The Artful Egg Read Free Page B

a note of the name on a pad. “Naomi Stride.… But what has this got to do with books?”
    “She wrote them—you know, a world-famous novelist! Hell, when this gets out, you’re going to have the press here from every—”
    “Oh, no,” said Colonel Muller very firmly. “Not unless I give the word. And, anyway, she can’t be as famous as you say, because I always look in the bookshop window down the road, and I don’t have any memory of—”
    “Well, you wouldn’t, Colonel, sir. Her books are all banned.”
    The pencil point snapped. “Banned?” echoed Colonel Muller, staring at the name on his pad. “God in Heaven, now I do smell trouble. Remember how it was when that stupid bloody political detainee—what’s-his-name—hanged himself in the cells here?”
    “Ja, and the overseas press tried to prove we’d done it to put a stop to his—”
    “Please! I need no reminders, hey?”
    “But, Colonel, sir, it was you who—”
    “Quiet, Jones. We must nip all such talk in the bud.”
    Colonel Muller glanced at his blocked pipe, pointed to the packet of cigarettes in the pocket of Jones’s safari jacket and snapped his fingers. Having accepted a light as well, he thenrose from behind his desk and began to pace the strip of worn carpet by his window, never taking the cigarette from his lips.
    “Lieutenant Kramer,” he said. “Where is he?”
    Again Jones gave another of his tight little smiles, making this one look even more like he was sucking something sweet through a straw. “I thought you’d want to know that, sir, so I put my head in his office on my way up. Just his boy was there, playing at doing a report.”
    “What did Zondi have to say?”
    “Oh, the usual cock-and-bull story you can’t follow, so I thought that you’d like me to take charge, Colonel, sir, seeing as Kramer’s decided to take the day off to go round his popsies and give them all a—”
    “Ah, talk of the devil,” interrupted Colonel Muller, turning from his reflection in the window to wink at the big man standing behind Jones on a less worn part of the carpet.
    Ten minutes later, Kramer was ready to leave for Morningside. All he needed now were the keys to his police car. There was a jingling from the steel fire-escape leading from the CID building into the vehicle-yard, and down it came a trim, jaunty Zulu in a snazzy suit and snap-brim hat, making those steps ring like a tap-dancer. Reaching the asphalt, he did a soft-shoe shuffle, spun round on his heel, then switched to a casual saunter, both hands deep in his pockets.
    “So the world is good today, Bantu Detective Sergeant Michael Zondi?” grunted Kramer.
    “Boss, the world is beautiful!” replied Zondi, taking out the jingling car-keys again, and getting in behind the wheel. “Have you looked to see what day it is? I had forgotten, and then I saw the calendar on my way out of the office. Today, early this morning, far away in Pretoria, a certain Fritz—”
    “Christ, kaffir, you’re not going morbid on me, hey?”
    “What is the derivation of this difficult word ‘morbid,’ master?”
    “Drive,”
ordered Kramer.
    And they were both laughing as the big Ford bucked out of the vehicle-yard, slewed round and dived into a gap in the passing traffic. After this, Zondi made his own gaps, ran two red lights and generally had a good time, until they reached the dual carriageway out to the suburbs, where there was too much room to make his kind of driving interesting. So he eased back and took the Lucky Strike that Kramer had lit for him.
    “Ja, I also noticed it was execution day,” murmured Kramer. “I’m still not sure you should have stopped me that time. I tell you, his throat felt good in my hands.”
    Zondi shrugged. “The same throat that was squeezed shut this morning in Pretoria. Your reach is long, boss.”
    “And so is yours. Was your evidence that really nailed him.”
    “Hau, a pair of
dangerous
men.…”
    “Too true, old son.”
    And