But she had legitimate reasonsfor visiting her daughter’s room, and one of her buttons could easily have come offthere.
“Mrs. Marshall,” I said onimpulse. “It seems one of your buttons on your sweater has comeoff?”
She looked down at the sweaterand nodded her head, as if it did not matter. “Maria had promisedto sew it for me. I just went to take the sweater from her roomthis morning. She evidently had not sewn it back before …” And shebit her lower up and lowered her head in grief. I supposed she hadbeen, about to say before she was killed. Well, that seemed to settle the question of howthe button came to be in Maria’s room.
CHAPTERSEVEN
A NEW GUEST ARRIVES THE LODGE
Ayuba asked to have a word with me, inprivate. He looked distressed. I joined him at the bar.
“I amexpecting a guest this evening, Mr. Simpson. She’s already on herway here. She’s my first cousin on my mother's side.”
“I think you should mention thisto the DPO for clearance,” I said. “There’s an ongoing murderinvestigation. It is a serious matter. Is she aware ofthis?”
“She is aware. I also spoke withthe DPO and he gave clearance.”
I wassurprised. It was unusual. A guest had been brutally murdered. Whywould the DPO in charge of the case, allow such an intrusion in themiddle of his investigation? The way he was going about this, wasrather unorthodox. Ordinarily, we should all have been whisked awayto the Obudu Police Station and interrogated there. Instead ofhaving cigarette smoke puffed into our faces. What manner of murderinvestigation was he conducting? Was he even taking this caseseriously?
“But that’s not the main reasonI wanted to talk to you.” Ayuba looked troubled.
“What is it, Ayuba?”
“We saw a colony of brown batsin one of the hollow trees in the garden.” He mentioned this likeit was an ominous sign. I lifted my eyebrows in a silent enquiry.“Amina also saw a rat in the storage room. I have called theexterminator to come and fumigate the place. But the DPO instructedthat we should wait until the investigation is concluded. He saidhe doesn’t want the crime scene to be contaminated.”
I was not sure why Ayuba sharedthis information with me.
“That’s fine. Is there somethingyou’d like me to do?”
“We have thelocal rat poison. I was thinking we might use that in the meantime.What do you think?” He took down a small bottle from the top of ashelf and showed it to me. It contained a substance wecalled Otapiapia.
“Becareful with the rat poison,” I cautioned. “We don’t want anyoneingesting it. There’s an unresolved homicide already and anotheraccidental death from rat poison won’t do your lodge, anygood.”
“All right, now,” hesaid.
Tonyecame over at that moment and stood beside my stool. He looked fromone to the other of us with tense, suspicious eyes.
“Why are you both whispering?”he asked.
“Go andsit down,Tonye,” I advised. He looked at us as if he had caught us gossipingabout him. He took one of the bar stools with a side glance, as ifthe stool was part of a conspiracy against him.
I may have mentioned that atfirst sight, I felt that Tonye was a little slow on the uptake. Healso came across as unreasonable. But as I got closer to him, Irealised how badly I had misjudged him. He was not slow and unreasonable. Farfrom it. It was patently clear that he was actually intellectuallyimpaired.
I felt him watching me, as Isipped a malt drink Ayuba had offered me. I looked up and caughthimstaring. Asusual, his mouth hung open.
“What?” Iasked. Tonye had a way of staring at people for noreason. And he seemed unaware of this until they felt compelled to ask him what the hell he was staringat.
“The fear here is driving menuts! I’m scared a killer is on the loose and we don’t know who thenext victim could be. Do you know I was so scared this morning thatI put a gun to my head? Why not end it all by myself, I wondered?In fact, I almost pulled the trigger,” he said looking downcast andfrightened.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked,shocked. I knew he was frightened, but from what he just said, itappeared that the situation was a lot more desperate than I hadthought.
“I’m telling you the honesttruth,” he said.
“So you own a gun?”
“Not really. It was an imaginarygun. But I put it to my head.”
Heslowly got off the bar stool with his fingers shaped like a gun andwalked away. I stared after him, as he made his way to the loungearea.
About an hour later, a ladywalked into the Lodge. I was the only guest in the lounge watchingTV. At the sight of her, a smile involuntarily spread across my face. She was tall,graceful and easy on the eyes. Her dark blue skirt suit sat well onher.
She wasprobably in her early thirties. Her searching, large eyeballslocated Ayuba at the bar area.
“Sannu, Mallam Ayuba!” she screamed with delight. She ran towardshim and they embraced. There was some good-natured laughter. Ayubaintroduced her to me as his cousin, Wahimda.
“So you’re theguest Ayuba has been expecting?” I asked. She nodded. She told meshe was a lawyer who worked with the United Nations Organisation. She had justreturned from an official assignment in Congo.
Later that evening, Ayubaintroduced her to the male guests seated at the dining table.Nagoth and Mrs. Marshall had ignored the dinnerbell,and were holed upin their rooms. Wahimda had a fetching personality, so the men werenaturally taken with her. The mood was still sober in the Lodge. Myhopes of a carefree vacation in Obudu had gone belly up.
“What would you like to drink?”Amina asked Wahimda.
“Hotchocolate,” she said. Amina brought it to her.
“Mr. Simpson, what do you think of the murder?” asked Wahimda.“Dan told me all about it.” Daniel Atanda was the name of theDivisional Police Officer.
“You have met us in veryunfortunate circumstances,” I replied. “A killing with a knife,
