Sunset at Sheba (3 page)

Plummer stood facing the door, and the man who came in.

‘Well, Frank,’ he said with brusque immediacy. ‘Let’s have it. Where’s Willie?’

Winter didn’t answer for a moment and Plummer thought he was worried by the heat and the dust outside. He was staring at him, his expression a mixture of anger, anxiety and concern, then he turned his head to Hoole and spoke peremptorily.

‘Get him a drink,’ he said over his shoulder, and Hoole sloshed Rhynbende gin into a glass and, filling it with soda, passed it silently to Winter, a supercilious expression on his face.

Winter nodded his thanks. His lined face and bright tired eyes stood out in direct contrast to Plummer’s pouchy plethoric countenance. The flannel suit he wore, long since pulled out of shape and size, clung to his thin legs, crumpled and startlingly slovenly alongside the groomed smartness of the others.

He had watched them arrive from his room over the
Plummerton Examiner
office across the street, a bare shoddy room with a roll-top desk, and rows of dog-eared books on dusty planking shelves. The air had been thick with flying grit as he had crossed Theophilus Street, the hot wind from the veld whirling it in little spirals between the mimosa shrubs and the thin pepper trees with their speckled trunks and sparse shade, and even here in the hotel you could still smell it and taste it in your throat.

He leaned on the table, smiled round at them all, undisturbed by the hostility, and swallowed his drink.

Plummer’s anger seemed to be rising again as he watched Winter, still fidgety with impatience.

‘Where’s Willie?’ he repeated.

Winter smiled and, pulling up a wickerwork chair, stretched himself out in it, his long legs folded, one hand in his pocket, his eyes half-closed so that he looked a little like a seedy setter with his untidy colourless hair and shabby clothes.

‘Keep your hair on, Offy,’ he said gently. ‘He’s all right. He’ll be halfway to Durban by now.’

‘He’ll
what?’
Plummer’s jaw dropped and his eyes glowed with sudden pleasure.

Winter smiled again, a faint disturbing smile that lit up his tired eyes. ‘Half-way to Durban,’ he repeated. ‘He can get a ship from there to the Cape. He’ll be in Cape Town before the week’s out.’

He saw Plummer’s big frame relax and the breath come out of his lungs in a gusty sigh.

‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘I knew there was
someone
I could rely on in a pinch.’ He stared round at the others, accusing them, as though he suffered wretchedly from ineptitude in his subordinates. ‘You worked fast. I expect you’ve been up all night.’

Winter shook his head. ‘Only part of it. It’s the brandy makes me look like this.’

Plummer offered a crocodile leather pouch, the irritation gone from his face at last. ‘Ceegar?’ he asked. Winter nodded, and Plummer struck a match quickly.

‘You know everybody here, of course? Captain Romanis, Hoole.’ He nodded at the uniformed man. ‘Kitto and you are old friends, of course.’

Kitto stared at Winter without any marked enthusiasm, his taut, efficient body angular by the window - almost as though he were deliberately trying to throw up Winter’s drooping languor into contrast. Winter smiled with the same lack of enthusiasm and Plummer hurried on, not noticing their indifference.

‘How was he?’ he asked.

Winter’s smile disappeared. ‘Scared,’ he said shortly. ‘Scared as only an old man can be.’

Plummer frowned. ‘The damned old fool!’ he said. ‘Why did he do it?’

‘I didn’t stop to ask. I just got rid of him as fast as I could.’

Romanis recharged Winter’s glass from the bottle of Rhynbende and filled it with soda. Winter nodded his thanks.

‘I didn’t even let him go back to his hotel,’ he went on. ‘I just drove him over to Plummerton Sidings to catch the night train. We made it by the skin of our teeth. Nobody saw him leave.’

Plummer nodded approvingly.

Winter swallowed the contents of his glass again and looked up. ‘I went to his hotel then,’ he said. ‘I took everything that belonged to him and burned it. Then I wrote a story for the personal column, saying he’d left town. I back-dated it for safety, in case questions are asked.’

Plummer smiled admiringly. ‘That was a good idea. Hoole’ - he swung round - ‘pick up the next train to the Cape. Find Willie. Tell him to draw on my account.’ He turned back to Winter. ‘It’s a good job you were tipped off,’ he said, walking slowly down the room. At the bottom, he turned and jabbed a white episcopal finger at them. ‘I know these people here,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen ‘em toasting the Kaiser’s birthday and hoping we’ll be defeated in France. There’s nothing they’d like better than to get something like this on me. They always hated us - all of us, Rhodes, Robinson, Barnato, me.’

He paused, puffing at his cigar and blowing out smoke in little blue clouds. He stared at it for a moment and waved it into disintegrating wisps with a plump hand.

‘This damn’ war’s a calamity for us out here in South Africa,’ he went on. ‘It comes too close on the heels of the other one, and there are too many people regarding it as a heaven-sent opportunity to reassert themselves. And if the police find out about Willie - ‘

‘Or Fabricius does,’ Kitto interrupted.

Plummer halted, and put his hands in his pockets. ‘Or Fabricius does,’ he agreed. ‘With feelings as high as they are at the moment, I wouldn’t get around to explanations. They’ve been looting in Jo’burg - German shops and shops belonging to Beyers’ supporters - and round Marico and Rustenburg, Britishers who refuse to make biltong and Boer biscuits for De Wet are being set about. Dammit, he’s been
flogging
people in the Free State who refused to support him. The beginning of a war isn’t the time to be caught out in something like this.’

He turned to Winter, suddenly looking tired. ‘What about this damn’ woman?’ he said. ‘This woman whose house he’d been using.’

‘Polly Bolt’s the name,’ Winter said. ‘Parasol Poll, they call her in the Theophilus Street bars.’ He stared at the ceiling, recounting the facts from a retentive mind almost as though he were reading from notes. ‘They say she’s the daughter of an Irish trooper from the Imperial Light Horse. Nobody knows her mother - same as her, I imagine. She dances a bit at the Theatre Royal and earns a little on the side between engagements in an establishment in Buiderkant Street.’

Romanis sneered. ‘A tart?’

Winter looked up sharply, his face ironic. ‘You talk as though you’d run the whole gamut of impropriety, Romanis! Polly’s good-hearted and kind and there’s many a man in this town would fight
you
to the last breath to defend her.’

Romanis blushed. ‘I don’t see -’

‘For God’s sake, stop being romantic, Winter,’ Plummer cut in realistically. ‘Let’s get down to brass tacks. Do you know her?’

Winter smiled. ‘Only professionally,’ he said.

Plummer frowned. ‘Will she keep her mouth shut?’

Winter stared gravely at him. ‘As it happens, she’s a patriot, bless her, and she agreed for the sake of England, home and beauty to put Plummerton behind her for a bit.’

Hoole interrupted incisively, a faint edge of impatience in his voice, as though he were anxious to get back to his office. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘with Willie out of the way and the woman taken care of, we’ve nothing to worry about. We’re clear.’ Plummer nodded, reached over and picked up the cue again. But Winter smiled and shook his head.

‘Not quite.’

They all looked at Winter.

‘Not quite?’ Plummer turned round slowly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s
one other.’

‘What?’ They were all on their feet again now, staring at him.

‘Who, man?’ Plummer demanded. ‘Who?’

Winter grinned. ‘Polly’s beau,’ he said.

Winter rose and walked across the room to the gin bottle. Filling his glass again, he sat down by the window. A fly, caught on the sticky paper hanging from the light fitting, buzzed noisily in the silence.

Plummer put the cue down again and, sticking his hands in his pockets, walked to the window and stared out at the street.

‘This boy friend,’ he said after a while. ‘Think we can do anything about him, Frank? Is he another of your disreputable friends?’

‘Our paths have crossed,’ Winter replied cautiously.

‘How?’

‘At Polly’s.’

‘I’ve told you before about your blasted womanising,’ Plummer complained. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Rum cove. Doesn’t talk much. Not much education. Just the man to carry goods for Willie without asking questions.’

Plummer’s shoulders seemed to sag as his anger subsided. He stood silently, his hands in his pockets, staring blank-eyed at the window.

‘Will he sweeten?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Try offering him one of your directorships,’ Kitto said contemptuously, the uninspired incorruptibility that enabled him always to face up to Plummer without fear shining out of his lined face. ‘It always used to work.’

Plummer frowned. ‘Everybody’s not like you, Kitto,’ he said. ‘Most men have their price. And if I’ve wanted to get things done and the process could be facilitated by making people company directors I’ve never seen why people should complain. I haven’t tried sweetening anybody for years but now isn’t the time to worry about consciences. Will he play, Frank?’

‘He
is
doing.’ Winter smiled at the incredulous delight on Plummer’s face. ‘It’ll cost a bit,’ he added.

‘That doesn’t matter a damn! You know that.’

Hoole smiled and Romanis laughed outright. Even Kitto’s dark angry face relaxed. For the first time they were all of them looking more cheerful. Plummer indicated the door.

‘Don’t let anybody in, Hoole,’ he said, and the plump man crossed the room and put his back against the door, his hands in his pockets, the light that came through the glass chips glinting in flecks of colour on the lenses of his spectacles.

‘What did you say his name was?’ Plummer asked gaily.

‘I didn’t, but it’s Schuter. Sammy Schuter.’

Plummer looked up sharply. ‘That’s not an English name,’ he said. ‘Sounds more like Dutch.’

‘It’s neither as a matter of fact,’ Winter said. ‘It’s Jewish. Nobody knows where his relations are but he’s a Jew all right. Whitechapel Jew.’

‘A damned Jehoodah!’ Romanis stared, his face indignant. ‘Trust the Sheenies to have a hand in the game!’

‘ - A game that Willie started,’ Winter reminded him placidly. ‘I don’t suppose he’s been near a synagogue in his life anyway. Judging by the way he lives, he’s more a Boer than the Boers themselves. He lost his parents during the war, I gather. Polly’s father brought them up together.’

‘But dammit’ - Plummer gestured - ‘he’s British! You said he was. Whitechapel, you said. You don’t have to bribe Britishers at a time like this. Didn’t you tell him what was at stake?’

‘He was in need of the money.’ Winter gulped at his drink and grinned. ‘Still, he didn’t waste time,’ he explained. ‘He’s on his way already by wagon. He’s taken Polly with him. He’s dropping her at Plummerton Sidings to pick up a train, and then he’s going on alone.’

‘Where to?’

‘I told him to head for Oliphants River.’

Plummer’s head jerked up. ‘But that’s several hundred miles!’

‘Take him a long time to get there,’ Winter said blandly.

‘There’s no one out there, there’s nothing.’

‘Less people to talk to.’

Romanis grinned and they all seemed to slip into more relaxed attitudes again. Plummer shifted his position from one foot to the other, pleased but a little uneasy.

‘But good God - how’ll he live?’

‘He’ll live all right,’ Winter said calmly. ‘He’s spent half his adult life out there, shooting for the market.’

Plummer waved a hand half-heartedly. ‘Couldn’t you have sent him anywhere else?’ he asked.

Winter gestured deprecatingly with his glass. ‘Where, Offy? South Africa hasn’t many places these days where people can’t be found and where it’s hard to get back from.’

‘He sounds as though you don’t trust him,’ Romanis grinned.

‘I don’t.’

‘What?’ They all stared at Winter, and in a moment the cheerfulness had gone again.

Winter smiled, sliding farther down on the horsehair bench, his hands in his pockets. ‘I told you he was in need of money,’ he said. ‘He had all his equipment pinched a few months back. He’s been having to use hired horses and a condemned police Martini with a kick like a mule.’ He paused and smiled again. ‘He could thread a needle with it, mind,’ he added.

‘He needs cash to build up his outfit again,’ he went on. ‘Even shooting costs money and he’s a bit desperate. He’s just come out of jail. A slight fracas with the man who robbed him. Suppose Fabricius thinks of offering him a bigger bribe
not
to go away, how are we to know he won’t be tempted to change course or even turn round and come back?’

Romanis straightened his back with a jerk. ‘Anybody but a Yid wouldn’t need bribing,’ he said loudly. ‘He’d have done it for the Old Country.’

‘Needs must when the Devil drives,’ Winter said cheerfully.

Romanis was sitting on the edge of the horsehair bench now, his blank youthful face indignant. Kitto was standing with his hands in his pockets, his eyes contemptuous, as though he were disgusted with all their machinations, and Hoole was by the table, the door forgotten. Hazell stood alone in the background, still holding a sheet of paper as though he were there only to take notes.

They were still like that, grouped round one corner of the billiard table, when a fist clattered on the coloured lozenges in the door. Guiltily almost, they started apart.

‘Who the hell’s that?’ Kitto demanded sharply.

Only Winter remained where he was, stretched out on the bench near the window, his hands in his pockets, his glass on the floor beside him.

‘See who it is,’ Plummer said.

Hazell crossed to the door and opened it. The little Portuguese clerk was there, trying to see past him, trying to find Plummer.

‘What is it?’ Hazell demanded, and the clerk leaned forward, muttering something softly.