the aromas were so enticing that he allowed himself to be persuaded to have a quick bite. That quick bite soon turned into a plate piled high with bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs and toast.

  “So has the doctor ascertained exactly what killed him?” Tusker asked. “I’ve been told it was murder but I still don’t see how you can tell that he wasn’t attacked by an animal.” He leaned closer to Freddie. “Look here—the poor fellow is dead. Nothing can bring him back. I know it’s a bit late now because you’ve called in the damn police chappie from Nairobi, and a right cock-up he’ll make of any investigation too. But you realize you’ve opened a can of worms here and nobody will thank you for it. Dirty laundry will have to be aired, if you get my meaning. You know what they think of us in Nairobi. Damn grammar-school boys coming out and trying to boss us around. At least you went to a decent public school. You should be on our side, not getting outsiders involved. Can’t we just all agree that he was attacked by an animal? So much simpler that way for all concerned.”

  “Would you want to know there was a murderer in your midst, Major?” Freddie asked.

  “In our midst? It wasn’t one of us. It couldn’t have been one of us.” Tusker’s voice was rising now. “We were all at Idina’s damned party.”

  I waited for Freddie to say that Tusker and Babe had left before Bwana, but he didn’t. “I wasn’t implying that it was one of your group of friends, Major. We’ll find out from the police if there are any fugitives that may have been in the area. Or those with strong political views . . .” He stopped.

  “Political views? Are there people who murder because of their politics? Everyone knows Bwana was an admirer of Mosley’s. Of Hitler’s, for that matter. To each his own. They have their good points, I agree. We do need to make sure that the superior races continue to rule.”

  “I suppose an ardent communist might decide to silence such a voice,” Freddie said.

  “Do you know of any ardent communists in Kenya?” Tusker laughed now. “If you believed in equality for all, you’d give the bloody government over to the natives, wouldn’t you? And then what kind of mess would we be in?”

  “We should be going.” Freddie looked at us. “Thank you for your hospitality and for the loan of your workers. I’ll bring them back as soon as they are no longer needed. I presume that will be as soon as the police arrive with their own crew.”

  “Have the doctor tell the damned policeman it was an animal, for God’s sake,” Tusker called after us. “Save us all from a lot of misery.”

  I climbed into the back of the motorcar and soon we were bumping our way back to Idina’s house. Actually I felt a lot better now that I had some good food and coffee in my stomach. My brain was now fully awake and had banished the effects of the previous night’s alcohol consumption so tha
t I could think clearly. Tusker and Babe must be considered to be prime suspects. They left the party early because Babe was furious that Bwana was ignoring her. Was it possible that he had told her it was over between them? That he no longer wanted her as his mistress? I could sense that she might have a vengeful streak in her nature.

  And Tusker could be justified in wanting Lord Cheriton dead since he was openly having an affair with his wife. We knew from the party that he was easily humiliated, after the references to that naughty game they played. How easy to have dropped Babe at home and then gone out to wait for Bwana. The only thing against that was that he had no idea Bwana would be summoned home so early. And they both appeared to be genuinely shocked by the news.

  I let my thoughts move on. The one thing that had been completely forgotten was the jewel theft. I had found that what seemed like different crimes were often connected in some way. Was it coincidental that his two children came out on an aeroplane right after a precious jewel had been stolen and a few days later he was dead? But again the problem was that all the settlers were at Idina’s party with the exception of Diddy, Cyril and Bwana’s own family. And they could surely have killed him on his own estate if they’d wanted to. Why drive all this way and ambush him on the way home? To make it look like an animal killed him, I supposed, but the flaw in that argument was that it did not appear any vehicle had come down the road after Bwana’s. He had a big Buick motorcar and the tires were quite distinctive.

  These musings were interrupted by Freddie asking, “So what do you think, Darcy?”

  “About who might have killed him?” Darcy replied. “I’ve no idea.”

  “No, I meant about what Tusker said. That we should have let it go as an animal attack for the sake of everyone. They dislike me enough around here, for having to administer rules they want to break. Now I’ll be an absolute pariah.”

  “A murder is a murder,” Darcy replied. “And you have to do your duty, however unpleasant.”

  “Spoken like a true-blue Englishman,” Freddie replied. “You know, living out here one forgets what it used to be like in England. These people act like gods in their own little universe. They think there is no law that can’t be broken.”

  “Including getting rid of someone who has become inconvenient?” Darcy asked.

  Freddie nodded. “I think you’ll find that every person at Idina’s has some reason to be annoyed with Bwana Hartley.”

  “We have plenty of people in life who annoy us,” Darcy said, “but it rarely leads to murder.”

  As I watched them talking together in the front seats I remembered something else—a brief snatch of conversation between them when they looked at the body. Freddie had said, “You don’t think this can have anything to do with—” and Darcy had shut him up. To do with what? I could sit silent and out of the conversation no longer.

  “Freddie, do you think this might have something to do with the jewel theft?” I asked.

  Freddie looked back with a horrified glance. “How do you know about—”

  “My wife is very astute,” Darcy said. “She questioned me about why we were really in Kenya. I thought it wise to put her into the picture.”

  “About why you were really in Kenya?” Freddie repeated.

  “Yes. I told her about the jewel theft in England and the fact that the thief might have come out to Kenya to hand over the stone.”

  “Oh,” Freddie said. “The jewel theft. Of course. Oh, I see.”

  I, on the other hand, did not see. I got the feeling that they had been talking about something quite different, not a jewel theft at all. Was the stolen diamond something Darcy had made up to keep me quiet? I could hardly question him about it right now. But later, when we were safely in our own room—then I’d demand to know the truth.

  We drove on in silence. I tried to admire the wildlife I spotted beside the road. I wanted to talk about the murder but if they were keeping something they knew, something important, from me, then there was little point. So I sat in the backseat, feeling miffed, and tried to evaluate who might have a motive to kill Lord Cheriton. Tusker and Babe, for a start. Either one could have done it. An interesting thought came into my head. I had noted that Babe might have a devious nature. What if the telephone call had not come from Bwana’s wife at all? The Eggertons had a telephone. What if she had imitated Angel’s voice and begged Bwana to come home, then secretly drove to the right spot and waited to ambush him?

  I supposed it was possible but Bwana was a big, powerful man. If he had got out of his car to talk to Babe and she had pulled a knife, he could easily have wrested it away from her. Unless she had lured him into a romantic embrace—“Let’s do it right here, in the middle of nowhere”—and he’d take the bait, easily aroused. And as they came together she stabbed him. Which must mean there would be blood on her clothing. And maybe a bloody knife hidden on their estate.

  And if it wasn’t one of them? We had already been told that Tomlinson had a bone to pick about a prize bull. But did you kill because someone had got the better of you in a deal?

  Sheila Tomlinson might have been harboring anger at the way Bwana had treated her all those years ago, but she seemed happy enough with her present lot and anxious to see her former husband again. And anyway, she was at the party all night. They all were . . . Pansy, who was angry at being dumped in favor of Babe; Harry, who would be angry at his wife carrying on with Bwana; Camilla, who had been married to him before . . . I couldn’t think of a motive for Chops Rutherford or for the Atkinses, outsiders from Nairobi, seeming to disapprove of the Happy Valley set but ended up being willing participants. At least Idina had been fully occupied for the entire night, I suspected.

  We drove up to Idina’s house and as Freddie was parking the motorcar I noticed something of interest. Two other cars were of the same make and model as Bwana’s. That disproved my theory that his had been the last car to drive on the road. So actually any one of them could have followed him. It could, I supposed, even have been a group effort—the whole community deciding to get rid of a man who was too annoying for some reason. Yet that didn’t seem to jibe with the good-natured way he had been greeted everywhere, and the way that Tusker had spoken of him, almost as if he admired the risks Bwana took, the way he seduced other men’s wives. I hoped that the policeman sent out from Nairobi would be capable and intelligent. In my experience (which had been rather more extensive than I would have wanted at my young age) I had found too many policemen were all too willing to grab the first conclusion and the first suspect they stumbled across and not so willing to admit they were wrong. At least this time we were absolute outsiders and innocent bystanders.

  Chapter 25

  AUGUST 12

  BACK AT IDINA’S HOUSE

  There are times I wish I had stayed put on that houseboat on the Thames. It would have been just Darcy and me and I’d willingly have gone without the cucumber sandwiches, if necessary. Now this is all becoming too horrid. These people live such sordid lives and I’m afraid all the details will have to come out now that the police have arrived. Since we are newcomers, I’m hoping we’ll be allowed to escape.

  “Finally!” Mr. Tomlinson roared as we came into the living room. “Of all the bloody cheek, telling us we weren’t allowed to leave. Well, what have you discovered? Was it an accident? Can we all go home now, for God’s sake?”

  I looked at Freddie, wondering what he would say. He shook his head. “I’m afraid it was no accident. Lord Cheriton was murdered and the police are on their way from Nairobi. Everyone will just have to stay put until they arrive.”

  Jocelyn had been hovering by the front door. “Oh crikey. A murder? That’s awful. If news of it gets to England my father will be furious. His last words to me were to stay out of trouble. . . .” He winced as if he could already picture his father’s outrage.

  “Don’t be silly. You had nothing to do with it,”
Idina said. “We all had nothing to do with it. We’re deeply sorry he was killed but it’s not our fault if he got out of his car on a lonely road in the middle of the night. Surely the police will see this.”

  “But what about me?” Mr. Van Horn got to his feet and stomped toward Freddie. “How long am I to be inconvenienced here? Can we now leave, Mr. Blanchford?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to drive you, sir,” Freddie said. “You’ll just have to wait with the rest of us.”

  “But it is an outrage. I should never have agreed to let you drive me. I am being kept here against my will. A foreign national. I shall let my embassy know.”

  “I apologize, sir,” Freddie said. “I know you have nothing to do with this and of course you were far away when it happened, but I’m afraid I have to stay here until the police arrive. If I am instructed to stick around after that then maybe Mr. and Mrs. O’Mara can drive you up to Cyril for your safari.”

  “It is probably too late now to accomplish anything worthwhile today,” Van Horn snapped. “The animals are at their best in the early morning. At least they are in South Africa, where we have wildlife in spectacular numbers. So far here I have seen only a paltry couple of antelope and monkeys. I doubt the whole thing would be worth my while anyway.”

  “I can run you back to Gilgil as soon as I’m free to leave,” Freddie said. “If you don’t wish to go on the safari.”

  Van Horn shrugged. “What else is there to do in this godforsaken place?”

  “What made you come here?” Pansy Ragg asked.

  Van Horn shrugged again. “Business, dear lady. A couple of transactions in Nairobi and then I persuaded myself to take a quick holiday. What a waste of time. I should just head for the coast and take the next steamship home.”

  “It really shouldn’t be much longer, sir,” Freddie said. “And I am sure Diddy Ruocco won’t mind putting you up for the night, or perhaps Cyril can arrange for tents and bearers for a longer safari. If you drive far enough north you’ll be in the Mara. Great game viewing there. And if you are planning to hunt—why, there are herds of such numbers that you can fire a gun with your eyes closed and you’re guaranteed to hit something.”