Dangerous Inheritance (23 page)

To get upstairs without being heard was going to be the difficulty, because it was unlikely that they would be sound asleep. The first obstacle was the velvet curtain, as the staircase to the upper floor was obviously behind it and it hung on brass rings which, if moved incautiously, would make a clatter. Simon decided that he must risk that, and that if he was very careful he could ease his way between the curtains without the rings making more than a faint tinkle. Again he advanced on tiptoe, but when he came opposite the door from which the light was showing, he halted.

It had just occurred to him that the man or men he meant to kill might not be upstairs but in there dozing. If they were and he chanced to stumble in the dark behind the curtain as he started up the stairs they might hear him, come out and take him in the rear. To insure against that he had to make certain that the room was empty.

Cocking the revolver he held it at the ready. He would have liked to thrust the door wide open, but dared not in case it gave a loud creak and roused anyone upstairs. His mouth was dry and his heart hammering wildly from the realisation that in the next few moments he might have to kill or be killed. But his resolution never wavered. He gave the door a gentle push. To his relief it swung open a couple of feet quite noiselessly and no sound of sudden alarm came from inside.

As a large part of the room became swiftly revealed to him he suppressed a gasp of mingled excitement and triumph. At the far end of the room some twelve feet from where he stood there was a high-backed armchair. It faced away from him but in it lay sprawled an elderly man, evidently asleep. Only the top of his head could be seen, a bald patch surrounded by some long whitish ruffled hair, and one arm that hung limply over the left arm of the chair. Simon had never met Ukwatte d'Azavedo but he had not the least doubt about the sleeper's identity, and he now had him at his mercy. It now seemed fairly certain, too, that he had only one enemy with whom to deal. Lalita might be upstairs, though it was more likely that he would have remained with his father; but perhaps he had left the house, or had not even been there and had had no hand in the foul plot to do away with de Richleau.

The thought of taking human life had always sickened Simon. In the past the Duke had never sought to disguise the fact that he derived pleasure from hunting and killing people who, if given a chance, would have killed him; Rex had maintained that one was justified in ridding the world of evil men; and Richard, with practical good sense, had often said, ‘I don't want to die yet; so if anyone gets in the way of a bullet from me, that's his look-out.' But Simon had never got over his revulsion at the thought of taking human life.

Even now, with raging hatred in his heart, he felt his stomach turning over at the idea of shooting d'Azavedo in his sleep, from behind and in cold blood. Yet, as he visualised again the tortured end of his friend, writhing for minutes that must have seemed endless as the venom of the cobra boiled in his blood, he steeled himself to go through with this awful business.

Raising the revolver he took careful aim at the bald patch on his enemy's head. But his hand was shaking and his spectacles misting over. Impatiently he shook his head. Whatever happened he must not make a mess of things. If he missed and d'Azavedo was armed he might yet be shot himself. To make more certain of his aim he took two cautious steps forward.

Doing so gave him a fuller view of the sleeping man's arm dangling over the side of the chair. He could now see the hand. It was not brown, but white, slim, long-fingered, fragile and had a gold signet ring on the little finger.

Simon's mouth fell open, but no cry came from it. Dropping his gun, he ran forward. The hand could only be that of de Richleau. Next moment he was kneeling beside the armchair, clutching the awakened figure in it and sobbing wildly:

‘Oh God, you're safe! I thought they'd murdered you. But you're alive! Alive! Thank God! And I was about… about to shoot you. If I'd pressed the trigger I … I'd have killed you myself. Oh, thank God! Thank God!'

‘Simon, dear Simon,' de Richleau put one arm round his friend's shoulders and with the other stroked his dark hair. ‘Calm yourself, my son, calm yourself. Yes, I've had a very narrow escape. But why were you about to shoot me?'

‘We guessed you were here,' Simon blurted out. ‘Rajapakse and I. We broke into the back room, saw a body on the floor. Thought it was you, then were driven off by a snake. I came round the front. Meant to get those bastards even if I swung for it. Only saw the back of your head and jumped to it that you were old d'Azavedo.'

The Duke gave a low laugh. ‘So you came in to avenge my death. And you are always telling people that you lack courage. What nonsense, dear Simon. But where is Douglas?'

‘Left him outside,' Simon replied. ‘He's still there, I expect.
Must let him know you're safe.' Getting to his feet, he ran from the room and out to the front door.

Against the possibility that Simon might need to make a quick get-away, Douglas had collected his car from further along the road and was now sitting in it outside the house. On seeing Simon he pressed the self-starter and called, ‘Praise be you didn't use that gun. Come on! Let's get out of this.'

‘Had no need,' Simon called back, halting on the verandah. ‘The d'Azavedos aren't here. But de Richleau is and, believe it or not, I found him asleep. Come along in.'

Scrambling out of the car, Douglas hurried up the drive and asked, ‘If the Duke is safe, whose body did we see in the back room?'

‘Don't know, but de Richleau may,' Simon replied, as he led the way back into the sitting room.

When Douglas had expressed his delight at the Duke's being safe and sound, he said, ‘Mr. Aron was convinced we would find you here; but as you had agreed to the d'Azavedos' proposition about Olenevka I've been puzzling my wits in vain for a reason why they should have wished to get hold of you.'

De Richleau told them about the d'Azavedos' plot to secure the mine without giving up their jewels, then how he had partially upset their plans by scaring Lalita but that had not saved him from being pushed by Ukwatte into the room with the cobra.

At that, Simon exclaimed, ‘Heavens! Even you can't often have been nearer death. How in the world did you save yourself?'

‘Old soldiers never die,' quoted de Richleau with a smile. ‘I owe my survival in this case to having once been a soldier; although the use of physical weapons did not enter into it. I must long ago have told you how, as a young officer in the French Army, owing to my having come upon proof that Dreyfus was innocent I attracted to myself the enmity of the Minister of War who would have been ruined had the truth come out. In consequence I was sent to do garrison duty on Madagascar and remained in exile there for over two years.'

Simon nodded. ‘I remember. And you found life in that primitive island so utterly boring that you made friends with the witch-doctors. Took up magic and made a serious study of it.'

‘Yes. The Malagesy, being largely of Polynesian extraction and partly negro, enjoy knowledge of the secret arts as practised both in the Pacific and in Africa; so they have a greater understanding of what we term the supernatural than any other occultists in the world. Among other attributes their medicine men have inherited the means of exerting power over snakes, and that was among the things I learned from them.'

‘So you managed to charm the snake?'

‘Hardly that. I had so little time that I really thought my end had come. But an angry snake can be calmed if one has the courage to extend one's hand with two fingers pointing downward over its head. Why that gesture should have such an effect I have no idea. No doubt willing the snake not to strike is the real secret. But that is what I did, and it worked. For a few minutes the reptile continued to sway its head and hiss at me, then it relaxed, sank down and went to sleep.'

‘And then?'

‘I too lay down. Knowing that d'Azavedo would return to collect the jewels and dispose of my body, I shammed dead. In due course he came in, threw the cobra a chicken, then bent down over me. Having mustered all my strength, I reared up and struck him a single judo blow on the neck with the side of my hand. It was well aimed and got him right on the jugular vein. He collapsed on top of me. I heaved him off, succeeded in pulling him to his knees and gave him a shove that sent him backward right on top of the cobra just as it had begun to lick the chicken. Then I stumbled from the room and locked him in.'

‘So it was his body we saw.'

De Richleau chuckled. ‘Yes, and I'm glad to have your confirmation that the snake bit him. I felt pretty sure it had because if it hadn't he would have come round after a few minutes and I'd have heard him trying to break out. By now he must be as near dead as makes no matter and it gives me
considerable pleasure to know that he met with the terrible end he intended for me.'

‘But why,' Douglas asked, ‘having outwitted them, did you remain here?'

‘Alas, I'm not the man I was, my friend. I'm no longer strong enough to walk the two or three miles it must be back to the Galle Face. And so late at night there would be very little chance of my getting a lift.'

Simon pointed to the telephone that stood nearby on a small, hardwood table. ‘You could have telephoned me. Why on earth didn't you?'

The Duke shook his head. ‘No, my son. You would have come out here in a hired car. We would then have been faced with a most unpleasant dilemma. Either we would have had to go straight to the police and tell them the whole story, or risk d'Azavedo's death being followed by an enquiry, and my being suspected in connection with it, owing to the driver reporting that he picked me up here in the middle of the night.'

‘As your lawyer I must advise you to go straight to the police anyhow,' said Douglas firmly. ‘Ukwatte's death has no relevance to the fact that the d'Azavedos lured you from your hotel on false pretences, then used threats of violence to force you to sign a document. Your proper course is to bring an action against Lalita, as the surviving partner in this criminal conspiracy.'

De Richleau shook his head. ‘No, thank you. The fact that you found me in this house is no proof that I was lured here. It is known by several people that I had already agreed to sign such a document and I have the jewels which were to be my consideration for so doing. As a Colonel in the Security Service Lalita must have considerable pull with all sorts of influential people. Such an action against him would get us nowhere. It would serve only as an admission that I was in this house at approximately the time Ukwatte met his death.'

‘Concerning that you have nothing to fear. The natural assumption will be that Ukwatte left you in this room and went to give his snake its meal, then it bit him.'

‘I would you were right,' the Duke gave a tired sigh. ‘But if a full inquiry is started a very different picture will emerge. It will be seen at once that Ukwatte has a big bruise on his neck, owing to the congestion of blood in his jugular vein from the judo blow I struck him. No fall or accident could have caused that; only a human agency. Once we admit that I was here tonight, Lalita will declare, and quite truthfully, that he left me alone with his father. The odds are that on leaving here he went to some place where he has friends or acquaintances who will vouch for his presence with them for the remainder of the night. In any case there is no reason why he should not be believed. Who else then but myself could have struck Ukwatte unconscious and left him at the mercy of the cobra? It is true enough that he planned to kill me, but the fact is that I killed him; and I've no wish to be tried for murder.'

Simon's head bobbed up and down like that of a nodding china Mandarin. ‘Um, I get you. Got to keep the police out of this. No way we could explain away that bruise on Ukwatte's neck. We'd be in a muddle, a really nasty muddle. But what did you intend to do?'

‘Doze here till daylight, when there would be people about. Then go out and walk as far as a main street where I could pick up some form of transport. No-one except Lalita would then ever have known that I had been near this place. And unless he was prepared to divulge that he had participated in a criminal conspiracy he would not dare say that I had. Even were he prepared to face that, it would be only his word against mine.'

Douglas still looked worried and he said, ‘These things have a nasty way of coming out unexpectedly. Honestly, I feel you would be wiser to let me ring up the police, tell them the whole truth, enter an action against Lalita and plead that while you were struggling with Ukwatte to save yourself from the cobra he tripped and fell on the snake.'

A gentle smile twitched the Duke's lips. ‘I'm sure, Douglas, that you have my best interests at heart. But you must leave me to be the judge of how to protect myself against a charge of murder. I killed Ukwatte as surely as though I had put a bullet through his brain; and at my age I could not stand up to hours
of grilling by detectives. To escape that I must get back to the Galle Face. If the question of my having gone out soon after ten o'clock ever arises, I could say that by arrangement I went to meet Simon, as I will be returning with him. But all the odds are that, unless Lalita is so ill-advised as to accuse me, no-one will even think of connecting me with his father's death.'

‘You're right,' agreed Simon. ‘Sooner we get out of here the better. I wonder though that you didn't make yourself scarce immediately you'd dealt with Ukwatte. If Lalita had come back and found you still here, you'd have been for the high jump.'

The Duke gave an abrupt laugh. ‘I had little fear of that. I had made him too scared of becoming involved in my murder. There is every reason to assume that he will allow ample time for his father to devise some means of disposing of my body; so it is most unlikely that he will return until tomorrow.'