After a little her weeping ceased and, to distract her thoughts, Sandy said suddenly:
‘I bet Philbeach cached those stones either in the tree or somewhere near it. If I thought there were a hope in heaven of finding them we’d come out here again to-morrow but when a man like that starts hiding things there’s devilish little chance of anyone ever finding them.’
‘No—they’ve gone for good this time,’ Michael agreed. ‘So this is the end of my African adventure, and I’ll never be able to keep up Harcourt Priory like my father did now, but it’s been a marvellous experience and we ought to be mighty thankful that we’re all here safe and alive.’
Sandy put his arms round Sarie’s shoulders and drew her to him. ‘I’m thankful for more than that,’ he murmured. ‘If it hadn’t been for old Uncle John’s will I might never have met Sarie.’
Patricia pressed closer to her cousin, but at Sandy’s words a sudden spasm of pain crossed his face in the darkness.
After that last exhausting trudge through the bush a new spurt of energy seemed to have come to Cornelius and, at the top of his form, he drove at a fine speed along the straight deserted road, until at one o’clock in the morning, they entered the capital of Portuguese East Africa. As they hummed through the fine tree-lined boulevards of the town and passed up the hill out of it again, Michael leaned forward: ‘Where the deuce are you taking us now, Cornelius?’
‘The Polana,’ Cornelius told him. ‘The best hotel in Africa, south of Cairo.’ And a few moments later they pulled up at the porch of the great cream building perched on the cliff above the broad sweep of Delagoa Bay.
The night porter was amazed to see this strange dishevelled crew of belated visitors, but he recognised Cornelius at once as a frequent patron of the hotel, and promised that rooms and a first-class supper should be available immediately.
As Cornelius limped back to the car he saw with sudden surprise that Ernest was getting out unaided, for he had never even stirred during the two hours of their journey.
‘I’m all right,’ Ernest assured him in answer to his inquiries. ‘Bit of a headache, that’s all. Where have we got to now?’
‘Lourenço Marques, in Portuguese East,’ Sandy told him, as they paused at the office to sign the visitor’s book.
Through a hatchway a portion of the manager’s office could be seen and, as Ernest looked up from scrawling his signature, he suddenly exclaimed: ‘Why, there’s a caricature of Harry Preston. That makes this place just like an hotel at home.’
They laughed and moved towards the lift, but when they got upstairs they felt that there had been much in his casual statement as they revelled in the luxury of warm baths and well-furnished rooms.
Half an hour later they assembled for the supper that had been prepared in the great empty dining-room. Their tiredness had fallen from them, replaced by a wonderful feeling of security and well-being, as they were led to a round table in a corner of the room that had been re-lit for them.
‘Champagne,’ said Sandy, as Cornelius took the wine list from the waiter. ‘We need it.’
‘Why not?’ Cornelius replied, giving a number, then, as the man moved off to execute the order, he added: ‘We ought to celebrate our victory even if we haven’t got the diamonds.’
‘Who says so?’ Ernest closed one of his small sharp eyes in a joyful wink. ‘What do you think I took a chance on tackling Philbeach for?’
‘Good God! you haven’t got them!’ Sandy exclaimed.
‘Of course I have. I was only knocked out for a moment and it wasn’t half a laugh making those coppers carry me back through the bush—I had a nice forty winks in the car on the way here, too.’
‘You’re joking. The police searched you,’ Patricia protested.
Ernest lifted his left knee table-high and pulled up the leg of his trousers. Round his calf, putty fashion, was wound the belt that Michael had carried. ‘That’s an old trick,’ he grinned. ‘As luck would have it the coppers were so anxious to get up into the aviary that they gave yours truly time enough to fix it. All we’ve got to do now is to get my pal in Hatton Garden to put them on the market. Then half goes to Michael and me—and you can split the rest between you.’
After that supper became an uproarious meal with magnums of champagne flowing. Ernest and Cornelius looked like staying there all night but Sandy was dying to talk to Sarie and Michael to Patricia. So the two couples left them and went towards the gauze swing-doors on to the terrace, beyond which Delagoa Bay spread below—beautiful in the moonlight.
‘I suppose the time has come for us to congratulate each other,’ Sandy said to Michael as they were about to turn in different directions, but Michael looked at Patricia with a sudden painful hesitation. Their double first cousinship and the thought of imbecile children still lay between them; then he looked back at Sandy.
‘I congratulate you with all my heart, but I’m afraid Fate has been a bit unkind to Patricia and myself. We’re both so keen to have children that we dare not marry.’
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Sandy, sweeping the wayward lock of hair out of his eye. ‘Of course—I haven’t seen you since you set off into the Kalahari from Zwart Modder, except when we picked you up half-delirious in the desert and during this ghastly time we’ve been through to-day. I’ve never had a chance to tell you about those letters of old Uncle John’s that Sarie and I found in his derelict wagon.’
‘What about them?’ asked Michael listlessly.
‘I went through the lot afterwards,’ Sandy was almost stammering with excitement. ‘Most of them were love letters but some of them were from Sarie’s father, who it seems was a bit of a rip in his younger days. When he was over in England he had an affair with Patricia’s mother, and he seemed to think it would amuse his old friend John to know that they had been having a most marvellous time together while Henry was in Ireland. In a later letter he made it quite clear that Patricia was on the way as a cuckoo in the nest; so she is Sarie’s half-sister and half South African—but she’s not related to you at all. I’ve got the letters upstairs. Shall I go up and bring them down?’
‘No, let’s leave it till the morning,’ said Michael, with a new note in his voice. ‘Oh, Sandy, this is wonderful!’ Then he grabbed Patricia by the arm.
‘Off you go,’ laughed Sarie, ‘even for you I won’t spare Sandy another second of this moonlight.’
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
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: 9781448213863
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