The Fabulous Valley Read online

  Dennis Wheatley

  THE FABULOUS VALLEY

  To

  PEGGY AND BINO

  Together with those many South African

  friends in London and the Union whose

  kindness enabled me to enjoy every

  moment of my stay in their wonderful

  country.

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. The Heirs Apparent of John Thomas Long

  2. The Will

  3. If Blood is Thicker than Water?

  4. Certain Inquiries and an Unpleasant Surprise

  5. Of Liars and Others

  6. A Thief in the Night

  7. The Quickest Way to Africa

  8. The Knobkerrie of the Zulu Induna

  9. Sandy Makes an Alliance in Pretoria

  10. From the Cape through the Karroo to First-hand Information

  11. The Return from Durban to the Rand

  12. Love and Conspiracy in Johnannesburg

  13. Armistice and Treachery

  14. The Necklace of Kieviet the Witch Doctor

  15. Sarie Plays a Part and Two Lovers Quarrel

  16. The Leopard Skin Kaross of Ombulike the Hottentot

  17. Kalahari Picnic

  18. Kalahari Hell

  19. The Underground River

  20. The Valley of the Leopards

  21. Death in the Sunshine

  22. The Land of ‘The Great Thirst’

  23. Blood Is Thicker than Water

  24. Robbery under Arms

  25. Gandhi’s House

  26. Illicit Diamonds

  27. The Road to Portuguese East

  28. Night in the Fever Country

  29. The Caged Birds Sing

  A Note on the Author

  Also by the Author

  Introduction

  Dennis Wheatley was my grandfather. He only had one child, my father Anthony, from his first marriage to Nancy Robinson. Nancy was the youngest in a large family of ten Robinson children and she had a wonderful zest for life and a gaiety about her that I much admired as a boy brought up in the dull Seventies. Thinking about it now, I suspect that I was drawn to a young Ginny Hewett, a similarly bubbly character, and now my wife of 27 years, because she resembled Nancy in many ways.

  As grandparents, Dennis and Nancy were very different. Nancy’s visits would fill the house with laughter and mischievous gossip, while Dennis and his second wife Joan would descend like minor royalty, all children expected to behave. Each held court in their own way but Dennis was the famous one with the famous friends and the famous stories.

  There is something of the fantasist in every storyteller, and most novelists writing thrillers see themselves in their heroes. However, only a handful can claim to have been involved in actual daring-do. Dennis saw action both at the Front, in the First World War, and behind a desk in the Second. His involvement informed his writing and his stories, even those based on historical events, held a notable veracity that only the life-experienced novelist can obtain. I think it was this element that added the important plausibility to his writing. This appealed to his legions of readers who were in that middle ground of fiction, not looking for pure fantasy nor dry fact, but something exciting, extraordinary, possible and even probable.

  There were three key characters that Dennis created over the years: The Duc de Richleau, Gregory Sallust and Roger Brook. The first de Richleau stories were set in the years between the wars, when Dennis had started writing. Many of the Sallust stories were written in the early days of the Second World War, shortly before Dennis joined the Joint Planning Staff in Whitehall, and Brook was cast in the time of the French Revolution, a period that particularly fascinated him.

  He is probably always going to be associated with Black Magic first and foremost, and it’s true that he plugged it hard because sales were always good for those books. However, it’s important to remember that he only wrote eleven Black Magic novels out of more than sixty bestsellers, and readers were just as keen on his other stories. In fact, invariably when I meet people who ask if there is any connection, they tell me that they read ‘all his books’.

  Dennis had a full and eventful life, even by the standards of the era he grew up in. He was expelled from Dulwich College and sent to a floating navel run school, HMS Worcester. The conditions on this extraordinary ship were Dickensian. He survived it, and briefly enjoyed London at the pinnacle of the Empire before war was declared and the fun ended. That sort of fun would never be seen again.

  He went into business after the First World War, succeeded and failed, and stumbled into writing. It proved to be his calling. Immediate success opened up the opportunity to read and travel, fueling yet more stories and thrilling his growing band of followers.

  He had an extraordinary World War II, being one of the first people to be recruited into the select team which dreamed up the deception plans to cover some of the major events of the war such as Operation Torch, Operation Mincemeat and the D-Day landings. Here he became familiar with not only the people at the very top of the war effort, but also a young Commander Ian Fleming, who was later to write the James Bond novels. There are indeed those who have suggested that Gregory Sallust was one of James Bond’s precursors.

  The aftermath of the war saw Dennis grow in stature and fame. He settled in his beautiful Georgian house in Lymington surrounded by beautiful things. He knew how to live well, perhaps without regard for his health. He hated exercise, smoked, drank and wrote. Today he would have been bullied by wife and children and friends into giving up these habits and changing his lifestyle, but I’m not sure he would have given in. Maybe like me, he would simply find a quiet place.

  Dominic Wheatley, 2013

  1

  The Heirs Apparent of John Thomas Long

  The rain ran in little trickles down the narrow panes of the window in the lawyer’s waiting-room. The clerk stood in the doorway twisting his knobbly hands with a servile smirk.

  ‘I am sorry, Mr. Long, but Mr. Bullett is busy on a Court case for to-morrow and says he can’t see you until the others are here. He’ll be pleased to give you a few minutes afterwards.’

  Henry Long gave the bent old man a distrustful look from his shrewd grey eyes which were separated by a long, thin, knife-like nose, suggesting a certain closeness of character. Apart from that feature, however, his face was rather a fine one. His broad forehead was crowned with close-cropped grizzled hair, his cheek bones were high, but balanced by a firm mouth and determined chin. He nodded dismissal to the clerk and turned to his daughter who was seated near him.

  ‘I might have known,’ he muttered, ‘that Bullett would find some excuse to avoid being pressed for any information before the reading of the Will.’

  ‘Never mind,’ she replied soothingly, ‘we shall know all about it soon.’ As she spoke the door opened to admit a woman in her early sixties, who bore a striking resemblance to Henry Long, and a dark, smartly dressed young man, whose eyes rested on the girl with quick interest.

  ‘Well, Gertrude,’ Henry Long offered a grudging hand to his elder sister whom he had not seen for many years. ‘How are you?’

  She smiled a little bleakly but her eyes held a gentleness which her brother’s lacked. ‘You haven’t altered much. And this is your girl Patricia, I suppose? She does you credit, Henry!’

  Patricia stared with envious admiration at this unknown aunt, the bad woman of the family, who had deserted her husband and children to elope with the rich landowner, Heron Kane-Swift. From her early childhood Aunt Gertrude had been painted for her as the Scarlet Woman of Babylon by her strictly religious parent.

  ‘Of course, you haven’t met my boy, have you?’ Gertrude Kane-Swift went on; ‘Micha
el, this is your Uncle Henry and your cousin Patricia.’

  All that Michael had ever heard of his Uncle Henry had predisposed him to dislike the man and now that he met him he saw no cause to alter his feelings, but little cousin Patricia was quite a different matter. Unlike her father she had a Roman nose and a large pair of limpid hazel eyes. Her chin was strong and firm, and her thick, dark curls were cleverly arranged under a small hat.

  As she took his hand she was studying him with equal interest. He too had the dark wavy hair of the family but his nose was almost snub, evidently a legacy from the late Heron Kane-Swift. He was a little under medium height but broad shouldered and well proportioned. Without being in any way good looking, his open and ingenuous face was full of charm. Their greetings were hardly over when the door opened once more, the clerk announcing in the low voice common to his profession, ‘Mr. George and Mr. Ernest Bennett.’

  ‘Hello, Mother!’ The elder, a rotund and almost bald man of forty, advanced on Gertrude with a joviality that his acquaintances would have thought natural to him, but which in this particular instance was decidedly forced. He had not seen her since they had met seven years before in this same lawyer’s waiting-room on family business. He and his brother had also been taught to regard her as a Scarlet Woman since their childhood and, although he was naturally of an easy disposition, he found such meetings awkward to a degree. He pecked her cheek in diffident haste and turned to the others.

  ‘Hello, Henry!—Hope you’re well,’ he said abruptly. George Bennett found very few people in this world whom he cordially disliked but it did rankle with him that, when his father had committed suicide on their mother’s desertion, his wealthy uncle had denied his brother and himself the benefits of an upper-class education, and allowed them to do as well as they could in a secondary school.

  Ernest, a slimmer and slightly taller edition of George, differed from his brother principally in possessing his mother’s nose developed to an unusual degree of fleshiness, and an underhung chin. His perpetually open mouth would have given him a stupid expression but for the quick dark sparrow-like eyes common to the two, inherited from their Bennett father.

  He ignored his uncle altogether and, having kissed his mother with equal haste and embarrassment, shook hands with Patricia, then turned on the younger man. ‘So this is half-brother Michael—Just to think of you being grown up now!’

  ‘And a fine young fellow, too,’ added the rubicund George. ‘Put it there, my boy, I’m pleased to meet you—after all these years.’

  Michael gave them both a friendly smile. When his mother had abandoned the middle-class Mr. Bennett for a higher social sphere, she had severed all connection with her family and, although Michael had suggested once or twice in recent years that he would like to meet his two half-brothers, she had been quite adamant about it. Perhaps it was partly a feeling of guilt at having deserted her two elder sons, but even more she had felt it her duty to protect her cherished Michael from any association with his socially dubious relatives.

  ‘Well! well! here we are,’ exclaimed George cheerfully, ‘all come along to collect our share of Uncle John’s spondulicks, eh?’

  ‘I trust you’re right,’ agreed Henry sourly, ‘and that he’s done better by his family now that he is dead than he did when he was alive.’

  ‘Oh, come,’ George protested, ‘his family didn’t do much for him that I’ve ever heard of.’

  ‘Speak of what you know,’ the elder man’s voice was sharp. ‘Your Uncle John was a ne’er-do-well of the worst description. He was always in trouble and always writing home for assistance of some kind or other.’

  It was on the tip of Ernest’s tongue to say: ‘Well, he didn’t get much for you, I bet,’ but he confined himself to a wink at his elder brother and said instead: ‘He’s been no trouble this last ten years any old how.’

  ‘I wonder what he was worth,’ Michael observed. ‘I met a man two years ago who had known him in Hong Kong and said that he lived like a Merchant Prince. Kept open house for everybody—drinks galore—and apparently a sort of harem for the amusement of his friends.’

  His uncle nodded. ‘I can well believe it. That is just the evil course of life which John would have adopted directly he made money. We can only hope that he has not squandered it all, but set aside something for those to whom he caused so much trouble in his youth—but we are all here, so why does Bullett keep us waiting?’

  ‘There is Susan’s boy—Sandy,’ Gertrude remarked, ‘but it is hardly likely that he would come over from South Africa. Bullett will send him a copy of the Will.’

  ‘Have any of you ever seen him?’ George Bennett inquired.

  They all shook their heads except Gertrude, who went on reminiscently: ‘He must be about thirty-five now, I suppose, and I remember hearing somewhere that his father died shortly after Susan. Of course, she did quite well for herself because McDiamid owned a nice property at the Cape, so I suppose Sandy is still running the vineyards and the fruit…’

  Before she could finish her sentence, the door opened and a tall, athletic-looking man was shown in. He, too, had the dark colouring of the Long family but his hair, parted at the side, lacked the usual curl and a long lock which swept across his forehead fell forward as he removed his hat.

  He pushed it backwards with a quick movement of his hand, smiling a little uncertainly at this group of unknown relatives and striving to place them from the little his mother had told him of her dreary life in England with her brother Henry before she met and married the young South African wine-grower.

  As a child he had often listened to his fiery father’s diatribes against the mean and sanctimonious uncle who had made his mother’s young life a burden and, in the chill, impassive man seated upright on a hard chair near the window, he had no difficulty in recognising his uncle.

  Ernest Bennett broke the strained silence. ‘Come in, my boy,’ he cried, his prominent Adam’s apple working overtime. ‘This isn’t exactly home, sweet home, but at least they’ve put “Welcome” on the mat.’

  Sandy could not help laughing as he introduced himself to the rest of the party but before he could find a suitable reply the clerk reappeared with his smug little smirk and said:

  ‘If you will please come this way, Mr. Bullett will see you now.’

  2

  The Will

  Surrounded by the dusty litter of bygone legislation, Mr. Bullett, lean, parched and prim, regarded the group severely over his nickel-rimmed spectacles. Extra horse-hair covered chairs, the springs of which may possibly have been good when Queen Victoria gave birth to her first child, were imported from the outer office.

  Sandy McDiamid looked round him with distaste. It was his first visit to England, for his fruit farm and vineyards tied him in most seasons. Moreover, a succession of bad years after his father’s death had prevented the accumulation of sufficient funds to do the trip in real comfort, free of all anxiety as to expense.

  Recalling the bright modern office of his own solicitor in Cape Town, it seemed strange to him that this London lawyer, presumably a member of a firm of good repute, should conduct his business in such gloomy surroundings.

  The grey January light from an unbroken sky of lead filtered in through the grime on the rain-streaked window. A travesty of a fire consisting of three small lumps of coal, burned dully in a tiny old-fashioned, black-leaded grate. A few faded photographs, one of a severe-looking man with side whiskers, and others of cricket teams long since dispersed, hung on the dull, time-streaked walls. Bundles of dusty papers lay carelessly piled on every ledge and on top of four stacks of lustreless tin deed boxes.

  Sandy was the only member of the party who felt no anxiety regarding the contents of the Will. With an independence of spirit, common among those whose parents have broken away from family ties to make their home overseas, he saw no reason why this uncle, whom he had hardly ever heard of, should leave him anything. If he were down for a hundred guineas—and he certainly d
id not expect more—it would be a useful contribution towards the cost of his holiday, but the lawyer would send him what was his due in any case. He had answered the summons in person only because, happening to be in England, he thought it would be amusing to have a look at any other members of the family who turned up, although he would never have bothered to hunt them out in ordinary circumstances.

  When they had all shaken hands with Mr. Bullett and seated themselves round his desk, the lawyer observed blandly: ‘You are, of course, aware of the business which has necessitated my asking you to call here to-day.’ He gave a little dry cough and sat back in his chair, tapping his fingers softly together as he added: ‘I have to read to you the Will of my late client, John Thomas Long.’

  There was a little shuffling of feet as he selected a paper from one of the many be-ribboned bundles in front of him, opened it out carefully, and proceeded to read:

  ‘ “This is the last Will and Testament of me, John Thomas Long, gentleman, of Moon Gates, The Peak, Hong Kong, China, being of sound health and in my right mind.

  ‘ “I appoint William Yates Bullett of Messrs. Bullett, Bullett, Leggett and Bullett, solicitors, of No. 97, Gray’s Inn, London, W.C.I., to be my sole executor, and ask him to accept the sum of one thousand guineas; in addition to any legal expenses to which his firm may be entitled, as a mark of appreciation of his trustworthy management of my affairs and the considerable trouble which I caused him when I was a younger man.”’

  Gertrude Kane-Swift nodded silently. Certainly John had caused the family lawyer trouble enough with the continual scrapes into which he used to get. A thousand guineas was a lot of money but surely it argued that, if he could afford so much to his lawyer, there was plenty more to come.

  ‘ “I direct that the aforesaid William Yates Bullet,” ’ went on the gentleman concerned, ‘ “should realise the whole of my Stocks, Shares, Property and Investments, with the exception of my house in Hong Kong, for cash, and that the following legacies shall be paid, from the sum realised, to the persons named below.