have been going to see her that night for a secret meeting in the woods.”
“You’re psychic, Lisbet.”
“A little.”
“But only half a mark for me, I think-for effort. Because it doesn’t tie everything up. There’s the toffee tin and the papers inside it, for a start.”
“And the fact that Boetie was not a natural liar. If he lied at all, I would think it would have to be for a very good reason.” “Yes, that’s an important aspect of all this; he does seem to have been behaving out of character.”
“Or was he?”
“I think the whole thing rests on that. Another drink?”
Lisbet nodded and a snap of the fingers activated the waiter, who stood, motionless between orders, like some kind of robot conserving its batteries, against a far pillar. He glided over.
“Brandy and telephone directory, Sammy.”
The waiter’s name was not Sammy, but his race had been divided by the whites into Sammy units and Mary units to facilitate friendly relationships.
“Horange juice last time, master,” he intoned carefully.
“That’s right-the directory’s separate.”
Kramer made his reply poker face and was rewarded when Lisbet smiled. If only the damn case could be set aside for the rest of the evening. Perhaps-
“Come on,” she said. “Where had we got to? And what’s the phone book for?”
“That, too, has a simple answer. Boetie went to the dancing classes because he wanted to meet someone, namely Miss Jarvis. Right?”
“Yes…”
“Therefore there was a connection between them beforehand. He must have come across her-heard of her even. Where, though? And why couldn’t they meet there?”
“What we’ve already decided-it depends on where she lives. Normally Afrikaner and English kids don’t mix.”
“Exactly.”
Kramer took the directory off the tray and flicked through to J. There were nine Jarvises listed. Two had Miss in front of their names. Another two were businesses. Leaving five, of which no less than three were in Greenside.
“Greenside!”
Kramer jumped up. Lisbet grabbed her handbag and ran after him.
“What’s the panic, Trompie?”
“I’m going round to that dancing school!”
“How do you know which one?”
“They’re only two-we’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of being right first time.”
“But why not just phone all the Jarvises and ask if there’s a Sally?”
“Because, my girl, I like to keep myself downhill when I’m stalking.”
“You mean…?”
“Nothing. It’s a matter of principle.”
It was exhaustingly boring just sitting there in the lieutenant’s office hour after hour. There was nothing to look at, nobody to talk to, not even a shortwave radio Johnny Pembrook could tune across to Lourenco Marques for some pop.
Yet he dared not leave it. His orders had been explicit: get the statements, get back to headquarters, stay put.
Well, he had got the statements, all right, and felt rather proud of them. He was sure that the various parties concerned had been most surprised to find so young a man entrusted with their solemn declarations. Probably his age had had a lot to do with it. The adults had acted as though they had detected his anxiety to do well.
Johnny began reading their words once again. Midway through Bonita’s recollections-God, she had frightened him, that one! — he realized he knew it all by heart.
“Bloody hell!” he said.
How silly that sounded.
But the whole setup was ridiculous.
Only a probationer detective would tolerate it-any other rank would have long since left a note and buggered off to the mess, lieutenant or no lieutenant. Johnny Pembrook suddenly had his first, perhaps second, insight into why Kramer asked for him.
The ever so gentle English gentleman, a real Londoner no less, who owned the Sadlers’ School of Dancing, positively writhed at the implication that he taught the tango to teenagers. Or any other such vulgar step to anyone, for that matter. He would have none of that. Things had changed enormously since he had taken over the lease at the beginning of November. Absolutely enormously. What a reception the city’s wonderfully artistic people had given him! So starved of culture, poor creatures. It made him so happy. But now, of course, his whole evening had been totally, utterly ruined. And he had such dear friends in. How thoughtlessly cruel.
“Jesus, I don’t know how they get into the country,” Kramer said loudly to Lisbet as they turned away in the hall.
“Probably come in those crates marked ‘British Made,’ ” he quipped on the stairs. Phonetically, the pun was viable in both languages-the Afrikaans word meid meaning “maid,” too, if you had to spell it all out. But Lisbet did not show any sign of amusement.
“I felt sick the way he was looking at you,” she said quietly.
“Oh, yes? How was it different to the way you look at me, then?”
“It wasn’t,” she said.
Kramer pondered deeply all the way round to the Trekkersburg Academy of Dance and Deportment. Where, to his considerable relief, they were received by a slant-eyed, fierce little woman in a black mantilla.
“Lat Am tonight,” she said at the door.
“Pardon, lady?”
“Latin American, and you’re not coming onto my floor in those shoes.”
“Cha, cha, cha,” Kramer replied, handing her his identification card and walking in.
Lisbet hesitated a moment and then followed them into the small office wallpapered with photographs of knob-kneed little girls in tutus, seedy Valentinos fully extended, and an incongruously obese Pekingese. There was a roll-top desk, two chairs, a coat stand; paper, mostly sheet music, lay everywhere.
“Name, lady?”
“Madame Du Barry.”
“Uhuh. I’m Holmes and this is Dr. Watson.”
“Mrs. Baker, then. Priscilla. Nothing immoral goes on in my studio.”
“That’s nice. But how about the ballroom classes held here on Friday nights?”
“It’s enough trouble getting the spotty little sods down from their end of the room to the girls! I’d never need to tear that lot apart, I can tell you. Here, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Inspecting your receipts.”
“What for, may I ask?”
Kramer tore out a page and handed it to Lisbet. She read: “To: Sally Jarvis, 10 Rosebank Road, Greenside. R4 with thanks.” Then Mrs. Baker snatched it away.
“So that’s it!” she said, moving round them like a boxer. Kramer was reminded of that wog Cassius he had seen on a newsreel-only then they had called him a dancer. His mind would do these things at critical moments.
“What?” he asked.
“Old Calamity Jane again. You’re working on the sex killing. He was also a pupil of mine, as you no doubt know. A nice boy, Boetie, quite a surprise considering he was an-”
Nearly a nasty blunder. Mrs. Baker sat down and made herself look very cooperative.
“Was he here long?”
