Treasure of the Golden Cheetah (38 page)

“Yes. Two of the Chagga men need to go down. I suspect they haven’t kept their feet properly covered. They might even lose a few toes.”

“Nakuru said they had their woolies on when everyone went to bed, but they take them off during the night.” He surveyed the sky again. “I fulfilled my end of the contract. I got Julian here to make his blasted picture.” He walked over to the director, who was still badgering a silent Abeba.

“Mr. Julian,” said Harry as Jade stood by Abeba’s side, “tomorrow morning you can have one hour to film scenery, but I need to take your people back down. We’ll leave by eight. I mean to get everyone back to base camp. If we have to, we’ll stay a night at Bismark’s hut.”

“But my picture!” demanded Julian. “What of my picture?”

“We can stay another day or two at base camp if you need it. But you got your funeral scene on the mountain. That’s all I was signed on to do.”

“The crater! It’s your job to—”

“It’s my job to keep everyone safe!” bellowed Harry within an inch of Julian’s face. “We’ve had too many deaths associated with this project of yours. I’m not waiting for more.”

Harry’s roars had stirred the others and, one by one, they poked their heads out of their respective tents and stared. Julian was not about to back down and lose face in front of his crew.

“We will go when I say so,” he said. “And not before. Not unless you”—he paused and poked Harry in the chest—“want to lose your license for breach of contract.”

Jade decided to intervene before the two men came to blows. “Harry, Mr. Julian. Stop it, both of you, before one of you ruptures something.” She shoved her hands between the two and forced them apart. “Mr. Julian, you should listen to Harry. That’s why you hired him. It takes a professional to know when your people are in danger.”

“That’s right,” Harry said in a loud but calmer voice. “And Jade thinks your people are still in danger. You may have an unknown killer in your midst.”

“Harry,” said Jade softly between gritted teeth. “No.”

He ignored her. “Jade’s very quick. I trust her judgment implicitly. If she’s not certain that Lwiza or Abeba, or whatever her name is, is responsible for the boomslang or Zakayo’s death, or even Wheeler’s death, then I’d listen to her. What if you’ve hired a killer?”

“Harry, for Pete’s sake, shut up!” said Jade, as she watched the eavesdroppers inch out of their tents. Her tone of voice must have carried some weight, because Harry did, in fact, shut up long enough for Jade to say, “This conversation is ended. Mr. Julian, you’ll have to comply, because we’ll have all the tents and the food. Harry, I’m keeping Abeba with me in my tent tonight. For her own safety as much as everyone else’s. Good night.”

Jade told Biscuit to stay with Jelani, hoping the cat’s body heat would protect the lad. She’d given the youth another pair of her own socks and an extra blanket, but they had no other spare boots or gloves. Biscuit uttered a soft growling bleat, a discontented, worried sound that Jade rarely heard.

“Go to Jelani,” she repeated. Biscuit reluctantly stepped away. “Abeba, you are sharing my tent tonight.” She led Abeba there as the sun set and ordered her cot to be installed while Jade herself lit a lantern. Next she tied Abeba’s wrists to the cot. If the woman tried hard enough, she could work loose, but by then, Jade would have heard her. She rummaged through her own box, found Rehema’s bag, and pulled out the compact.

“Do you know this little box?” Jade asked, studying Abeba’s response.

Abeba strained to see in the dim light. “Yes, it is a beauty case.” She reached for it, stopping when the short rope reached its limit.

Jade held it a little closer and moved the lantern so the light fell more fully on the purple rouge box compact. She said nothing and kept her own attention on Abeba’s face.

“I once saw one of that design in Missy Malta’s room, but it was gold and not the royal purple. Missy Zagar has one the color of a blushing rose. I stayed away from Missy Porter, though, lest she recognize me.”

“Recognize you?” asked Jade.

“Yes,
bibi
. I saw her when she came with the money man to court. I did not think she saw me, but I was not certain.” She looked at Jade. “This case is not yours. You do not paint your face as they do.” The statement held a note of inquiry to which Jade didn’t reply. “You found it with the dead Chagga woman,” concluded Abeba. “You are thinking I stole it.”

“That had occurred to me,” said Jade. “Did you?”

“No,” she said, her eyes meeting Jade’s gaze, unflinching. “I cannot tell you which woman’s it is. But all of them still wear their beauty. Even if this one belonged to one of them, the woman must have more.”

“What will happen to me?” asked Abeba.

“I’m not sure,” said Jade. “When we return, we will have to report everything to some commissioner. But if there is no other evidence, I suppose you will be sent back to Abyssinia and told never to return.”

“I have heard that you have talked with spirits who warn you of death. You carry marks on your forehead of an ancient tribe. You must understand it is important to protect this tomb and the ancient things. They must not be found until the time is right. The tomb is prophesied to be opened
only
at the start of the end times. To open it sooner will cause it to lose its power.”

At the mention of the Berber tattoo on her forehead, Jade’s hand went to the small, intricately worked silver box around her neck. The amulet contained a protective talisman, but she wore it not for that, but for its ties to her own Berber ancestry and the mended relationship with her mother. “So we
won’t
all die,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. Jade had never believed it to begin with.

Abeba hung her head. “I said that to frighten that man, Julian. But no. It would mean that my country would never again rise to its glory.”

“Do you actually know where the tomb is?” asked Jade. “This is a big mountain and the crater is vast. I can’t imagine finding anything here.”

“I know enough,” she said. “My ancestors were among the priests who buried the emperor. My mother came when Emperor Menelik the Second tried to seek the tomb. But it was not for him to find. She led him to the wrong places until he went home. Do you believe me? Do you believe that I
only
mean to protect the emperor’s tomb and his treasure? To kill is a sin. I would not do that.”

Jade studied the woman’s face in the lamplight and examined her own feelings. The woman’s expression spoke of honesty, and Jade wanted to trust her. But there had been too much deception already. “It doesn’t matter what I believe, Abeba. Now get some sleep.”

Abeba pulled the blanket over herself, and soon Jade heard her breathing slow to the deep inhalations of sleep. She was tired herself, exhausted, and her head ached. But something was nagging at her thoughts and she wanted to examine those movie magazines again. They’d been stowed in her personal box and brought up to the camp for use as fuel if nothing else. She also wanted to look into Abeba’s bag for that extra black stocking to see if it matched the one used to make the second fake snake. Jade carefully pulled out the rucksack bag, one of several purchased for the crew members to use. Some had written their initials on the flap. This one had none.

Jade opened the bag under the lamplight. She found a tor toiseshell comb and a silver pot with a stopper. Jade opened the pot and smelled myrhh.
Her beauty cream.
Under the pot lay Abeba’s white cotton blouse and long skirt. No stockings!
Spit-fire! Jelani looked in the wrong bag. Whose was it?

She replaced the rucksack and opened the magazines, looking at each story again by lamplight. She started a story about a scandal involving extramarital affairs, but ignored it when she didn’t recognize any of the names. Instead she read about Talmadge’s ability to fall and Hall’s litany of accomplishments, all while looking handsome. Pearl’s article told little about her, mainly showing photos in sequined vests and harem trousers. Cynthia’s story of her world travels related her past trips to Egypt and Spain and Tunisia. Nothing Jade hadn’t read already. She turned pages, searching for anything. She found an ad for the Pompeian company.

Jade looked at the ad more carefully. It depicted a color picture of a woman at her vanity, massaging the area around her eyes. The woman’s wrists were pointed inward, obscuring much of her face. The headline “Pompeian Massage Cream” covered her reflection. The caption below the picture stated, “Don’t envy beauty—use Pompeian and have it.” Along the side were small depictions of the various products. At the bottom right corner was a picture of a purple box with “Beauty Powder” in a gold label. Below that was a smaller image of a jar of day cream and a little gold case with a heart atop it and the words “Pompeian Bloom” in gold paint.

Jade rubbed her own temples, trying to squelch the headache. Her eyes were tired, her vision blurring. The face in the ad looked familiar.
Who? Miss Malta?

That’s it!
It
was
Bebe, posing for a cream made in her own hometown of Cleveland, where the cosmetics were made. It was no great leap to assume that Bebe actually used it since she posed for the ad.
But why deny using it? And does she use the rouge, too?
Jade wished she’d asked about rouge more specifically and chalked it up to her own lack of knowledge of these vanities. She turned to the last magazine and flipped it open to where she’d dog-eared a page. It fell to the advertisement for the Pond’s cold cream and soaps. She’d seen this same ad before, and not in the magazine.

Where?
Her head, tired and achy, refused to give her an answer.

She turned the page and read the article on Graham Wheeler describing his trip to Abyssinia to research ideas for a motion picture.

“Producer researching tales of treasure. Producer Graham Wheeler has once again shown that he will stop at nothing to find a good story for whatever picture he is backing. After Spain, Tunisia, and Egypt, this time, he dared the wilds of Abyssinia.”

Wait! These are places Cynthia went to, and Abeba said she saw Cynthia at court. Look at the photo!
Jade stopped reading and stared more closely at the photograph of Wheeler astride a horse and studied the people in the background. Sure enough, there on another horse, her face just visible in profile, sat his wife. Suddenly Jade remembered where else she’d seen the Pond’s ad on the reverse side. It had been at base camp while shooing a mouse from the house.

Why did she keep that Pond’s ad? She doesn’t use that brand.
The answer came slowly into her tired, oxygen-starved head.
She didn’t keep it for the ad.

It started to make some small amount of sense, and Jade went to her cot knowing that she had made progress towards understanding. In the morning she’d tell Harry, and together, they’d confront all the women and search their things to sort out the answer.

Jade fell asleep and dreamed of Sam. He was standing on the plains surrounded by wild game, but every time she called to him, he walked off. She tried running, only to trip over a body and end up where she started. Or she’d run and find herself trying to cross deep ravines to get to him. By the time she’d finally made it to the other side, he’d flown away.

The dreams repeated over and over again until a few hours before dawn, when she again entered the dark dream with its gravelike cold. Her left knee throbbed and, as happened in some dreams, Jade found herself wishing that she’d wake up. Somewhere in a distant corner of her mind, she heard a low growl and hiss followed by a muffled yelp.

That soft sound startled her awake and she struggled to rise off her cot. The stab in her knee continued. She tried to get out from under the twisted blankets, but not in time to escape the blow.

Something struck her on the head and she fell.

CHAPTER 24

—The Traveler

JELANI LISTENED TO THE SOFT SNORES AND DEEP BREATHS OF THE men beside him. Their combined body heat along with the carefully tended fire and their woolen blankets made the shelter comfortable enough, but Jelani could not sleep. Not even Biscuit’s warmth and rasping purrs lulled him into drowsiness.

He called to Biscuit with a soft chirp. “Go to Simba Jike,” he ordered. “Guard.” Biscuit slipped away and headed towards Jade’s tent.

For an hour afterward, Jelani took his turn feeding and protecting the cave’s fire. And while he watched, he listened. Not for wild animals or for human sounds, but for the voices of his ancestral spirits. He sprinkled a few drops of water from the last spring onto the fire. The liquid hit with a soft sizzle, sending up tiny puffs of steam. But as Jelani prayed that these spirits would alert him to the dangers facing Simba Jike and help protect her, sleep overpowered him.