Dangerous Inheritance (45 page)

But worse had befallen as far as the interests that really touched him were concerned. Douglas Rajapakse had been
thrown into prison and, still worse, Truss and Fleur had felt in honour bound to risk their own freedom in an attempt to get him out.

Their attitude in the matter had his full endorsement and warmed his old heart. Yet that Douglas should be in prison at all was due not to them, but to him. And that age should have rendered him incapable of undertaking Douglas's rescue himself distressed him greatly. Moreover, he was now plagued with an awful fear that they might bungle it.

He endeavoured to reason with himself that it was only because he was an old fogey that he lacked confidence in the two young people. But that would not work. His long experience in wars, and with Richard, Rex and Simon in many desperate situations, had made them most formidable antagonists; used to assessing chances, cunning, dangerous and ready instantly to put aside all scruples if it came to saving themselves from capture: whereas Truss had never even experienced the hazards of war and had been brought up as a law-abiding citizen. How could he be expected to keep a cool head in an emergency, or deal swiftly and ruthlessly with any opposition with which he might meet? And, game as Fleur might be, he had only a girl to aid him.

For once, as the Duke thought of these things, his big cigar remained unlit between his long, almost transparent fingers.

At half past nine, a knock on the door caused him to start up in his chair and call, ‘Come in.' Van Goens entered, took a few paces and came to a halt in front of him.

‘Well?' asked de Richleau with apparent calm. ‘How did it go?'

The ex-Inspector shook his head. ‘Not too well, Your Grace. They got Mr. Rajapakse away but not without trouble. He was recognised when coming out. I was standing in the darkness about fifty yards away, so I don't know exactly what happened. But there was a fracas and shots were fired.'

‘That's bad,' said the Duke. ‘Do you know whether anyone was wounded?'

‘No. By the most infernal luck a police car pulled up behind Mrs. Rajapakse's just as they were leaving the prison. There
was enough light for me to see that one of the men who got out of the car was carrying a Sten gun, and it was he who challenged the escape party. Mr. Van Ryn tackled him and got the gun, then used it on someone just inside the prison doorway.'

De Richleau smiled. ‘At all events that shows that the boy has resolution. And you say they got away?'

‘Yes, Your Grace. But the prison alarm was sounded, the sentry fired two shots from his rifle after their car as it drove off, and two minutes later the police car went in pursuit of them.'

‘May the Powers protect them,' murmured the Duke. ‘What chance do you think they have of evading capture?'

‘I can't say. As soon as the two cars had disappeared I ran to the place where I'd left my own. But it was some way off; otherwise I would have been here sooner.'

‘You have proved a good friend, van Goens, and done all you could to help us. Get yourself a drink from the tray, then come and sit down and tell me in detail all you saw.'

The ex-Inspector was still mixing a whisky and soda when, after a quick knock, Rex and Simon entered the room.

De Richleau came to his feet, his face wreathed in smiles, ‘How happy I am to see you so soon. I had thought it more likely that you would not be here until tomorrow morning.'

‘I've good friends in QANTAS at Singapore,' Rex replied. ‘They cut the usual delays that affect private aircraft and refuelled us right away. There's a gain of three hours on the clock, too, coming from Manila. We got in at seven-forty and would have been here an hour ago if the jacks in office at the Katunayake airport hadn't held us up about one damn' thing after another.'

Simon was not wearing his glasses. Craning his narrow head forward he peered short-sightedly at the Duke. ‘Tell us about the muddle. Must be a nasty one for you to have sent for us.'

‘It is indeed. Van Goens here knows the whole story and he has been most helpful. He was just about to give me details about the latest development. But that can wait now until I've told you what has been happening during the past ten days. First, though, help yourselves to drinks.'

As soon as they had full glasses de Richleau gave them an
account of Lalita's recent activities and their result, then van Goens described all he had been able to see of the escape.

When they had done, Rex's usually smiling face was set in a grim frown, and he said, ‘Then young Truss has gotten himself in one hell of a mess. It'll be prison for him if he's caught, and it's a dollar to a dime that he will be. It's certain that the police will telephone ahead and have road blocks put out.'

‘Um,' Simon nodded. ‘And it's not even as if they'd got a good start. Full marks to them, though, for making the attempt. Poor little Fleur. She seems fated to get herself in muddles.'

The Duke looked at van Goens. ‘When do you think we can hope to get any news?'

‘I expect there will be an announcement over the radio in the first news bulletin tomorrow morning,' the ex-Inspector replied. ‘But I've still a few good friends in the police; so I thought I'd go out and see if I can pick up anything.'

His suggestion was accepted gratefully, and when he left them the Duke had some cold supper sent up for his friends. While they ate it he told them in more detail about the part that Mirabelle had played and the finding by Truss and Fleur of Vinala Fernando's remains.

‘If only we could have hooked that on to Lalita,' Rex sighed. Then, after a moment, he added, ‘I'll tell you what, though. If we put every private dick in Colombo on the job we might get him for having done in his mistress. If we could, and seeing we could show his motive, that would put Truss and Fleur in better case as having enabled Douglas to escape only because they had grounds to believe that Lalita intended to have him murdered, too.'

‘Um. Well worth trying,' Simon agreed.

The Duke nodded. ‘We will talk to van Goens about this, when he gets back. If we succeeded, with strong representations from the American Ambassador and British High Commissioner, we might even get our young people off.'

It was midnight by the time van Goens returned. Momentarily their faces brightened as he said, ‘They got clear of Colombo,' then fell again when he added, ‘but only by shooting up the police car that was following them. The incident occurred
out in the suburbs. Apparently Mr. Van Ryn blazed off through the back window with the Sten gun he snatched.'

‘Oh, God! Did he kill anyone?' gasped Rex.

‘No, sir. I think he did his best to avoid that by firing low at the radiator and tyres. But the car ended up in a hedge and the two men in it were badly injured. One was a sergeant in the Security Service. He was cut about the face and may lose an eye. The other was a clerk at Police Headquarters. He's got a broken arm and two smashed ribs. To that we have to add that the shots I heard when I was outside the prison were Mr. Van Ryn putting two bullets through the foot of a warder.'

Rex groaned, ‘May the Lord deliver us. How'll we ever get him out of this?'

There was no comfort that his friends could offer the unhappy father, and nothing they could do but wait for a radio announcement in the morning. De Richleau then put up the idea of making the utmost efforts to trace Mirabelle's murderer.

Van Goens shook his head. ‘The police will be treating it only as a routine case, Your Grace; and in the bad part of the city such murders occur with some frequency, so they are rarely solved. I'll put all my own men on the job and instruct the other agencies if you wish, but I can't hold out much hope of success. It's a hundred to one that d'Azavedo paid some criminal to kill her for him, and even if the man were traced I doubt if we'd get any further. If he could be persuaded to give away who employed him, directly an investigator learned that it was Colonel d'Azavedo he would drop the enquiry like a hot brick. He'd be too scared for his own skin to get himself into a tangle with a senior officer of the Security Service.'

‘Nevertheless, I would like you to do all you can,' replied the Duke. ‘And put an advertisement in all the papers as soon as possible, offering a reward of five thousand rupees for information leading to the murderer.'

Next morning they waited impatiently for the news. The papers carried only brief stop-press statements, but it ranked as second item in the radio bulletin. From its earlier part they learned nothing new, but it went on to state that after scattering police who had endeavoured to halt the escapers' car in
Gampaha, the car had been found abandoned at the entrance to a village eight miles beyond the town, and that from the village the car of a Mr. Nissanka had been stolen; so it was assumed that the fugitives had continued their journey in that. The number and make of the car were then given, followed by descriptions of Douglas, Fleur and Truss with an urgent appeal to the public to acquaint the police at once with any information which might lead to the arrest of these dangerous criminals.

Why they should have abandoned their own car for a 1954 Ford the listeners could not imagine, but they took considerable comfort from the knowledge that the fugitives had succeeded in evading capture during the night. Given sufficient petrol, even in an old Ford they should have had no difficulty in covering the hundred and forty miles to the neighbourhood of Kalkudah while darkness lasted; so, unless they had met with an accident, they should by then have been at the rendezvous for some hours.

The Duke produced his map and Rex agreed that Elephant Point being such a prominent feature on that part of the east coast, with the aid of the railway line from Polonnaruwa to Kalkudah he should have no difficulty in locating it. Then he said:

‘I'll not take the Captain of my aircraft because if trouble arises out of this he could be charged with taking an active part in an illegal operation. But I've had plenty of practice landing my big new kite; so you need have no worries about that.'

Knowing that he had been a member of the Eagle Squadron—that gallant band of Americans who had volunteered for service with the R.A.F. long before the United States had entered the war—the others did not doubt his capabilities for a moment, as he went on:

‘My crew can't be held responsible for anything I do, and in case you wanted to make a quick get-out I told them last night that they must stand by for a take-off any time. But there'll be formalities to go through at Katunayake even though I'll say I'm only flying up to Trinco', and some of those surly bastards there may create delays; so I'll get off right away.'

Soon after they had wished him luck and he had left them,
Mr. Rajapakse was announced. The elderly lawyer was both agitated and angry. Very naturally he was greatly distressed about Douglas but he held Truss and Fleur to blame for having greatly intensified the trouble his son was in, through having organised his escape. With good reason he contended that, whereas Douglas had been arrested only for a very minor offence, his having broken prison with companions who had fired upon the police had both ruined his career and laid him open to the most serious penalties.

Unless they confided to him the whole of their dealings with Lalita and Mirabelle, he could not be given the imperative reason for getting Douglas out of prison; and that de Richleau was averse to doing. Much, too, as he would have liked to comfort the distraught father, to let him know that there was a good chance that his son might be picked up and flown out to Madras that afternoon would have been to risk his telling his wife and other interested parties, so have jeopardised the security of the operation. In consequence the Duke took the blame on himself for having organised the escape and, for some ten minutes, showed considerable forbearance in listening to a diatribe of tearful reproach from his visitor.

Mr. Rajapakse having taken his departure, van Goens came in to report that he had engaged every ‘private eye' available in Colombo to investigate Mirabelle's murder and that he had put his own staff on to check up on Lalita's movements for the whole of the Tuesday, in the hope that should the murderer be run to earth it could be shown that Lalita had been in communication with him.

As a precaution against the fugitives being captured, the Duke and Simon sat down to compose a note of warning for Richard. When they had agreed upon it, the cable ran:

Regret to tell you Fleur in serious trouble. Stop. Rex and Simon with me and hope to deal with situation. Stop. Will keep you informed of developments. Stop. Love to you both from us all de Richleau
.

Simon went down to send it off and they then waited
anxiously for the midday news. After a repetition of the gist of the earlier announcement it was stated that that the Ford had been found abandoned thirteen miles south of Dambulla and it was believed that the fugitives had taken to the jungle in that neighbourhood. An intensive search was in progress for them and it was not expected that they could for long remain untraced. A reward of two thousand rupees was offered for information that would lead to their capture.

As they listened de Richleau and Simon looked at one another in dismay, then Simon said, ‘This is bad! Oh, very bad! Unless they've managed to pinch another car they'll never get to Elephant Point by this afternoon.'

‘No,' the Duke agreed, with a heavy sigh. ‘And if those three poor children have taken to the jungle, Lord help them. Douglas may know something of it, but being a townsman I doubt that. I do, of course, from my travels in many places; but I have always gone on safari with the best weapons, trackers who knew their work, and a score of porters bearing tents, food and other necessities. Without such aids they are certain to lose their way, and become exposed to all sorts of dangers—wild animals, snakes, blundering into morasses, not to mention the leeches and mosquitoes.'