Penrod smiled at his boyish enthusiasm. ‘If all goes as planned, you might soon have your chance. With Percy’s blessing I have replied by urgent-rate cable to von Meerbach in your name. I gave him full details of what you have to offer, including available dates and your standard rates. But, in the meantime, you haven’t tasted the hot-pot. It’s jolly good. Oh, and by the way, there’s also a letter from your pal Kermit Roosevelt.’
‘Which you opened to save me the trouble?’
‘Good Lord, no.’ Penrod was horrified. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it. That’s your private mail.’
‘As opposed to all my other correspondence, which is public, Uncle?’ Leon asked, and Penrod smiled comfortably,
‘Line of duty, my dear boy.’ Then he changed the subject. ‘So, I understand that, with the princess out of your hair, you’re charging off hot-foot to assist your partner, Percy, with the Eastmont safari.’
‘That’s correct. I leave first thing tomorrow. Percy’s hunting on the west bank of Lake Manyara down in German territory. He left a note for me at Tandala. He says that Lord Eastmont is keen to get at least a fifty-inch buffalo and Manyara’s the best place to find one.’
‘Percy introduced me to Eastmont when he was passing through Nairobi. We had dinner together here, Percy, me and their two lordships, Eastmont and Delamere.’
‘What did you make of Eastmont, if I might ask, sir?’
‘You might indeed. In fact, I was about to tell all – you and Percy need to know. From our very first meeting I thought he was an odd fish. Something about him troubled me. It was only after he and Percy had left for Manyara that it all came back to me with a rush and a roar, if you’ll pardon the poetic licence.’
‘Pardon granted, sir. Please continue. I’m all ears.’
‘I remembered there had been a nasty little incident in the South African campaign back in ’99. A young captain of the Middlesex Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry named Bertie Cochrane was in command of a forward reconnaissance platoon at a place called Slang Nek when they ran into a strong Boer contingent. At the first shots young Cochrane ran. He left his sergeant to try to fight off the Boers and ran for home and Mother. It was a massacre. The platoon took fifteen casualties from a strength of twenty before they could extricate themselves. Cochrane was court-martialled for cowardice in the face of the enemy, found guilty and cashiered. He might have been given a blindfold and a .303 bullet if not for his friends in high places. When I remembered all this I sent a cable to somebody I know at the War Office to check my memory of the incident. The reply came back affirmative. Cochrane and Eastmont are one and the same fellow, but there were a few more snippets of information. After his dishonourable discharge, young Bertie Cochrane married an extremely wealthy American oil heiress. Less than two years later, the new Mrs Cochrane drowned in a boating mishap on Ullswater in the Lake District of Cumberland. Cochrane was tried at the Middlesex Assizes for the murder of his wife, but acquitted for lack of evidence. He inherited her fortune, and two years later, on the death of his uncle, he became Earl of Eastmont, with an estate of more than ten thousand acres near Appleby in Westmorland. Thus plain old Bertie Cochrane became Bertram, Earl of Eastmont.’
‘Dear God! Does Percy know this?’
‘Not yet, but I rely on you to give him the glad tidings.’
Leon was in pensive mood when he rode home to Tandala. When he got there Manyoro and Loikot were waiting for him. He gave them instructions for an early start the next morning on the journey to join Percy’s hunting camp on the banks of Lake Manyara, then went to his tent to read his mail.
There were three of his mother’s marvellously fond and entertaining letters. Each was more than twenty pages long, and they were dated a month apart but had arrived at the Nairobi post office together. He learned that his father was well and prosperous, as always. His mother’s latest book was titled
