Mustapha and Idris conferred.
‘We’ll just go part of the way.’
‘That’s all right.’
At the last moment Mustapha pulled out.
‘It’s a question of honour,’ he muttered.
‘I won’t go far,’ said Idris, weakening by the minute. He returned after a very short time.
‘It’s a question of honour,’ he said, depressed.
The riders disappeared in a cloud of dust. Beyond them some figures quietly browsing in the scrub looked up, startled, and then began to run for their lives.
The crowd shot off; but very soon people began to fall out. The horses, too, soon began to feel the pace and some of them dropped behind.
The many who had come out of the Tent to watch the start began to file back in. At one end of the long bar Seymour saw Juliette talking to a young officer with his arm in a sling, consoling him, no doubt, for being unable to take part in the chase.
Someone touched his arm. It was Monique.
‘Here again,’ she said, ‘as you see. Just can’t stop.’
‘Forget about him,’ said Seymour. ‘He wasn’t worth it.’
‘I know.’
‘Find someone else,’ said Seymour. ‘He did.’
‘I’ll keep trying,’ promised Monique, and slipped away.
Seymour could see Chantale on the other side of the Tent, working her way around groups of people as usual, getting material for her column, no doubt. But he didn’t go over to her.
Mrs Macfarlane appeared beside him.
‘You’re leaving us, I gather?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘I shall be sorry to see you go.’
‘And I to leave.’
She followed his eyes.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘it is going to be very difficult for Chantale.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘And will become even more difficult,’ she said, ‘as time goes by. Unless she marries a Frenchman. She is too old, in Moroccan terms, to marry a Moroccan. And would she be content with the kind of life that would mean?’
‘She should marry a Frenchman,’ said Seymour.
‘She might not want to,’ said Mrs Macfarlane, and moved away.
The huntsmen were beginning to return. Sheikh Musa appeared in the door of the Tent. He saw Seymour and came across to him.
‘You’ve heard about the abdication?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know who’s going to be the next Sultan?’
‘Moulay Hafiz?’
‘That’s right.’
He smiled and took Seymour’s arm.
‘Advise me,’ he said. ‘Would it be a good idea to invite Moulay to the next pig-sticking?’
‘Would it be worth it?’ said Seymour. ‘They’d only get another one.’
Seymour went out into the enclosure.
Monsieur Ricard was being helped off his horse.
‘And this,’ hissed his daughter, ‘is the last time for you!’
‘I fell off,’ said Ricard, depressed.
‘He tried to get on again,’ said Millet. ‘But the horse wasn’t having any.’
‘At least the horse had some sense,’ said Suzanne.
The soldiers were coming in, lances bloodied.
‘You did pretty well today, Levret,’ one of them was saying.
‘I only got one,’ Levret said.
‘They weren’t easy today.’
‘I could have done better.’
De Grassac went past, leading his horse.
‘A good ride?’ asked Seymour.
‘A good ride,’ said de Grassac. ‘But no stick.’
‘Could I have a word with you?’
De Grassac handed the reins to a trooper.
‘At your service.’
Seymour took him aside.
‘I suppose it’s the army,’ he said, ‘that teaches you to think quickly in an emergency.’
‘Well, yes, it does. But-’
‘Such as when you couldn’t get the lance free again. You had stuck too well.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘After you had stuck Bossu. A good stick, a very good stick. But then you couldn’t get the lance out again. It had stuck in the earth. So there you were, with someone coming up, and the lance in your hand, and the point in Bossu’s back. Quick thinking required. And this is probably where the army helped you.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You left Bossu, with your lance still sticking in him, picked up his lance and rode off.’
‘Monsieur Seymour-’
‘And rejoined the hunt. Late, of course. You had to ride like the wind. That was what one observer said. With your headdress trailing out behind, like hair. But you came up in time to be in at the killing. And, of course, you had a lance. Bossu’s lance.’
This time de Grassac said nothing.
‘When the news came in about Bossu, you went back and recovered your own lance. Quite openly. And then when I asked you for the lance that had killed Bossu, you could give one to me. Bossu’s own. Incidentally, I took it to the shop you told me of. You were right, they couldn’t tell me who it belonged to. But it had been mended once and they thought the work might have been done for a Monsieur Bossu.
‘It was the lance,’ Seymour explained, ‘that had originally set me thinking. Because there was somebody else’s lance, still stuck in Bossu. But where was his own lance?’
‘Stolen,’ said de Grassac.
‘I remember you making much of the way things were stolen out here. But I spoke to someone who was on the scene immediately afterwards, immediately afterwards, and they couldn’t remember seeing another lance, lying by the body, say. It was one of the things that puzzled me. I thought that perhaps the killer had taken it. But why? Perhaps so that he could rejoin the hunt without anyone suspecting. He would need a lance, wouldn’t he?
‘There was some evidence that whoever had killed Bossu had ridden off in that direction. And further evidence, later, that whoever it was had been wearing a headdress — it got caught in the thorns. But my informant supposed that it belonged perhaps to one of Sheikh Musa’s men. I was able to check with Sheikh Musa’s men. In particular, with the two men who had been outriding on the south side. Of course, they didn’t see what happened when you rode in after Bossu. But they did see someone riding up hard afterwards and overtaking the field. They were able to tell me who it was. Going not so much by the person as by the horse. They are pretty good at recognizing horses. They described it to me, and I have just confirmed that the description matches yours. But, of course, we don’t need my identification. Theirs will do. But I can get them to confirm it, if necessary.’
‘Don’t bother,’ said Captain de Grassac.
‘I think I know why you killed him, too. When de Lissac was blown up in the truck, Chantale asked you to go down south and look into it. Because I think that even then she suspected that it was not an accident. You went down and looked into it. And then you told her that it was, indeed, an accident. Yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Better for her not to know. I knew, and that was enough.’
‘Could I ask how you knew? I know, too, but that is because I have talked to eyewitnesses. But I don’t think you can have talked to them.’
‘No. It was the dancers, the Chleuh dancers. They circulate all over the south. They pick up things. And they picked up this. And then they talked to me.’
‘Why didn’t you report it? Tell the authorities?’
‘What authorities?’
‘Well-’
‘There aren’t any down there. There is only Moulay Hafiz. And the army. But what is the point of telling the army? Bossu wasn’t under its jurisdiction. And nor, by this time, was de Lissac.’
‘You thought you knew what to do?’
‘I did know what to do.’
A little to de Grassac’s surprise, Seymour left him and walked back into the Tent. There he found Chantale.
‘I have been expecting this,’ said Chantale.
‘Since when?’
‘Since I saw you talking to Armand de Grassac.’
‘Not before?’
‘Well, perhaps since you spoke to me last night.’
‘You knew that your father had been murdered.’
‘Yes.’
‘How? Did de Grassac tell you.’