After a breakfast of bacon, the group headed off into the jungle with a jar of water and a rack of loaded weapons. The slave led the way. Miss Waldron carried a slender pistol in her back pocket and kept her eyes on the canopy. They were looking for monkeys.

Willoughby shot a chimpanzee and three baboons, then announced that it was time for tea—biscuits from a can and a weak English breakfast. Miss Waldron wandered over to the carcasses of the animals with her cup and saucer. She had watched them drop from the trees. The guns exploded and the monkeys fell like fruit, whipping through the leaves, breaking through branches, rolling down to thuds in the dirt. The screeching and the rustling that followed as the other animals fled the area was unnerving. She had not realized how many had been so near.

Miss Waldron reached out a finger and touched the wrinkled nose of a dead baboon. Its mouth was open, its tongue bloody through sharp incisors, but its eyes were closed in a sweet way, as though it were sleeping. She glanced around, then leaned forward and kissed it.

The private detectives snapped the picture and sent it airmail to Miss Waldron’s father. They had spent the day sweating, hacking through the jungle with machetes, spraying themselves with bug repellent, and dodging wild boars. Their cigarettes were damp. They watched Miss Waldron through their binoculars and tried to keep a low profile. They began to wonder if there wasn’t easier work.

Meanwhile, Miss Waldron learned to climb trees. For days she had been watching the slave wrap his bare feet against bark and propel himself into the canopy. It reminded her of the days she had spent in the circus, and in the early morning she would practice, shimmying up the trunk. Before long she made it a foot off the ground, then two, then three. She began spending her afternoon siesta in a low-slung hammock, which rose each day among the vines along with her ability.

At dusk Willoughby would go looking for her. There’d been a change in Miss Waldron since they moved into the forest, but Willoughby was used to seeing people go native. He’d done it himself, once or twice. As the porters prepared meals, Willoughby would rouse her by calling out the courses. PLUM PUDDING WITH RRRRUM SAUCE! he would shout into the bush. CHA-TEAUBRIAND SIMMERED IN WINE! Sooner or later he would hear leaves rustling, and then the soft thud of her small feet hitting the ground.