Free The African Poison Murders by Elspeth Huxley Page A

must be doing well. There were plenty of pleas and threats from firms whose bills he hadn’t paid, and one or two lawyers’ letters. But he could find no trace of anything relating to the Nazi Bund, nor communications of any sort from Munson’s fatherland.
    Of course, Mrs Munson had had plenty of time to deal with those, and he had no right to make a search. He sighed, and put on one side for further examination the dead man’s passbook, some letters in German from an address in Natal and signed Kate, that he judged must be from Munson’s sister, and two notes that looked worthy of closer attention. One would be easy to follow up; it had a date and an address and read:
    “DEAR MR MUNSON,
    “I have not received your cheque for what you owe me. Unless I do so within one week I shall go to a solicitor. I do not think you would like to be sued in Court. I shall not hesitate to bring out things you would rather keep quiet for the sake of your Reputation and also the reputation of others who are without Protection as I am.
    “Yours faithfully,
    “DAISY PARSONS”
    It was dated three weeks ago.
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    The other note bore no date, address or signature.
    It was scrawled in a large, rather childish hand, on a piece of paper torn out of a cheap notebook, and bore every sign of having been hurriedly written.
    “I can’t meet you this evening,” it ran. “D. is being difficult, I’m afraid he’ll suspect. Don’t want him upset now. Be at same place tomorrow, same time, will get there if I can. You understand, don’t you? It’s all so difficult. Love.”
    Vachell read it with a frown and folded it carefully into his pocketbook. Munson’s death, accidental or otherwise, seemed to have been a fine thing from every angle.
    Finally, with a good deal of reluctance, Vachell went in search of the two children he had seen, briefly, earlier in the day. He found them in the schoolroom, part of yet another of the dilapidated mud-and-rubble buildings scattered about the homestead without design or plan. This one had a thatched roof. The walls inside were protected by papyrus matting that rustled and crackled faintly all the time, whether from gentle stirrings of the wind blowing in through the open door and windows, or from the seething insect life that doubtless went on in its recesses, it was impossible to say.
    Roy and Theodora Munson were sitting at an ink-stained table, one on each side of their teacher, laboriously taking down dictation. Both looked white-faced and disturbed, but they were cleanlooking, friendly-seeming children, and Vachell could not help feeling a sense of surprise that the 76
    Munsons should have offspring at all — it was illogically unlikely — or that, having them, they should be such nice-mannered kids. For this, he supposed, Miss Adams should be thanked. She rose when he came in, pushing her straight, soft hair behind her ears, and making an effort to smile. Her eyes looked apprehensive in her thin face.
    “Mrs Munson insisted that we should carry on as usual,” she said. “It seems ghastly, but it does give us something to do.”
    Vachell sat down on a spare chair that wobbled dangerously, looked over the dictation, and tried to make the children feel at ease. It was, of course, a hopeless task. He put his questions casually, first about routine. Breakfast, he found, took place in the schoolroom at seven-fifteen; lessons began sharp at eight. Roy and Theo were generally up by sixthirty, and filled in the time before breakfast pottering around the farm buildings and playing games, while Miss Adams was busy with chickens and turkeys. That morning, she told him, she had gone out as usual about half-past six, let the young chicks out of their heated coops into the movable runs, fed them, turned the eggs in the incubators, and filled the drinking-troughs with skim milk. That had taken her till breakfast time. She had eaten, as usual, with the children, and started lessons punctually at eight. She had