Dennis Wheatley
THE KA OF
GIFFORD HILLARY
Edited by Miranda Vaughan Jones
For
COLONEL J.H.BEVAN, C.B., M.C.
My dear Johnny,
I have long wished to dedicate a book to you, and as this one concerns ‘the old firm’ in which we laboured, laughed and survived many a headache together it seems particularly appropriate; although my writings in these days are, as they say, for amusement only.
Affectionately yours,
Dennis
Contents
1 Statement Begun Saturday 1st October
2 Events Over the Week-End 3rd/4th September
3 The Evening of Wednesday 7th September
4 Friday 9th September
5 Saturday 10th September
6 Sunday 11th September
7 Monday 12th September
8 Tuesday 13th September
9 Wednesday 14th September
10 Thursday 15th September
11 Friday 16th September
12 Saturday 17th September
13 Thursday 15th to Sunday 18th
14 Sunday 18th September
15 18th to 30th September
16 1st to 9th October
Postscript
Author’s Note
A Note on the Author
Introduction
Dennis Wheatley was my grandfather. He only had one child, my father Anthony, from his first marriage to Nancy Robinson. Nancy was the youngest in a large family of ten Robinson children and she had a wonderful zest for life and a gaiety about her that I much admired as a boy brought up in the dull Seventies. Thinking about it now, I suspect that I was drawn to a young Ginny Hewett, a similarly bubbly character, and now my wife of 27 years, because she resembled Nancy in many ways.
As grandparents, Dennis and Nancy were very different. Nancy’s visits would fill the house with laughter and mischievous gossip, while Dennis and his second wife Joan would descend like minor royalty, all children expected to behave. Each held court in their own way but Dennis was the famous one with the famous friends and the famous stories.
There is something of the fantasist in every storyteller, and most novelists writing thrillers see themselves in their heroes. However, only a handful can claim to have been involved in actual daring-do. Dennis saw action both at the Front, in the First World War, and behind a desk in the Second. His involvement informed his writing and his stories, even those based on historical events, held a notable veracity that only the life-experienced novelist can obtain. I think it was this element that added the important plausibility to his writing. This appealed to his legions of readers who were in that middle ground of fiction, not looking for pure fantasy nor dry fact, but something exciting, extraordinary, possible and even probable.
There were three key characters that Dennis created over the years: The Duc de Richleau, Gregory Sallust and Roger Brook. The first de Richleau stories were set in the years between the wars, when Dennis had started writing. Many of the Sallust stories were written in the early days of the Second World War, shortly before Dennis joined the Joint Planning Staff inWhitehall, and Brook was cast in the time of the French Revolution, a period that particularly fascinated him.
He is probably always going to be associated with Black Magic first and foremost, and it’s true that he plugged it hard because sales were always good for those books. However, it’s important to remember that he only wrote elevenBlack Magic novels out of more than sixty bestsellers, and readers were just as keen on his other stories. In fact, invariably when I meet people who ask if there is any connection, they tell me that they read ‘all his books’.
Dennis had a full and eventful life, even by the standards of the era he grew up in. He was expelled from Dulwich College and sent to a floating navel run school, HMS Worcester. The conditions on this extraordinary ship were Dickensian. He survived it, and briefly enjoyed London at the pinnacle of the Empire before war was declared and the fun ended. That sort of fun would never be seen again. He went into business after the First World War, succeeded and failed, and stumbled into writing. It proved to be his calling. Immediate success opened up the opportunity to read and travel, fueling yet more stories and thrilling his growing band of followers.
He had an extraordinary World War II, being one of the first people to be recruited into the select team which dreamed up the deception plans to cover some of the major events of the war such as Operation Torch, Operation Mincemeat and the D-Day landings. Here he became familiar with not only the people at the very top of the war effort, but also a young Commander Ian Fleming, who was later to write the James Bond novels. There are indeed those who have suggested that Gregory Sallust was one of James Bond’s precursors.
The aftermath of the war saw Dennis grow in stature and fame. He settled in his beautiful Georgian house in Lymington surrounded by beautiful things. He knew how to live well, perhaps without regard for his health. He hated exercise, smoked, drank and wrote. Today he would have been bullied by wife and children and friends into giving up these habits and changing his lifestyle, but I’m not sure he would have given in. Maybe like me, he would simply find a quiet place.
Dominic Wheatley, 2013
1
Statement Begun Saturday 1st October
I am in prison awaiting trial for the murder of my wife’s lover. When I was arrested I had excellent reasons for refraining from telling the truth about the crime. Now they are no longer valid, and by revealing the whole awful story there is just a chance that I may save someone who is very dear to me from ruin and a long term of imprisonment. I have little hope that I shall be believed. My version of what occurred is so utterly fantastic that it is certain to be taken as an attempt by me to show that I am mad. But the doctors have already agreed that I am sane; so for myself I see no escape from the gallows. Nevertheless, I swear by Almighty God that all I am about to dictate into a recording machine is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
My name is Gifford Hillary. In 1949 I became Sir Gifford by inheriting a Baronetcy that had been given to my father for his services in the First World War; but my oldest friends call me Giff. I am forty-two years of age, but people say that I look a good bit younger; perhaps because I am a big muscular chap, broad shouldered, six feet one in my socks, and have always kept myself reasonably fit.
My job is boat building. The Hillarys have been shipwrights for many generations. Some of them helped to build the ships-of-the-line in the Beaulieu River that fought under Nelson at Trafalgar; and my own company of Hillary-Compton and Co. has been established well over a hundred years. Our offices and yards are at Southampton and, apart from the early years of the war, I have worked there ever since I came down from Cambridge. On my father’s death I came into the biggest block of shares held by any individual in the Company, and succeeded him as its Chairman of Directors.
As my mother had predeceased my father, I also inherited the family mansion, Longshot Hall, Lepe. It is not a very big or pretentious place, but a comfortable late Georgian house with some thirty acres of grounds and really beautiful views across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. In 1950, when I married again, I had it done up and took my second wife, Ankaret, to live there.
My first wife, Edith, divorced me in 1943. I had married her against my father’s wishes when I was only twenty-one. By her I have a daughter, Christobel, now aged twenty, and a son, Harold, aged eighteen. Our separation during the early war years put an end to the few interests, other than the children, that had kept Edith and me together; so on my return from India, we agreed to part.
Seeing her again, and the children, a fortnight or so ago in most exception
al circumstances shook me badly. I had always thought of myself as rather a good chap; but many things I learnt during the fateful week before I was arrested have made me wonder if the pace and pressure of modern life, together with my determination to get my own way in anything on which I was really set, have not often caused me to act with almost brutal lack of regard for the well-being of others. Anyhow, it became clear that my family didn’t think me half such a fine fellow as I thought myself; and if I did get off I’d try to—but that is out of the question. Broadmoor for life with criminal lunatics as my companions is the best I can possibly hope for, and all the odds are on my suffering an ignominious death at the end of the hangman’s rope.
A little way back I mentioned that I was away from my firm during the early years of the war. Since we are boat-builders, and particularly as for many years a considerable part of our business has consisted of building small fighting ships for the Admiralty, I could easily have got an exemption. But in 1939 I was only twenty-six and a very fit young man; so I should have found it quite intolerable to remain in an office while most other people of my age were in one of the fighting services.
In view of the family’s long association with the water, the natural thing would have been for me to go into the Navy; but one of my best friends was a test-pilot at Vickers’ works nearby on the Hamble. Owing to him I had become fascinated with flying, and was myself already in the process of learning to fly. In consequence, I joined the R.A.F.
By the time I got my wings the worst of the Battle of Britain was over, so my squadron was among the first to be sent out as a reinforcement to the Middle East. Then, when the Japs came into the war, it was transferred to India. Shortly afterwards I was shot down and although the physical injuries I sustained were not particularly serious it resulted in my developing a number of infuriating nervous reactions, such as involuntary twitchings of the hands and face. For some months all attempts to rid me of this humiliating disability failed, until an Indian doctor suggested that I should try some of the rudimentary Yoga exercises. I did so, and by working hard at them was soon completely cured.
However, a Medical Board decided that I was not fit to undertake further flying duties, and it seemed to me that I could be of more use to my country back at the boatyards at Southampton than as an administrative officer in the R.A.F. I wrote my father to that effect and he applied to the Air Ministry for my release. It was duly granted and I returned home towards the end of 1943.
I have made this mention of my war-time activities only because they have a definite bearing on my present situation. Strange as it may seem, it was my decision some seventeen years ago to join the R.A.F., rather than to go into the Navy, which has landed me in this cell; for had I not done so I think it most unlikely that Sir Charles would have ever approached me to act as his stalking-horse—or that I should have consented to do so.
And the method by which I cured my disability in India is now the most damning piece of evidence which the prosecution will bring against me when I am taken to Winchester to stand my trial for murder.
I think that is enough about my background; so I will now put on record the extraordinary series of events which has caught me like a wretched fly in a spider’s web from which there is no escape.
2
Events Over the Week-end 3rd/4th September
It was three weeks ago last Wednesday that I had my interview with the Minister of Defence, and it was not until after it that I understood his reason for wishing to keep our meeting secret.
The appointment was made with the usual unobtrusive skill that one associates with high-ups in our Government. Martin Emsworth had rung up on the previous Friday night to say that he was staying with friends near Lymington; so might he look me up sometime during the week-end? He was an old friend, or perhaps I should say an acquaintance of very long standing, for, although we had been up together at Cambridge and were members of the same Club, we had never been really intimate. All I actually knew about him was that he was still a bachelor and had done very well in the Civil Service. I had an idea that he held a fairly important post in the Treasury; although I wasn’t even certain about that. But, naturally, I said I’d be delighted and we fixed up for him to come over for a drink before lunch on Sunday.
Sunday proved to be a lovely day, of the belated summer type that we sometimes do get in England in September. Normally over every week-end at that time of year the house would have been full of people, but four weeks earlier my wife had had a bad fall from her horse. Its worst effect had been to twist a muscle in her thigh, and the nerves there had given her the most awful jip; so, greatly as she loved company, she felt that until the bouts of pain, which sometimes caught her unawares, had ceased, she really could not cope with visitors. In consequence we had no one staying and I spent most of the morning on my own, swimming and pottering about our half mile of private beach; then I settled down in the beach-house to wait for Martin.
I should, perhaps, explain that Longshot Hall stands on a slight rise several hundred yards from the shore, and that what we call the beach-house is really a charming Georgian pavilion consisting of three rooms and a wide veranda. When we have bathing parties we use the two side rooms for changing, and the larger, central, one is furnished as a lounge; in it we keep all the usual facilities for picnic teas and drinks. Soon after twelve o’clock my man, Silvers, brought Martin out there to me.
He duly admired our view, which was at its best on such a day with dozens of little yachts out of Cowes tacking up and down the Solent, and for a time we talked of mutual acquaintances; then, after a brief silence had fallen, he disclosed that his visit was not really a casual one by saying:
‘Look, Gifford; the Minister of Defence is anxious to have a chat with you on a highly confidential matter, and he’s asked me to arrange it.’
‘Really!’ I replied with some surprise. ‘What on earth does Sir Charles want with me? I’ve met him only two or three times at public functions, so I hardly know him.’
‘That’s neither here nor there,’ Martin shrugged, ‘and I’m afraid it is outside my terms of reference to tell you what he wants to see you about. But he would like it to be this week, and for reasons which you will appreciate in due course the meeting must be a strictly private one. Naturally, like all these chaps, his book is full to overflowing but he is keeping Wednesday evening open, and said he would be particularly grateful if you could arrange to be in London that night.’
I had nothing particular on, so said that I could; and Martin beamed at me:
‘That’s fine. Then I think the best plan would be for you to meet in my flat at Whitehall Court. I’d like to give you dinner somewhere first; but we don’t want to put ideas into people’s heads and it might do just that if you were seen dining tête-á-tête with anyone in my sort of job; so you must forgive me if I don’t. Just come along to my flat at, say, nine o’clock on Wednesday evening; and I shouldn’t make any arrangements for later as it may prove quite a long session. I need hardly add that Sir Charles counts on you not to mention this meeting either before or after it has taken place.’
Considerably mystified, I agreed, and a few minutes later Ankaret suddenly appeared round the corner of the beach-house. She was still using an ebony stick, but her leg had given her much less pain recently, and evidently she had decided that to walk down from the house to join us would not put too much strain upon it.
Martin had never met her, and as she came up the steps on to the veranda I saw him catch his breath. I was not surprised and only mildly amused, because I had seen dozens of men react in the same way on first coming face to face with Ankaret.
She was certainly something very special in young women; although I doubt if Hollywood would have found a use for her, as she was poles apart from the curvaceous blondes that box-office receipts prove to have the maximum appeal to the primitive emotions of the masses. Ankaret’s beauty was of another age; her lure a more intimate one and very difficult to define. It did
not lie only in her tall willowy figure, the Titian hair with rich gold lights in it that she always wore framing her pale face and curling down on to her shoulders, her firm well-modelled features, or even in her big grey eyes. It was something in the way they were set, wide apart between her high cheek-bones and tapering eyebrows, and in their expression. At first glance they looked as clear, wondering and innocent as those of a young girl about to go to her first Communion; but a second later, when her classically-curved mouth broke into a smile, one caught something very different in their depths. They seemed to be full of secrets, and to see right through you with faintly cynical amusement at what she saw going on in the deepest recesses of your mind. Eve’s eyes must have had that quality after she had eaten the fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge; and that appraising look that Ankaret gave to every new male she met was almost as if she had said out loud: ‘I know you would like to sleep with me, and I’d let you if I thought it would give me a thrill; but very few men have a strong enough personality to do that.’ They were the eyes of a Fallen Angel—as old and as wicked as sin, but oh how beautiful.
According to Debrett, she was British to the backbone; but privately I have always held the theory that one of her ancestors in the long line of Ladies Le Strange, that goes back to the days of the Conqueror, must have had an affair with an Italian—perhaps a music-master, or someone of that sort—and fathered the result of her liaison on her Lord, and that Ankaret was a throw-back. If painted with the technique of an old master, her picture could easily have been passed off as a portrait of a Medici, Colonna, Sforza, or lady of some other noble Italian house of the cinque cento; and her swift subtle mind added to the plausibility of such a theory.
Ankaret was much younger than myself—twenty-six against my forty-two—and we had been married for five years. During that time many men had openly envied me my luck in having her for my wife, quite a number had endeavoured to take her from me and a few had succeeded. But only for brief periods and, as far as I knew, all her lapses had occurred while she was on holiday abroad without me. There had been occasions when I was tempted to wring her slender neck, or would have given her away with, or without, a packet of tea, and been—temporarily at least—heartily glad to be rid of her. Yet it had never come to that.
The Ka of Gifford Hillary Page 1
