Next morning the Duke felt sufficiently rested to hold a business conference with Douglas and his father. The latter, having stated that he had no doubts whatever about the justice of their claim, told de Richleau that it might not now be quite as easy to establish as they had at first believed.
On the Duke’s instructions, the present occupier of the Olenevka estate and mines, Mr. Ukwatte d’Azavedo, had been served with papers. To have admitted his guilt would have been a confession of forgery and have led to a criminal action which would land him in prison; so, on his behalf, some days before his lawyers had sent in a formal repudiation of the claim.
That he would do so had been expected, but their case had appeared sound, resting as it did on the signed confession of Count Plackoff’s dead butler-valet, Pedro Fernando, and the anticipation that they would be able to produce the other participant in the forgery, Pedro’s wife Vinala, in court as a witness. However, when Rajapakse had sent one of his clerks to Olenevka to take a statement from Mrs. Fernando, it was found that she had disappeared and no-one knew where she had gone.
They had, of course, written to her earlier on the subject and assured her that, if she pleaded that her late husband had exerted pressure on her to witness the forged will, she would have nothing to fear; but it now seemed that she must have been so frightened at the thought of having to appear in court and confess to her act that she had decided to abandon her home and go into hiding.
When asserting d’Azavedo’s innocence, his lawyers had stated that if the case went to court evidence would be brought to show that Pedro had had a long-standing grudge against their client; and if that could be proved it would weaken the value of his confession. Unless, therefore, the only living witness to the will could be found and persuaded to testify, the case would now rest largely on the evidence of handwriting experts.
On hearing all this the Duke was justifiably annoyed, as from the first account he had received it had appeared to be a clear-cut case; whereas it now looked as if he had been brought out to Ceylon on what might prove a wild goose chase.
The Rajapakses were most apologetic and the elder excused himself on the grounds that he had not received the Duke’s instructions until the 30th April, it had taken several days to draw up the papers and the response from d’Azavedo’s solicitors had not been received until the previous Friday. Moreover, they could not have foreseen either that Pedro’s confession was to be challenged or that his wife would disappear. The question now was, did de Richleau still wish to proceed?
In favour of doing so were the points that d’Azavedo might be bluffing about Pedro and fail to show that he had any reason to seek revenge, that Mrs. Fernando might yet be traced and that, the inheritance being a large one, it was well worth an already rich man like the Duke gambling a few hundred pounds on the chance of securing it. Even more, de Richleau was influenced by the fact that now he was so old he could indulge in few amusements, and the endeavour to bring a forger to justice would provide him with a new interest. So, after some discussion, he told the Rajapakses to go ahead.
Their business being concluded, the elder Rajapakse took off his glasses, wiped them and said with a smile, ‘Now, Your Grace, for more pleasant matters. Owing to your kindness Douglas has already enjoyed an excellent holiday in Corfu. But my partners and I can get on quite well in the office without him for a while. Your case will not come on for some time, and in these special circumstances I should be happy to give him a further week, so that he can show his charming fiancée, yourself and Mr. and Mrs. Eaton something of the beauties of our country.’
De Richleau inclined his white head. ‘You are very kind. Many years ago I spent some time in Ceylon. I should like to visit Kandy again and various other places; and the others, of course, would welcome such a tour, particularly since you could spare Douglas to be our guide.’
‘It will be a pleasure,’ Rajapakse replied. ‘And it is just as well that you should go up-country for a few days, because the situation in Colombo at the moment is causing some anxiety.’
‘So I gather,’ said the Duke. ‘I was reading the Ceylon Times this morning, and it looks as if there is going to be trouble.’
‘I fear so. Ever since the death of our first Prime Minister, Mr. D. S. Senanayake, there has been a lot of unrest here. His son, Dudley, who succeeded him was a most respected man; but he was not supported by his colleagues and, unfortunately, we have a strong Communist element in Ceylon. The Reds engineered a national strike and riots which also seriously hampered his administration; so he resigned. Sir John Kotelawala also met with much opposition and it was during his administration that the agitation for Sinhala Only began, which is the cause of the present trouble. He visited Jaffna, the heart of the Tamil country, early in 1956 and promised parity of Tamil with Sinhalese. But a few months later came the landslide election in which his party was swept away, and Mr. Bandaranaike then put through the “Sinhalese Only” Bill. The Tamils, having been settled here for many centuries, naturally resented it bitterly and demanded the official use of their language in their own districts.’
‘They are settled mainly in the north, are they not?’ asked the Duke.
‘Originally, yes. They arrived from southern India in a series of invasions dating from the eighth century and overwhelmed the old Sinhalese Kingdom of Rajarata there. Since then they have spread all over the island, mainly as plantation workers, but they keep to their own settlements and do not mingle with our village people. Many of them are now well-educated and clever men and, under the British Raj, held posts in our Civil Service. It was largely with the object of driving out both them and the British that Sinhalese was made the only official language.’
‘You see, sir,’ Douglas explained, ‘we have a very large Civil Service and to enter it provides one of the best prospects in this country for an educated man to make a good living. These upper-class Tamils all went to schools, where English was taught, and competed on equal terms with the Sinhalese.’
De Richleau nodded. ‘It is very understandable then that the Tamils should have created trouble when the Bill was passed that froze them out.’
‘Indeed, yes,’ Rajapakse senior agreed. ‘And far greater numbers of them had still worse grounds for complaint. I refer to the more recent immigrants, the Indian Tamils, who have been deprived of their rights as citizens, and are now debarred from owning land. The situation looked so dangerous that Mr. Bandaranaike was forced to come to an understanding with the Tamil leader, Mr. Chelvanayakam, by which they were guaranteed certain rights. But under pressure from several of his colleagues he has now annulled the pact; so the Tamils are up in arms again, and I fear we are in for some very unpleasant disturbances.’
‘That being so, it would certainly be best for us to leave the city for a while. Where do you suggest taking us, Douglas?’
‘I thought we might go up to Haputale and Nuwara Eliya, then on to Kandy.’
The Duke agreed and, it being one o’clock, took his guests down to lunch.
On the Saturday de Richleau’s party set off into the interior. For several miles the road lay through a thickly populated district of semi-cultivated jungle and paddy fields; but, as it mounted, groves of coconut palms gave way to rubber plantations and groups of paw-paws, then to great mango trees the size and shape of oaks. Even when they reached the highlands where the tea gardens began, there were still many villages and a lot of traffic. Owing to that and the constant twisting of the road as it wound its way up ever-steeper gradients, although the journey was less than a hundred miles it took them five hours.
At Haputale they were welcomed by British friends of Douglas’s in whose bungalow they were to stay the night. The ‘bungalow’ was actually a big three-winged one-storey house, with a fifty-foot verandah on one side. It overlooked a well-tended lawn and a garden gay with many beds of English flowers. From it the view was breath-taking: a vista of fifty miles with range after range of mountains gradually melting into the far distance. La
ter, when they were sitting there having before-dinner drinks, they watched the sun go down in a vast aura of salmon, gold and purple.
Fleur was entranced and asked her host if all the interior was as beautiful.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘That is Ceylon’s great misfortune. It is only the south-west quarter of the island that gets both the southwest and north-east monsoons. The north and east get only the latter; so suffer severely from drought. In ancient times the Sinhalese got over that by the most wonderful irrigation works that the world has ever seen. Their first capital Anuradhapura, in the north centre of the island, was bigger than London in Victorian times; and to supply it they constructed a vast artificial lake thirty miles in circumference. They call these reservoirs “tanks” and there were a great number of them large and small, all connected by canals and controlled by sluices, so that every town and village had plenty of water. And they did all this while the Romans were occupying England.’
‘What happened to their civilisation?’ asked Marie Lou.
‘The Kingdom of Rajarata in the north lasted for close on a thousand years. Then, after a long series of wars with the Tamils, the Sinhalese were driven out. But further south, in about 760, they built another great capital at Polonnaruwa, and another great system of tanks and canals. They maintained themselves there for another five hundred years, then the rot set in; partly owing to civil wars, but it is believed that it was due mainly to malaria undermining the health and vigour of the people. Anyway, all the great temples, palaces and waterways fell into ruin and have since been almost totally submerged by the jungle.’
‘Parts of the area have now been reclaimed, though,’ Douglas put in. ‘That is one of the things we owe to Mr. Senanayake. You see, on account of the increase in population there is now hardly any cultivable land left to develop in the Wet Zone, and his pet scheme was to restore the ancient irrigation system in the Dry Zone, so that great numbers of landless peasants could be resettled there. At a place called Gal Oya, to the north of Polonnaruwa, they have built a big new town, and round about it there is now a flourishing area.’
Next morning their host drove them round the tea garden. It consisted of thousands of low camelia-species bushes set close together on the slopes of the hillsides with, here and there, tall spindly trees with bushy tops. The trees were to give the tea plants a certain amount of shade and were mimosa, but of a variety that had insignificant flowers with no perfume. Only the young shoots of the tea bushes are of any value and two leaves and a bud are picked from each stem every eight days. They had to be pruned only once in every four years, but to keep the weeds from springing up between them was a considerable labour.
After lunch they drove north, winding their way through the highlands, then down into a deep valley from which they ascended to even greater heights, arriving at the Club House at Nuwara Eliya in time for tea.
Here the country was very different and not unlike England. There were many fine houses in the neighbourhood, nearly all of which in the old days had belonged to wealthy British residents in Ceylon; for it was here, six thousand feet up, that they spent the hottest months of summer, among fine trees and meadows, on tennis courts, on the golf course and fishing.
At the Club they were given a good dinner and comfortable beds, and next morning they set off for Kandy. The mountain scenery on the way, as they wound down and down round bend after bend, was even grander than that they had seen the previous day.
The capital of the last independent Sinhalese kingdom lies on one side of a lovely lake, the other side being dotted with big villas set among great trees that cover the sloping hillside beyond; and this justifies its claim to be one of the beauty spots of Ceylon. They put up at the Queen’s Hotel, which was pleasant enough, and stayed for two nights.
Marie Lou was anxious to see the Botanical Gardens, outside the town, which are said to be the finest in Asia, and she was not disappointed. The giant specimen trees were a magnificent sight, the beds with massed flowers beautifully kept and the orchid houses a feast for the eye of exotic blossoms.
De Richleau was more interested in the ‘Temple of the Tooth’, which contains the most precious relic in the Buddhist world; so Douglas made special arrangements for his visit and on their second evening in Kandy they went to see the ceremony at the Temple that takes place every day at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Their guide first took them round the Temple, the interior of which is eight hundred years old and contains many shrines and cases of fabulous jewels sent as offerings from all parts of Asia by devout Buddhists; then up to a balcony at the end of which there was a square room housing behind protective glass and an iron grille a large beehive-shaped casket of solid gold, in which reposes the Sacred Tooth.
From the balcony they watched the yellow-robed Temple attendants down on the ground floor beating drums and blowing conch shells. Then the High Priest and his assistants made the offerings of milk-rice and jasmin, lotus and sal flowers, in the sanctum. Although the little congregation of kneeling devotees down below were not permitted to come up and enter the Holy of Holies, as an act of great courtesy distinguished visitors were allowed to do so; and when the ceremony had been completed, de Richleau’s party crowded into a small room adjoining that in which reposed the holy relic. There they were presented to the High Priest, a little old man with intelligent black eyes set in a benign face.
He spoke English very well and for a few minutes the Duke talked to him about other Buddhist shrines he had visited in years gone by in China, Cambodia and Thailand. The High Priest, impressed by de Richleau’s knowledge of his religion, then invited them to accompany him to his quarters.
The room surprised them by its furnishings, for they were of the most diverse ages. On a small altar there sat a primitive bronze Buddha that was probably two thousand years old, there was a vase of the Tang period holding a few flowers, a Victorian roll-top desk and a radio of the latest pattern.
While the others got bored and tried to hide their restlessness, de Richleau and the High Priest talked for over an hour of the life of the Lord Buddha, before they parted with many bows and cordial handshakes.
By the following afternoon, the 21st May, they were back in Colombo, and learned that the situation there had deteriorated during their absence. Harassed on the one hand by the Buddhist priests and Sinhalese extremists and on the other by the leaders of two million Tamils, Mr. Bandaranaike was shilly-shallying wildly. Although under pressure he had torn up the pact that had kept an uneasy peace for the past eighteen months, he still declared that he would introduce legislation to give the Tamils fair play. This had resulted in a storm of protest all over the country from the Sinhalese. In the south Buddhist bhikkhus were organising a boycott of Tamil-owned shops, in several villages in the centre and east Tamils had been badly beaten up, and in Colombo there had been mass meetings on Galle Face Green to call strikes.
At the hotel the Duke found a typed letter awaiting him. It was from Ukwatte d’Azavedo and read:
Honoured Sir,
The imputation made against me by your lawyers is false and it greatly distresses me. Also I believe you to be unaware of the true origins of Count Plackoff’s fortune. If you would be so kind as to grant me an entirely private interview, at any time convenient, it would give me the opportunity to put the full facts before you. We might then come to some arrangement by which we could both save ourselves the heavy expense of a legal action.
Fleur and Douglas had gone to bathe in the hotel swimming pool, but de Richleau knew that as soon as they had dressed they would go to the cocktail lounge for a drink; so he went down there, ordered a Pimms for himself and placidly awaited their coming. When they arrived he showed Douglas the letter and asked him what he thought of it.
Having scanned it, Douglas said, ‘This, of course, was drafted and typed in his solicitor’s office and, I should say, is with the hope of tricking you in some way. It is never sound policy, sir, for principals to meet when an action is pending,
because one or other is apt to commit himself inadvisedly; but, of course, you must do as you wish.’
‘I think I’ll see him,’ replied the Duke. ‘It would be interesting to hear what he has to say; and, anyhow, I’d like to have a look at the fellow. Whatever he has up his sleeve you need not fear that I’ll agree to anything without first consulting you.’
In consequence, the following midday Mr. d’Azavedo was shown into the Duke’s sitting room, and with him he brought his son, Lalita.
Mr. Ukwatte d’Azavedo proved to be an unusually big man for a Sinhalese. He was dressed in a white tropical suit, which bulged in the region of his stomach, had wavy grey hair and a slight cast in his left eye. De Richleau put him down as about sixty and suspected that, while his blood might be mainly Sinhalese, it had a strong Arab strain and his name was the only thing about him that was Portuguese. The son was smaller, slimmer and his somewhat flamboyant clothes were typical of the native dandy. Thick-lensed glasses showed that his eyes were weak and he had a pendulous lower lip. He looked to be about thirty.
It was soon obvious to the Duke that the elder d’Azavedo was a rough diamond, a man of little education but forceful personality, whereas the younger was typical of the new middle-class intelligentsia, subtle-minded and glib of speech; although the English of both left much to be desired.
Having asserted that if the case came to court they could show that Pedro Fernando’s confession was inspired by malice, they put forward two hypotheses. First: assuming that Ukwatte was guilty, morally his crime would have been justified by the fact that it was he who had discovered the jewel-bearing strata near Ratnapura and had worked it. Count Plackoff had done nothing but buy the land and provide the money for its exploitation, and he had always promised to make Ukwatte his heir. Second: if Ukwatte was innocent, as he averred was the case, it would be a terrible injustice if, after a lifetime of hard work, his property were taken from him.
Dangerous Inheritance Page 9
