The Leopard's Prey (11 page)

“I wonder what that will tell them,” said Madeline. She dug into her chicken, spearing a succulent piece of white meat.

“Dr. Montgomery thought there was too little blood in the drum, as I recall,” said Neville. “Perhaps they plan to estimate the amount lost?”

“They can do wonders with bloodstains,” said Sam. “One of my friends from Purdue is a chemist. They can tell not only if blood is human or not, but also what animal it came from, by using some serum produced from caged rabbits. More than that, human blood falls into four categories and they can use that information to identify where the blood came from.”

“They can match it to a particular person?” asked Madeline.

“No,” said Sam. “But let’s say that Mr. Stokes had type I blood. If the blood in the dryer is a different type, then the police know it isn’t his.”

“But what if it
is
type I?” asked Neville. “What do they know then?”

“Only that it
could
be his, or it could belong to someone else with type I blood.” Sam stabbed a chunk of meat and an orange with his fork. “As I understand it, the idea in modern police work is to not assume anything until the facts are in.”

“But they did make an assumption,” said Jade. “Finch and Miller assumed that Stokes committed suicide. Between the time we discovered the body and they discovered their mistake, a lot of those facts could have been lost.”

“Which is probably what the killer intended,” said Madeline.

“Well, it’s all speculation until we are up-to-date with one another,” said Neville. “So I declare an end to this morbid conversation until tomorrow. We need to get home and prepare our entries. We can all meet at the fair and discuss it then, along with all our blue ribbons.”

They finished their lunch talking about Madeline’s produce and Neville’s coffee bean entries and agreed to gather at the roses tomorrow at noon. Before they parted, Maddy and Neville wrote out their advertisement twice, on two pages ripped from Sam’s new ledger.

“One for the
Leader
and one for the
Standard
. We’ll have the replies sent care of our post office box rather than to the newspapers,” said Madeline.

Jade read over the notice. “ ‘Farming couple wishes to adopt and provide a loving home. Respond to Nairobi post 54.’ ” She looked up at Madeline. “I see you did not stipulate an infant.”

Maddy shook her head. “Neville and I decided we would be happy with any child.”

“That’s very good of you,” said Jade, touched by her friends’ generous hearts. “I’ll pay for the ads. Consider it a present.”

The Thompsons drove home, leaving Sam standing outside the hotel with Jade. She held up the Thompsons’ ads. “Shall we investigate alone or together?”

“Together,” said Sam. “I want to hear what you find out.”

They went to the
Leader
office first, ignoring the book and stationery store to one side and heading directly for the newspaper’s business counter, where a freckled young girl in her late teens stood. Jade saw how the girl’s eyes brightened as Sam approached, so she slipped one of the notices into his hands and stepped aside but not out of earshot.

Sam put on his most engaging grin and leaned his left elbow on the counter. “Good afternoon, miss,” he said. “I’d like to run this notice for a week in the daily and once in the next weekly.” He handed it across with a hundred-rupee note.

The girl took one look at the request for a child and her face became crestfallen. “You and your
wife
want a child?”

“Oh, it’s not
my
ad,” he said. “It’s my employer’s ad. I’m not married,” he added.

The girl brightened again, her smile renewed. She batted her eyelashes. “That is very sweet of them.”

“Isn’t it, though?” said Sam. “They saw that someone had a Dutch baby boy for adoption, but it seems someone snatched the little tyke up right away. I just can’t see how anyone else could have gotten here so fast, though.” He let the statement dangle.

“I don’t know much about that,” the girl said as she handed change for him.

Sam put the money in his pocket and straightened. “Too bad. Well, nice talking to you.”

He turned to leave and the girl made a grab for his shirt-sleeve. “I could look something up for you,” she suggested. “See what’s on the sales receipt at least.”

Sam smiled, his teeth flashing under the brown mustache. “That’s very nice of you. I must own to being curious.”

The girl sashayed off to the vertical filing cabinet, adding a few extra wiggles on the way. Jade caught Sam’s eye and rolled her own.

The young lady returned. “I found the bill of sale for the ad,” she said. “It was sent through the mail with the money, but there was no name on it.”

“But the ad said to reply to voucher nine-seven-five. Someone must have come in to pick up replies.”

The girl shrugged. “Now that you mention it, that is rather odd. I’ve been here most of the day except to go to lunch and this is the first I pulled the file. Wait a minute and I’ll ask Viola.”

Jade watched as the girl went to the desk of an older lady, presumably Viola, and wondered if this new search for more information was merely another pretense to walk for Sam.
Strap a pint of cream on that backside and you’ll have butter by the time she returns.
A tiny voice in her head asked her if she wasn’t thinking like a jealous woman.

This time, Viola returned with the girl, handed her the file, and sent her back to the cabinets to put it away.

“I understand you’re interested in that adoption. You’re the second person to ask today. There was a nice couple in earlier.”

“Yes,” said Sam, “that would be my current employer. I just placed an adoption ad for them.” He pointed to the paper still on the counter.

Jade joined him. “They were so disappointed,” she said. “We thought if we could assure them that the child had been well placed, it would ease their sorrow.”

Viola nodded. “That’s very kind of you, I’m sure, but even if I knew, I’m not certain that I could relinquish that information. However, I can tell you this. I did a bit of looking myself after that nice couple left because I didn’t recall anyone else coming in about the notice. It seemed odd in a way.”

“And did you discover anything?” asked Sam.

“In a manner of speaking, yes. The notice saying that the child was already taken was mailed here just as the original ad was. So whoever adopted the child must have learned about it from another source because they didn’t apply through us.” She picked up the Thompsons’ notice. “I certainly hope that this brings them the child they want.”

Jade and Sam said goodbye, and Sam waved to the girl who’d first helped him. She didn’t return the gesture or the smile.

“You broke that poor child’s heart, flirting and leaving,” said Jade as they left.

“You handed me the notice,” said Sam. “I was just being friendly.”

Jade elbowed him. “See if
I
fall for that devilish grin of yours next time you try it on me.”

“Oh, that was just my being friendly grin. I’ve got a completely different smile for you.”

He flashed one at her, and she threw her hands in front of her eyes, pretending to be blinded by the dazzle. “Come on, Sam,” she said. “We’ve got another stop to make.”

They hurried to the office of Nairobi’s other newspaper, the
East African Standard
, and this time, Jade decided to try her luck, leaving Sam to wait for her in the foyer. The middle-aged woman behind the counter looked tired. Jade hoped she might be happy for some friendly conversation, especially if it involved missing people, murder, and other tantalizingly grisly topics. She placed and paid for the Thompsons’ ad, then said, “So much has happened recently. First Mrs. Stokes disappears and then Mr. Stokes commits suicide.” She gave the other woman a chance to speak.

“I have a friend who works at Dr. Montgomery’s office,” the woman said. “He took over for Dr. Abercrombe, you know. My friend keeps me very informed. She telephoned me at lunch to say that Mr. Stokes couldn’t have killed himself. There wasn’t enough of his blood to have died by bleeding out.”

“But I heard he was practically drowning in blood in that dryer where they found him,” Jade said, embellishing her information so the woman would contradict it to set her straight.

“It wasn’t all that much,” she said and leaned closer. “And it wasn’t his blood!”

“No?”

The woman shook her head solemnly. “No. It was from some kind of bird. They have ways of telling what type of animal it came from. But you are nearer the truth with the drowning part. He had some kind of liquid in his lungs.”

Jade put her hand to her mouth to express her pretended shock. “So did he fall into a well or a pond?”

“Likely he fell into something else. The doctor is still doing
chemical
tests on it.”

Jade shook her head and made
tsk
sounds. “I hope nothing horrid happened to Mrs. Stokes. I saw the notice in the wanted section looking for information regarding her whereabouts.”

“I’m afraid for her,” said the woman. “I knew her from church when she was a girl, though I can’t say I’ve seen her more than once since she married.” The woman dropped her voice. “She should have married that Alwyn Chalmers instead of Martin Stokes. A man’s looks aren’t everything. I’m sure she wasn’t the happiest lady and I can imagine her running off to England maybe, but I can’t see her abandoning her baby.”

“She had a baby?” asked Jade. This time she didn’t have to pretend to be shocked.

“I don’t suppose many people knew about him, her always being at home and the Stokeses living out of town. Dr. Abercrombe delivered a sweet little boy about, hmm, four months ago, just before he left for England. My friend told me.”

CHAPTER 6

The Maasai lump all other peoples together as ilmeek, or “aliens.”
Europeans are sometimes called iloridaa enjekat, which means
“people who enclose their flatulence” due to our custom of wearing trousers.

—The Traveler

“MRS. STOKES HAD a baby boy?” asked Sam.

“Yes! The same age as the child that Maddy and Neville tried to adopt,” replied Jade.

“Did this lady know that the baby was, in fact, left behind?”

“No, but I’m not one to believe in coincidences. There aren’t that many children available for adoption anymore. And both of these just happen to be the same sex and age.”

They stood to the side of the
Standard
’s stone building, out of the general foot traffic. Both of them pondered the possibilities for a few moments before Sam broke the silence.

“Let’s assume then, for the moment, that you’re correct. That it’s the same child. It doesn’t prove that Alice Stokes was murdered. Maybe she abandoned both husband and child.”

Jade frowned. “It’s possible, and Stokes didn’t want the baby, so, after he tried unsuccessfully to find his wife, he gave it up for adoption. But that doesn’t fit the timing. True, he could have mailed the notice to the paper before he was killed, but who sent in the more recent notice that the baby was already taken? By then, he’d been dead for several days. No, my bet is that she handed the baby off to keep it safe, then ran away herself.”

“That would mean there was someone else involved, at least with the baby,” said Sam. “Maybe that person had already handed off the child to another couple or to a mission.”

“That’s possible,” agreed Jade. “Or what about this idea? Stokes killed his wife, posted the ad seeking information to cover his tracks, but someone found out and killed him for it.”

“What about the kid?”

Jade shrugged. “He probably gave it away earlier. The notices for the adoption might not have been from him.”

“Maybe he was holding the child hostage to bring back his runaway wife, and
she
killed him,” said Sam. “That woman at the
Standard
said he had liquid in his lungs?” Jade nodded. “Well, there you have it,” he said.

“Have what?” asked Jade.

“She pushed him in a horse trough. They still have them around here despite all the automobiles.” He extended his arms in a “ta-dah” motion to emphasize his point.

“But he wouldn’t drown right away,” said Jade. “She’d have had to hold him under for a while, and that suggests the strength of a man, not of a woman.”

“Then maybe she had an accomplice who killed him for her. Women have been known to hire someone to finish off a husband.”

Jade shuddered as she thought of one in particular and the murder that first brought her to Africa after the Great War. “Possibly. And she took back her child,” Jade finished. “But the woman hinted that this liquid wasn’t ordinary water. And why run the ad?”

“That is confusing,” agreed Sam. “It would certainly help if we each knew what happened in our respective interviews with Finch.”

“You’re right, Sam. I may have to wait until tomorrow to read Maddy’s or Neville’s material, but for reasons that will become clearer when we … um … accidentally exchange notebooks later, I don’t think either of them will have much to offer.”

“I don’t know. Madeline looked awfully upset.”