The shrill cries of monkeys shattered the stillness of the rainforest. Harrison picked up his Iver Johnson revolver, stepped out onto the veranda of Plantation House, and peered into the malachite gloom. The only time monkeys made that kind of racket was when something or someone was moving around out there, stirring under the canopy of trees. The sun had just set but the air was still steamy from the afternoon rain -- lush with the black tea fragrance of roots and leaves. The monkeys quieted down. Whatever had excited them had moved on …
Sweating, Harrison went back inside the house and selected his favorite recording from the bookcase, placing it on the gramophone and cranking up the machine. Seconds later, the voice of Enrico Caruso soared from the morning-glory horn of the Victrola -- his recent 1902 recording of Vesti la giubba from Pagliacci …
He poured himself a tumbler of gin and quinine water and returned to the veranda, where he pulled a Partagás cigar from his linen jacket and lit it using one of the candles glimmering in a wall sconce. The forest had settled back into eerie stillness. All he heard now was the clicking and whirring of insects and the tap-tap-tap of water dripping onto the broad leaves of banana trees.
He sat in one of the rattan chairs lined up against the wall of the house and glanced at his pocket watch. Six o’clock. Lydia would be home soon from Manaus – at least if the boat from the river station stayed on schedule, which it rarely did.
Then a few moments later, he sensed someone standing beside him. Startled, he turned quickly and saw it was Memna. e must have forgotten to lock the cellar door. Dangerously careless of him. She approached him hesitantly.
Her naked body shone golden in the afterglow of sunset. She looked remarkably supple. Her small breasts had regained some of their former bounce, and her full, raven hair cascaded onto her shoulders.
She stopped a few feet from him, arms hanging at her sides, as though she didn’t quite know what to do with them.
“It’s all right, Memna,” he said in soothing voice. “No one else is here now.”
She took a few more halting steps forward. A faint, rosy blush had even returned to her cheeks. Her face glowed with innocent radiance.
Someone looking at her now would never guess that she had been dead for two days.