'Look,' said Romilly, 'you've got me in a cleft stick. I'll admit that, but, simply because of that, you'll have to believe what I say. I have no idea whether Willoughby was invited or not. I certainly thought he was, and his brother, too, but (as you've just pointed out) I wasn't related to the brothers, so I had to ask Trilby for their addresses because she knew them and I didn't. She wouldn't have them at the housewarming, but on this second occasion I insisted, and I thought-'
'Let's have that statement,' said Kirkby. He went to the door and summoned the sergeant.
'On second thoughts,' said Romilly, 'if the sergeant writes shorthand I may as well dictate it. It will save a lot of my time.'
'Far better, from my point of view,' said Kirkby. 'I can chip in if I want anything enlarged upon or explained. I note you haven't asked for your lawyer to be present.'
'No need. Now you know I'm not Romilly Lestrange I've nothing to hide. Here goes, then.'
'One moment,' said Dame Beatrice. 'As you have nothing to hide, we should like to know your name.'
'Groot de Maas. I'm Cape Dutch. That's one reason why I was able to stay in Africa until 1966. I joined forces with Romilly Lestrange as soon as he first came out to Kenya. He'd bought a half-share in my estate, so we were partners. Later on came the war. It was an odd sort of time, although, of course, the colony had always netted a mixed lot of fish. You'd find English, Poles, Scandinavians and South Africans, especially in Nairobi. The South Africans were mostly farmers. Lestrange and I were partners in a coffee plantation, but we went into town for stores or when we wanted some fun.
'The colony wasn't actively involved in the war. Some of the younger Englishmen volunteered, but, by and large, things didn't alter much until the war was over. When the end came, we seemed to become a dump for high-ranking officers who saw no future for themselves in Britain, I suppose, but had the chance of a good life with us. They weren't the only immigrants. So long as they had the necessary capital to be allowed in, we got other ex-servicemen who became traders, technicians and farm managers-neither fish, flesh nor good red-herring, you might say-and the old snobberies which had always obtained, and which had developed into a sort of feudal relationship between ourselves and our native servants and workers, were gradually overwhelmed. Now, to my mind, snobbery isn't always such a bad thing. It acted in Kenya much as I imagine it does among the so-called County families in England. That's to say, it involves people in a certain code of behaviour and lays certain responsibilities on them.
'Well, those soon went by the board. These newcomers had no feeling for the country as such; they had simply come out to grab what they could. They didn't dispossess us old hands, of course, but they embittered the relations between the whites and the blacks. Most of our work-people-Lestrange's and mine-were Masai, a peaceable, pastoral people, no trouble at all, but the dominant tribe were the Kikuyu, a very different sort of animal, and a lot of the newcomers, not being the best type of white man, put their backs up more than a little, and made them fighting fit.
'The tensions weren't improved by the Indians. There were a good many of these. Some were pedlars who used to go up-country and trade with the natives, but others were moneylenders, very extortionate and bitterly hated and resented. But you probably know all this.
'Well, so far as the blacks were concerned, things went from bad to worse. They were exploited and underpaid in the towns, and they got a pretty dirty deal over land-holding. I'm not saying they were good farmers-they were not. All the same, scientific methods were improving their stock, and health measures were increasing the population, and what they wanted was more land. It hadn't been so bad for the tribes in the old days, because they were partly nomadic and could follow the pasture around. But with these new whites also needing land, the tribes became legally bound to tribal territory, and as much as a quarter of the arable land, as distinct from pasture, was in the hands of Europeans.
'Well, that was the set-up when the Kikuyu got really restive, and the result, as everybody knows, was the emergence of Mau Mau. That came about in 1950, and we were in a right mess, I can tell you. Oaths were taken, all kinds of violence broke out and neither life nor property was safe. Every sort of bestiality was practised, cattle were stolen or killed, and not only Europeans, but fellow-Africans who didn't belong to Mau Mau, were butchered.
'Our own boys, being Masai, were not involved, but that didn't keep us out of trouble. Three times the plantation was overrun, and the third time Lestrange was killed and I was very lucky to escape before the evil business began to die down. Well, after a time, the thing was brought more or less under control. However, to us who knew the country, it was easy enough to see what was going to happen. African nationalism was up on its hind-legs, and by 1960 the political initiative was with the Africans. You'll have read or heard about all this, so I needn't elaborate. It's ancient history now.
'The next thing we feared was a new Mau Mau rising. Some of us sold up and went to Southern Rhodesia or South Africa. As I told you (I think), I was one of them. I settled in Natal. I came to England in 1966 when I heard that Felix Napoleon Lestrange, Romilly's father, had died, and the rest you know.'
'Now let's have the details,' said Kirkby. 'No doubt you have given us a very interesting potted version of the history of Kenya from 1938 to 1960 or so, but we are far more interested in the history of your dealings with Romilly Lestrange and his family during that time.'
'I'm coming to all that, but you had to get the set-up clearly in your mind. I wouldn't want you to think that I was responsible for Lestrange's death. I liked him. We got on well together.'
'Be that as it may-and it's not my purpose to enquire into it at present-what gave you the idea of impersonating him after he was dead?' asked Kirkby. 'We can see you did it to benefit yourself, but how did it begin? Let's have the whole story, shall we?'
'Oh, yes, if you wish it. You seem to know how bad Romilly's sight was. Well, on one occasion, he broke one pair of glasses and had mislaid the other pair, so he asked me to read his mail for him. It was rare enough for either of us to get letters. We didn't talk about the past, either. I knew he had a brother, and the letters I read on that first occasion came from the lawyers and from Lestrange's grandfather. Both were to tell him that his brother had died.'
'Did he seem distressed?' asked Dame Beatrice.
'No. He said, "Poor old Caesar," but that was about all. Oh, he added that he supposed he was now the only one left. He told me he was illegitimate, but had always got on well with his father. The legitimate son had been killed in the war, and old Felix Napoleon had gone on to say that he was acting as guardian to this son's daughter, a charge that would devolve on Romilly later.'
'And the lawyer's letter was to confirm this, I suppose,' said Kirkby. 'All clear so far. Then what happened?'
'Nothing, until Romilly got killed. We'd been overrun, as I said, but Lestrange and I had never had anything to do with politics, and Mau Mau was basically a political movement, although its bestialities had nothing to do with the government or the majority of Africans. Lestrange had been in Nairobi for two or three days. He and his party were ambushed and slaughtered on their way home. It wasn't Lestrange himself they were after. He simply happened to be there. Almost immediately after this particular "incident"-to use the cant phrase-troops were drafted in, and Mau Mau went under cover.
'Well, when I knew what had happened, I went through Lestrange's papers and began to pack up his personal belongings with a view to sending them to his relatives. Among the letters I found an old one from his brother Caesar in which he said that "the old man" was not going to forget the two of them in his Will, and, now that Harvard was dead, he thought it might be something substantial.