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Kantana continued without missing a beat. “With the exception of Mademoiselle Weston and Monsieur Al-Aram, who were together—so they say—and my friend Alex, who was in his office.”
“I often stay up late,” came Alex’s response.
Kantana got to his feet. “Now I must ask your further indulgence. At this time we will search your rooms.”
Millicent reacted immediately. “Search our rooms? Surely, you joke, Sergeant. Why in the world? The man was killed with a blow dart. Obviously by someone right here in Porte Ivoire—”
Kantana’s reply was as smooth as silk. “So it would seem, as you say, considering the murder weapon. But we have reasons to look elsewhere.”
“Why?” Millicent shot back.
“We found a passport and a wallet filled with cash on the body. What does that mean to you?” he asked the room in general.
Longongo responded, speaking for the first time that morning in his high nasal voice with his impeccable clipped syllables. “It negates the prime motive, perhaps the only one, for murder by a local person, namely robbery. Which means one of us must have another motive. What would that be?”
“I do not know yet,” Kantana admitted, “but I expect to uncover the motive along with the means and the opportunity. And when all three come together, I shall have my killer.”
He snapped his notebook shut, and Dana shivered again. She’d pulled on shorts and a T-shirt when the clerk awakened her. Now, in the cool of dawn, she needed something warmer.
“If I could go to my room for a moment first—” she said to Kantana.
“No, mademoiselle. That would defeat our purpose.”
“I don’t understand. I just need to get something warm to put on—”
“Nothing will be removed until after our search.” His voice had a sharp edge.
Once again, she was made to feel guilty. And just because she was cold.
“Each of you will remain here until the search is completed.” With a slight bow, he turned and went out, followed by his aide.
* * *
THE MORNING seemed interminable. The hotel cooks prepared and set out breakfast, but no one seemed to have much of an appetite. Dana picked at a bowl of fruit, and everyone else did, too. Most of them drank innumerable cups of coffee, including Alex, who had switched from cognac.
When Kantana came downstairs from his search of the guests’ rooms, he commandeered Alex’s office to interview the guests—or suspects, as Dana had begun to think of herself and the others. She tried to give the word a sardonic twist in her mind because it was ridiculous, of course, to think any of them might have murdered Louis Bertrand, but she was still nervous.
Someone had murdered him, and Kantana seemed convinced that it wasn’t a citizen of Porte Ivoire but one of the guests in the Stanley Hotel, or Alex himself, or even Father Theroux.
Slowly they went into the office one by one. First Longongo and then Millicent completed their interviews and returned to their rooms. Yassif was next.
Dana waited silently while Alex disappeared into the kitchen, apparently to communicate with his staff, and Betty paced nervously up and down, glancing at the closed door.
“Don’t worry,” Dana assured her, “Yassif is a big boy. He can answer his own questions.”
Betty puffed out her cheeks and then fell down onto the love seat. “It’s just that he doesn’t speak English very well. His French is worse.”
“Kantana is very patient,” Dana said, wondering suddenly why she should be attempting to pacify Betty, of all people.
“I’m also concerned because our relationship is so new. I’m a little overprotective of Yassif.”
Dana couldn’t find anything encouraging to say about that. She really didn’t want to talk about Betty’s romance with the surly Yassif.
But Betty did. “We met at a party in Brazzaville just before the trip upriver.”
“Did Millicent introduce you?” Dana was curious about that.
Betty bristled. “Yassif and Millicent? Of course not, he’d never be seen with someone like her.”
“I saw them together on the Congo Queen, several times.” A little perverse of her to mention that, Dana realized, but she couldn’t resist.
“And I saw you talk with Louis. Yet you and he weren’t friends, or so you say.” Betty raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
“Give it a rest, Betty.” That was Alex, appearing at the doorway. “You’re not going to get a story out of this.”
“That’s what you’re after?” Dana asked, confronting Betty. “You want to write about Louis’s death!”
She shrugged. “Why not? A good juicy murder is certainly more interesting than a piece about wildlife of the Congo.”
Dana couldn’t control her disgust. Betty was thinking about this whole horrible episode as a magazine story and had no feelings at all for poor Louis, dead less than twelve hours. Dana mentally took off the gloves. Betty wasn’t going to get any sympathy from her.
Apparently, no one would get sympathy from Alex, who leaned against the lobby doorway, his face unreadable. Dana avoided his eyes, but Betty glared angrily at him. Then she was called by Kantana, and Dana was left alone with Alex.
She felt awkward and uncomfortable around him, with the remembrance of their scene in the garden fresh in her mind. But there was something else going on that she couldn’t put her finger on. He seemed to be studying her intently, as if he was sizing her up. Could he possibly think she was involved in Louis’s death?
Deciding that the best defense was a strong offense, she asked, “Did you go directly to your office last night after you left me in the garden?”
“Playing detective, Dana?”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” she replied. Which was true. She was curious about Alex and where he’d been while she and Louis were by the river. He easily could have followed them.
Alex strolled to the buffet table and poured a cup of coffee. “I’ll answer your question because I have nothing to hide—unlike some of the guests.” His smile was ingenuous. “After our rendezvous in the garden where you obviously misunderstood my overtures of friendship—”
Dana gritted her teeth at his cynical misrepresentation of the episode.
“—I went to my office, spurned and saddened, to bury myself in work.” His eyes sparkled with humor as he watched her surprised reaction. “Good story, isn’t it? In fact, I don’t have an alibi, but neither do you. And you were the last to see Louis alive,” he added softly.
Dana quickly defended herself. “But you were the one who argued with him.”
Before Alex could respond, the office door opened and Betty emerged. The supercilious look on the redhead’s face caused Dana’s heart to sink; it was a look that bore her no goodwill.
An aide ushered Dana into Alex’s office to face the sergeant. Her knees were shaky, and her heart was pounding like a drum. For no reason! She had nothing to be afraid of.
Kantana sat behind Alex’s desk looking solemn and official. The tall, sullen-looking officer dressed in khaki stood behind Kantana staring straight ahead. The sergeant gestured to a straight-backed chair. Dana sank onto it, wiping her damp palms against her shorts. What more could he ask her? What more could she tell him? The silence became ominous and oppressive. And when Kantana finally spoke to her, she jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Do you know what this is, mademoiselle?
Dana leaned forward to look at what he held in his hand. She recognized it immediately, a long wooden tube, intricately carved. She recalled pictures in her father’s notes, descriptions of an ancient weapon still used by the Pygmies. What Kantana held in his hand was a blowgun.
“I know what it is, but I’ve never seen that one before.”
“Ah, yes.” Kantana put down the weapon and carefully touched his fingertips together, forming a kind of tent with his elegant hands. He leaned back in his chair and spoke in a low voice. “Then how, mademoiselle, do you explain its presence in your room?”
Dana couldn’t believe the question. “You couldn’t have found that in my room. I’ve never seen it in my life!”
“But it was found in your room, mademoiselle.”
“No. There’s been a mistake. That isn’t mine. Someone else left it in the room, maybe a previous guest—”
“No,” the sergeant said crisply. “I have interviewed the maid on your floor. She cleaned the room thoroughly before you moved in. There was nothing, certainly not a weapon. No blowgun.”
Dana was totally confused. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Sergeant. Are you trying to say that this blowgun, which you claim was found in my room, was the weapon that killed Louis?”
“I cannot positively say that. But here are the facts. A dart from a blowgun killed Monsieur Bertrand. Such a gun was found in your room. And you deny any knowledge of it.”
“I certainly do!” Dana’s confusion had turned to anger. “Your accusation is absurd. I hardly knew Louis Bertrand and had no reason to kill him, certainly not with a blowgun. I’ve never touched such a weapon, never even seen one. As far as I’m concerned, this interview is over.”
She started to get to her feet, only to be stopped by a quick move from the aide, whom Kantana controlled with a nod of his head.
“This is...ludicrous,” Dana insisted, even as she sat back down, adding defiantly, “you’re accusing the wrong person, and you’re going to be very sorry.”
He raised skeptical eyebrows. “Oh, do you think so? I show you further evidence, mademoiselle.” He placed a stack of notebooks and papers on the desk. “Detailed notes on the Pygmies. It would seem that you came very well prepared.”
Dana’s anger was replaced by a deep dread. “Those are my father’s notes. He knew about the Pygmies, not I.”
“But you brought them with you,” Kantana said smoothly.
“That was my choice.” She felt suddenly invaded, and she refused to put up with it.
“Not if murder was the result. Now tell me, why did you bring the notes with you?”
Dana chose her words carefully. “I am a language teacher, a professor specializing in rare and exotic tongues. For that reason, my father’s work with the Mgembe interested me. When I had a chance to travel a route he’d taken years before, naturally, I jumped at the opportunity.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “There’s nothing illegal about that.”
“Certainly not,” Kantana agreed. “But it is interesting, to say the least, that both you and Monsieur Bertrand shared a fascination with the Mgembe, that you carried with you notebooks filled with information on the Pygmies, and that he was killed in a way that they are known to murder.” He held up the weapon.
“I didn’t have a blowgun—either that one or any other!” she cried adamantly. “We’ve just arrived here. Where would I have found one?” She knew the answer to that question even before it was out of her mouth.
“In the market. When you went shopping with Mademoiselle Kittredge. She tells me that you were not together throughout that trip.”
“Well, no, we weren’t. I was tired and—” Dana realized that the overly friendly Millicent had passed on information that could seem incriminating. “But I didn’t buy a blowgun then or ever. Even if I had, how do you suggest I poisoned the tip?”
“The poison is also readily available, alas,” he replied with apparent sadness.
“And of course, I know exactly how to administer it,” she said sarcastically.
Kantana placed his hand on top of her father’s notebooks. “It is all here, easy for a clever woman to understand. Indeed, you are a clever woman.”
Dana didn’t like the insinuation in his voice. “Someone planted that blowgun in my room.”
Kantana shrugged, seemingly no longer interested in the topic. “I also have corroborating information that you and Monsieur Bertrand became very close friends during your voyage on the Congo Queen. Do you deny that you spent much time together?”
More incriminating information, this time from Betty’s mouth, which didn’t surprise Dana in the slightest. She was surprised about Millicent’s betrayal, though. So much for the support of her fellow tourists.
“Louis and I spent time together,” she answered finally, “but he was with Father Theroux much more often. Why don’t you question him?”
“As I mentioned, I intend to,” Kantana said coolly “But of course that is my business, the concern of the authorities. Now I ask again, could it be possible that there was a romance of some kind between you and Bertrand? Something that might have caused you to quarrel with him—”
“And to kill him? No, Sergeant. No! The idea is absurd. And you said yourself that you needed a motive—”
“Motive, means and opportunity,” Kantana said, quoting his own earlier remarks. “The latter two, we have established, have we not?”
“No, I—”
“Of course, you had both the means,” he said, touching the blowgun, “and the opportunity. You knew Louis was alone by the river, and you could have approached without alarming him. And of course, you were the last person to be seen with the victim.” He heaved a satisfied sigh. “Further, I now realize that you are an expert on the Mgembe, who have made the blowgun into an art form.”
He settled back comfortably, crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to respond.
That’s when Dana realized that she was caught up in a nightmare too horrible for her to contemplate. It couldn’t be happening, but it was. “You believe I’m guilty,” she blurted out.
He didn’t respond. His face was expressionless.
She suddenly realized was was happening. Kantana was going to arrest her!
Dana struggled to keep her voice calm. “I demand to talk to a lawyer.”
He almost chuckled. “There is no lawyer in Porte Ivoire, mademoiselle.”
“Then I demand my phone call. Surely, even here, an accused person gets at least one call. I want to talk to the American Embassy in Brazzaville.”
“This is not the United States, Mademoiselle. French law is somewhat different from yours. And as much as I would like to oblige you with a phone call, there are no phones in Porte Ivoire.”
“Then use the shortwave radio on the boat,” Dana demanded.
“I shall do this much for you,” Kantana said in noxious tones. “After I interview Father Theroux, I shall send him to talk with you in jail—”
“Jail? No!” Dana was on her feet. “You can’t do that. You can’t put me in jail—not on circumstantial evidence. You’re insane. You’re—”
She saw his face then. Cold, hard, implacable.
“I’m not guilty of this horrible crime,” she said. “I’m not guilty!”
He sat watching wordlessly.
“Why don’t you look where the guilt really lies.” She leaned forward, her hands on his desk, and spoke carefully with all the confidence she could muster. “It belongs on Alex Jourdan.”
As soon as Dana made that statement, she realized her total belief in it. His obnoxious behavior last night had sent her rushing into Louis’s arms—almost as if the whole meeting had been arranged—by Alex. And today, he’d been watchful, mysterious, not just dangerous, but possibly deadly. She’d been suspicious from the beginning. Now she knew why.
“Listen to me,” she demanded. “Alex and Louis were on the outs. Something had gone wrong between them. Everyone knew that. And I overheard them just last night, arguing about a deal of some kind. I heard them!”
