Ghosts of Tsavo

by Vered Ehsani

I wasted no time in visiting Dr. Cricket, but when I arrived at his lab, I found him tied up with another visitor. Or to be precise, he was tied up and his visitor was just visiting.

  “Dr. Cricket, what on earth are you doing down there?” I demanded in amazement, hurrying toward the back of the room where he was trussed up. Mr. Timmons stood and eyed me. “And of course, you happen to be here, Mr. Timmons. Wherever there is some sort of trouble, I should be surprised if I didn’t find you.”

  Mr. Timmons’ thick eyebrows rose up his forehead. “My dear Miss Knight, I assure you I’m quite innocent in this matter. I only happened by to give my greetings to the good doctor.”

  I returned his steady gaze while settling my grip around my walking stick, ready to thwack him upside the head if he so much as stretched a finger toward me. “And you just happen…”

  Dr. Cricket wiggled at my feet while garbled sounds bubbled up around the cloth tied around his head and inconveniently across his mouth.

  I yanked down the gag, almost removing the man’s skinny mustache in the process. “What happened? Why on earth are you sitting around like this, all tied up? It’s so undignified.”

  “Madam, on that point we are quite agreed,” Dr. Cricket huffed after taking a deep breath, displaying the inside of his mouth while doing so. He had an appalling set of teeth, all crooked and a few as black as Kam. “I was sorting through my research papers, hoping to recreate my poor, lost Liam when he showed up here.”

  “Who?” Mr. Timmons asked, crouching down beside me.

  “The automaton, of course,” Dr. Cricket almost shrieked. “It’s as if it was alive. Ridiculous, I know, but I have no other words to describe it. And it tied me up and took all the papers away.”

  He continued babbling while I glanced at Mr. Timmons, who raised one eyebrow suggestively and whispered to me, “Are you missing a husband, by any chance, Mrs. Knight?”

  “Gi…” I started to say in response to that illuminating eyebrow.

  He raised the other eyebrow, clearly in warning.

  “Gi… et out,” I uttered the first words I could think of in the muddle that was my mind.

  Dr. Cricket frowned, his eyes squinting in confusion. “Miss Knight, why would you ask any of us to get out when we have a possessed machine out there?”

  Mr. Timmons scratched at a sideburn but seemed quite unperturbed by the news. I replaced the gag and ignored the muffled, irritated sounds.

  “And have you heard the news? They found Mr. Adams’ body early this morning,” Mr. Timmons said, studying my reaction.

  In my line of work, dead bodies turned up all the time, so I wasn’t particularly perturbed, only intrigued as to the cause. “What killed him?”

  Mr. Timmons shrugged as if the manner of death was of no consequence. “Cause of death seemed to be a solid thump to the back of the head with a heavy, blunt instrument, by the looks of it. And then the lions had a bit of a go at him. Not to mention a few vultures.”

  “How dreadful,” I murmured. “There’ll be no open casket funeral, that’s a certainty. Well, I should hope those beasts suffer a good bout of indigestion for that.”

  “I doubt it,” Mr. Timmons said.

  “And any ideas on who delivered the blow?” I asked.

  “Not a one.” He frowned, his eyes narrowing. “So, my dear Mrs. Knight, what’re you doing here? Or are you so closely acquainted with the good doctor as to need no invitation or formal reason?”

  I ignored the suggestive nature of Mr. Timmons’ last comment and instead contemplated making up a story. However, I was not naturally inclined to fibbing, unless required to do so for work or self-preservation. And Mr. Timmons struck me as a person who would detect a lie, given he was so conversant in making them himself.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m here to borrow some chloroform. Would you mind, Dr. Cricket?” I smiled at the man who stared back at me with a bewildered squint. “It’s for some research I’m doing.” I pulled out the gag. “Of course, I’ll need to untie you so you can retrieve it. Shall we say a couple bottles?”

  “Of course,” the man said in a faint voice.

  “Brilliant,” I said as I began to untie him.

  Whoever was controlling the automaton had done me a great service by tying up its creator. With a sense of great urgency, the man scrambled to his feet and pulling out two glass bottles from a cupboard as if his very freedom depended on it, which in fact it did.

  Mr. Timmons started to speak, but I waved my walking stick in front of his face, perfectly prepared to smack him with it if he tried to interfere with my plans. “I’m really in a bit of a hurry, Mr. Timmons. I do have a few questions for you. Perhaps we can chat another time?”

  “Indeed we shall,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if it was a promise or a threat. I was rather surprised he didn’t insist on interrogating me there and then, but I didn’t dwell too long on it.

  I grabbed the bottles from Dr. Cricket and hurried away.

  When I arrived home, Mrs. Steward was railing on Jonas for letting the zebra eat her marigolds, although what place English marigolds had in East Africa was beyond me. Jonas stood with his hands clasped in front, his head meekly lowered. Whenever she paused for breath, which didn’t happen nearly as often as biological needs should dictate, he would murmur, “Yes, mama,” and “I’ll chase the zebra away, right away, mama.”

  “My dear,” Mr. Steward finally interjected over his newspaper, in between a swallow of toast and a sip of tea, “it really isn’t the chap’s fault. That one zebra is a bit of an odd beast…”

  As soon as these bold words ushered forth, his wife whipped around, Jonas and his inability to rid the garden of zebras forgotten. “In case you have forgotten, Mr. Steward,” she shrilled with an expression that bode ill for any of us foolish enough to do so, “I wouldn’t have plant marigolds if we’d stayed where we belonged. I told you…”

  As the diatribe continued with no sign of let-up, Mr. Steward mushed his face farther into the newspaper, no doubt in the hope that the ink fumes would render him unconscious and erase all recollections of the unfolding scene. It was a noble endeavor, if I do say so, but clearly doomed to failure. His wife’s shrill voice would pierce through a lead curtain.

  I’d never been a hard-hearted creature and therefore was tempted to offer him a nip of the chloroform tucked in my bag. That, of course, would beg the potentially awkward question of why I had the substance in my bag in the first place.

  Therefore I remained silent on the matter of sleep-inducing substances, and prudently so, for as it turned out, we would need every drop.

  Chapter 26