Death in Zanzibar Read online

  He proved to be a tall, dishevelled young man in formal evening dress, wearing his white tie several inches off centre, and carrying a gaily coloured balloon and a large and fluffy toy cat with a pink ribbon round its neck. His dark hair was in a state of considerable disorder, and quite apart from his undeniably festive appearance he possessed an indefinable air of what an earlier generation would have termed ‘rakishness’.

  He stood for a moment or two swaying slightly and looking vaguely about him, and then his gaze alighted upon Dany.

  ‘Well, say!’ said the young man, saying it in an unmistakably transatlantic voice: ‘what do you know about that!’

  He advanced until he was level with her, and then as the full beauty of her situation dawned upon him he gave way to immoderate mirth, and stood before her laughing his head off, while Dany glared back at him like an angry kitten, scarlet cheeked, helpless and infuriated.

  ‘Be quiet!’ hissed Dany, ‘you’ll wake everyone up! Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘“Three o’clock in the mor … ning, I’ve danced the whole night through!”’ carolled the young man, throwing his head back and giving it everything he had got in a blurred but pleasing baritone.

  ‘And you look like it!’ said Dany in a furious whisper. ‘But it’s nearly six now, and I want to get back into my room. Don’t just stand there laughing! Do something! Get me a pass key — anything! Can’t you see I’m locked out?’

  ‘I can,’ said the young man. ‘And let me tell you that I haven’t seen anything better in days. No, sir! It’s a pity that your taste in newspapers didn’t run to a smaller sized sheet, but who am I to carp and c-cavil? Let’s face it, it might have been The Times. Not, le’ me tell you, that you look like a dame who reads The Times. No, I sh’d say____’

  ‘Will you be quiet?’ demanded Dany frantically. ‘And if you aren’t going to help, go away! No — no, don’t do that! For goodness sake get me a pass key.’

  ‘Sure,’ said the young man cordially. ‘Any li’l thing you say. Here, hold the children.’

  He handed over the balloon and the white cat, and Dany, making a rash attempt to accept them, came dangerously near to losing the front page of the Daily Dawn in the process. The balloon bounced out of reach and the white cat fell to the floor.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ said the young man reproachfully. ‘You’ve dropped Asbestos. Have you no compassion on dumb animals? He may be heat-resistant, but he doesn’t like being kicked around.’

  He retrieved the cat and hunted through his waistcoat pockets with his left hand. ‘Don’t rush me. I know I had it some place. Ah, here we are! Madam — no. No wedding ring. That’s good. Miss — your key.’

  He held out a door key with a courtly bow.

  ‘But that isn’t my key,’ said Dany on the verge of shedding tears of sheer exasperation. ‘It’s yours!’

  ‘Why, so it is! You know something? you’re a very intelligent girl. You may even read The Times. A pity. Well, I’ll tell you what. You can’t stand there for everyone to take a look at; ’tisn’t decent — besides being darned chilly. I’m parked in that room over there, and I guess you’d better go right in and wait while I fetch some gilded flunkey to batter down your door. O.K.? Don’t mention it: my fam’ly motto has always been “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break”. Let’s go.’

  He tacked across the corridor, humming gently, and after a couple of unsuccessful tries succeeded in opening the door of the room opposite Dany’s.

  ‘There you are,’ he said in the self-congratulatory tone of one who has performed an intricate conjuring trick: ‘Move right in. We Holdens are nothing if not hospitable. Make yourself at home. And if there’s any little thing you fancy, such as a blanket or a bath towel or a bathrobe, jus’ go right ahead and wrap it up. The joint’s yours. I’ll be right back.’

  He bowed again, sweeping the floor in an old-world gesture with the white cat, and removed himself.

  Dany did not move until he was out of sight (the Daily Dawn did not meet round the back) but as soon as it was safe to do so she crossed the corridor at a run and took refuge in his room.

  It was in darkness, for the curtains were still drawn, and she switched on the lights and saw that the bed had been neatly turned down and a pair of maroon-coloured pyjamas laid out upon it. There was also a bottle-green dressing-gown hanging over the back of a chair, and she reached for it thankfully. It was far too large, but all the more welcome for that; for Dany, though slim, was by no means short, and it covered her adequately from throat to ankle, allowing no more than a glimpse of bare feet.

  A small travelling-clock on the bedside table informed her that it was already ten minutes to six, and from behind the heavily curtained windows she could hear the muted rumble of the early morning traffic. But there were as yet no sounds of movement from inside the hotel, and Dany sat down on the edge of the bed and prepared to wait.

  The room was an almost exact counterpart of her own, though a good deal tidier, and it contained one slightly surprising object: a large photograph of an extraordinarily beautiful woman that stood on the dressing-table, expensively framed in silver and inscribed largely across one corner ‘To Lash — with all my love for always — Elf’. It was not, however, the film-star features or the extravagant inscription that was surprising, but the fact that someone had draped the frame in a length of black crêpe, drawn a heavy line through the word ‘always’ and substituted tersely above it, and in red ink, ‘September’.

  Dany was engaged in studying these interesting additions when her eye was caught by something else: a familiar coloured label on a suitcase that stood on a chair by the dressing-table. Lashmer J. Holden, Jnr, it would appear, was also intending to fly to Zanzibar via Nairobi.

  Holden … Why, of course! Lorraine had mentioned him. American and something to do with publishing. He was going to see Tyson about some book or other, and to spend his honeymoon in Zanzibar. Although if that photograph was anything to go by … A cold draught of air blew through the room and billowed the curtains, and a quantity of letters that had been carelessly propped against a china ornament on the writing-table fluttered to the ground and lay strewn across the carpet.

  Dany rose and replaced them, noting as she did so that Mr Holden’s correspondents appeared to be numerous, but unexciting; the large majority of the envelopes being of the strictly utilitarian variety with the address typewritten on them, and having apparently come from various secretarial agencies.

  She stacked them in a neat pile and put them back, and then stopped to retrieve the discarded sheet of newspaper. And as she did so her gaze fell on a word in black type: ‘Murder’.

  ‘Man Murdered in Market-Lydon. Retired Solicitor Found Shot. Mr H. T. Honeywood…’

  But it couldn’t be! There must be some mistake. It couldn’t possibly be Tyson’s Mr Honeywood. That small, dried-up, disapproving solicitor. It must be someone with the same name. People one had met — people one knew — were never murdered. But there was no mistake. Here was his name. And his address: the prim grey-stone house standing back from the road behind a high wall and an ugly screen of wet laurels. Dany sat down slowly on the bed and read the incredible column of close print.

  Mr Honeywood had been shot through the heart at close range, presumably by someone whom he had no reason to fear, for there were no signs of a struggle. The safe in his study had been open, and certain sums of money — the funds, apparently, of local societies of which he was treasurer — had vanished, though no one was in a position to say if anything else had been removed. Mr Honeywood had virtually retired from active work and seldom visited the office in the High Street, which was in the charge of a junior partner, Mr John Honeywood, a nephew; but he occasionally saw an old client at his house. It was this scarcity of visitors, allied to the absence of his housekeeper, that accounted for the fact that the crime was not discovered until so late …

  The police were of the opinion that he had been killed some time dur
ing the morning, possibly between eleven-thirty and twelve, but his housekeeper, who was elderly and deaf, had asked for the day off to visit a cousin in Tunbridge Wells, and had left the house shortly before 10 a.m. She had not returned until late in the evening, and it was she who had eventually found the body. There was also a charlady who came every morning for two hours and who had left about the same time, but neither lady could say for certain if Mr Honeywood had been expecting a visitor, and the sole entry in his engagement pad for the day read ‘D.A. between 3 and 4.’ The police were anxious to interview a young woman who had been seen leaving the house shortly after half-past eleven that morning, and whom they thought could give them some information …

  Why — they mean me! thought Dany, horrified. But I can’t tell them anything! It can’t be true____

  She let the paper slide to the floor and sat staring down at it. She would have to go round to the nearest police station as soon as she was dressed. Or did one merely reach for a telephone and dial 999? They could not detain her for long, for there was very little that she could tell them. But all the same it would cut badly into her last day, and she had meant to____

  Another and far more disturbing thought suddenly struck her. Wouldn’t there be an inquest? And if there were, would she have to attend it and lose her seat on the plane? But if she did that she might not be able to get another one for days! Possibly for weeks____! Or even months, if the Nairobi run was a popular one. Tyson and Lorraine might have left Zanzibar and moved on to Spain or Cape Town or New York before she could get another passage, and she could not bear it if that were to happen!

  Perhaps after all it would be better to say nothing, and do nothing. She had only to wait one more day and then she would be safely aboard the plane. And the police were not in the least likely to fetch her back from Zanzibar for any inquest. It wasn’t as if she could give them any help, and anyway she could always write them a letter.

  She straightened up with a sigh of relief as though a weight had fallen off her shoulders, and her gaze fell again on the travelling-clock. Twenty-five minutes past six! She had not realized that so much time had slipped by. What on earth was Mr Holden doing? Had he forgotten all about her? It could not possibly have taken him over half an hour to find a valet or a page-boy and collect a pass key.

  She jumped up and had started for the door when it opened, and Mr Holden was back, still clutching the cat.

  ‘Relax!’ said Mr Holden buoyantly. ‘Here come the United States Marines! One of those retired ambassadors in striped pants and ten dollars’ worth of whiskers rustled up a spare key. The guy seemed to think he should stand by and personally usher you in, but I urged him to spare your blushes, and he reluctantly handed it over. I guess he fears the worst.’

  He held out the key and Dany clutched it gratefully.

  ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting,’ pursued Mr Holden cheerfully, ‘but I got side-tracked by an Alka-Seltzer. They certainly offer service in this gilded flop-house. Hey! — you’re not going, are you? Stick around and be sociable.’

  ‘I don’t feel sociable,’ said Dany. ‘Not at this hour of the morning. Thank you for your help. And for the dressing-gown. I’ll return it.’

  ‘So I should hope,’ said Mr Holden. ‘It has sentimental associations. Say, if I can manage that one I must be in better shape than I thought. “Sentimental Associations”. Not bad. Not bad at all. That bathrobe was a present from Elf. Embroidered that flashy great monogram on it with her own fair hands — so she says. But you don’t have to believe a word of it. The truth is not in that girl. Jus’ between you an’ me, honey____’

  The door shut with a decisive bang, and he was alone.

  ‘No gratitude,’ said Mr Holden sadly, addressing himself to Asbestos. ‘That’s what’s wrong with women. No — bloody — gratitude!’

  2

  The corridor was still silent and empty, and the entire hotel appeared to be still asleep: a fact for which Dany was profoundly grateful. She fitted the key into the lock, opened the door — and stood wide-eyed and aghast.

  The room looked as though a tornado had struck it. Drawers had been pulled out and their contents emptied on to the floor, suitcases had been dragged out and opened, and tissue paper, cardboard boxes and bedclothes strewed the carpet.

  ‘So that’s what he was doing!’ said Dany, breathing stormily. ‘I suppose this is his idea of a screamingly funny joke! How dare he — how dare he!’

  She whirled round and ran back across the corridor, and had reached out her hand to bang on his door when she changed her mind. Mr Holden was undoubtedly under the influence of alcohol — a condition that Dany had not previously encountered — and the chances were that he was at that very moment gleefully waiting for her to burst into his room in a fury so that he could enjoy his silly practical joke to the full. It would therefore be more dignified — and snubbing — to ignore the whole thing.

  She went back to her own room and, shutting the door with a commendable lack of noise, spent the next half-hour restoring order, so that by the time the room-maid put in an appearance with a tray of morning tea, the place was tolerably tidy again.

  Dany had gone down to breakfast at eight-thirty to find the vast dining-room sparsely populated, and had lost her appetite after one glance at the representative selection of the morning papers that had been thoughtfully placed on her table.

  Yes, there it was again. ‘Murder at Market-Lydon.’ Every paper carried the story, and the accounts did not vary much, except as to detail. One paper mentioned that the ‘fatal shot’ had been fired from an automatic small enough to be carried easily in a coat pocket or a lady’s handbag, and another said that the initials ‘D. A.’ on Mr Honeywood’s engagement pad had been duplicated on a lace and cambric handkerchief that had been found under Mr Honeywood’s desk. So that’s where I lost it! thought Dany guiltily. It must have been when I was hunting through my bag for Lorraine’s letter.

  There was one point, however, on which every account agreed. The police wished to interview a young woman who had been seen leaving Mr Honeywood’s house ‘shortly after half-past eleven’, and whom they hoped might be able to assist them in their inquiries.

  Well, I won’t! decided Dany stubbornly. I’m going to fly to Zanzibar tomorrow, and nothing and no one is going to stop me! I’m not going to help them. I’m not — I’m not!

  She pushed the papers aside, and snatching up her bag, almost ran from the room, colliding en route with a slim man in a pepper-and-salt suit who had just entered the dining-room. Dany apologized breathlessly, the man said it didn’t matter at all, and a stately waiter who, if he were not actually a retired ambassador, might well have been a retired ambassador’s gentleman’s gentleman, looked so gravely disapproving that Dany flushed hotly and returned to her room at a more decorous pace.

  She found that in her absence the room had been swept and tidied and the bed made. And on the bed, laid out with some ostentation on the satin counterpane, was a large and unmistakably masculine dressing-gown.

  It managed, somehow, to convey the same austere disapproval that the stately waiter had conveyed with a single cold glance, and Dany’s flush deepened as she looked at it. She had meant to return it before going down to breakfast, but she had not trusted herself to be civil to Mr Holden, and it had not occurred to her to put it out of sight in a drawer or cupboard.

  He’ll have to wait for it, she thought. If he’s been up all night he’ll be sound asleep by now. I’ll wrap it up and hand it in to the hall porter.

  She sat down in front of the dressing-table and tried on a small cyclamen velvet hat that had been one of her first purchases in London. Her great-aunt would undoubtedly have disapproved of the colour and swooned at the price, but there was no doubt at all that it did things for her that Aunt Harriet’s choice of hats did not.

  Lorraine was dark haired and tiny, and Daniel Ashton had been tall and blond; but their daughter had struck out on a line of her own. Dany’s hair was ligh
t brown: soft, shining and shoulder-length, and curling under in the traditional manner of a medieval page-boy’s, while her eyes, a happy medium between Lorraine’s blue and Daniel’s hazel, were large and grey and lovely.

  There was no doubt about it, thought Dany, studying herself in the looking-glass, hats and clothes did make a difference — an astonishing difference. She was never going to wear navy-blue serge again!

  She pulled open a drawer that contained gloves, scarves and handkerchiefs — one of the few that had escaped Mr Holden’s prankish attentions — and was rummaging through it in search of a pair of gloves that could be worn with a cyclamen velvet hat, when her fingers encountered something that had certainly not been there before. She felt it, frowning, and then took it out; wondering if this was another practical joke and if that was why he had not emptied the contents of this drawer on to the floor as he had the others. It was something hard and cold and heavy that had been rolled in one of her chiffon scarves and hidden at the back of the drawer. Dany unrolled it, and instantly dropped it.

  It hit the edge of the open drawer and fell with a clatter to the floor, and she sat very still, staring at it, and after a minute or two stooped slowly and stiffly and picked it up. It was a small gun. ‘Small enough to be carried in a coat pocket or a lady’s handbag…’

  Quite suddenly Dany was frightened. Her knees felt weak and her hands cold, and she seemed to be having some difficulty with her breathing. The looking-glass reflected a movement behind her and she gave a startled gasp and turned swiftly.

  She had apparently left the door ajar, and now it swung open and Mr Holden was with her once more: changed, and presumably in his right mind, though still accompanied by the cat.

  He did not present the appearance of one who has spent the entire night on the tiles, and except for a slight heaviness about the eyes, no one would have suspected him of having had no sleep in the last twenty-four hours. But the sight of the weapon that Dany held clutched in her hand wiped the amiable smile from his handsome features.