The Ka of Gifford Hillary (39 page)

The vault had been made to hold ten coffins, but, as yet, there were only six in it; so those of my father and of myself, which lay side by side, were nearly five feet below the level of the ground. It was quite a drop, and once down there, anyone other than a fit man, like Johnny, would have found it difficult to scramble out again.

The torch was not shining directly into the grave, and it was so dark that he could not even see the coffins. With commendable prudence, instead of lowering himself then stretching
out a hand for the torch, he picked it up first and flashed it downwards to see how far he had to drop.

It was at that moment, as we both stared down at the two coffins—my father’s dull and damp-stained from the years it had lain there, and mine still highly polished, its silver fittings as yet hardly tarnished—that the faint sound of footsteps made me turn and look up the path.

The perceptions of my Ka being above the physically normal, I knew that I must have heard them well before Johnny would; and my sight being better able to penetrate the darkness I saw, as he would not have been able to do, the outline of a figure coming towards us but still some distance off.

Desperately I tried to convey a warning to Johnny. In an agony of apprehension I heard the footsteps getting nearer. With all the mental strength of which I was capable I willed him to realise his danger. But my efforts were of no avail. For what seemed to me an age he continued to stand there shining his torch down into that accursed grave.

To my unutterable relief the person who was approaching kicked against a stone. Johnny heard it. In a second he had gone into action. Switching out his torch he thrust it into his coat pocket. Next moment he had pulled the nearest of the two turned-back corners of the tarpaulin back over the vault and kicked a brick on to it. In two swift strides he was across one of the banks of flowers and, kneeling down, fumbled frantically for the other corner. Ten precious seconds were lost before his fingers closed upon it in the darkness and he drew it over. Dragging a brick from beneath his right knee, he jerked it on to the corner.

But he was still kneeling there when the bulky figure of Constable Cowper emerged from behind one of the big yews. A torch flashed on and in a gruff voice the policeman demanded:

‘What are you up to here?’

I have never admired Johnny more than at that moment. Most people would have cut and run, trusting to elude the constable among the gravestones and get away in the darkness. I certainly should have. But I suppose he realised in time that his car might be found and its number be taken before he could reach it; and that it was the capacity instantly to
balance risks, required for handling aircraft at near supersonic speeds, which saved him in this instance.

Coming unhurriedly to his feet he replied: ‘Can’t you see for yourself? I was praying. Who are you?’

‘I am an officer of the Hampshire County Police,’ came the prompt answer. ‘And who may you be?’

‘I’m Wing Commander Norton; Sir Gifford Hillary’s nephew.’

‘Oh!’ Cowper seemed a little taken back. Raising the beam of his torch a little he shone it on Johnny’s face. I could see that it was covered with sweat; and, seeing the grisly undertaking he had been on the point of attempting, I did not wonder. But as they were standing at opposite ends of the grave and more than ten feet apart, the policeman might not have noticed that.

Lowering the torch again, he said more amiably: ‘I recognise you now, Sir, as the Air Force gentleman who sometimes stays up at the Hall. But if I may say so, this is hardly the proper time to say a prayer at a grave-side.’

‘Why not?’ Johnny said sharply. ‘There is no law against being in a churchyard after dark. And if I had come here to pray in the daytime I’d have had to risk the unpleasantness of passers-by who know about the tragedy stopping to gape at me.’

‘There is that, Sir. And there’s nothing illegal about your being here. But there is about interfering with a grave. Very much so.’ Shining his torch down on the side of the tarpaulin from which Johnny had removed, and not had time to replace, the bricks, he went on:

‘You wouldn’t have been interfering with this one, would you, Sir?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Well, someone has. Them bricks were all on the tarpaulin to hold it down all round, as they should be, when I passed this way to my tea just before six o’clock.’

‘I’ve only been here about ten minutes, and the grave is exactly as I found it.’

‘Then someone else must have moved the bricks,’ Cowper said a shade lugubriously. ‘It was an odd notion of Sir Gifford’s, asking that the vault should be left open until a week after his burial; and not a very sensible one. Sexton
Watkins is a great talker when he gets down to the local, so everyone hereabouts knows of it. And there are some strange characters about. It’s not so long ago that someone broke into a church just over the border, in Dorset, and defiled the altar. Cracked, of course; but, all the same, to my mind it’s tempting Providence to leave a grave open for longer than need be.’

Johnny gave a slightly forced laugh, ‘Well, anyway, I’m not a Satanist, Constable. You can set your mind at rest about that.’

‘I didn’t think you was, Sir.’ Cowper paused for a moment. ‘Still, I take it you’ve done what you came to do, and will be going home now?’

‘I owe a great deal to my uncle; so I intended to make a half hour’s vigil here.’

‘Just as you wish, Sir. Then I’ll stay around out of sight and see that nobody disturbs you.’

‘Thanks very much,’ Johnny replied with a heartiness he certainly could not have felt; and, as the policeman moved off into the darkness, he knelt down again.

I should like to think that he prayed for me, and it is very probable that he did. At all events with Cowper lurking somewhere on the far side of the yews, any further attempt by Johnny to get down into the vault was quite out of the question.

Some twenty minutes after Cowper had left him there came two sharp hoots on a motor horn, then the noise of a car starting up and the sound of its engine gradually fading away in the distance.

I had no doubt that it was Sue, and went forth to investigate. Her car had gone and the figure of a man was advancing up the path from the lych-gate. Cowper emerged from the shadows, and evidently knew him, as they exchanged a few words and a cheerful ‘good night’ before the late-comer went on his way.

Shortly afterwards Johnny came out from behind the yews, evidently feeling that he had spent long enough on the vigil that he had been forced to undertake in order to allay the constable’s suspicions. As he turned on to the upward path Cowper unobtrusively intercepted him, and said:

‘Would I be right, Sir, in supposing that to be your car, up by my cottage there?’

Johnny had no option but to admit it.

‘In that case, Sir,’ the policeman went on, ‘I’m afraid I must put in a report. It’s an offence, you know, to leave a car on the highway after dark without its lights on.’

‘I know,’ Johnny said wearily. ‘I’ve had an awful lot to see to these past few days; so I’m a bit tired. I switched them off without thinking what I was doing.’

‘That might happen to anyone, Sir; but I’ll have to report it just the same.’ Cowper fell into step with Johnny and they walked up the slope side by side. When they reached the car the policeman saw Johnny into it, then said:

‘Don’t you go worrying about Sir Gifford’s grave, Sir. I suffer a bit from insomnia; so I’m a great one for making night patrols. I’ll be out again at least once more tonight, and I’ll give special attention to it not being further interfered with.’

That, I felt, must squash any hopes that Johnny might have entertained of returning later for another attempt to get a sight of my body without fear of interruption. In a gloomy silence, which was on my part enforced and on Johnny’s natural, we drove back to the Hall.

As soon as Johnny got in, he telephoned Sue. Although everyone had gone to bed, he kept his voice low, as he said:

‘That you, darling? … No, I didn’t manage to do all that I had hoped … Yes, I was interrupted and had a slight spot of bother. But I got out of it all right … No, don’t worry your sweet self. I’m not going back … No, I promise you. I’m dropping with fatigue, anyway. Besides, I did succeed in getting a good look at the box. If things had been as I feared I feel sure the lid would have been displaced … Yes, by what’s there trying to get out when the thing that was seen returned to it between spells of travelling. But it wasn’t. There was no sign that there had been any activity at all; so I’m satisfied now … Yes, really. And if anything happens about the other business I’ll let you know at once … Yes, I will. Thanks, darling, for your help tonight. There are darn’ few girls who would be brave enough to insist on lending a hand on a job like that. Good night, my sweet. Sleep well. Bless you.’

When he had hung up, I watched him go slowly and wearily upstairs. He had said that he was satisfied. But I wasn’t. I too had had a look down into that grave. And by
concentrating I could see through the coffin lid. Hair always continues to grow after death so I had not been surprised to see a five-days’ growth of stubble on my chin. But my body had been as fresh and pink as on the night it had crumpled to the floor under the shock of Evans’s death ray.

The following morning, expecting that the police would arrive at about half-past nine to continue their investigations into Ankaret’s death, I went up to make another attempt to get into touch with her while the house was still quiet.

I was pleased to see that although they had turned her room topsy-turvy the previous day they had afterwards put everything back in good order. But when I concentrated my gaze on the still form beneath the bed-clothes I had a sudden unhappy feeling that I was again to suffer disappointment.

She had been dead for only a little over twenty-four hours; so to the normal eye her appearance had probably not yet altered, but to my super-sensitive sight it had. As I looked down on her still lovely face it seemed to me that the hollows below her high cheek-bones were more pronounced and that the shadows beneath her eyes had become darker.

I had now come to the conclusion that the truth must lie somewhere between the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians and the modern occultists: namely that while the former had been right in believing that the Ka lingered on after death of the body, the latter were also right in maintaining that it had no separate existence from it. In short, that the Ka disintegrated in direct relation to the decomposition of the physical form.

If I was right in that, and also right in thinking that Ankaret’s body now showed signs of decomposition, then it meant that her Ka, unlike mine, had already begun to lose something of its potency. In consequence every hour that passed would decrease my chances of communicating with it.

Nevertheless I hovered by the bed and spent a good hour willing her to come to me. At the end of it I gave up. All
along I had felt convinced that her body was now no more than an empty shell, and, pray as I might, not so much as a ripple in the ether indicated that any presence other than my own had entered the room.

It was now about a quarter past nine. Passing into Johnny’s room I found that he had slept late and was only just getting up; so I went downstairs. The noble Earl was in the dining-room, making a hearty breakfast. For a while I hung about disconsolately. Then the police arrived; but only Sergeant Haines.

After asking Silvers a few questions—which presumably they had not thought of the day before—and writing the answers down in his note-book, he asked to see Bill. My father-in-law came out to him and was then informed that the inquest would be held next morning at ten-thirty; so, if he wished, he could make arrangements for the funeral to take place on the following day. The Sergeant added that the police were now satisfied as to the cause of death, so only formal evidence would be given at the inquest. He then took his departure.

As he walked out of the front door, Johnny came downstairs and, when they had exchanged ‘good mornings’, Bill said to him: ‘Sergeant Haines has just been to let us know that the inquest is tomorrow, and that we can have the funeral on Saturday. I see no point in putting it off over the week-end, do you?’

Johnny shrugged. ‘It’s for you to say if that will be giving long enough notice to her relatives who may wish to attend it.’

‘Oh I think so.’ Bill was obviously anxious to get such an unpleasant business over. ‘Most of ’em live in the Home Counties. It will be if you’d be kind enough to send those telegrams off as soon as you’ve had your breakfast.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Johnny agreed; but as he was about to enter the dining-room a taxi drew up at the front door and Harold emerged from it.

The London evening papers of the night before would, of course, have carried the story of Ankaret’s death, and with quite indecent haste he had arrived to claim his inheritance. To reach Longshot so early he must have got up at crack of dawn and caught the six thirty-three from Waterloo.

With a brevity which showed complete lack of feeling, he
condoled with Bill on Ankaret’s death, and at once began to look about him, evidently assessing the value of the pictures and furniture which were now his property.

Bill’s mouth tightened slightly, but with his unfailing courtesy enquired if Harold had yet had breakfast and, as he had not, asked Johnny to take him into the dining-room and give him some.

They were hardly seated before he began to bombard Johnny with questions. How much was his income likely to be? Did all the contents of the house now belong to him or were some of them Ankaret’s? What was the present value of his holding in Hillary-Comptons? How many acres of land went with the house? He even asked if I had had a long-playing gramophone and a television set.

Johnny, I thought, showed remarkable patience in bearing with him and answering his questions to the best of his ability. But as I witnessed Harold’s shameless exhibition of greed and eagerness to get his hands on my ex-assets my indignation grew until I could have slapped him. This gawky long-haired youth might be flesh of my flesh but, all the same, had I had the power to make another will I would have been greatly tempted to cut him out of it.