Mind you—no one could be more charming than Lilseth when she wanted to be, and she knew the drill. In the first two years the gossips hadn’t got a word to say against her, but we couldn’t live in Scotland all the time, and when we went to Deauville the trouble began.
Some of her old friends from the Paris days turned up—one couldn’t blame her for being pleased to see them, or refuse their invitations. I knew that it was playing with fire, and I ought to have put my foot down at the beginning, but I didn’t like to behave like a bear.
Nothing really went wrong while we were at Deauville, but it unsettled her again. When we got back, she started to talk about taking a house in London for the winter—I saw no harm in that, and like a mug I let her have her way. We hadn’t been in that house a week before the place was like a hotel. A cocktail bar going night and day, and odd times when I came in I found a crowd of strangers just helping themselves to the drinks, even when Lilseth wasn’t there.
I came to hate that house before we’d done with it, and she began to blow up if I said the slightest thing. I told her once that her friends were nothing but a crowd of spongers, and we had our first real row. She told me to my face that chaps like you, and Archie, and all our crowd, were just a lot of stiffs. That was because we happen to keep our hair cut and have decent manners, I suppose!
The thing that put the lid on it was when I came home one night and found a nigger in the place—some bird that played the drum. A girl friend of Lilseth’s had brought him and they were dancing to the gramophone when I came in.
Well, you’ve got to draw a line somewhere, and I drew it damn quick. I shut the house down and took Lilseth back to Scotland the very next night—but it wasn’t any good. Those months in London had made a different woman of her—she deliberately started in to make fools of all the people who’d been so decent to her up here—and before I knew where I was I had to take her South again to save her from being ostracised by every soul we knew.
After that life became a perpetual wrangle—how I stuck it all that time I don’t know. The only bright spot that I can remember was a six months’ trip we did to South America, but even then we had a blinding row in Buenos Aires, and were home in four.
It was about then I discovered that she had begun to dope again. Poor kid, she was lead into that by some rotter she was mixed up with in those after-the-war days—but she had cut it out completely before I met her. I did everything I knew to stop it; in fact, I should never have stayed with her that last year if it hadn’t been for the hope of breaking her of that. I did keep it under for a time, but she had lashin’s of money of her own to play with so I couldn’t cut off her supplies.
In November we went to Juan. There weren’t many people there and I hoped to keep her straight for a bit. It was there that I met Bill Rankin again. I’d only seen him twice since the war; he had some job out in Tanganyika and only came home once in four years.
He was an amusing devil and Lilseth took to him at once. We were staying at the same hotel, so of course we all went about together, and after the first day he moved over to our table.
It was Rankin who suggested another trip to Corsica. Naturally, I wasn’t keen. Credo might be dead and buried for all I knew, and after a dozen years it was a hundred to one against my being recognised, but the Corsicans are said to have long memories, and I didn’t see the sense of running into danger just for fun.
Lilseth had heard the story long ago. She just laughed and said she’d always known I was a puritan, but hadn’t thought I was a funk—well, one can’t have that sort of thing, although I suppose she was only pulling my leg. Incidentally, if I’m a puritan I’d like to meet a real bad hat—but then of course I don’t like people who never have a bath, and I don’t dope. However, that’s beside the point. She’d never been to Corsica and was awfully keen to see it. I agreed to make the trip with two provisos, which were only sensible precautions. No visits to Corte—and that we travelled under another name.
Three days later Mr. and Mrs. Dundrinan and Mr. Rowlands stepped off the boat at Ajaccio.
There were one or two bars and dance places that weren’t there when I was there before; they’ve been trying to boost the place into a fashionable resort—but they haven’t had much luck—and otherwise it had hardly changed at all. The same crowd of stiff-necked-looking peasants lounging in the square—the same dirty, poverty-stricken, blackbeetle priests hurrying to and fro—I felt we should be fed up with it in a week.
After a couple of days Lilseth insisted on going up to Corte as the scenery in the interior was the only thing to see—so I let her go off with Rankin, though I didn’t like the idea much. You see, we’d been three weeks together at Juan le Pins, and it struck me that they were getting a bit too thick.
Mind you, in the last two years Lilseth had had a lot of chaps hanging round, but I don’t think she’d ever let me down—if she had I didn’t know anything about it, but then I’d always been on hand. Still, Rankin wasn’t the type who’s any too scrupulous where women are concerned, and I did feel there was just the possibility that if Lilseth had one over the odds, she might let herself go.
Anyway—I put the best face I could on it, and off they went; they were supposed to be away for two nights, but they stayed for four—of course they sent me a telegram on the second day about some jaunt they proposed to go on—but that didn’t make me any easier in my mind—and when they did come back—I knew!
Rankin gave the show away—he was just a bit too hearty—he overdid the business of being so jolly glad to see me once again.
I turned things over in my mind, and I knew the time had come to make a break; the rot had set in with Lilseth, and in another year she’d be as bad as she was in those post-war days, when free love was the fashion. I’d done my damnedest for her, but it was up to me to keep my name from being dragged in the mud. I decided there and then that when we got back to England I’d let her go her own rotten way.
It was the following afternoon that I caught out Master Rankin—not with Lilseth, but talking to a fellow in the hotel garden.
They were on the other side of a giant cactus hedge, but I could see them through the spears—it was my old friend Credo that he was talking to, and he was pointing out my window on the third floor of the hotel.
It didn’t take much brainwork to fathom Rankin’s little plot; he’d hunted out the Corsican in Corte, perhaps paid his rail fare down, and Credo was being put up to do me in.
I got away from those bushes without either of them spotting me, and thought the matter over. I hadn’t got any Mills this time, worse luck! but I had got my gun. When we were changing for dinner that night I took it out and loaded it.
Lilseth saw me in the mirror, she was doing her hair at the dressing-table at the time. ‘What are you doing with that, that thing?’ she wanted to know.
‘Thought I saw that chap Credo in the town today,’ I told her. ‘I’m not sure, I can hardly remember what he looks like now, but there’s no harm in being prepared. I wouldn’t mention it to Rankin anyhow, there’s no point in worrying him.’
I clicked home the magazine and pushed it under my pillow; it was the automatic that I carried all through the war—you remember, the one the Brigade Major made such a fuss about. It was against regulations—but my life was a jolly sight too precious to risk it with only one of those antiquated service revolvers that they kept dishing out—when every other army had proper modern automatics.
We went down to dinner, and afterwards I refused a stroll round the town—if I’m going to fight I like to choose my own ground.
I went to bed about eleven; Lilseth came up a little later—I could see she’d been ginning up with Rankin, but I didn’t say anything—our light was out before twelve.
I had seen to it that the door was bolted, and as we were on the third floor I didn’t reckon Credo could come in by the window—so I dropped off to sleep.
It must have been about four when I awoke—there wasn’t
a sound, and there was no moon, the room was black as pitch… but I knew that Credo was there somewhere in the darkness.
I lay dead still—I knew that was my only chance. I strained my eyes but I couldn’t see a damned thing—the place was solid black. There’s a queer sense which comes into play when you’re like that—taut and waiting; I couldn’t see, but I knew the other bed was empty—Lilseth was not in the room.
Very gently I edged my hand towards my gun; the relief when my fingers closed over the butt was indescribable—I drew it out by inches. I could see a little by then—very vaguely. Credo was standing just between the two beds. Very slowly I raised the gun level with my head on the pillow. I pointed it at the place where I thought Credo to be—then I just went cold all over. It was quite light in my hand, you can tell in a second if you’ve been used to handling a pistol—somebody had removed the magazine.
Pretty ghastly, wasn’t it?—Lilseth, of course. Rankin didn’t even know I’d got a gun. The two of them were in it together. The dope must have made her brain a good bit more rotten than I’d thought. They wanted to out me so that they could marry—I knew he was tired of Tanganyika, and I suppose he was after Lilseth’s money.
I really thought my number was up as I lay there in the darkness. If I’d moved a muscle I was for it—I could hear Credo breathing, only five feet away. At any second the shot might come—he was so close there wouldn’t be a chance to throw myself aside or duck. I don’t think I’m a coward, but the perspiration was just streaming down my face.
Then he moved a little—ever so slightly forward between the two beds. I lay there with my heart thudding, and my mouth dry—then he moved again, and stooped to peer at Lilseth’s empty bed. He was a quarter turned away from me and I could just make out his head. Suddenly I realised his trouble—he didn’t know which bed I was in!—and that’s what saved me. I clubbed the automatic, and swiped him with all the force I had.
He fell without a murmur across Lilseth’s bed. I had the light on in a second, and I saw at once that I had knocked him out. It was Credo, all right—black slouch hat and all for the moment I was too relieved to think coherently, and I just sat there staring at his body—then I began to wonder how he had got in.
The door was unbolted, of course, but that would have been Lilseth when she left the room. I went to the window—that was the way he had come. How he’d managed to rig a thirty-foot ladder I don’t know—perhaps he got a pal to help him.
As I stood there an idea began to form in my, mind—I looked at Credo, he would be coming round in a minute—so I hadn’t got much time.
I took his gun, a long-barrelled, ancient-looking piece, but pretty deadly, I expect, and went into the passage. Rankin’s room was next to mine. I tried the door, it wasn’t locked—I opened it very, very gently. The room was dark, he must have been dozing, I suppose—then with infinite caution I removed the key. I propped the gun against the wall inside, and crept back to my room.
Credo showed signs of coming round, so I didn’t waste a second. I picked him up like a sack of coal. He was a pretty useful weight, but I was strong enough to manage it. I had left Rankin’s door ajar, so I pushed it with my shoulder, and lowered Credo to the floor.
Rankin sat up in bed—wide awake at once. ‘Who’s that?’ he said, but he didn’t put on the light—of course, Lilseth was with him in the darkness. They must have been lying there for hours waiting to hear the shot, and both fallen half asleep.
‘It’s only me,’ I told him, ‘I can’t make out where Lilseth is, she’s not in bed—I thought she might have come to you for some brandy if she was feeling rotten—ours has run out.’
‘She hasn’t been here,’ he stammered quickly, and I could tell from his voice that he was scared.
Credo was stirring at my feet—I stooped down and put the gun in his hand—then very gently I slipped out… and I locked the door behind me.’
‘So that’s how it happened,’ I said.
Angus nodded. ‘That’s it—Rankin must have heard Credo moving near the door, and thought it was me—he didn’t dare put on the light. Credo was dazed when he came to—but he found he’d got his gun. When Rankin got out of bed to investigate, Credo shot him—in mistake for me.’
I nodded. ‘And of course, Lilseth being locked in Rankin’s room gave you the evidence for the divorce—but what happened to Credo?’
Angus laughed. ‘The poor brute broke his neck. You see he never knew that he had been moved into Rankin’s room, so when he stepped out on his ladder—it wasn’t there!’
A Note on the Author
DENNIS WHEATLEY Dennis Wheatley (1897–1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world’s best-selling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Wheatley was the eldest of three children, and his parents were the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College, London. In 1919 he assumed management of the family wine business but in 1931, after a decline in business due to the depression, he began writing.
His first book, The Forbidden Territory, became a bestseller overnight, and since then his books have sold over 50 million copies worldwide. During the 1960s, his publishers sold one million copies of Wheatley titles per year, and his Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories.
During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain.
Dennis Wheatley died on 11th November 1977. During his life he wrote over 70 books and sold over 50 million copies.
Discover books by Dennis Wheatley published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/DennisWheatley
Duke de Richleau
The Forbidden Territory
The Devil Rides Out
The Golden Spaniard
Three Inquisitive People
Strange Conflict
Codeword Golden Fleece
The Second Seal
The Prisoner in the Mask
Vendetta in Spain
Dangerous Inheritance
Gateway to Hell
Gregory Sallust
Black August
Contraband
The Scarlet Impostor
Faked Passports
The Black Baroness
V for Vengeance
Come into My Parlour
The Island Where Time Stands Still
Traitors’ Gate
They Used Dark Forces
The White Witch of the South Seas
Julian Day
The Quest of Julian Day
The Sword of Fate
Bill for the Use of a Body
Roger Brook
The Launching of Roger Brook
The Shadow of Tyburn Tree
The Rising Storm
The Man Who Killed the King
The Dark Secret of Josephine
The Rape of Venice
The Sultan’s Daughter
The Wanton Princess
Evil in a Mask
The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware
The Irish Witch
Desperate Measures
Molly Fountain
To the Devil a Daughter
The Satanist
Lost World
They Found Atlantis
Uncharted Seas
The Man Who Missed the War
Espionage
Mayhem in Greece
The Eunuch of Stamboul
The Fabulous Valley
The Strange Story of Linda Lee
Such Power is Dangerous
The Secret War
Science Fiction
Sixty Days to
Live
Star of Ill-Omen
Black Magic
The Haunting of Toby Jugg
The KA of Gifford Hillary
Unholy Crusade
Short Stories
Mediterranean Nights
Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in 1942 by Hutchinson & Co. Ltd.
Copyright © 1942 Dennis Wheatley
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The moral right of the author is asserted.
eISBN: 9781448213825
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