Dance to Your Daddy

tell me the name of the sitter in a single one of the portraits in this house-and there are a dozen or more-or the name of the artist, unless the portrait is signed. Romilly Lestrange was a connoisseur of paintings. Apart from all this...'

'All right,' said Romilly, 'that's enough. I'll tell you everything. I've done nothing against the law. I haven't inherited anything except the ten thousand the lawyers sent me. That's in the bank, and, if you'll drop the matter, I'll pay it all back.'

'False pretences is a serious offence, sir,' said Kirkby. 'It isn't only the money you've taken out of the estate of the late Mr Felix Napoleon Lestrange which is involved. We believe that you have also been engaged in a conspiracy to kidnap the principal beneficiary and that you held her prisoner here until Dame Beatrice came along and rescued her. If you would care to make a statement-that is, if you have any explanation to offer...'

'May I write it in my own words? I give in. I think you've got me, but I'm not as much involved as you make out. If I could tell the story in my own words I think you'll see that I haven't done anything wrong except to pass myself off as poor old Romilly when, of course, as you say, I'm not Romilly. There's no law to say I can't call myself Romilly if I want to, is there?'

'Definitely, if fraudulent representation is involved, sir.'

'But it isn't. Give me a couple of hours or so, and I'll let you have the whole works.'

'Very well. My sergeant will sit in with you.'

'Oh, I shan't attempt to make a bolt for it, or kill myself, or anything of that sort.'

'I'll just fetch my sergeant, all the same, sir, but, before we leave you to it, perhaps you would answer a question Dame Beatrice wants to put to you.'

'I wonder that you believe I shall answer it truthfully!'

'It might very well be in your own interests to do so,' said Dame Beatrice. 'Besides-if I may anticipate my question a little-as Willoughby Lestrange was killed some days before your house-party guests arrived, a truthful answer, as you will perceive, can scarcely harm you. When I thought that you might have killed Willoughby because he was in a position to expose you, I could not believe that you would have drawn attention (as you did) to the fact that he had not turned up. Then I perceived a flaw in this reasoning. Suppose that Willoughby (as I now know to be the case) was not in a position to recognise that you were an imposter? I examined the facts, and discovered that it was more than probable that you and he had never met. In that case, you would have no more to fear from him than from any other of the young people you had invited to your house. My question, therefore, is-was Willoughby invited, or was he not?'

'Look,' said Romilly, 'you've got me in a cleft stick. I'll admit that, but, simply because of that, you'll have to believe what I say. I have no idea whether Willoughby was invited or not. I certainly thought he was, and his brother, too, but (as you've just pointed out) I wasn't related to the brothers, so I had to ask Trilby for their addresses because she knew them and I didn't. She wouldn't have them at the housewarming, but on this second occasion I insisted, and I thought-'

'Let's have that statement,' said Kirkby. He went to the door and summoned the sergeant.

'On second thoughts,' said Romilly, 'if the sergeant writes shorthand I may as well dictate it. It will save a lot of my time.'

'Far better, from my point of view,' said Kirkby. 'I can chip in if I want anything enlarged upon or explained. I note you haven't asked for your lawyer to be present.'

'No need. Now you know I'm not Romilly Lestrange I've nothing to hide. Here goes, then.'

'One moment,' said Dame Beatrice. 'As you have nothing to hide, we should like to know your name.'

'Groot de Maas. I'm Cape Dutch. That's one reason why I was able to stay in Africa until 1966. I joined forces with Romilly Lestrange as soon as he first came out to Kenya. He'd bought a half-share in my estate, so we were partners. Later on came the war. It was an odd sort of time, although, of course, the colony had always netted a mixed lot of fish. You'd find English, Poles, Scandinavians and South Africans, especially in Nairobi. The South Africans were mostly farmers. Lestrange and I were partners in a coffee plantation, but we went into town for stores or when we wanted some fun.

'The colony wasn't actively involved in the war. Some of the younger Englishmen volunteered, but, by and large, things didn't alter much until the war was over. When the end came, we seemed to become a dump for high-ranking officers who saw no future for themselves in Britain, I suppose, but had the chance of a good life with us. They weren't the only immigrants. So long as they had the necessary capital to be allowed in, we got other ex-servicemen who became traders, technicians and farm managers-neither fish, flesh nor good red-herring, you might say-and the old snobberies which had always obtained, and which had developed into a sort of feudal relationship between ourselves and our native servants and workers, were gradually overwhelmed. Now, to my mind, snobbery isn't always such a bad thing. It acted in Kenya much as I imagine it does among the so-called County families in England. That's to say, it involves people in a certain code of behaviour and lays certain responsibilities on them.

'Well, those soon went by the board. These newcomers had no feeling for the country as such; they had simply come out to grab what they could. They didn't dispossess us old hands, of course, but they embittered the relations between the whites and the blacks. Most of our work-people-Lestrange's and mine-were Masai, a peaceable, pastoral people, no trouble at all, but the dominant tribe were the Kikuyu, a very different sort of animal, and a lot of the newcomers, not being the best type of white man, put their backs up more than a little, and made them fighting fit.

'The tensions weren't improved by the Indians. There were a good many of these. Some were pedlars who used to go up-country and trade with the natives, but others were moneylenders, very extortionate and bitterly hated and resented. But you probably know all this.

'Well, so far as the blacks were concerned, things went from bad to worse. They were exploited and underpaid in the towns, and they got a pretty dirty deal over land-holding. I'm not saying they were good farmers- they were not. All the same, scientific methods were improving their stock, and health measures were increasing the population, and what they wanted was more land. It hadn't been so bad for the tribes in the old days, because they were partly nomadic and could follow the pasture around. But with these new whites also needing land, the tribes became legally bound to tribal territory, and as much as a quarter of the arable land, as distinct from pasture, was in the hands of Europeans.

'Well, that was the set-up when the Kikuyu got really restive, and the result, as everybody knows, was the emergence of Mau Mau. That came about in 1950, and we were in a right mess, I can tell you. Oaths were taken,