Murder on Safari by Elspeth Huxley Read Free Book Online Page A

Where a man had committed a crime, there must be
    traces Ч imperceptible, probably, to any eye but the trained one. This jewel theft, now …
    He jerked his mind back to the elephants. That damned woman was watching him. She seemed
    pleasant enough, quiet, didn’t say much, but she 49
    was just a shade too observant.
    “They’ve gone up the gulley and down towards
    the plains, I guess,” he said. He tried to make his voice sound confident.
    She looked at him in a peculiar way, half
    puzzled, and he thought he saw her mouth twitch a little.
    “I expect they have,” she said.
    For some reason her tone annoyed him. To hell with the elephants, he thought. He decided to climb to a rocky knoll on top of one of the gulley’s shoulders. There was just a chance that they might be visible from there, if they had halted nearby.
    There was a red anthill near the crest that might serve as a lookout post. He clambered up a bank covered with thick bush, cursing all elephants as he went, and steering for the anthill.
    He emerged into an open grassy space on the
    edge of the knoll and saw the anthill a little way ahead. Then, suddenly, a violent crash made him jump convulsively and jerk the rifle up to ready.
    Simultaneously it occurred to him that he must have gone crazy. The anthill had apparently
    detached itself from the knoll and was crashing towards him with the noise of a thunderbolt and the velocity of a shell. He flung himself sideways into a bush and the object hurtled on into the gulley like a big tank run amok.
    He disentangled himself slowly from his thorny refuge and emerged cursing, pulling thorns out of his bleeding legs. He realized with devastating 50
    clearness that he had been walking downwind in the thick bush with his rifle slung on his shoulder, making straight for a rhino that had just completed a mudbath in the river and was
    standing in the open, in full view. He had
    mistaken the rhino for an anthill.
    Chris Davis was waiting at the bottom of the
    gulley. He walked towards her slowly and reluctantly, his bare arms and legs criss-crossed with
    scratches. No doubt about it, she had caught him with his pants down this time.
    “Next thing you know we’ll be running into
    Mrs Roosevelt,” he said heartily. “Plenty of
    activity around here. How about getting back for some breakfast? The elephants will keep.”
    “We certainly didn’t disturb them,” his
    companion said. It was clear that she thought him either a fraud or a flop; and Vachell was afraid he knew which.
    Breakfast was set in the shade of the giant
    acacia. The tree was in flower, and the scent of its pale lemon-yellow blossoms was sweet and fresh.
    Vachell decided that charging rhinos made you hungry. He ate a mango, a slice of pawpaw,
    scrambled eggs and sausage, and a great deal of toast. De Mare and Chris were his only companions.
    The Baradales, and sometimes Catchpole, it
    seemed, had breakfast in bed, and Lady Baradale never appeared before ten or eleven. Her husband sometimes got up in time to photograph the dawn, and sometimes fooled around in pyjamas with his.
    51
    films to noon.
    “I’m going to take Catchpole out after lion this morning,” de Mare said. “There were two hunting down the river last night. I sent the trackers out first thing and they found a fresh kill about a couple of miles away. Catchpole is just too thrilled, my dear. He must have a beautiful lion with a proud, flowing mane. Uh.”
    “There’s no justice,” Chris remarked. “Why
    should a man like that be allowed to kill a good, honest lion? Or, rather, employ you to kill it for him, Danny. It ought to be the other way round.”
    De Mare grunted and filled his pipe. He looked as spruce in a pair of khaki shorts and a bush shirt as he had in a suit in Marula. His shiny hair was brushed neatly off his forehead, and his clothes were carefully ironed.
    “How many baronets would you give a lion on
    its licence?” he mused. “Some people could be classed as