“I was very careful,” murmured Jarvis, half a size smaller now, it seemed. “Was a police wallah m’self once, you know.”
“I suppose, with a bit of luck, we might find the wire from the dog with a metal detector.”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t put it in the dustbin-threw it in the hedge, I think. After all, I hardly expected you…”
“How did you get Boetie up to the plantation?”
“Piffling. Informed him I had my suspicions but I couldn’t afford to reveal them where we might be overheard.”
“So that’s how the cigarette got on the ground,” Kramer said softly. “Boetie chucked the bloody thing away-deliberately. Discarded it as irrelevant.”
Jarvis toyed with a paper knife.
“There’s no way of doing it without connecting the two cases, Lieutenant.”
A short while back Jarvis had been ranting and yelling, and now he was sitting there discussing his future so dispassionately it could have been that of a stranger. Mad as a rabid bloody meerkat. Apparently quite unaware he had been sprinkling around enough information for Kramer to have the whole thing sewn up by nightfall-providing, of course, both cases were used in conjunction. No, wait a minute, Kramer had him anyway so he, too, was becoming confused. It was the corroborating statement about the Cutler case that needed attention. Plus the compulsion Kramer felt to make this double-barreled bastard suffer for all the trouble he had caused. Quite suddenly, a most satisfactory idea occurred to him.
Kramer stood up.
“Captain,” he said, “we have overlooked one certain solution to your problem. In its way, it is also a solution to our own. Let us treat this as a matter of honor, as you would in the regiment, if you get my meaning. It would cause the least amount of damage to the family name and you will be required to undergo no indignity.”
He picked up his revolver, which had been lying on the desk, and broke it open. Jarvis leaned forward and saw each chamber was loaded. The revolver was snapped shut.
“In passing,” Kramer said, “I might point out that head injuries cause immense distress to those left behind. Now, having chatted amiably with you, as I shall tell the Colonel when he arrives in a minute, I’ll go up to the lavatory. Have I your understanding?”
He placed the revolver nonchalantly on the desk.
Jarvis got unsteadily to his feet-Kramer had encouraged him to drink freely during their lengthy discussion.
The two men stood looking at each other in silence; shoulders back, stomachs in, chins out.
“Spoken like a gentleman, sir!” said Jarvis.
Kramer shook hands and left.
Pembrook was very proud of his repair work and equally peeved when he found Kramer so inattentive while he gave a full explanation of what it had entailed.
“He was sweet about it,” Mrs. Jarvis said. “Far, far better than that little man I usually get in when things go wrong.”
“I think you’d better get down to helping him with his statement then,” Kramer said.
“Oh, I can’t! I’ve told you why, I simply can’t.”
“Come on, madam, sit down and Constable Pembrook will make it all very simple.”
“But, sir- Christ! ”
A single shot had sounded from downstairs.
Mrs. Jarvis began to laugh in that crazy way once again. When she overdid it, Kramer slapped her.
“Was that Peter?” she asked, her broad smile remaining.
Kramer nodded.
“But how the-”
“When you feel up to it, your statement, please, Mrs. Jarvis.”
Pembrook looked in amazement from one face to the other.
“Oh, but I must first go and tell Caroline it was nothing to worry about,” she said. “Don’t go away, young man.”
“And I’d better go down and see what has happened,” Kramer added.
They parted company on the landing.
Zondi, who had run in from the servants’ quarters, met Kramer at the bottom of the stairs.
“ Hau! Who is shooting?” he asked, bewildered.
“Boss Jarvis. Let’s inspect the damage.”
Kramer seemed absurdly jolly and this left Zondi considerably apprehensive. He followed him down the passage and into the study.
There, on the far side of the big desk, Captain Jarvis lay slumped in his chair, a huge powder burn on his shirt front over the heart. From his right hand hung a. 38 Smith amp; Wesson with distinctive ivory embellishments.
“It’s your gun, boss! How can this be?”
“Must have left it behind after our nice little talk-stupid of me. Can’t remember doing that.”
“He’s breathing!”
“I should bloody well hope so.”
“Boss?”
Unable to restrain himself, Zondi rushed forward and then realized there was no blood to be seen.
Kramer worked the trigger guard off Jarvis’s finger and broke open the revolver. He cleared the chambers and a stunted spent cartridge, plus five others with curiously crimped noses, jumped into his hand.
Blanks.
“I’ve had them in there ever since the gala,” he admitted, winking.
Then Zondi recalled that, when locked in mortal combat with an oversexed witch doctor, he had seen a blond phantom making no attempt to use the firearm it carried. Sudden comprehension slid icily like a hailstone down his spine. He shuddered.
“You’re crazy, boss!”
“Why so? There was never any real likelihood of violence in this case. All kid gloves and romance in the bloody moonlight.”
So saying, Kramer put the rose between his teeth and poured the contents of the crystal vase over Jarvis. It was too warm for an immediate effect but they did not have to wait overlong.
“Where’m I?” Jarvis slurred-nobody expected for a moment he would come out with anything original.
“Guess,” said Kramer.
Jarvis’s lids parted briefly.
“My study,” he mumbled.
“Wrong,” said Kramer.
“Where then?”
“Hell,” replied Kramer. “Just improvising, you understand, until we get the noose on you. After that, who knows? I never take chances.”
This time Jarvis opened his eyes wide and kept them open.
“You Afrikaner scum,” he said, with such hatred Zondi feared for the worst.
But Kramer laughed. “Don’t blame me, Captain-blame Professor Aardvark.”
And he thoroughly enjoyed his little in-joke.
Zondi was able to share his amusement. It was he who had shown the lieutenant that the first word in any English dictionary was, in fact, Cape Dutch.