The Fabulous Valley

by Dennis Wheatley

  After Wisdon had left them Patricia produced a letter which she had already mentioned to her father. It was an introduction from one of her most intimate friends to a big stockbroker called Masterton. Patricia suggested that since they might have to spend a day or two in Johannesburg while Wisdon made his arrangements, it was the obvious, as well as the courteous thing, to make use of it.

  Henry agreed, so they left the Carlton and, although they lost their way at first among the innumerable blocks of large stone buildings, all so similiar in appearance, they eventually discovered Mr. Masterton’s office in Pritchard Street.

  Masterton proved to be a fair-haired, middle-aged man who gave them a hearty welcome, and telephoned to his wife at once to join them. Since the Longs were only in Johannesburg for a very short visit he suggested taking Henry to see the Stock Exchange and then on to lunch while his wife entertained Patricia at the Country Club. He asked their impressions of the country and protested that, now they had arrived in the Union, they should certainly not leave it without having spent at least a fortnight in Johannesburg—visited the National Game Reserve in the Northern Transvaal and motored down to Cape Town via the Wilderness, which he glowingly described as one of the most beautiful places in the world. Then his wife, a small, fair, pretty woman arrived and rushed Patricia away from her father.

  Mrs. Masterton had her car below. With a hundred questions as to Patricia’s plans which were difficult to answer, she whirled her through the outskirts of the city. A quarter of an hour later Patricia was trying to extricate herself from a most hospitable entanglement—a party to be given in her honour a few days hence, when she might quite well be setting out into the Kalahari—while her hostess pressed her to another cocktail.

  They lunched on the long stoep of the Country Club. Between its tall white pillars Patricia viewed the lovely gardens sloping to a lake where palms, weeping willows, and an abundance of semi-tropical verdure made her feel for the moment that she was still in Durban, rather than in this naked country, which before the discovery of the Reef, had been treeless and almost uninhabited.

  Mrs. Masterton introduced her for the first time to the Avocado Pear, a queer almost tasteless fruit of a custard-like consistency which had a subtle individual flavour.

  The newness of everything—the country, the people, the food—appealed to Patricia intensely. This adventure held far more than she had ever anticipated.

  As coffee and liqueurs were being served she leaned a little to the left side of the table for her bag, and suddenly saw Michael lunching not a dozen tables away along the terrace.

  He had spotted her a quarter of an hour earlier and when he saw Patricia and her hostess leave the stoep—a waiter following with their cups and glasses—and ensconce themselves in a swing hammock with a small table before it on the sloping lawn near the lake, he excused himself from his host, a medical man whom he had known at Cambridge, and walked quickly across to them. She introduced him as her cousin to Mrs. Masterton.

  After a little desultory conversation her hostess, seeing Michael’s obvious desire to be alone with Patricia, excused herself—a carefully guarded twinkle in her eye—by saying that she was anxious to telephone to one or two people about some golf fixtures, and the two were left together.

  ‘So you’ve arrived,’ he said.

  ‘Rather obvious—isn’t it?’ she smiled quizzically.

  ‘Yes, by Jove!—so it is. Now I’m going to say that I like your hat, but perhaps that remark is obvious too?’

  ‘I hope so, but none the less it’s most acceptable.’

  ‘It’s a bit surprising to see you here so soon. How long have you been in Johannesburg?’

  ‘It’s just over a week since we arrived here first,’ she said airily, ‘because we had the sense to fly; but as a matter of fact we only got back last night from Durban where we have been doing a little of the Sherlock Holmes business with Joe-Jack Mahout.’

  ‘Did you have any luck with him, Holmes?’ he asked casually.

  ‘I don’t know that I ought to tell you, my dear Watson,’ she smiled up at him from beneath the gay striped awning of the swing hammock, ‘since you’re in the opposition camp.’

  ‘Is there any reason that we shouldn’t agree to a private armistice while we are in Johannesburg?’ he asked. ‘It would be fun if you would let me take you out to dinner and a movie afterwards—what about to-night?’

  ‘I should love that,’ she agreed, knowing full well that she would incur her father’s disapproval but determined to discount it against the pleasure of an evening with Michael. ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘The Carlton. Where are you?’

  ‘We are there too, so I suppose we should have run into each other anyway, but what do you suggest about to-night?’ ‘I shall be in the place they call the palm court at 7.30. If you’ll come down to me there we’ll find out what the town has to offer by way of amusement.’

  ‘All right,’ she rose, as she saw her hostess approaching from the club-house. ‘Father will be livid but he can’t reasonably object since we are cousins!’

  At a quarter past seven Michael was discussing a cocktail in the place that he had named, distinctly thrilled at the thought of the evening which lay before him.

  Upstairs Patricia was humming a little tune to herself as she combed her brown curls round her fingers. Only after seeing him again at the Country Club that morning had she fully realised how much of her thoughts had been devoted to her charming, freckle-faced cousin during these days of journeying since she left England. ‘Oh, how good it is.’ she thought, ‘to be young and attractive, and going out to dinner with someone one really likes.’ She felt full of vitality in this great throbbing city where the height accelerated her heart beats and sent the blood coursing through the veins of a healthy body. Her feet itched to dance and, her eyes shining with excitement, she scorned the lift and ran lightly down the stairs to join him.

  After a cocktail he inquired from the hall porter the best restaurant in the town and they set off to dine at the Criterion.

  In one of the white wooden alcoves round the walls of the restaurant they enjoyed an excellent dinner washed down by a bottle of Alphen Burgundy. They then saw the latest screen success at the Metro Theatre, which had only had its premiere in London three weeks before.

  When they came out into the brightly lighted streets the crystal air of the City of Gold, set at its great altitude so many thousand feet above sea level, made them feel that it would be a sin to go straight home to bed, and Michael suggested that they might see if they could find a place at which they could dance.

  A friendly commissionaire informed them that, if they had not already been there, Aasvogelskop was undoubtedly a place that they should visit. Hiring a taxi they drove up into the hills beyond the city, and secured a table at the famous night resort.

  The place was crowded with youngish people and to the strains of a jazz band which played all the latest tunes, Michael soon discovered that his cousin was a good mover. After supper and a few more dances, he suggested that they should take a stroll outside in the darkness and see the view from the terrace below the restaurant.

  Nothing loath Patricia readily agreed and, with the murmur of the band coming faintly to them from the wide windows of the night club, they stood beside a giant cactus looking out over the dark valley, where a million lights, twinkling like stars, showed the great sleeping city below them in the distance.

  With a sudden jerk he pulled her round towards him and taking her face between his hands kissed her passionately on the mouth.

  12

  Love and Conspiracy in Johannesburg

  ‘Michael!’ Patricia looked across at him with shining eyes as they sat down again at their table on the edge of the dance floor. ‘Let’s turn this armistice into a peace treaty. I can’t bear the thought of you running all over Africa and spending your money to no purpose, when we’ve done it all for you in the last week. Father wouldn’t come in with y
ou in the first place because he had some private grouse against George Bennett, but it isn’t as if this treasure was one single thing that we were all anxious to grab before the others could get hold of it. If the letter Uncle John left us is accurate, there are diamonds galore in this place and enough to provide a fortune for us all. Anyhow I’m going to tell you the result of our inquiries so far.’

  ‘That’s sweet of you,’ he said with an affectionate smile. ‘But I was just going to say the same thing, for, although we haven’t been here for anything like as long as you, we’ve managed to find out quite a good bit. Let’s swop our stories.’

  He told her then of his good fortune in tracing Mrs. Orkney and ascertaining important particulars of their uncle’s journey from the Van Niekerks.

  On hearing of the latter she raised her eyebrows in grave surprise. ‘How extraordinary Mr. Van Niekerk would not tell us a single thing. He had had a telegram from Sandy asking him not to give anything away until his arrival.’

  ‘Perhaps, but Sandy’s boat docked at Cape Town a day before mine, and if you remember he took rather a fancy to me in London, so possibly he has seen the Van Niekerks already and told them to let me have any information that they could.’

  ‘That may be the explanation,’ she nodded. ‘Anyhow I can tell you that N’hluzili is a dead end. We managed to hunt him out at his kraal in Natal and although he told us all about the last journey that he made with Uncle John he flatly refused to come out of his retirement and act as guide for us.’ She gave him then an account of all that they had learnt from Joe-Jack Mahout and the Zulu Iduna. In return he gave her the name of Kieviet to help the inquiries of her party and of the jumping-off place—Zwart Modder.

  Both felt a tinge of joyous guilt in giving away the secrets of their rival expeditions to each other, and considerable pleasure in thinking that there was now a chance of their meeting when they reached Zwart Modder. But although Patricia made little mention of Wisdon in her story, Michael sensed her strong antagonism to this stranger whom her father had taken on to accompany them as a sort of courier and guide.

  Patricia having telephoned after they left the Metro Cinema to say that she would not be in till late, they did not hurry themselves and it was half-past two before they drove back through the now deserted streets to the Carlton.

  The Long party were leaving Johannesburg next day, but the Bennetts had received a voluminous packet by air mail that morning and felt that they must take this last opportunity of dealing with the many details concerning their London business before setting off into the blue. Michael, therefore, had no idea when he would see Patricia again, for the Longs might well have left Zwart Modder by the time that his own party arrived. So although the hour was late he persuaded her to have a final drink with him in the palm court on the first floor before going to bed.

  They walked slowly up the stairway and found the lounge practically empty. Only a few tables were occupied by couples who had strolled through from a private dance which was still in progress in rooms set apart for it down the corridor. To Patricia’s annoyance, one table at the entrance to the restaurant was occupied by Wisdon and a couple of strange men, all still in their day clothes.

  He caught sight of her and, leaving his two friends, strolled slowly over towards them. Then, ignoring Michael who stood up politely, and slightly rocking on wide-spread feet, he said with insolent familiarity:

  ‘Hello, young Pat, I see you’ve found a boy friend. So that’s why you turned me down this evening, is it?’

  Patricia flushed and, ignoring his rudeness, waved her hand towards Michael. ‘This is my cousin, Mr. Kane-Swift, of whom you have heard from father.’

  The big man lurched a little as he clutched the back of a chair and, pulling it from the table, sank into it. ‘So you’re the young feller who’s so anxious to risk your neck in the desert eh?’ he said aggressively. ‘But you won’t find it like they say in the story books with palm trees and oases at the right moment and all that. It’s just sand, my Buckoo, and rock and toa grass and not a ruddy thing to drink.’

  Michael suppressed an angry retort with difficulty. Wisdon had appeared in none too good a light from Patricia’s sketch of him, but this great drunken brute was infinitely more unpleasant than anything that he had pictured. He would have liked to counter the sneer with some curt, coldly insolent rejoinder, but felt that in the man’s present state the least display of antagonism would precipitate an open and unseemly quarrel which he could not chance before the girl, so he replied quite casually: ‘Oh, I don’t know that we’ve many qualifications for this sort of job—before we finish up we may even be asking you to help us out.’

  ‘There’s no harm in asking.’ Wisdon grinned unpleasantly, passing his tongue over his full protruding lips. ‘But if you take my tip you’ll cut it out. This is a man’s job not the sort of thing for a kid like you.’

  ‘Fortunately my half-brothers will be with me and both of them are considerably older than myself,’ Michael replied mildly. He wished profoundly that this ordeal of having to keep his temper before Patricia would soon be over and the big brute leave them to themselves, but Wisdon proved garrulous and inquisitive. He tried, in a clumsy way, to pump Michael about the activities of his party since they had landed in South Africa, and made sly references, for which Michael wanted to hit him, as to the lateness of the hour and how unusual it was to see a couple of young cousins enjoying an evening together. After ten minutes, however, he declared that another drink was an immediate necessity and that since ‘Little Galahad’ had not offered him one, the best thing for him to do was to return to his own table.

  Michael, or Little Galahad as Wisdon had dubbed him, crimsoned to the roots of his dark hair. Never before had he been accused of being shy in offering drinks, but little as he wished to drink at all with the flamboyant Mr. Wisdon, who had very obviously had more than his fair share of liquor already, he had been so occupied in keeping his temper, that the thought had not even occurred to him.

  Wisdon heaved his big body out of the basket chair and, as he made a ponderous unsteady progress back to his two friends at the other end of the palm court, Patricia laid her hand gently on Michael’s.

  ‘Full marks, my dear,’ she said softly. ‘Full marks every time. How you stood for it I can’t think, but it was marvellous of you.’

  Her quick understanding brought an immediate ease to his ruffled feelings, but he could not suppress one outburst. ‘Did you hear him? The bounder! He had the cheek to call me Little Galahad. I’d like to get my thumbs pressed well into the folds of his great fat neck.’

  ‘I know you would, but Galahad’s a name to conjure with. ‘If I called you that you wouldn’t mind, would you?’

  He grinned a little sheepishly: ‘I wouldn’t mind anything that you cared to call me, but Galahad sounds a bit priggish, I always think, so I’d rather you stuck to Michael, but look here, I’ve simply got to talk to you.’

  ‘Talk away,’ she smiled. ‘The air here is so different from foggy London that if I had only half the sleep I’m used to, I think I should be just as fit and fresh every morning. I don’t feel in the least like bed, although I ought to have been there hours ago.’

  ‘I can’t say what I want to here.’ Michael shrugged impatiently. ‘The sight of that brute, slinging more whisky down his neck over there, gets me all wrought up. Come along to the writing-room.’

  She raised her eyebrows and made a little comical grimace, but picked up her bag as he pushed back the table for her, and allowed him to lead her down the corridor on the right of the lift.

  The writing-room was in darkness. Only a faint light penetrating through the windows from the street lamps, showed vaguely the double line of tables, the arm-chairs, and the illustrated weeklies scattered about in disorder. He did not bother to hunt for the switches but sank into a low chair and pulled her down on to his knees.

  ‘You mustn’t,’ he said hoarsely. ‘It’s utterly impossible for you to set out in
to the wilds with a man like that.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, accepting the situation quite naturally and putting her arm round his neck.

  ‘The man’s in love with you,’ he declared angrily. ‘I could see it in his eyes.’

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear.’ As she lay close to him her fingers strayed for a moment in his dark wavy hair. She had been waiting to touch it ever since that afternoon when he had come down to see her at Surbiton. ‘Father will be with me and I am quite capable of taking care of myself.’

  ‘But if anything happened to your father?’

  ‘Why should it?’

  ‘I don’t say anything will, but from all the accounts which we have heard of this place it sounds pretty grim. Honestly, Patricia, you ought to stay in Upington or Zwart Modder.’

  ‘No, I’m going through with it, Michael. Father wants me to stay behind as well. He was saying so only this morning but I don’t see why I should. Men have such extraordinary ideas about women. To be one of the few people who have ever reached this place will be a tremendous thrill, and since I’m in this thing why shouldn’t I enjoy it just as much as any of you men.’

  ‘Yes, that’s fair enough I suppose,’ he agreed reluctantly, ‘and I wouldn’t mind if it were not for the fact that this fellow’s going with you. He’s dangerous, I’m certain of it.’

  ‘I don’t think so, really. You’re making rather a mountain out of a mole-hill just because you like me quite a lot.’

  ‘Like you! Good God! I love you, Patricia. You must know that, and you love me too. Come on—kiss me … No not like that… properly! Just as you did an hour ago when we were at Aasvogelskop.’

  ‘Michael … darling … we mustn’t.’ She struggled halfheartedly to resist his caress. ‘Don’t you see that nothing can ever possibly come of it. If you want to keep your home you’ve got to marry a rich girl, and besides we’re cousins, so we just ought to hang on to ourselves terribly tight because we’re falling desperately in love.’