Treasure of the Golden Cheetah (35 page)

Jade knew better than to argue with the director. The man had blinders on, blocking everything but his precious picture.

“My head feels like there’s a miner inside digging his way out with a pickax,” said McAvy.

“Mine, too,” said Hall.

“My head doesn’t hurt
that
bad,” said Cynthia, “but I’m so dizzy.”

“Me, too,” said Bebe. She looked at Jade and gave her the full benefit of her tilted brows, parted lips, and pale face. But Jade noted that she walked perfectly steadily.

Cynthia frowned at her colleague’s interruption and sat down on a rock. “You must listen to Jade, Rex,” she said. “As producer, I insist. You know the symptoms of altitude sickness as well as the rest of us.” She rubbed her fingers in circles around her temples. “Heaven knows, Graham certainly warned us all before we took these roles.”

“Sleep is what you all need,” said Jade. “By morning you should be used to this altitude. Tomorrow we’ll take the climb more slowly. Lots of rest breaks for water.”

“How high do we go tomorrow?” asked Murdock.

“The last camp is at fifteen thousand feet, give or take.”

“And after that?” asked Pearl.

Jade shrugged. “No higher. Just forays to the snow line, I think. We can’t ask the Chagga porters to go into the snow-fields. They don’t have the proper footwear.”

“That’s their problem,” said Julian as the rest filed into either the hut or the tent to sleep. “Harry should have insisted that they wear real shoes instead of those preposterous sandals. I have to get to the top!”

“Take that up with him,” said Jade. “But as I understand it, Harry’s contracted to go only to the edge of the saddle.” She waited for Julian to answer. When he didn’t, she persisted. “Did you tell Harry that you intended to go up to Kibo Peak or not?”

“Not in so many words,” said Julian. “I said we needed to film on Kilimanjaro. But I have to get to the crater. That old Chagga man said that the tomb—”

“Mr. Julian, I don’t know what you expect to find, but the crater is huge, and the whole tomb is a myth.” Jade turned to see how Jelani and Lwiza fared. Biscuit, she noted, panted a bit more, but if his appetite for jerked meat was any indication, he felt fine. Jelani, who was again assisting Muturi by peeling some of the last fresh vegetables they’d carried up from below, assured Jade that he was in good health. She was more concerned about Lwiza. The woman made so few requests that there was a tendency to overlook her.

Jade found her behind the dugout, quietly loosening nails from the crates.

CHAPTER 22

—The Traveler

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” JADE KEPT HER VOICE LOW, BUT FIRM. She didn’t want to alarm the camp. Still, she didn’t care to be alone facing this small woman armed with a crowbarlike implement. “Jelani!” she called, and added a sharp whistle. Soon both her Kikuyu friend and her cheetah stood beside her. She heard Jelani’s breath hiss when he realized what Lwiza had done.

“I need rope,” Jade said. “Biscuit, guard.” Immediately, Jelani ran off to find rope and Biscuit padded around to stand at Lwiza’s flank.

“Do not try to run away,” cautioned Jade. “That would be very foolish up here.”

All this time, Lwiza didn’t say a word. She simply froze in her kneeling position by the crates, her black eyes watching Jade’s face. There was no fear in that gaze, and Jade saw the quick intelligence behind it.

Jelani returned with some rope. “Tie her hands, please,” Jade said. “No, not behind her. Keep them in front so she can eat.” She pulled her large kerchief from her side pocket. “Here, tie her wrists with this first. It will keep the rope from burning. Make it snug, but do not hurt her.”

“You pay her too much kindness,” said Jelani.

“She may not deserve it, but I don’t know that yet,” said Jade. “But,” she added, staring directly into Lwiza’s eyes, “I mean to find out.”

Lwiza managed to meet Jade’s cool stare for ten seconds before she had to look away. It was longer than most people could, with the exception of Sam, who appeared to be immune. Jade started by ticking off what she’d already surmised.

“You eat pork. You have worshiped as a Christian. You know much about Abyssinian dress. You would not speak with the Swahili women in Moshi, saying they were not like you. You told the truth then, didn’t you? You are not a Swahili. Who are you?”

Lwiza held her chin up proudly. “I am Abeba Negash,” she said in English. “I am of the royal house of Abyssinia.”

“A princess?” asked Jade, doing her best to keep her face and voice neutral.

“No. I am a . . .” She paused to think of the words. “I wait on the empress.”

“Ah. A lady-in-waiting. Why are you here?”

Lwiza—or, more correctly, Abeba—pursed her lips. “I was hired to wait on
these
ladies.” She said the last word with a sneering tone.

Jelani shook Abeba’s shoulders. “Do not play games with Simba Jike,” he said. “
She
is descended from royal blood.”

Abeba twitched her shoulder to shrug off Jelani’s hand. “I have heard of
bibi
Jade. I did not know she was a princess, but I saw she was woven from finer threads than the others.”

Jade ignored such idle flattery. “You gave drugs to the man in Nairobi and told him to kill Bwana Wheeler, didn’t you? And you gave those drugs to the Chagga woman so she could kill her rival. In return she gave you a snake to hide in the box.”

Abeba shook her head vigorously. “No! I have killed no one.”

Jade continued her accusations. “You put real bullets in Miss Porter’s rifle to kill the Chagga man so he could not tell what he knew.”

“No!” Abeba, already on her knees, held out her bound hands as if to plead with Jade. “I have not done these things. I only broke the boxes. I am not here to kill.”

Jade leaned forward. “Then why
are
you here?”

 

 

JELANI WATCHED ON the side while Simba Jike questioned the false woman.

Ah! So she is the one who brought the troubles to the camp.
Jelani knew that a sorceress did not need to be old and wrinkled to be skilled. Nor did she need to resort to magic. Obviously, this one was also content to use her own hands and tools to create her mischief. Still, it would be a good idea to know what else she was capable of. Perhaps he should search her belongings. He knew all the women were supposed to sleep in the hut, so perhaps she had put her pack inside. Unfortunately, some of the American women were already in there. Then Jelani had an idea. He slipped away from Simba Jike and the maid and went to the cabin. He rapped on the door and waited until one of the women, the one named for the pretty white stone, opened it.

“What do you want?” Pearl asked in a pleasant enough tone. She fought back a yawn. “Is it time to eat?”

“No, memsahib,” said Jelani. “Your maidservant sent me to fetch her bag. I do not know which one is hers.”

“Oh. Let me get it.” Pearl went to the far side of the hut and returned with a plain-looking rucksack made of heavy canvas.

Jelani thanked her and took it to the side of the cabin opposite most of the activity. There he opened the sack and rummaged through it. He found a photograph of some white man he did not recognize, gloves, three long black socks, and a few other items of clothing. There was also a small pot with a heart on it. When he opened it, he found it half-filled with a sweet-smelling white ointment. Nothing that looked dangerous. Disappointed, he stuffed everything back inside and plopped the bag on the steps. He saw one of the women, the older one who played the hunter’s wife, returning to the hut from some sheltered ravine. Jelani left the bag and hurried back to Jade before the woman saw him.

 

 

HARRY RETURNED BY three that afternoon, the porters toting the carcass of a yearling eland. Muturi immediately fell to cutting the meat, allotting several tender chunks for Biscuit. He had made a long fire pit and slid larger cuts along a thin metal pole to roast over the coals. For a moment Harry watched him work.

“Where’s that young Kikuyu fellow?” he asked Jade as she joined him.

“Guarding Lwiza.”

His lips tensed. “What the bloody blazes has happened now? Can’t I leave camp just once without—”

“Temper on safety, Harry,” said Jade. “I’d rather not rouse the rest of the camp. They need to rest. The altitude hasn’t hit hard, but they’re still feeling the strain.”

He took off his hat and ran one hand through his graying hair before plopping the hat back on his head. “Very well. What happened this time?”

Jade briefly summarized how she’d found the woman weakening the crates, and her own immediate reaction. “Lwiza isn’t her real name. It’s Abeba Negash. She’s some sort of lady’s maid to the empress of Abyssinia.”

“The devil you say! Don’t tell me Wheeler hired her there?”

“That’s what I assumed, someone to help with authenticity. But not according to her. She claims she saw Wheeler and his entourage when they entered Addis Ababa during his trip there, but he never met her. She learned what he intended to do by eavesdropping. She joined the group when they came to Nairobi.”

“Is she behind any of these deaths?”

“She says not, although I’m not sure how much I can believe. According to her, she’s mostly guilty of making the original lady’s maid sick so she’d go home and Lwiza—I mean Abeba—would be hired. That and causing those crates to break up.”

“Did she say why?” asked Harry.

“Something about ‘he must not find Menelik’s grave,’ but by then she was pretty excited and she went in and out of English to her own language. I didn’t catch the half of it, but I think she’s trying to keep us away.”

Harry snorted. “We’re not looking for Menelik’s grave. Its existence is a myth.” He waved a hand, gesturing to the hut and tent. “They’re making a motion picture about people looking for the grave. Doesn’t she understand make-believe?”

“Does Julian?” asked Jade.

“Well, of course he does,” said Harry. “The man’s a bloody director. It’s his business.”

“Maybe. But I noticed how his eyes lit up when old Sina recounted the legend of the great king. The man looks like he really believes. And while you were hunting, he was very demanding about climbing to the summit. He insists on entering the cone.”

“We never contracted for that,” said Harry. “The agreement was to take them as high as the saddle.”

“Who made the agreement?” asked Jade.

“Wheeler and Newland Tarlton Company.”

“And Wheeler’s conveniently dead,” murmured Jade half to herself.

“Wait a minute,” said Harry. “Are you suggesting that Julian had Wheeler killed so he could go after treasure?”

Jade thought about it for a moment before replying. “No. For the main reason that I don’t think Julian has the imagination to pull it off.” She held up her hand. “I know, he’s the director. But I’m not sure he’s had an original thought since we’ve been here. Think about it, Harry. People are always giving him ideas and he claims them as his own. I’ll bet the entire picture was all Wheeler’s idea. Julian wasn’t even with Wheeler in Abyssinia.”

“Then Julian’s only taking advantage of Wheeler’s death to get to the cone,” said Harry. “If that’s true, and if Lwiza or whatever her name is—”

“Abeba Negash.”

“Right, if she’s telling the truth, then someone else is still responsible for that snake.”

“The snake, Wheeler’s death, Rehema’s and Zakayo’s deaths—”

“Rehema’s and Zakayo’s deaths were accidents, Jade.”

“Open your eyes, Harry! I find that many accidents a bit too hard to swallow.”
Blast it. Sam would understand.
She stifled that thought.
Sam’s not here, so it’s up to you.
“The trick is going to be finding out who is behind them.”

“Do you want me to question any of them again?” he asked. “The women?”

“Good heavens, no! Just keep your eyes and ears open.”

“You can count on me, Jade.”

She wasn’t sure she could, but right now, Harry and Jelani were all she had.

Jelani
. Maybe she could put him to work, but how? She called him over and explained her dilemma.

“I have already looked in the lying woman’s bag,” he said with a nod towards Abeba. “There was nothing in it that looked bad. A woman’s beauty pot, clothes, black socks—”

“Black socks?” With everyone wearing boots, Jade hadn’t been able to see what socks Abeba wore.

“Yes, three,” said Jelani. “Very long.”

Three long black stockings!
So maybe Abeba had made that second fake snake. But why leave it on Pearl’s bed? To incriminate her? To cause dissention in the ranks and break up the safari? “Thank you, Jelani. You’ve been a big help.”

Jade watched everyone closely during supper. Cynthia, Hall, and McAvy didn’t have much appetite, a symptom that matched their previous headaches. Still, they seemed less haggard than earlier, and Harry expressed his opinion that they’d be right as rain in the morning. Even Homerman ate well. Jade took supper to Lwiza, who was under guard in the dugout. Only Bebe inquired after her, wanting her help with her boots.