His arrival was followed in but a few moments by others, including the ever-present police. Everyone was shocked; no one had liked Rampling and no one wanted to believe in young Carradine’s guilt, and it was at once suggested that Rampling had been killed by some sniper’s bullet, regardless of the fact that the scene of the shooting was almost in the centre of the town. Other equally baseless suggestions followed — that one of Rampling’s creditors had come after him, or, with more support, that due to the inadvisability of arming the natives, one of them had run amok. Or maybe drunken soldiers had been involved: The troops were not all disciplined regulars, and unruly incidents were not uncommon. However, Carradine’s presence outside the Rampling bungalow, the gossip about his association with Kitty Rampling, together with that recent angry clash in the racecourse bar between himself and her husband, witnessed by many, made him a prime suspect.
The mayor, sitting in his empty house, could find no answer to his own pressing problem of what was to be done about the matter.
The siege continued, Mafeking still miraculously holding out after more than six months. But the fortified trenches encircling the town were not proof against Cronjé’s onslaughts, and casualties grew, despite the warning horn blown from the lookout whenever the Boers’ twelve-pounders were being loaded. Small acts of heroism and courage were reported daily among the loyalist civilians, the women and children, the native servants. The townspeople buried their dead and at last began to eat the horses.
However, with the letters and despatches which still got through came news to stiffen the sinews — that Ladysmith, another beleaguered town, an important railway junction in Natal, had been relieved after a hundred and twenty days. It was reported that the Boers were losing heart. It was also reported, once again, that relief troops were within five miles of Mafeking, and B.P. promptly earmarked several more horses for a celebration dinner for the whole town, cheerfully urging everyone to bolster their courage, reminding them that their sacrifices for Queen and country would not be in vain. The relief forces, unfortunately, were driven back with heavy losses.
Mrs. Rampling, recovered from her prostration at the death of her husband, had refused to move out of her house into the women’s laager and stayed where she was, retrimming her pretty hats and entertaining off-duty officers at afternoon soirees. She had grown noticeably thinner, her skin was transparent, but it only enhanced her looks and increased the lustre of her big brown eyes.
Carradine was still imprisoned, half-forgotten in the troubles of the moment and allowed no visitors, and the mayor was looking, and feeling, ever more anxious. Problems other than the exigencies of the moment weighed heavily on his mind. Carradine had once accused him of burying his head in the sand, but he knew he could not do so forever.
He thought of his last letter from Sarah, and felt worse. “If Colonel Baden-Powell is the most popular man in England — as there is no doubt he is,” she had written, “then the most popular man here in all Yorkshire is the mayor of Mafeking. News of his courage and the tireless work he is doing there has travelled across the continents and has made his wife and children very proud.”
What would she think of him now, if she knew?
The Bechuanaland dusks were short, the nights cold, and after cycling briskly home one evening, shaken by what he had heard that morning, the mayor was promising himself a tot of carefully hoarded brandy before the scanty meal — dried biltong again, no doubt, which was all his servant would be able to provide — as he walked into his sitting room.
There he found Edward Carradine, sitting in his own favourite chair in an attitude of great melancholy, twisting round and round in his hands an object which had previously been standing on one of the small tables in the room — an ostrich egg mounted upon ebony and painted with a charming, delicate depiction of flowers of the veldt. He was regarding it intently. Perhaps his time in prison had taught him to abandon his scruples in regard to ostriches.
Frank’s greeting could not have been more heartfelt. “Carradine, how extremely glad I am to see you!”
Carradine was very pale from his incarceration, his ruddy good looks diminished, with lines drawn about his mouth. Frank looked at him with pity and saw that he had lost his youth. “They have let me go, Frank,” he said. “I had become nothing more than an embarrassment to them; they had to release me.”
“I have never doubted they would do so, my dear fellow — in fact, I have expected it daily! I have spared nothing in arguing with the officer in charge for your release, given him every assurance that a man of your character could have done no such thing!”
Carradine maintained silence at this until finally he said, “There is still no trace of the weapon, and they inform me they have better things to do at the moment than to search for it. So there is nothing to prove my guilt, and she — Mrs. Rampling — supports my story that I was not with her that night.” An inscrutable expression crossed his face. “She even submitted to her house being searched, but of course no gun was found there. No doubt some unknown native with a grudge against Rampling will be the convenient scapegoat,” he finished bitterly.
“The scapegoat?”
Carradine did not answer the question, looking down at the ostrich egg once more. “She painted this, did she not?” he remarked at last.
Frank regarded him gravely. “Mrs. Rampling did indeed, and gave it to my wife on the occasion of her birthday. She is not untalented in that direction.”
“In other directions, too.”
The pretty trifle in Carradine’s hands trembled. Frank reached out and removed it from him.
Suddenly, the young man sprang up, almost knocking over the lamp on the table beside him. “We must talk — but outside! I have for some reason developed a strange aversion to being inside four walls!” He laughed harshly and strode to the door.
Frank followed him into the cold dusk. The light was fading fast and the sky was the colour of the brandy Frank had been denied, shot with rose and gold, the garden smelling of the jasmine Sarah had planted around the door. He sank onto a seat, which held warmth from the heat of the day, under the jacaranda tree, while Carradine paced about. Suddenly, he turned and faced the mayor.
“I did not fire that shot, Frank.”
Frank moved the toe of his boot about in the red earth, deflecting a column of ants. He moved his toe away and the ants regrouped themselves and went on. He busied himself with his pipe. In the light of the match, a column of fireflies whirled. The rich aroma of tobacco overpowered the scent of the jasmine.
“I know that for an indisputable fact, Edward.”
Carradine stood very still and upright, his hands clasped behind his back, looking down at the mayor. “Do you, Frank?” he said at last. “Do you, indeed?”
Frank saw the young man struggling to come to terms with something which he now recognized, and perhaps had subconsciously known all along. “It was not I who shot him either, my young friend.”
“Then who?”
The sound of the lookout horn suddenly rang out from the redoubts, echoing throughout the town, signalling that the Boers were mustering for another bombardment, a warning to take cover while there was still time. A distant noise and confusion broke out as the townspeople ran for shelter, obeying the edict that civilians were to stay indoors as far as possible during an attack so as not to hamper the trained volunteers, competent to deal with such a situation. Hooves clattered down the street, wagon wheels rumbled, a few shouts were heard, but presently the ominous waiting silence they had all become accustomed to fell, the lull before the shelling and retaliatory mortar fire began. The interruption might have been a mere rumble of thunder for all the attention the two men paid to it.