Dangerous Inheritance (46 page)

They lunched with little appetite and spent a miserable afternoon. At half past five Rex returned angry and disgruntled. Having said that the airport people had made no trouble about his taking off, he went on:

‘But that bloody fool van Goens has let us down. Elephant Point is no more than a rocky promontory and for miles on either side of it the jungle comes right down to the sea. Even a helicopter couldn't land anywhere near. He ought to have proposed a rendezvous north of Trinco', somewhere on the Vanni coast. It's all sandy desert up there. I passed over it three weeks back when we flew down from Delhi.'

‘See any signs of them on the Cape?' Simon asked. ‘They should have been wearing bright red handkerchiefs on their heads.'

‘Not a thing. And I hadn't much hope I would after having learned about the noon broadcast, though I flew up all the
same. Seems they're bogged down in the jungle some place short of Dambulla. All we've got to hang on to now is that they're still free. But how long they'll remain so, God alone knows.'

‘Then you missed the news summary that is put out at two o'clock every afternoon,' said the Duke. ‘From it we learned that early this morning a horse and covered cart were stolen in the southern outskirts of Dambulla and the police think it probable that the fugitives have continued their journey in it. That at least improves their chances. In a day and a night, even allowing for half that time being given to resting the horse, a light cart might cover the seventy or eighty miles between Dambulla and Elephant Point.'

‘Then there's a hope they'll make it!' Rex declared with sudden optimism, ‘anyhow by tonight. I'll fly up again tomorrow.'

Simon shook his head. ‘What's the good if you can't land and pick them up?'

‘I could drop a message,' Rex suggested. ‘Give them a date to pick them up some place north of Trinco'.'

‘Ner. That would mean another eighty-mile trek for them and nights sleeping in the jungle. Doubt if they'd ever make it. Got to think of another way. Now, wait a minute; I'll tell you. We'll hire a motor launch. Go up and take them off in that. Then go on to some little port in southern India.'

‘Crossing the island to Kalkudah by road is only about a hundred and forty miles; but to go half-way round it by sea is a very different matter,' the Duke demurred. ‘I think it very unlikely that you would be able to get there that way by tomorrow afternoon.'

Getting out the map, they made a rough assessment of the distance and estimated that for a launch keeping in fairly close to the coast it would be about three hundred and sixty miles.

‘Not a hope for tomorrow afternoon, then,' Simon muttered. ‘Should be able to get there next day, though—sometime Sunday. If they do manage to reach Elephant Point, it's unlikely they'll leave it. Not till they decide there's no hope of their being picked up, anyhow.'

‘Simon's right,' said the Duke. ‘Both about going up in a
sea-going launch and that they will remain there until they despair of your coming to their rescue. Where else could they go? They are utterly unfitted to maintain themselves for any length of time in the jungle; and on Truss's performance so far I don't see them giving themselves up.'

‘O.K.' Rex stood up. ‘I'd best go out and set about hiring a suitable vessel. If I'm to make the rendezvous by Sunday I'll have to have her put to sea first thing tomorrow morning.'

Simon stood up too. ‘Think I'll come with you. Wouldn't have been any use in your aircraft, and I've never been much good in a boat except…' he tittered into his hand, ‘an electric canoe on the Thames in the reaches above Maidenhead. But you'll have a Sinhalese crew. May make trouble when they tumble to what we're up to. You show me how and I might help to read the Riot Act.'

For the first time in hours, Rex grinned. ‘That's true. I'd be glad to have you along, Simon. Let's get going.'

While they were absent the evening news broadcast took place. The Rajapakse escape had become Number One news item. But it was clear that the police were baffled. They asked the public to keep a look-out for the fugitives, either in a covered cart or on foot, in all parts of central Ceylon. So evidently they had no idea whether their quarry had continued on to the north, turned east or west, or possibly turned back south into the jungles of the highlands.

When Rex and Simon returned, de Richleau gave them this good news and, somewhat cheered, they all went down to dinner. Over the meal the others told him that they had succeeded in chartering a sea-going launch with a crew of four, ostensibly for a trip up to Trincomalee, and had arranged with her captain to go on board at six o'clock next morning. They had then gone to the American Embassy and Rex had borrowed, through one of his friends there, two pistols and ammunition, in case the crew of the launch had to be coerced into obeying orders, and a Stars and Stripes to show if they entered any port. Later Simon got hold of the head waiter and gave him a handsome tip to have a hamper full of food and drink packed up to take with them.

When they had returned to the sitting room, de Richleau asked Rex, ‘If you succeed in picking them up and reaching southern India, what do you intend to do then?'

‘We'll make for the nearest city that has an airport. That will probably be Madras. Then I'll cable the Captain of my aircraft to bring her over. You and Max can come in her. Then, after dropping you all off in Europe, Truss and I'll head for home.'

The Duke nodded. ‘Thank you, Rex. I only pray that we may all meet in India in a few days' time. What I had in mind, though, was that the attention of the police might be drawn to a cable from Truss's father and they would think it very queer that you should have left Ceylon while your son was still a hunted man. If they then communicate with the Indian authorities at the place from which the cable was sent they will learn that Truss, Fleur and Douglas are with you, and out of malice may impound your aircraft.'

‘Yes; I suppose that is a possibility.'

‘We could avert it if instead of a cable to your Captain, in which you would have to use your name, you sent one to me. Simply the name of the city you wish your ‘plane to go to with the spelling reversed and signed … well, let us say Porthos. But you will have to give me a note for your Captain telling him to act on any instructions I may give him.'

‘Um! Excellent idea,' Simon nodded. ‘Can't be too careful.' So, sitting down at the desk, Rex wrote the note. Then, as they had to be up very early in the morning, de Richleau wished them luck and they went off to bed.

Next day the papers splashed the Rajapakses' escape. There were long articles about it, a photograph of Douglas with an account of his career, another of Fleur, with particulars of her social activities and work for the Family Planning Association, others of the warder who had been shot, the injured sergeant and the wrecked car.

Van Goens busied himself all day with the attempt to trace Mirabelle's murderer, so the Duke spent the long hours alone, a prey to alternate hopes and fears. There was no fresh news until the evening broadcast, when it was given out that the stolen covered cart had been found with one of its wheels off
at the side of the road from Polonnaruwa to Kalkudah. On hearing this, de Richleau's gloom increased as he thought of the three young people now, presumably on foot and faced with the dangers of the jungle.

After an almost sleepless night, he sent early for the Sunday papers. They again contained many columns about Douglas and Fleur. Photographs of their marriage had been dug up, and enlargements made of Richard, Marie Lou and de Richleau himself. He was stated to be Fleur's grandfather and Truss to be her cousin. About Truss, Rex and the millionaire banking family to which they belonged there were also pieces.

The tone of many of the articles caused the Duke additional worry; as it was clear that for Douglas, having been a well-liked and respected man, there would have been considerable sympathy had he remained in prison only on a charge of receiving smuggled goods, and it was implied that he had foolishly allowed himself to be persuaded into making his escape; whereas Fleur and Truss were condemned for having made it possible and the injuries that had been inflicted on their victims had aroused public indignation to a point which made it certain that any court would deal harshly with them if they were captured.

An hour later a cable was brought to him. It read:

Away from home when yours arrived. Stop. Comforted that you are coping but greatly worried. Stop. Have booked seats on Tuesday's aircraft will fly out if you advise. Stop. Our thoughts are with you all. Stop. Richard Marie Lou
.

For the time being he could send them no word of comfort, and if the pick-up planned for that afternoon proved successful there would be no point in their making the long, expensive journey. So he decided not to send a further cable until he had definite news.

There was nothing fresh in the radio bulletins that morning or evening. Somehow he got through the day, from time to time studying the map and calculating roughly how near the launch had got to its destination. Then when he came up from dinner
he turned on the radio for the nine o'clock news in English and the blow fell.

It was only a brief statement giving a report received by wireless from a Government gunboat. Information had reached Colonel d'Azavedo that Van Ryn's father and a Mr. Aron had left Colombo in a sea-going launch early on Saturday morning. Suspecting that they intended to pick up the fugitives at a previously agreed place on the coast, Colonel d'Azavedo had shadowed the launch in the gunboat. His assumption had proved correct. The fugitives had been taken off from Elephant Point, a few miles north of the town of Kalkudah. They, and their rescuers, had then been arrested.

‘And I,' thought the Duke, ‘am responsible for this. It was my egoism and vanity, my senseless pride in never having admitted defeat, that has brought grief and ruin to those I love. And here am I, aged and feeble, unable to lift a finger to help them.' Sadly he went to bed.

Yet that was still not the worst. When he opened his paper the following morning its banner headlines shouted at him:

LALITA D'AZAVEDO DEAD: PRISONERS TO BE CHARGED WITH MURDER.

De Richleau forced himself to read as much of the shattering story as had so far been released. After praising Lalita's astuteness in trailing the launch, the account described how, at twenty past six the previous evening, Fleur and Truss had been taken off the point in a dinghy and the launch had then continued on its northerly course, presumably with the intention of landing them in India. Within half an hour the gunboat had overhauled its quarry, forced it to heave to and taken on board the two Van Ryns, Simon and Fleur. They had been locked in cabins and the gunboat had put about on the order of Lalita to head for Batticaloa. Two hours later the three men had broken out of their cabin, attacked Lalita and killed him. By ten o'clock the gunboat had reached Batticaloa, and the prisoners were being brought to Colombo by road.

No mention at all was made of Douglas, which the Duke found puzzling; but he was so overwhelmed with distress at the fate that now awaited his friends that, for the moment, he gave it little thought. As soon as he had pulled himself together he telephoned the High Commissioner and Ambassador, and both gave him appointments for that morning.

After hearing the nine o'clock news the previous evening he had handed in at the desk a cable to Richard, for despatch as soon as the telegraph office was open, which had said only:
Situation deteriorated your presence required urgently
, and he wondered how he could break the appalling news—which was
so infinitely worse now than it had been then—to Fleur's parents.

Getting up, he rang for Max, dressed and sent for van Goens. The ex-Inspector could tell him no more than was in the papers, and had had no success in tracing Mirabelle's murderer. Impatiently they waited for the news bulletin. It told them no more than had the papers, except for solving the mystery of there having been no mention of Douglas. The prisoners, it said, had stated that on the Friday night he had been savaged by a leopard in the jungle and had died the following day.

When the time came de Richleau made his calls at the High Commission and Embassy. Both the High Commissioner and the Ambassador expressed their deep sympathy. The American said he would do his utmost for the Van Ryns and the Englishman promised to do his utmost for Fleur and Simon; but neither could offer the Duke much comfort.

De Richleau then went to see Douglas's father and found the poor man in tears. Having expressed his heartfelt contrition at having in part been responsible for Douglas's death, the Duke asked him whether he was willing to undertake the defence of the others. The lawyer then said that he had always been very fond of Fleur and, that apart, it was his duty to do everything possible for her as his daughter-in-law. De Richleau instructed him to engage the best Counsel in Colombo, whatever the cost, and said that he would pay twenty thousand pounds to any barrister who could save his friends from being condemned to death.

On returning to the Galle Face, he asked van Goens whether he could arrange for him to see the prisoners, but the ex-Inspector shook his head. ‘Not today, Your Grace. They can't have left Batticaloa much before eleven o'clock last night. From there it is a long run and a tricky one, especially at night, as it means going right through the mountain country. They won't have got in till this morning, and most of today will be taken up with interrogations. But I'll try to arrange something for tomorrow.'

There was nothing else the Duke could do so, really feeling his age for the first time, he mooned about in abject misery
until the following afternoon. Van Goens then took him to the prison and introduced him to a Colonel Talawa of the Security Service, who had stepped into Lalita's shoes and, happily, proved to be a very different type of man. He was courteous, helpful and, believing de Richleau to be the grandfather of the two younger prisoners, expressed his sympathy for him. But he said that he must be present at the interviews and the prisoners were brought one by one to a grille through which the Duke talked to them in turn.