“Describing incident,” he said.
The speech seemed to grow in urgency. He brought both palms down sharply on the arms of his chair. Alleyn wondered if he only imagined that a heightened tension invested the audience. A pause and then, unmistakably, an order.
“Spear, chap,” ventriloquized Mr. Whipplestone. “Fetch.”
Two of the guards came smartly to attention, marched to meet each other, faced front, saluted, about-turned and marched out. Absolute stillness followed this proceeding. Sounds from outside could be heard. Gibson’s men in the garden, no doubt, and once, almost certainly, Gibson’s voice.
When the silence had become very trying indeed, the soldiers returned with the spear-carrier between them.
He was still dressed in his ceremonial garments. His anklets and armbands shone in the lamplight and so did his burnished body and limbs. But he’s not really black, Alleyn thought. “If Troy painted him he would be anything but black — blue, mole, purple, even red where his body reflects the carpet and walls.” He was glossy. His close-cropped head sat above its tier of throat-rings like a huge ebony marble. He wore his lion’s skin like a lion. Alleyn noticed that his right arm was hooked under it as if in a sling.
He walked between his guards to the bier. They left him there, isolated before his late Ambassador and his President and close enough to Alleyn and Mr. Whipplestone for them to smell the sweet oil with which he had polished himself.
The examination began. It was impossible most of the time for Alleyn to guess what was being said. Both men kept very still. Their teeth and eyes flashed from time to time, but their big voices were level and they used no gesture until suddenly the spearman slapped the base of his own neck.
“Chop,” breathed Mr. Whipplestone. “Karate. Sort of.”
Soon after this there was a break and neither man spoke for perhaps eight seconds; then, to Alleyn’s surprise and discomfiture, the Boomer began to talk, still in the Ng’ombwanan tongue, to him. It was a shortish observation. At the end of it the Boomer nodded to Mr. Whipplestone, who cleared his throat.
“The President,” he said, “Directs me to ask you if you will give an account of what you yourself witnessed in the pavilion. He also directs me to translate what you say, as he wishes the proceedings to be conducted throughout in the Ng’ombwanan language.”
They stood up. Alleyn gave his account, to which the Boomer reacted as if he didn’t understand a word. Mr. Whipplestone translated.
Maintaining this laborious procedure, Alleyn was asked if after the death had been discovered he had formed any opinion as to whether the spearman was, in fact, injured.
Looking at the superb being standing there like a rock, it was difficult to imagine that a blow on the carotid nerve or anywhere else for that matter could cause him the smallest discomfiture. Alleyn said: “He was kneeling, with his right hand in the position he has just shown. His head was bent, his left hand clenched and his shoulders hunched. He appeared to be in pain.”
“And then,” translated Mr. Whipplestone, “what happened?”
Alleyn repressed an insane desire to remind the Boomer that he was there at the time and invite him to come off it and talk English.
He said: “There was a certain amount of confusion. This was checked by—” he looked straight at the Boomer—“the President, who spoke in Ng’ombwanan to the spearman, who appeared to offer some kind of statement or denial. Subsequently five men on duty from the Special Branch of the C.I.D arrived with two of the President’s guard who had been stationed outside the pavilion. The spearman was removed to the house.”
Away went Mr. Whipplestone again.
The Boomer next wished to know if the police had obtained any evidence from the spear itself. Alleyn replied that no report had been released under that heading.
This, apparently, ended his examination, if such it could be called. He sat down.
After a further silence, and it occurred to Alleyn that the Ng’ombwanans were adepts in non-communication, the Boomer rose.
It would have been impossible to say why the atmosphere, already far from relaxed, now became taut to twanging point. What happened was that the President pointed, with enormous authority, at the improvised bier and unmistakably pronounced a command.
The spearman, giving no sign of agitation, at once extended his left hand — the right was still concealed in his bosom — and drew down the covering. And there was the Ambassador, open-mouthed, goggle-eyed, making some sort of indecipherable declaration.
The spearman, laying his hand upon the body, spoke boldly and briefly. The President replied even more briefly. The lion-skin mantle was replaced, and the ceremony — assembly, trial whatever it might be — was at an end. At no time during the final proceedings had the Boomer so much as glanced at Alleyn.
He now briefly harangued his hearers. Mr. Whipplestone muttered that he ordered any of them who had any information, however trivial, bearing however slightly on the case, to speak immediately. This met with an absolute silence. His peroration was to the effect that he himself was in command of affairs at the Embassy. He then left. His A.D.C.s followed, and the one with whom Alleyn was acquainted paused by him to say the President requested his presence in the library.
“I will come,” Alleyn said, “in ten minutes. My compliments to the President, if you please.”
The A.D.C. rolled his eyes, said, “But—”, changed his mind and followed his master.
“That,” said Mr. Whipplestone, “was remarkably crisp.”
“If he doesn’t like it he can lump it. I want a word with Gibson. Come on.”
Gibson, looking sulky, and Fox were waiting for them at their temporary quarters in the controller’s office. On the desk, lying on a damp unfolded handkerchief, was a revolver. Thompson and Bailey stood nearby with their tools of trade.
“Where?” said Alleyn. ’
“In the pond. We picked it up with a search-lamp. Lying on the blue tiled bottom at the corner opposite the conveniences and three feet in from the margin.”
“Easy chucking distance from the loo window.”
“That’s correct.”
“Anything?” Alleyn asked Bailey.
“No joy, Mr. Alleyn. Gloves, I reckon.’’
“It’s a Luger,” Alleyn said.
“They are not hard to come by,” Mr. Whipplestone said, “in Ng’ombwana.”
“You know,” Alleyn said, “almost immediately after the shot, I heard something fall into the pond. It was in the split second before the rumpus broke out.”
“Well, well,” said Fox. “Not,” he reasoned, “a very sensible way for him to carry on. However you look at it. Still,” he said heavily, “that’s how they do tend to behave.”
“Who do, Br’er Fox?”
“Political assassins, the non-professionals. They’re a funny mob, by all accounts.”
“You’re dead right there, Teddy,” said Mr. Gibson. “I suppose,” he added, appealing to Alleyn, “we retain possession of this Luger, do we?”
“Under the circumstances we’ll be lucky if we retain possession of our wits. I’m damned if I know. The whole thing gets more and more like a revival of the Goon Show.”
“The A.C., your department, rang.”
“What’s he want?”
“To say the Deputy Commissioner will be calling in to offer condolences or what have you to the President. And no doubt,” said Gibson savagely, “to offer me his advice and congratulations on a successful operation. Christ!” he said, and turned his back on his colleagues.
Alleyn and Fox exchanged a look.
“You couldn’t have done more,” Alleyn said after a moment. “Take the whole lay-out, you couldn’t have given any better coverage.”