Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

Fat Muhammad Banir, hugely amused by Andrew’s questions, asked him what he was attempting to do — track down the gold of Mayani? So much for discretion. By nightfall the entire Township would know of Sergeant Mbutu’s mad quest. Perhaps a good thing, Andrew realized. Safety in numbers.

No, Muhammad Banir told him with a grin, there had been no single individual who had, over the past thirty years, consistently exchanged gold sovereigns for currency.

Even if he were telling the truth, which in Banir’s case was approximately as likely as his lying, this meant nothing. There were other coin dealers in the Township; and as Teggay said, any of the thousand or so Indian shopkeepers would have been delighted to take gold.

Assuming that they had been given it. Assuming that the gold of Mayani were actually here. And assuming that whoever possessed it had been using it as a kind of private charitable fund for thirty years.

These were assumptions that Andrew was increasingly unwilling to make. He knew that money had been left surreptitiously at the homes of distressed families. (And by these, to sidestep envy, often surreptitiously spent.) He knew that local legend ascribed the charity to Mayani. But he also knew that local legends were frequently more a matter of desire than of fact. People wanted to believe Mayani alive: the money provided the “proof.”

Probably Atlee had taken the gold with him thirty years ago. Probably he’d spent it all. Probably, as Moi had said, as the evidence suggested, his death was a suicide. The gold gone, Atlee returned to Africa to end his life. Out of guilt, perhaps. In expiation.

As he drove away from Muhammad Benir’s shop, Andrew’s spirits began to rise.

The young woman smiled. Attractive, in her middle twenties, she wore a sleeveless bright yellow European-style dress, buttoned up the front and belted. She said to Andrew through the opened door: “My grandfather prefers to talk to guests in the shamba.” The garden. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Andrew told her.

Another smile. “That way then,” pointing to the right. “I’ll go fetch him.”

“Thank you,” said Andrew, and went round the small cinder block house, following a sandy pathway worn in the sparse grass.

Unlike most of the African shambas in the Township, this one was devoted not to vegetables and fruits but to flowers. The small square yard was fenced in by a tall wooden latticework on two sides; the third side, facing the house, was a cascade of roses, an explosion of color in the clear tropical sunlight, reds and pinks and whites and yellows so vibrant they seemed to shimmer.

In the shade of a trellis heavy with more of them, startled bursts of red against the glossy green, sat a round white metal table and four white metal chairs, paint flaking from all. Andrew had barely seated himself when the back door opened and the old man shuffled out. Andrew sprang to his feet: legends, face to face, deserved respect.

At least eighty years old now, tufted hair white, face eroded, cheeks sunken, the old man still held himself erect, a triumph of will over gravity and time. He wore black slacks, a pair of imitation leather slippers. A white European-style shirt, tieless, buttoned at the knobby wrists and at the corded neck, cuffs and collar both too large.

“Sergeant Mbutu,” said Daniel Tsuto, and held out a hand ropy with vein and ligament. Andrew took it; the man’s grip was firm, like his voice. “Sit, sit,” said the old man, waving Andrew back into his chair and then lowering himself into the chair opposite. Slowly, stiffly: Andrew could hear, almost, the old bones creak.

“I knew one of your teachers,” said the old man. “David Obutu. He was a student of mine, you know.”

“Yes, m’zee, I know.” M’zee a term of honor granted to elders.

“He was disappointed when you left the university.”

Andrew nodded. “Yes, m’zee. I had no choice.”

The old man returned the nod. “Yes, yes. Choice is often a luxury, eh? Beyond a certain point, only the gods have choices, and perhaps not even they.” He placed his hands, one atop the other, in his lap. In Swahili, he said, “How may I help you, sergeant?”

Andrew answered in the same language. “M’zee, I come to ask you about Robert Atlee and Abraham Mayani.”

The old man smiled. His teeth were large, rectangular, pale yellow like old ivory: dentures. “The constabulary is investigating legends now, sergeant?”

“Early yesterday morning, a man was found murdered at the Sinbad Hotel. The man was Robert Atlee.”

Daniel Tsuto’s smile vanished and his head darted suddenly backward against the collar of his shirt. “Robert Atlee? Here?” Clearly surprised.

“Yes, m’zee. He was stabbed.”

The old man frowned. Thoughtful, he looked off for a moment, as though eyeing the splendor of his rosebushes. He turned back to Andrew. “There’s no question that the man was Robert Atlee?”

“None. His fingerprints were sent to the Ministry of Records. Because all members of the G.S.U. had been fingerprinted, his were on file.”