It was then admitted that Fernando’s confession gave the Duke a basis for his claim and that it was possible the case would be decided in his favour. Should that happen de Richleau would not only come into the value of the property Count Plackoff had left, but one four times its value, owing to the profits that d’Azavedo had ploughed back into Olenevka during the past twenty years. Therefore, rather than risk losing everything, he was prepared to compromise and made the following suggestion.
As de Richleau already knew, the Plackoff inheritance consisted, in addition to the estate of Olenevka and the mine, a small office-cum-workshop in Colombo. While Ukwatte ran the mine his son, Lalita, lived in rooms adjacent to the office, over the workshop, and was responsible for activities there. The gem-bearing quartz and precious pebbles were sent down to the city, cut and polished in the workshop, then sold on the market.
But the market fluctuated considerably, according to world demand; so it had been the d’Azavedos’ policy to build up a big stock of cut gems which constituted their capital and, from time to time, release only a portion of these when the market was most favourable.
They estimated that this reserve stock was worth about four hundred thousand rupees—some thirty thousand pounds—and their proposal was that these cut stones should be handed over to the Duke in full settlement of his claim to the Plackoff inheritance.
For some minutes de Richleau thought this over carefully. The estate and mine were estimated to be worth half a million rupees; so with those jewels the total value of the inheritance should be about nine hundred thousand. The d’Azavedos’ offer of nearly half of it might, therefore, be taken as a sign of weakness. On the other hand, in a similar situation he might have considered insuring himself against the loss of his whole fortune by making such an offer.
If Ukwatte was innocent, the last thing the Duke would have wished to do would be to rob him of everything on the false confession of a man who had a grudge against him. Even if he were not and he had told the truth about his discovery of the mine and Count Plackoff having promised to make him his heir, it would be hard on him to lose the whole proceeds of a lifetime’s work. Last, but not least, there was the possibility that, the Duke’s case not being a very strong one, he might lose it.
At length he said, ‘I appreciate your having put matters to me so frankly, and your offer. But for the moment I am not prepared to commit myself. I should first like to see the property and any accounts you may have which will show the increase in its value since my cousin’s death.’
Lalita leaned forward eagerly. ‘We most willing you do that, sir. Coming here my father say, “Let us invite noble gentlemans to our home. He see then for self many new working of mine we open in last twenty year.” House is large one. Plenty rooms for you and all friends of you. All accounts open for inspection. Please to come. Most welcome. When you wish?’
‘Thank you,’ the Duke nodded. ‘As the situation in Colombo at the moment is far from pleasant I should be glad to get out of it again. Shall we say the day after tomorrow?’
That being agreed, it was settled that they should set out for Olenevka on Saturday afternoon and that the d’Azavedos should pick up the Duke and his party at three o’clock. With many expressions of goodwill the visitors then left.
When de Richleau told Douglas about this meeting, over dinner that evening, he agreed that a settlement out of court was well worth considering; but he was averse to the proposed visit to the mines. He said that for one thing the whole country was now in a state of unrest and that for another both d’Azavedo and his son were said to be tricky customers. The latter had political ambitions and was a close friend of Mrs. Bandaranaike, who had considerable influence and was much more to the Left than her husband. Douglas added that he would have been happier if he could accompany them on this trip, but after his month’s absence from his office he had too much work with which he had to catch up.
On the Friday the situation had worsened still further. At the new settlement north of the old capital of Polonnaruwa a number of Tamils had been set upon and murdered and their women raped. There were also rumours that the Tamils at Jaffna and Trincomalee were banding together in great numbers and threatening to invade the south. But Ratnapura was even further south than Colombo and a good two hundred miles from the centres of disaffection; so the Duke saw no reason to change their plans, and on Saturday afternoon his party set off with the two d’Azavedos.
8
A Desperate Situation
Lalita d’Azavedo had managed to arrange matters so that the Duke, Richard and Marie Lou travelled with his father in the larger car and he had Fleur to himself except for de Richleau’s man, Max, in the back of the smaller one.
Fleur had not been at all keen to come on this expedition; but had she insisted on remaining in Colombo, now that Douglas was fully occupied in his office she would have been able to be with him only in the evenings, and as the party were to be away only two nights she had been persuaded to come.
Now she was rather glad she had, because she found Lalita much the most interesting person she had met since arriving in Ceylon. Douglas had told her that when younger he had been a Socialist but further discussion had revealed that he was now, at most, a very pale pink Liberal, and his parents were so reactionary that they gave the impression that they regretted that their class no longer owned slaves.
Lalita, on the other hand, had what Fleur considered the right ideas. To begin with he had been extremely cagey about giving his own views on Ceylon’s social problems to an English girl of the upper class; but when she had shown her colours he let himself go and they began swapping with gusto the old phrases, about liberty, equality and fraternity.
He was, however, a highly intelligent man and advanced reasons which were new even to Fleur for abolishing the capitalist system; but he naturally refrained from telling her that such money as his father and he might have to disgorge by way of additional taxation under a Government much further to the Left, he hoped to more than make up for by graft when his friends got into power and gave him a good job.
When they had covered some thirty miles they came in sight of Adam’s Peak. As they approached the mountain, Lalita stopped talking politics and began to tell Fleur about it.
‘Sacred Footprint on rock at summit said to be the Buddha’s. Hindus claim to be Siva’s, Mohammedans say Adam’s, Eastern Christians say St. Thomas’. Officially, of course, is Buddhist shrine. But peoples of all religions, all races, make pilgrimage here from all parts Asia.
‘We educated ones,’ Lalita went on, ‘know such pilgrimage waste of time. Soon we teach ignorant masses that. But now, still come. Half starve on long journey, then climb rugged mountain.’ With a little snigger he added, ‘Even street girl refuse gold to be prostitute on way here. For superstitious silly can you beat, eh?’
Some twenty miles further on they came to a rest house at the foot of the mountain, and there the party stopped for tea. Over the meal the Duke told them that on his earlier visit to Ceylon he had made the climb. From where they were sitting, almost at sea-level, it was over seven thousand feet to the top. In parts the mountain was thickly wooded, in others there were overhanging cliffs down which still hung the stirrup-shaped links of enormous chains by which, at one time, it had been the only way to reach the summit. More recently a tortuous path fifteen miles long had been cut through the jungle, and it had taken him a day and a half to come down that way to the Ratnapura road. He had gone up from Maskeliya on the mountain’s other side, as the altitude there was already four thousand five hundred feet, and a steep flight of steps had been cut out from the rock to make the ascent easier.
He went on to say that although the trip was a most fatiguing one it had been well worth it. Owing to the great amount of rain attracted by the mountain the jungle on the steep slopes was very dense and full of wild life. Sambhur, jackals, monkeys, hawk-eagles could all be seen and their baying, chatter and screeches made a discordant music against the
background sound of the many streams rushing down through rocky runnels. There were, too, many caves, some having inscriptions in ancient Sinhalese, Sanscrit and even Chinese characters, carved on their walls by long-dead hermits who had once dwelt in them.
Of the shrine itself, he said that it was a very simple one; no more than a tile roof supported by four pillars over the six-foot-long footprint; and, although the title ‘High Priest of the Peak’ was one of the highest in the Buddhist hierarchy, so remote was the possibility of anyone desecrating the shrine that it was deemed necessary to have only a few monks in attendance on it.
As the Olenevka property was this side of Ratnapura, they had only another fifteen miles to go, so reached it in time for a rest before dinner.
The house was hideous, as it had been built in mid-Victorian times by a coffee planter in the days before the blight Hemileia vastatrix had ruined the coffee industry with the result that tea had replaced it as Ceylon’s principal export. Presumably Count Plackoff had bought it because it was the only sizable house within easy reach of the area he was about to mine.
Ukwatte, it transpired, was a widower, and the visitors were received by his housekeeper, whom he introduced as Mrs. Mirabelle de Mendoza. She showed no signs of having European blood, neither had she the portly form usually associated with housekeepers. She could not have been more than thirty, was pale coffee in colour, had big, widely spaced, slumbrous eyes, an excellent figure, was dressed in rich silks and moved with a languorous, slinky walk as she came out on to the porch to greet them.
The furnishings of the house proved to be a strange mixture of West and East. It seemed that the Count had felt a strong nostalgia for his native Russia, so had gone to some trouble to collect the chattels of his nation. Several portraits of long-dead Czars and Czarinas hung on the walls, and a fine collection of ikons, but much of the furniture was bamboo and all the fabrics were of native handicraft.
After they had been refreshed with gin-slings, Mirabelle took Marie Lou and Fleur up to their rooms. The tired and dusty visitors then discovered to their annoyance that the house had only one bathroom, and the stove that heated the water was unlit. Max, the most perfect valet when serving the Duke in his normal surroundings, but pathetically helpless when removed to any other sphere, did not attempt to hide his shocked disapproval. But they made do as best they could, then came down to dinner.
There were a table and chairs in the dining room, but also at the far end of it three piles of cushions with small tables in front of them, which suggested that the d’Azavedos and Mirabelle normally ate their meals crosslegged on the floor. The fact that she dined with them made the visitors more than ever inclined to suspect that, although she might fill the role of housekeeper, she was also Ukwatte’s mistress.
Dinner consisted of an unidentifiable soup, a huge dish of very hot curry and a splendid selection of tropical fruits. During it, they were intrigued to find that Mirabelle made a gracious hostess and evidently came from a social stratum superior to that of the d’Azavedos. Up till then she had said very little, but she spoke better English than they did, and it became obvious that she had both a sound intelligence and the basis of a good education.
Afterwards they went into the lounge-room and listened to the English broadcast, which followed the one in Sinhalese. The news was far from good. Many riots were reported in which small Tamil communities had been mobbed and, in some instances, killed. Sinhalese agitators, among them Buddhist priests, were inciting the people to further violence, and there were more rumours that the Tamils in the north were preparing to march on Colombo and exact vengeance. But the Government had not yet taken any steps to restore order.
Excusing themselves on account of tiredness the visitors went early to bed, but they had a far from comfortable night as their mattresses were unsprung and the mosquito nets, which had probably been there since Count Plackoff’s time, were riddled with holes.
On the Sunday morning Marie Lou urged the Duke to get through his business as soon as possible so that, making some excuse, they could beat a retreat to Colombo that afternoon. De Richleau would gladly have done so; but the d’Azavedos excused themselves from taking him to the mines that morning, because the men would not be working them. So, with Richard to assist him, he had to make do with going through the financial records of the mine; and it was evident from them that since the Count’s death Ukwatte had greatly increased the value of the property.
When they assembled on the verandah, after sleeping through the heat of the afternoon, Lalita suggested taking Fleur for a walk; so they went out together along one of the paths through the jungle. For a time they flogged their favourite subject: the Rights of Man and Equal Opportunity for All. Then he switched the conversation to personal problems, and paid Fleur a number of fulsome compliments that, as she was not in the least attracted to him physically, made her distinctly uneasy. Soul-mates they might be, politically, but she had given her heart to Douglas and had no time at all for such attentions from anyone else.
After dinner that night, while the others were again listening to the radio, he offered to show her some of the gems that came from the mine. Having no plausible excuse for refusing, she accompanied him to his father’s work room. There he unlocked a large safe. The greater part of it contained rugged lumps of quartz and pebbles, which he told her would be sent in to Colombo and cut to the best advantage to show their glittering cores. Then he opened a drawer and took out a small tray of many-coloured stones that had been prepared for marketing.
‘These,’ he said with a grin, ‘we keeps here for show tourist who visit mine. Silly fool think they get cheap because buy at source. But not so, and we makes bigger profit.’
The roseate fires of the stones, sparkling and scintillating under the lamp he held over them, would have fascinated any woman. A sidelong glance at Fleur told him that she was no exception and he said softly:
‘You like, yes? I like see fine gem on pretty girl, not rich old womans. Per’aps you kind to me, eh? If so I give. You take pick.’
Instantly Fleur stiffened, thrust out her hand with the square sapphire on it and said, ‘I thought you knew that I was engaged to Douglas Rajapakse.’
He shrugged. ‘I hear that, yes. But what it show? Confirm you not high-hat; mean what you say ‘bout coloured men good as white. You not wife of Rajapakse yet. He not know. Come! Take choice of gem, then give me little kiss.’
Fleur gave one look at his watery eyes behind the thick-lensed spectacles and his pendulous lower lip. Then in a swift gesture she knocked the tray of glittering gems out of his hand so that they scattered all over the floor. ‘You bloody swine,’ she said and, crimson with anger, marched out of the room.
It was as a result of this encounter that on the Monday morning, when they were getting ready to go to the mines, Fleur took her father aside and said, ‘Daddy, please fix it that I don’t have to go in Lalita’s car. The little so-and-so made a pass at me last night.’
‘Did he?’ Richard showed swift concern. ‘Darling, I’m sorry. Oh, hell! This just shows the sort of thing to which you are exposing yourself by … No, I didn’t mean that. For two pins I’d break his bloody neck. But we mustn’t quarrel with these people while we are their guests. Anyway, don’t worry. You get in the car with the others and I’ll go with him.’
In consequence, much to Lalita’s annoyance he was quickly manœuvred into taking Richard as his passenger instead of Fleur. Then, with Ukwatte leading in the big car, they set off along a rough track through the jungle.
After they had crossed a valley the ground rose again then, a mile further on, they came out on to an open hillside sloping down to another valley through which a fast but narrow river ran. The road descended for a further half-mile along one side of the valley to end at a cluster of wooden buildings and palm-leaf huts. On its other side the ground rose steeply forming a barren cliff in which there were the dark entrances to a score or more of man-made caves; obviously the mine workings
in the alluvial deposits of sand and gravel from a time when, centuries ago, the river had been much deeper and broader.
Connecting the village with the far bank there was a wooden bridge, and as a short cut to the nearer workings a single plank spanned a narrow gorge some fifteen feet deep through which the water hissed and tumbled.
To Richard’s surprise, at the top of the rise instead of following his father’s car down the slope, Lalita braked and halted his car.
‘What’s the matter?’ Richard asked.
‘I do not like,’ Lalita murmured. ‘The Tamils, they not working.’
Richard had already noticed a group of some sixty natives who had been squatting in the compound and who, on seeing Ukwatte’s car, had all stood up.
‘So they are Tamils,’ said Richard uneasily. ‘I hope there’s not going to be trouble.’
Ukwatte had pulled up at the bottom of the hill, about four hundred yards short of the cluster of buildings. The Duke, Marie Lou and Fleur got out, then he drove on for a further two hundred yards, to a place where the road widened, and turned in it so that the car was facing up the hill. Meanwhile the Tamils were walking towards him. Pulling up again he stood up in the car, turned round so that he was facing them and began to shout at them in their own language. The Tamils halted for a moment, then gave an angry shout.
‘This looks bad!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘Quick! Drive down and we’ll pick up the others.’
‘Not’ing to worry,’ Lalita assured him. ‘My father only tell them get back to work. But hothead per’aps throw stone. That why he dropped others little distance.’
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