Dennis Wheatley's Dangerous Inheritance Part IV

Drama at the Dalada Maligawa

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From last week - Part III

By Richard Boyle

In the comfort of his suite at the Galle Face Hotel, the Duke de Richlieu makes the de- cision to gift Olenevka to his friend, Fleur Rajapakse, before Lalita d'Azavedo discovers the contract to be null and void. Fleur, who is English and married to de Richlieu's lawyer in Ceylon, Douglas Rajapakse, has revealed to her ex-lover, Trusscott van Ryn, that she is unhappy with her marriage.

Trusscott and his father, Rex, have flown to Ceylon in their own plane and landed at China Bay, Trincomalee. When they decide to visit the ancient cities on the way back to Trinco, Fleur jumps at the chance to accompany them.

Dennis Wheatley, in his novel Dangerous Inheritance (1965), pays much attention to the potential pitfalls of inter-racial marriage. Now that Fleur has admitted her mistake, the author goes to town on the subject, cataloguing along the way some of the concerns about the status of women within marriage that have been taken up by Sri Lankan feminists in recent decades.

For instance, before they leave on their trip, Fleur opens her heart further to Trusscott:

'Mummy was right in saying it wouldn't work out. It's having become a member of an Asian family that has got me down. They are different from us; utterly different. Their minds don't work the same way as ours. They don't look on women as individuals who have minds and ambitions of their own. For them women are only a superior sort of servant whose job is to produce children.

'No Sinhalese woman would have the least sympathy for me. They just wouldn't understand me. And the European women that I know would sympathise too much. Their pity for one of their own kind who had been idiot enough to marry a coloured man would be quite unbearable.'

Although Fleur wishes to leave Douglas, she bears no animosity towards him for the failure of their marriage, perceiving herself to be a victim of cultural and social alienation. She is placed, therefore, in a predicament created by male-oriented social convention, a predicament that she explains thus to Trusscott:

'Ceylon is not like England or America, where wives can go off with other men and no one gives a second thought to what they've done. Here, among the Sinhalese, for a wife to leave her husband would cause him a most terrible loss of face.'

As Fleur has lived in Ceylon for several years, she acts as a guide on the trip, providing potted histories of Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura to the Van Ryns. Of course she provides Trusscott with something else that guides don't normally dispense. Indeed it is while they are in bed together at the Welcome Hotel in Trincomalee that they receive a rude awakening from none other than Colonel d'Azavedo and Mirabelle, his father's mistress.

D'Azavedo has been told that de Richlieu's signature is inauthentic and that, moreover, he has given Olenevka to Fleur. Furious at being tricked, d'Azavedo's demand is simple: hand over the gem-mine or else the whole of Colombo - but primarily Douglas will learn how she was found in bed with Trusscott. He is also searching for the gems, which he mistakenly suspects the Van Ryns are about to smuggle out of the country on their plane.

Fleur argues that she cannot just make over Olenevka to d'Azavedo without giving a satisfactory reason for doing so to her husband. She offers instead to pay d'Azavedo one thousand rupees every month for his silence.

The blackmailer accepts this sum and arranges for Mirabelle to obtain the first payment from Fleur after she returns to Colombo.

Trusscott was to have accompanied his father on his flight out of Ceylon, but resolves to stay behind to look after Fleur now that she has unwittingly become involved in d'Azavedo's latest attempt to regain Olenevka by means murderous or foul.

A few days after they return to Colombo, a meeting takes place between Fleur and Mirabelle at which Mirabelle tries her hand at blackmailing as well. During the encounter with d'Azavedo in the hotel bedroom, Mirabelle has overhead Fleur tell Trusscott in French that she will discontinue her payments when she leaves Ceylon, as she proposes to do soon. Now it is Mirabelle's turn to demand that the gem mine be given to her, and to neutralise d'Azavedo she is willing to give Fleur proof that he is a murderer.

To concentrate Fleur's mind Mirabelle tells her that d'Azavedo plans to arrest de Richlieu and Douglas on trumped up charges and have them killed during an orchestrated prison riot. Then Mirabelle provides the carrot by telling Fleur how d'Azavedo's father had forged the will with which he had obtained Olenevka, and that d'Azavedo junior had murdered one of the witnesses to the will, and the only person who knew it to be a forgery.

Mirabelle knows where the grave is on the Olenevka property, and she urges Fleur to check for herself. Which she does forthwith, in the company of Trusscott. They find the grave and return to Colombo to tell de Richlieu the news only to be informed in turn that Douglas has already been arrested and that Mirabelle's body has been discovered in the Beira Lake. Without a sworn statement from her, the evidence they have unearthed is of little use.

De Richlieu has hired the Burgher Nicholas van Goens, a former police inspector, as a bodyguard. ("Like nearly all the senior police officers who were trained under the British, things were made so unpleasant for him that he was virtually forced to retire.") Van Goens tells them the inside story of Douglas' arrest. It is a story that is, I believe, based, on actual events, and is an example of how the plot intersects with contemporary history:

'This concerns smuggling. Sometime ago two ships of the Royal Ceylon Navy were sent out on a cruise to the Far East, to show the flag, so to speak.

Since their return there have been rumours that they brought back a large quantity of dutiable goods and have been gradually bringing them ashore.

The senior officer on the cruise was Rear-Admiral Royce de Mel. He is reputed to be an efficient man, and it's very probable that any smuggling that did occur was done without his knowledge. But as he is a Roman Catholic the Bandaranaike crowd have got it in for him.'

Van Goens continues by informing them that Douglas has been accused of receiving some of these goods, which have been planted in his house.

Realising that Douglas must be released quickly before d'Azavedo disposes of him too, Van Goens suggests they try to smuggle him out using the time-honoured method of exchanging him with a visitor. After that he advises them to proceed to Kalkudah, where Trusscott's father's plane will be waiting to fly them out of the country.

A pickpocket called Banda is hired for the task of replacing Douglas and he and Trusscott enter Welikada prison while Fleur waits in her car for the getaway. Everything goes smoothly until Trusscott and Douglas are just outside the prison. There they are challenged, and in the ensuing fight Trusscott shoots one of the guards in the foot before they manage to make good their escape.

The journey northward towards Kalkudah is a perilous affair. They are forced to shoot out the tyres of a pursuing police car along Baseline Road.

Before reaching Dambulla they exchange their car for a stolen bullock cart in order to negotiate a checkpoint. While camping in the jungle outside Polonnaruwa they just avoid being attacked by a crocodile. Then, on the last lap of the journey, Douglas is terribly mauled by a leopard.

Realising that they have to seek medical assistance urgently, Trusscott and Fleur start to make for the coast with the now delirious Douglas. They stumble upon an encampment of gypsies, who are able to treat their companion, and then they move on. Early the next morning Douglas dies from his injuries. The one consolation for the guilt-ridden Fleur is that d'Azavedo was unable to tell Douglas about her affair with Trusscott.

Things go from bad to worse when they reach Elephant Point, north of Kalkudah, to find that Van Goens was mistaken in his belief that a plane could land there. However, just as they are about to abandon hope, they are picked up by a boat with Trusscott's father on board. It turns out that he has anticipated the problem and has hired the boat from Trincomalee. But their joy is short-lived for a Navy launch soon speeds toward them.

As the craft gains on them, they realise to their horror that Colonel d'Azavedo is standing in the prow. He promptly arrests them and Fleur and the Van Ryns are locked up in different cabins. In order to extract revenge on Fleur for resisting his earlier advances, he tries to rape her. On hearing Fleur's screams, Truscott manages to break out of his cabin and then kills d'Azavedo with his bare hands before his adversary can carry out his evil design.

Fleur and the Van Ryns are brought to Colombo, where de Richlieu visits them in prison. He understands just how dangerous his inheritance has become, and that it is now up to him to resolve the situation. After much thought, he assembles a fake bomb, retrieves the stock of gems and travels to Kandy to meet the Mahanayake Thero of the Dalada Maligawa, whom he had spoken with two years before.

De Richlieu pays his respects and launches into an account of the terrible consequences that had resulted from his inheritance. He then makes an offering of the gems to Lord Buddha to ask for his intervention on behalf of his friends. It is at this juncture that de Richlieu informs the Mahanayake Thero that he has a bomb and is prepared to blow up the temple.

When the Mahanayake Thero reminds him of the most terrible sacrilege that he would be committing, de Richlieu replies:

'I realise that it would take me many lives to redeem myself from such a crime. But that is the price I am prepared to pay, rather than allow my friends to be arbitrarily deprived of their present incarnation.'

De Richlieu then requests him to speak to the authorities on the telephone:

'You will tell them that unless they grant the prisoners a free pardon and provide them with all facilities for leaving the country at nine o'clock tomorrow morning, the most sacred relic in the whole Buddhist world will have ceased to exist. It has been the symbol of truth and righteousness for over two thousand years. Your people succeeded in preserving it from the fanatical Portuguese, and the Dutch. The British in their wisdom, having captured it, restored it to you. Is it now, after all these centuries, to be destroyed because your Government will not release four prisoners who have not yet been found guilty?'

At a hastily convened Cabinet meeting it is decided to accede to de Richlieu's demands. With the Mahanayake Thero as an insurance policy, de Richlieu travels to Katunayake. There his friends meet him and they fly out of Ceylon, never to return.

And the fate of Olenevka, the dangerous inheritance? Fleur gifts it to Van Goens for helping Douglas to escape from prison.

Concluded

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