The Ka of Gifford Hillary (58 page)

I felt utterly abashed. All I could do was to exclaim: ‘Oh my dear!’ and the tears started to my eyes.

She saw them. Next moment her arms were round me and she cried. ‘Don’t worry, Daddy. Everything will be all right.’

The ice of long years was instantly broken. What we said for a time after that, I don’t remember. I told her, of course,
that I had ample funds; but that I could never be sufficiently grateful for her mother’s offer, and how greatly I appreciated her having come to bring it to me; then, before we realised it, we had settled down to talk like old friends.

After a while she said: ‘Isn’t life strange? Just to think, Daddy, that you had to be accused of murder before I could look on you as anything but almost a stranger, and one I didn’t care for much at that.’

‘I’m afraid I’m the one to blame,’ I admitted. ‘I was too wrapped up in my own concerns to give much time to you when you were young; so naturally you grew away from me.’

She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t all your fault. You did make an effort now and then; but I resented your leaving us for Ankaret. And she was so lovely; so much everything I would have liked to be but knew I couldn’t, that I was desperately jealous of her. That’s why I made such a little bitch of myself when you asked Harold and me down to Longshot.’

‘All the same, as I was older, I should have understood and made allowances. Anyway, there must have been some career that you would have liked to have taken up. I ought to have found out about that and done something for you instead of just leaving you to drift.’

‘Oh I don’t know,’ she shrugged again. ‘I don’t think I was cut out for a career girl; any brains I have don’t seem to run in that direction.’

Recalling the situation in which I had last seen her, I had to make a conscious effort to keep a trace of grimness out of my voice as I asked: ‘In which direction do they run?’

‘To having a good time,’ she replied with unexpected frankness. ‘I know I’m not a real smasher like Ankaret; but I’ve never had any difficulty about collecting men.’

‘If that is your sole occupation don’t you get a bit tired of it?’ I enquired.

‘To tell the truth I am.’ Her eyes were shrewd and much older than they should have been as she admitted it, and went on: ‘The trouble is that those who can afford to take a girl to the right sort of places all seem to be either middle-aged or boring; the nicest ones have no money, and drinking beer in pubs has never struck me as much fun.’

After a moment I asked: ‘Isn’t there something else you would like to try for a change. If you don’t fancy office work,
what about taking a job as a librarian or in a smart hat shop?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I’m not at all that fond of books, and nothing would induce me to wear myself out all day, fetching and carrying hats for other women to try on. If I did do anything, I’d like it to be in the country.’

‘Really!’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘I had no idea you were that sort of girl.’

‘If you are thinking of me as a land-girl, I’m not,’ she replied promptly. ‘And if I had to look after horses I’d go cuckoo in a week. It’s really that I’m utterly sick of London. I’ve had my fill of night-clubs, anyway as a regular amusement, and I’d love to get some good fresh air.’

‘But if you don’t care about the land or animals what could you do in the country?’

She hesitated a moment, then she laughed. ‘It’s silly to tell you about it really. It’s only a sort of pipe dream that a girl friend and I have been amusing ourselves with for the past few months. We had the idea of running a mobile grocery store. With all these new housing estates on the edges of towns and a long way from the shops, I’m sure that if the stuff could be brought to the door one would do a roaring trade. One would have no rent to pay and could move from place to place with the seasons. We’d do Scotland in the summer, the East Coast in the autumn, then from Cornwall right along to Kent in the winter and the spring. With a little planning one could arrange things so as to spend the week-end in cathedral cities, or at seaside places; and so combine business with having lots of fun. Of course the snag is that we’d need two caravans, one for our mobile shop and one to sleep in, and two cars to draw them. So it’s completely off the map, and one might just as well wish for a magic carpet right away.’

‘But it’s not off the map!’ I exclaimed. ‘Far from it. You shall have your caravans and cars. You can go out and buy them tomorrow if you like.’

Her eyes grew round as saucers. ‘Daddy! You don’t …’ you can’t possibly mean it!’

‘Of course I do. The fact that I’ve got to stay here for a while does not prevent me from signing cheques.’

‘But it would cost goodness knows how much. Three thousand at least, and several hundred more to stock the shop.’

‘You won’t do it on that,’ I told her. ‘Not if you buy new
cars, and it is no good starting off with old crocks. But that doesn’t matter. You can spend up to five thousand and send the bills to me.’

‘Oh, Daddy darling!’ she burst into tears and again threw her arms round my neck.

When she had gone I felt happier than I had for years. All that evening a warm glow ran through me at the thought that even if I had to die I had first given someone else a break.

But I have got to die. There is no escaping that. I have now come to the end of recording my strange and terrifying experiences during these past weeks. Eddie has been having a typescript made from the tape daily, and tomorrow I shall give him this last section. But it won’t do Johnny or myself any good.

It is so utterly fantastic that no one will believe it. The fact that every single details fits will not weigh with them. They will regard it as a brilliant
tour de force
in imaginative fiction—or as the outpourings of a madman. But not of a madman mad enough to be sent to Broadmoor. While Sue eats her heart out Johnny has got to rot in prison. And I’ve got to swing. The case for the prosecution is unshakable, and nothing short of a miracle can save us now.

The miracle has happened.

Directly Sue learned that Johnny had been charged with abetting me she realised that the only hope for him lay in solving the original crime. She therefore took up his investigation where he had left off.

Bill willingly gave her the run of Longshot; and while I have been dictating my long statement she conducted a systematic search there. As Ankaret and I were both inclined to be hoarders, it took Sue nearly a week to go through all our papers, the books in the library and every drawer and cupboard in the house. None of them yielded even a ghost of a clue so, depressed but still determined, she went up to the attics.

The mass of stuff she found there appalled her, and as most of it had not been disturbed for years it seemed most unlikely that she would find among it the sort of thing for which she was seeking. Nevertheless, she set to work and toiled away for three long days in the dust and dirt. On the third evening her labours were rewarded. She came upon an old tin uniform case that had belonged to Bill when he was a young officer in the Life Guards.

It was full of Ankaret’s early drawings. Among them was her historical scrap-book, containing her almost faultless copies of the writing of Napoleon, Charles II, Marie Antoinette and a score of other famous people. It had her name inside the front cover, and loose in it were some amusing sketches of her father, mother and brother, with captions faked in their writings. But even that was not the most conclusive of Sue’s finds.

There were two letters. The first had been written from Wellington Barracks and was simply signed: ‘Dick’. It read:

Ankaret, my sweet
,

Apart from any question of dishonesty, how can you have
been so incredibly stupid as to bring the night-dress you obtained from Harrods in Grace’s name with you when you came to stay with us last week-end? If you were so hard up for a tenner why on earth didn’t you ask me for one? I would have given it to you willingly. A moment’s thought should have told you that the description given of you and of the night-dress by the saleswoman could lead to your being found out. Unfortunately it seems that there was no love lost between you and Grace when you were at school together, and she is furious. I am doing my utmost to persuade her to keep this wretched business to herself; but her price is a signed confession. I am afraid your only way out is to send me one to show her, and if you will give me your solemn promise never to forge anyone’s name again I’ll do my damnedest to get it back for you
.

The second was Ankaret’s confession, which had been returned to her. The dates on the two letters showed the episode to have taken place only a few months before I married her. That, being so hard put to it to make ends meet, she should have chosen to forge an ex-school friend’s name on a shopping bill rather than have asked her lover for money, and then have been so careless about being caught out, was typical of her. The affair explained, too, why she had given copying people’s writing for fun, and made no further additions to her historical scrap-book.

Two days later Johnny and I were taken before a judge in Chambers. The new evidence that Sue had found was produced. The two handwriting experts who had previously hesitated to risk their reputation by stating that the suicide letter was a forgery now declared it to be so. On that the case for the prosecution fell to the ground. The judge ruled that there was no case to answer. Johnny and I walked out free men.

It is fairly widely known that I was specially commissioned in order that I might become an additional member of the Joint Planning Staff, and that I worked in the famous fortress basement of the War Cabinet Offices for three years.

It is therefore important that I should make it absolutely clear that no statement on military matters contained in this book is in any way inspired. During the eleven years since I put off my uniform as a Wing Commander I have had no contact, other than social, with any member of the Joint Planning Staff; and the views of my fiction characters upon future strategy and the reorganisation of the Fighting Services owe nothing to any member of it past or present.

D.W.

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