A Cleft Of Stars

'I'm glad to learn the details of his death- even out of a pistol's mouth,' I said ironically. 'But I expect that when the diamonds were found the whole thing sorted itself out.'

'On the contrary, the diamonds were not found and nothing ever sorted itself out. Until tonight.'

I bit back a retort. Nadine stood close to me. 'Go on,' was all I said.

'The Gestapo shrugged it off after a while just as you have done. But I wasn't satisfied. First, that diamond pencil. Why did Erasmus cling so tenaciously to it? Where did it come in? Why something so intimately associated with the Cullinan, as I later discovered? Strange to say, it vanished while I was attending him. I suspected an old servant but the Gestapo didn't consider it worth pursuing. His house and shop were searched with a fine-tooth comb, of course, but what we found was no more than what would have been expected in the normal course of business. The thing became stranger as I probed deeper. Erasmus had assisted Asscher at the cutting of the Cullinan — that that diamond pencil again! I became more interested still when I found that Erasmus's daughter — your mother — had married the man who had actually discovered the Cullinan. What if, I asked myself, that coded message about the hyena's blanket had in fact something to do with the Cullinan?'

'You could have checked on the Cullinan itself at any time, in the Tower of London,' I replied sarcastically. He ignored my crack. 'I became more and more interested in the Bowker family. In war-time, of course, it is difficult to follow things up and I had no way of knowing whether the famous Bowker had a son. But imagine my pleasure when I located the mother — Erasmus's own daughter — hiding in Amsterdam.'

I felt a pinch at my heart. I guessed what might be coming.

'We picked her up. I tried everything to persuade her to talk. But I never got a word out of her about Bowker or the Cullinan or her son, whose whereabouts she professed not to know; William Guybon Atherstone Bowker. We had to shoot her in the end.'

'Guy! No, no!'

Nadine grabbed me as I was about to throw myself at Praeger. I would never have got across the dozen feet which separated us. When my blind fury had subsided I started to shake with reaction. What he had related gave me the measure of his ruthlessness.

'Thank you,' he said with a brief cynical smile at Nadine. '

You, saved me an unpleasant task. He's worth a lot more to me sound in mind and limb than wounded. I still hope he's going to be accommodating and tell me what the hyena's blanket means.'

'Damn you, I don't know, I tell you!'

'I see I'll have to help you to remember; time is, as I said before, on my side. Well, after the setback over your mother I went to work to check up exactly how Bowker and a fellow digger discovered the Cullinan.'

'I'll let you have the press clippings,' I sneered. 'It's all been told and written about a thousand times. They thought it was a bit of broken bottle sticking out of the opencast face. Don't try to make a mystery of that.'

'I don't have to, Bowker. The mystery was already there, built in. The Cullinan in the rough had two natural faces and a cleavage face when it was found.'

'So what?'

'A cleavage face, don't you understand?'

'No.'

He tried unsuccessfully to control the rising note in his voice.

'If there was a cleavage face, it means that the Cullinan had been cut — before it was discovered.'

'Even my father never dreamed that one up.'

He edged round the bed nearer to me, the pistol held at my stomach.

'No, he didn't dream it. He did it'

'You're crazy!'

He retreated to the hyena's side and fumbled with its mane, choosing his words deliberately and slowly.

'Your father was a master-crook, Bowker. He and Rankin planted the Cullinan in the Premier Mine — salted it, to use the jargon. The cleavage face proves that the Cullinan was only part of a larger, colossal diamond' He shot out his free hand, clenching his fist. 'The Cullinan Diamond was the size of that!

What then in the name of the Peacock Throne of the Great Moguls is the other half like?'

His fingers went on clenching and unclenching on the animal's mane in a kind of nervous spasm but his gun hand was steady enough.

'Where.. his words were slightly blurred like a drunk's. where is it?'

I put an arm round Nadine's shoulders. She was trembling. but I sensed a quiver of relief at my gesture.

'Why,' I rejoined, picking my words as carefully as he, 'don't you ask the man who found it? There he lies on the stretcher next to you. Rankin.'

If I had thrown the Cullinan at his feet die reaction could not have been greater.

'Rankin! Is that — Rankin?'

If it had not been for the hyena I could have We-swiped him as he swivelled the torch on the digger's unconscious form. The pistol sagged and he was completely off guard. I slipped free of Nadine with the intention of going for him, but the animal leapt to its feet snarling. The sound seemed to bring Praeger back to earth.

'Bowker and Rankin! Bowker and Rankin!' he kept repeating, as if stunned. 'Now I have it all in my hands!'

The moon had risen and the enclosure was bright in its light. The little figure of the German in his too-neat safari suit, with his longish hair and thunderstruck face might have been the sort of image I would have conjured up had I been asked to embody the evil spirit of diamonds.

When he spoke the entire character of his voice had changed. It was flat and vicious, like a dud note struck in the middle of a concerto.

He addressed Nadine. 'And where do you fit into this?' 'I

came to look for Guy. He. . he.

'Think quickly!' he rapped out. 'Think up some yarn, very quickly! Your companion's pretty smart at lying. What's your name?'

'Nadine Raikes.'

'Raikes. The millionaire?'

'Yes.'

He rounded on me. 'The jigsaw begins to fit together, doesn't it? Bowker and Rankin peddling the greater half of the Cullinan to Raikes the millionaire — deal and dealer!'

'Listen to my side of this,' I began in a sandpaper voice but he stopped me.

'Cover Rankin up with the blanket. I can't risk anything happening to him now! It's going to take everything I know to pull him through. Button up his shirt too, gently!'

I did as he bade me and straightened up to face the pistol again.

'I came to The Hill, alone,' I said, holding myself in. 'I had a score to settle with Rankin. He framed me and I got shopped. Nadine flew here with Talbot to find me. Rankin shot down their plane. That's my story in a nutshell. All this stuff about the bigger half of the Cullinan is so much bull as far as I am concerned.'

He laughed and I didn't like the sound of it. 'Very well improvised, at such short notice! But how about the truth? A shoot-out when thieves fall out after a double-cross in which the plane was deliberately set on fire to prevent the other party making off with the great diamond?Here's the evidence, and I believe what my eyes tell me.' He gestured at the two wounded men.

Nadine broke in desperately. 'Guy being here has nothing to do with diamonds. I give you my word. He. . it's something personal between us. He was in prison. He left without telling me. I came to look for him in a plane, that's alclass="underline" 'All, eh, Miss Raikes?'

'No. Guy was here hunting fossilized hyena excreta. Praeger laughed derisively. 'Now I've heard everything!

Well, at least fossilized hyena excreta is original! Somehow all roads lead to hyenas, don't they? Look at the debt I owe Dika here for tracking you down. She's justified the two years I spent training her.' He went on, with a grating note of selfapology, 'We Germans are a thorough and methodical people. I thought at the beginning that by training a hyena and studying its behaviour pattern something might emerge to give me a clue to what hyena's blanket meant. That's all unnecessary now. I've got you, Bowker, and Rankin as well. You'll tell me before long.'