The Crocodile's Last Embrace (44 page)

Sam and Jade both reached for Pellyn. Sam managed to grab his left wrist and pull him up far enough for Jade to catch hold of his jacket. Together they hauled with all their remaining strength, dragging him from the river. They didn’t quit until they’d put over forty feet between themselves and the bank where he lay unconscious.

“We need to tie him up,” said Jade.

“That’s Dr. Mathews!” exclaimed Sam.

“His real name is Mathers Pellyn.” Jade knelt down and removed Pellyn’s boot laces and deftly secured his wrists behind his back. “Lilith trapped me in a cellar at the shed. She had Jelani there. But Emily, Harry, and some of the girls found us.” She pointed towards the far side of the mountain. “Avery’s car is that way. We can load him up and take him back to stand trial.” She finished tying the bonds and leaned back on her heels, panting. “As to Lilith? Let the hyenas have her, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll tell Finch to pick up the remains.”

Jade thought of what Pellyn had said about David being his son by Lilith. At one time, the realization would have staggered her. Now it didn’t. She’d seen a vision of David in France, his face sorrowful, as if he now knew about his parents. She bowed her head.
It’s all right, David. You were not like them. Rest in peace now.

She felt a pair of strong arms lift her from behind and encircle her waist. Here was love. Here was a man! She turned in Sam’s embrace. Fatigue, relief, and sorrow over the unnecessary deaths took them both and they each braced against the other, giving and receiving support. For a few minutes, neither of them spoke, letting their heartbeats speak for them. Jade closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, drinking in Sam’s scent.

“It’s over,” she said finally. She grabbed hold of his arms with hers, gripping tightly. “You’re not going to leave again, are you?”

“No,” he murmured into her ear. “I couldn’t live without you and your wild escapades. So if you’ll still have me, I’m yours. Only,” he added with a touch of sadness in his voice, “I can’t promise you the sky anymore.”

“We’ll get another plane,” she said. “In the meantime, I have this.” She broke away from him and took the brilliant sapphire from her right hand. Sam put it on her left.

“Good thing you said yes, too,” said Sam. “Because I already told my parents to get ready to come out to Africa for a wedding. We are going to have such adventures, Jade!”

“Well, if you were planning on leaving me again, I was going to keep you here even if I had to shoot you to do it. Wait a minute,” she said. “Didn’t you get shot when Pellyn’s gun went off? I saw you fall.”

“Hit my wooden leg.” He pointed to his boot. There was a neat hole in the front and a splintered one at the exit. “Suspect it’s cracked now and I’ll have to get a new one.” He leaned in for a kiss.

Jade tasted his lips and mouth, felt that blasted beard scratching at her cheeks, and decided even that felt like a caress. She was a starved prisoner, newly released and desperate for food, for comfort, for Sam.

And then the throbbing began in her left knee. From the mountain’s base came the trumpeting blast of an angry elephant. Jade pushed Sam away. “Something’s wrong . . .” she began.

That was when she saw Boguli over Sam’s shoulder. But this time he was not swaying gently from side to side. He stood erect, as might a younger, proud warrior, and pointed towards the riverbank. There lay Lilith, blood dribbling from her nostrils and mouth, her clothes caked in red. She’d struggled to her right elbow and now to her knees, her right hand gripping her Webley. Her eyes were glazed with a fanatical hatred as she clenched her teeth and took aim, her right hand trembling.

“Lilith!” Jade shouted. She looked for her Winchester, but it lay on the ground out of reach. Her hand reached down to her right boot and found her knife. Without thinking, she pulled it, drew back, and launched. The knife spun three and a half times before implanting deeply in Lilith’s chest.

Sam drew his Colt, but before he could fire, the Athi came alive with a boiling froth. A hideous monstrosity of dappled green and ghostly gray lunged from the water and surged onto the bank. In an instant the beast clamped its massive jaws on Lilith’s waist and hefted her as easily as it would a rag doll. She screamed and beat at its eyes, but nothing would break the animal’s deadly embrace.

Sam fired, the bullets ricocheting off the monster’s head. The crocodile spun around and pushed off into the river. Within a matter of moments, the surface waters were calm.

—The Traveler

“YOU’LL BE WANTED FOR YET ANOTHER INQUEST,” said Finch. “Both of you.” Jade and Sam sat in the inspector’s office. Sam had shaved his beard, leaving a slightly paler chin and a pencil-thin mustache gracing his upper lip.

“How will Pellyn be charged?” asked Sam.

“Well, that’s going to be up to the chief magistrate in the end, but I’m pushing for murder. I confess there may not be enough evidence to make it stick, though.”

“How is that?” asked Sam.

This time Jade answered. “Because Waters probably killed Stockton and pushed him and his car off the Limuru Bridge.”

“That is correct,” said Finch. “Of course, we believe your Pellyn killed Waters for taking on another victim without him. Dymant did find that .455 in Waters’ rib. But Dymant is dead and his report is missing.”

“But Pellyn killed Dymant, too, and he probably killed Mutahi.”

Finch shrugged. “Most likely, but we have no evidence.” He shook his head. “I still am finding it hard to believe that this man was a criminal. I’ve known him as Dr. Mathews for so long. He’s performed numerous examinations on bodies for us.”

“I wonder how many he reported as deaths by accidents or natural causes,” said Jade. “People whom he’d killed or had arranged to be killed. In his role, he had ample opportunity to hide evidence.”

“Sadly we will never know that,” said Finch, “and the jury has known Mathews for so long that they’ll be hard to convince otherwise.”

“You have the documents from that shed. Surely you can link him to the mining schemes,” argued Sam. “You cannot let that man run free.”

“I hardly think that will happen, Mr. Featherstone,” said Finch. “With his leprosy, he’ll be confined to a leper colony, at least.” He looked at Jade. “Why are you staring at me, Miss del Cameron?”

“I’m thinking of how I suspected you of being Mathers Pellyn, although in hindsight, I can hardly picture you with Lilith.”

“You suspected Hascombe, too, didn’t you?” asked Sam.

“For a while.” She smiled. “After rescuing Harry, Emily seems quite taken with him, and he with her. That should be fun.”

The Dunburys and the Thompsons met Sam and Jade for lunch at the New Stanley after the visit with Finch. Emily joined them, looking more vibrant and alive after her adventure. Jade doubted that she’d have any trouble finding suitors with her revived beauty, but perhaps she’d be less inclined to settle down right away.
I think she’s discovered the Heathington spirit of adventure.

“I imagine, Bev, that the mothers are calling for your resignation as leader of the Girl Guides after their recent escapades,” said Jade. “Sorry.”

Beverly laughed. “And Lady Northey and Mrs. Archibald would lead the pack against me, too, if it weren’t for Avery’s doings.”

“Yes,” said Avery. “I decided the girls needed recognition for their bravery and service, so I sent a telegram to His Highness, the Prince of Wales. He was impressed enough to send them something suitably bright and shiny to pin on their uniforms.”

“How is Jelani?” asked Beverly.

“Well,” said Jade. “He insisted on going back to his village so the old
mondo-mogo
could care for him. He won’t abide the British hospital for natives.”

A polite cough interrupted their conversation. Blaney Percival stood beside their table. “Begging your pardon, but I thought you and our friends here would like to know that the crocodile is dead.”

“Dead!” they exclaimed.

“Stone-cold dead this time,” said Percival. “His body floated belly-up this morning, that woman still clamped in his jaws.”

“Indigestion?” suggested Sam.

“Hardly,” said Percival. He placed a knife on their table. “Found that in the beast’s skull, piercing the brain.”

“That’s my knife!” exclaimed Jade. “The last I saw it was in Lilith’s chest.”

“She used it to try to kill the beast,” said Percival.

“Crocs are hard to kill,” said Jade, and when she looked at Sam, she could see that he knew to whom she was referring. Lilith, like the croc, had not gone down easily.

“I heard about the fight near the falls,” said Percival. “I’m thinking that, because Stockton was killed near there, this crocodile learned to associate gunshots with a victim and came to the site during your battle.”

Jade shook her head. “The croc didn’t kill Lilith. Ask the Africans. They will all tell you that the souls of past victims enter a crocodile, seeking vengeance. Waters, Stockton, and possibly Mutahi killed Lilith.”

“Hmm, that poses an interesting problem,” said Avery. “Lilith’s soul was tormented. It might look for another croc and try for our Jade again.”

“I think I’ll stay clear of rivers for a while,” said Jade.

Sam took Jade’s hands in his. “After we’re married, we can go anywhere you’d like, Jade: Abyssinia, the Congo. We’ll make motion pictures of tribes and places that few people have seen. I love you as you are, Jade, and I don’t ever want you to change.”

Jade heard Beverly’s happy “Oh!” but her attention stayed fixed on Sam. “I love you, too, Sam, and I can safely promise you that I’ll
never
make a proper housewife. But we need to get a new plane. I’m marrying a pilot.”

“Well, Beverly, my dear,” said Avery, “looks like you and Maddy have a wedding to plan.”

Readers might take issue with the book’s crocodile staying alive after being shot in the head. The late big-game hunter Peter Hathaway Capstick backs me up in
Death in the Long Grass
, chapter six: “Crocodiles.” Crocs, it seems, do not go gently into that good night.

As a disclaimer, Jade is a professional, so don’t try her stunts at home. Igniting black powder in a deep wound to cauterize it and stop the bleeding was actually recommended in some earlier books such as
Modern Surgery: General and Operative
by John Chalmers Da Costa, 1910. It was especially recommended after bleeding a wound after a victim was bitten by a rabid animal. One might assume that ripping up a shirt and making a tourniquet to stop bleeding would be less painful, but perhaps the sulfur in some of the powder actually acted as an antiseptic, too. The advice still appeared in the 1926 edition of
Handbook for Boys
, the official boy scout handbook, in chapter seven, written by Major Charles Lynch of the American National Red Cross, as a recommendation after rattlesnake bite. Modern gunpowder wouldn’t do the trick.

Sam’s Colt .45 New Service double-action revolver was adopted by the U.S. Armed Forces as a Model 1917 U.S. Army and used to make up for the lack of M1911 Colt .45 pistols in World War I. Sam would have been issued one as a pilot and could have purchased it after the war. The intent was to defend oneself if caught in enemy territory. World War I pilot Lt. Frank Luke carried the M1911, and when he crashed behind enemy lines, he used it to open fire on the Germans rather than be taken prisoner. Lieutenant Luke was killed in the return fire. I chose to give Sam the New Service revolver rather than the M1911 pistol carried by Lieutenant Luke simply because I felt the revolver better epitomized Sam. It had more of an American Old West look to it. Call me a romantic.

The Girl Guides formed in Nairobi in early 1921. Reports in the newspapers summarized badges in nursing and horsemanship among others. Often they met at Lady Northey’s residence on Government Hill. While the Girl Guides was intended for younger girls up to fourteen years, a Girl Guide Ranger program for young ladies fifteen years and older was proposed in January 1922. Descriptions of the uniforms and activities are taken from their original handbook.