He left the table and went to the chest, lifted the lid against groaning hinges and the leather bag with its golden contents was gone also. He ransacked the chest down to its floorboards, but it was not there. Then he started to search in earnest, going carefully through any possible hiding-place in the crowded room. An hour later he went back and perched on the edge of the table once more.
13-arrin you, for a cunning old bastard, he said quietly.
He took one more slow look about the room, making certain that he overlooked nothing. The painting of the lion hunt was no longer on the easel, he noticed.
Suddenly the humour of the situation struck him, and his scowl lightened, he began to chuckle ruefully to himself.
You had the last joke on the Ballantynes, didn't you?
By God, but you always did things your way, Tom Harkness, I'll grant you that.'
He stood up slowly, and placed his hand on the blanket-covered shoulder. 'You win, old man. Take your secrets with you then. ' He could feel the twisted old bones through the cloth and he shook him gently and then he went out quickly to his horse for there was much to do.
It took him the rest of the day to cross the neck again and reach the magistrate's court, then to get back with the coroner and his assistants.
They buried Thomas Harkness that evening, wrapped in the blanket, under the milkwood grove, for the heat was oppressive in the valley and they could not wait for a coffin to be carted out from the city.
Zouga left the coroner to take charge of the estate, to list the equipment and livestock in the yard and put his seals on the doors of the old house until the contents could be taken in.
Zouga rode home in the golden Cape dusk, his boots dusty and his shirt sticky with sweat. He was exhausted from the day's exertions, and low in spirits, still oppressed by grief for the old man, and angry with him for the last trick he had played.
The groom took his horse in front of the bungalow. Did you deliver the letter to Captain Codrington? ' Zouga demanded, and hardly waited for the reply as he went up into the house. He needed a drink now, and while he poured whisky into a cut crystal glass, his sister came into the room, and reached up casually to kiss his cheek, wrinkling her nose at the tickle of his whiskers and the smell of his sweat. You had best change. We are dining with the Cartwrights tonight, Robyn told him. 'I could not avoid it.'
And then as an afterthought, 'Oh, Zouga, a coloured servant delivered something for you this morning. just after you had left. I had it put in the study. 'Who is it from? ' Robyn shrugged. 'The servant spoke only kitchen Dutch and he seemed terrified. He fled before I could find someone to question him.'
With the whisky glass in his hand Zouga crossed to the door of the study, and stopped there abruptly. His expression changed, and he strode through the doorway.
Minutes later Robyn heard his shout of triumphant laughter, and curiously she crossed to the open door.
Zouga stood beside the heavy carved stinkwood desk.
On the desk-top lay a draw-string bag of tanned and stained leather from which spilled a heavy necklace of gleaming gold; beside the bag was spread a magnificently illustrated map on a backing of linen parchment, and Zouga stood with his back to her. He held at arm's length a flamboyant picture in oils in a large frame, a figure on horseback with a band of ferocious wild animals in the foreground, and as she watched, Zouga reversed the picture. There was a message freshly carved into the wood of the frame.
For Zouga Ballantyne. May you find the road to all your Monomatapas, would only that I could have gone with you.
Tom Harkness.
Zouga was laughing still, but there was a strange quality to the laughter and when he turned towards her she realized with a shock that her brother's eyes were bright with tears.
Zouga brushed the crumbs from his lips with the damask table napkin and chuckled as he picked up the sheet of newsprint and shook it open again at the second page. Damn me, Sissy, I should have known better than to leave you alone. ' He read further and laughed outright. Did you really say that to him? Did you really? 'I cannot remember my exact words, ' Robyn told him primly, 'you must remember it was in the heat of battle.'
They sat on the terrace of the bungalow under the pergola of vines, through which the early sun flicked golden coins of light upon the breakfast table.
The previous day the editor of the Cape Times, with a speculator's eye to making a profit on Dr. Robyn Ballantyne's notoriety, had invited her on a tour of the military hospital at Observatory, and in innocence, Robyn had believed that the visit was at the invitation of the Colony's administration and she had welcomed the opportunity to widen her professional experience.
The visit had succeeded beyond the editor's most extravagant expectations, for the surgeon-general of the Colony had scheduled a tour for the same day and he had walked into the hospital's main operating room, followed by his staff, at the moment that Robyn was expressing herself on the subject of sponges to the hospital matron.
The surgeon's sponges were kept in pails of water, clean water from the galvanized rainwater tanks at the rear of the building. The pails were under the operating table, where the surgeon could reach them readily, and after swabbing away blood and pus and other matter the sponge was dropped into a collection tray, later to be washed out and returned to the original pail of fresh water. I assure you, doctor, that my nurses wash the swabs out most thoroughly The matron was a formidable figure with the flattened features of a bulldog bitch and the same aggressive thrust to her jaw. She stooped, plunged her hand into the pail, and selected one of the sponges and proffered it to Robyn. You can see for yourself how soft and white they are. Just like the soft white germs that swarm in them.
' Robyn was angry, with red spots of colour in her cheeks. Have none of you here ever heard of joseph T-isteiV The surgeon-general answered her question from the doorway. The answer to that question, Doctor Ballantyne, is NO we have never heard of that person, whoever he may be. We do not have time to concern ourselves with the opinions of every crank or, for that matter, with male impersonators.'
The surgeon-general had a very good idea of the identity of the young woman before him. He had followed the gossip which was the Colony's main recreation, and he did not approve of Robyn.
