Riotous Assembly by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online Page A

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    gallery that ran the length of Jacaranda House. If the hall downstairs had been filled with

    stuffed heads and portraits, the gallery walls were likewise lined with trophies of past

    battles. On either side of him the Kommandant was startled to find weapons of all shapes

    and sizes, weapons of all ages and types, united by only one common feature as far as the

    Kommandant could make out, that they were all in perfect working order and lethal to a

    degree he found positively hair-raising. He stopped and examined a machine pistol.

    Well-oiled and complete, it hung beside an ancient blunderbuss. Kommandant van Heerden

    was amazed. The gallery was a positive arsenal. Had Miss Hazelstone not telephoned to

    acknowledge her contretemps with Fivepence and had she decided to defend Jacaranda

    House, with these weapons at her disposal, she could have held the entire Piemburg police

    force at bay for weeks. Thanking his lucky stars for her cooperation, Kommandant van

    Heerden opened one of the doors that led off the gallery and looked inside.
    As he had expected, it was a bedroom and was furnished with a sense of taste and

    delicacy appropriate to the home of South Africa’s leading expert in soft furnishings.

    Chintz curtains and a matching bedspread gave to the whole room a gay and floral air. What

    lay on the bed had the opposite effect. There was nothing tasteful or delicate about it

    at all and nobody could call it furnished. For there, its incongruity emphasized by the

    daintiness of the other appointments, lay the body of a large, hairy and completely

    naked man. Worse still, for the Kommandant’s disturbed state of mind, the body bore all the

    signs of having only recently bled to death. It was practically coated with blood.
    Shaken by the appalling discovery of yet another corpse, the Kommandant staggered

    into the gallery and leant against the wall. One body in an afternoon he could just about

    cope with, particularly if it was black, but two, and one of them white, filled him with

    despair. Jacaranda House was taking on the qualities of an abattoir. Worse still, this

    second corpse destroyed any chances of hushing the case up. It was one thing to persuade

    Miss Hazelstone that she hadn’t murdered her black cook. The disappearance of Zulu cooks

    was a routine matter. The murder of a white man would simply have to be made public. There

    would have to be an inquest. Questions would be asked and one thing would lead to another

    until the full story of Miss Hazelstone and her Zulu cook came out into the open.
    After a moment’s agonizing thought, Kommandant van Heerden recovered his nerve

    sufficiently to peer round the door into the murder room again. The corpse was still

    there, he noted miserably. On the other hand it had certain attributes which Kommandant

    van Heerden found unique in his experience of corpses. One quality in particular struck

    his attention. The corpse had an erection. The Kommandant peered round the door again to

    confirm his suspicion, and as he did so the corpse stirred and began to snore.
    For a moment Kommandant van Heerden was so relieved by this evidence of life, that he

    felt inclined to laugh. The next moment he realized the full importance of his

    discovery and the smile died on his face. He had no doubt at all that the man whose body lay

    before him on the bed was the true murderer of Fivepence. The Kommandant peered down at

    the figure on the bed and as he did so he became aware of the smell of brandy in the air. A

    moment later his foot banged against a bottle lying on the floor. He reached down and

    picked it up. Old Rhino Skin brandy, he noted with disgust. It was a brandy that Konstabel

    Els was partial to and if anything was needed to confirm his suspicion that the fellow

    on the bed was a dangerous criminal it was the knowledge that if he shared one of

    Konstabel Els’ depraved tastes, he was almost certain to share others even