Tall, Dark And Deadly. Madeline Harper
Betty’s face sharp and unfriendly, Yassif’s sleepy-eyed and sullen. Huddled quietly in a corner, Maurice Longongo watched her with his ferret eyes. Dana felt herself shiver involuntarily. Even Millicent, who had stopped her bustle to refill coffee cups, watched and waited.
“The Mgembe?” Kantana repeated.
“I was interested in them. Everyone knew that.” Her gaze took in the whole room. “But Louis seemed to be the most knowledgeable, and certainly he was the most helpful.”
Kantana scribbled on a pad. “Now Mademoiselle Baldwin, tell me please, at what time did you walk with Monsieur Bertrand by the river?”
“After dinner. I’m not sure.”
“Immediately after dinner?” Kantana pressed.
“No, I—” Dana hesitated, wondering whether or not to mention her encounter with Alex in the garden. She glanced quickly at him, but his eyes were still on the policeman.
“About ten o’clock,” Betty said with authority. “Yassif and I were returning to the hotel and saw them heading toward the river. I guess we’re witnesses.”
Dana shot her a surprised look. Witnesses?
Kantana made a careful note. “And how long did you remain with him?”
“Not long. The mosquitoes drove me away.” Dana remembered her farewell to Louis, the sound of his soft au revoir floating on the hot night air, and her eyes filled with tears. “Maybe if I’d stayed with him, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Millicent crossed to Dana’s chair and patted her on the shoulder. “There, there, dear. No one blames you for what happened to poor Louis.”
Maybe not, but Dana felt as if all of them, even Millicent, were skeptical. “He was your friend, too, Millicent.”
“Yes, he was, for many years,” she replied.
“I’m so sorry,” Dana offered.
“It’s not your fault.”
There it was again, the release from blame that was somehow damning.
“Why would anyone want to kill Louis?” Dana asked. “He was so sweet and gentle.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Betty snapped. “He was also involved in all sorts of sordid little deals. Louis was no angel despite the fact that he stuck like a leech to Father Theroux on the trip.”
That was true, Dana remembered. He’d seemed devoted to the elderly man. The wine merchant and the village priest—an unlikely pairing.
“Dear Lord, one of us needs to tell Father Theroux about Louis,” Millicent said.
“I’m sure he knows,” Alex replied laconically. “News travels fast in Porte Ivoire. Especially bad news.”
“The priest will be told—and questioned,” Kantana said coolly, dismissing the subject and moving on to continue his interrogation of Dana. “Did anyone notice you returning to the hotel?”
“I don’t think so.” She looked around the room hopefully, but no one spoke up. “I used the side steps to the second-floor veranda. Then I went directly to my room and to bed.”
Kantana wrote on his pad and then one by one asked each of the other guests their whereabouts from ten o’clock until the body was found. He listened carefully to the responses.
“So,” he said as he completed the rounds, “each of you was alone in your bedroom—”
“Yassif and I were together,” Betty announced, reaching for her lover’s hand. “Some of us have nothing to worry about. We have alibis.”
“Some of us have been known to lie.” That was Alex. His remark caused Betty’s face to redden. She opened her mouth to reply and then thought better of it.
Kantana continued without missing a beat. “With the exception of Mademoiselle Weston and Monsieur Al-Aram, who were together—so they say—and my friend Alex, who was in his office.”
“I often stay up late,” came Alex’s response.
Kantana got to his feet. “Now I must ask your further indulgence. At this time we will search your rooms.”
Millicent reacted immediately. “Search our rooms? Surely, you joke, Sergeant. Why in the world? The man was killed with a blow dart. Obviously by someone right here in Porte Ivoire—”
Kantana’s reply was as smooth as silk. “So it would seem, as you say, considering the murder weapon. But we have reasons to look elsewhere.”
“Why?” Millicent shot back.
“We found a passport and a wallet filled with cash on the body. What does that mean to you?” he asked the room in general.
Longongo responded, speaking for the first time that morning in his high nasal voice with his impeccable clipped syllables. “It negates the prime motive, perhaps the only one, for murder by a local person, namely robbery. Which means one of us must have another motive. What would that be?”
“I do not know yet,” Kantana admitted, “but I expect to uncover the motive along with the means and the opportunity. And when all three come together, I shall have my killer.”
He snapped his notebook shut, and Dana shivered again. She’d pulled on shorts and a T-shirt when the clerk awakened her. Now, in the cool of dawn, she needed something warmer.
“If I could go to my room for a moment first—” she said to Kantana.
“No, mademoiselle. That would defeat our purpose.”
“I don’t understand. I just need to get something warm to put on—”
“Nothing will be removed until after our search.” His voice had a sharp edge.
Once again, she was made to feel guilty. And just because she was cold.
“Each of you will remain here until the search is completed.” With a slight bow, he turned and went out, followed by his aide.
* * *
THE MORNING seemed interminable. The hotel cooks prepared and set out breakfast, but no one seemed to have much of an appetite. Dana picked at a bowl of fruit, and everyone else did, too. Most of them drank innumerable cups of coffee, including Alex, who had switched from cognac.
When Kantana came downstairs from his search of the guests’ rooms, he commandeered Alex’s office to interview the guests—or suspects, as Dana had begun to think of herself and the others. She tried to give the word a sardonic twist in her mind because it was ridiculous, of course, to think any of them might have murdered Louis Bertrand, but she was still nervous.
Someone had murdered him, and Kantana seemed convinced that it wasn’t a citizen of Porte Ivoire but one of the guests in the Stanley Hotel, or Alex himself, or even Father Theroux.
Slowly they went into the office one by one. First Longongo and then Millicent completed their interviews and returned to their rooms. Yassif was next.
Dana waited silently while Alex disappeared into the kitchen, apparently to communicate with his staff, and Betty paced nervously up and down, glancing at the closed door.
“Don’t worry,” Dana assured her, “Yassif is a big boy. He can answer his own questions.”
Betty puffed out her cheeks and then fell down onto the love seat. “It’s just that he doesn’t speak English very well. His French is worse.”
“Kantana is very patient,” Dana said, wondering suddenly why she should be attempting to pacify Betty, of all people.
“I’m also concerned because our relationship is so new. I’m a little overprotective of Yassif.”
Dana couldn’t find anything encouraging