“I wonder,” he added after a pause, “if this valley could be where the gold comes from?”
“No,” Greystoke, said. “That is a long way off. This valley is mostly lake, rich only with fish life. Once it was a wealthy, even grand, land with a civilisation to rival Egypt’s. But it was flooded when a natural dam caved in after an earthquake, and all its works and most of its people were drowned. When the water is clear you can see at noon the roof-tops and toppled pillars here and there. Today, the degenerate descendants of the survivors huddle in this miserable village and talk of the great days, of the glory of Zu-Vendis.”
“Zu-Vendis!” I exclaimed. “But...”
The duke made an impatient sound and said, “Carry on, Holmes.”
“First, allow me to ask you a question. Did that Yank somehow hear an account of your life that was not available to the public? A distorted account, perhaps, but still largely valid?”
Greystoke nodded and said, “A friend of mine with a drinking problem, while on a binge, told a fellow some things which seem to have been relayed to the Yank. The Yank included parts of this account in his novel.”
“I surmised such. He thought he had the true story of your life, but he didn’t dare present it as anything but fiction. For one thing, he could be sued. For another, your passion for vengeance is rather well known.
“In any event, his story of how you came into your title, though fictional, still contains the clue needed to determine, the true story.
“Here, as I reconstruct it, is what happened. You knew that you were the true heir. You wanted the title and the girl and everything, though I suspect that without the girl you would not have cared for the other.”
Greystoke nodded.
“Very well. Your cousin’s yacht had been temporarily put out of commission, not wrecked and sunk, as was depicted in the novel. You had met the party from the yacht; they were stranded on the shore near your natal cabin. All that nonsense in the second novel about your girl being abducted by little hairy men from the hidden city of treasure deep in the heart of Africa was just that, nonsense.”
“If it had been true,” Greystoke said, “the abductors would have been forced to travel a thousand miles through the worst part of Africa, abduct my wife, and travel back to their ruins. And then, when I rescued her, she and I would have had to travel another thousand miles back to the yacht. Under the circumstances, this would have taken several years, and the time for that allowed in the novel just did not suffice. Besides, it was all imagination. Except for the city itself and the degenerates who inhabit it.”
“That high priestess who fell in love with you...?” I said.
“Carry on, Holmes,” he said.
“After your cousin died, your girl and your friends told you what a lack of privacy you and your family would have from then on. So you all decided to carry out a fraud. Yet, it was not really a fraud, since you. were the legitimate heir. You looked much like your cousin, and so you decided to pass yourself off as him. When the yacht returned to England, for all anyone knew, it had made a routine voyage from England and around Africa and back again. Your friends coached you in all you needed to know about the friends and acquaintances you would meet. The servants at your ancestral estate may have detected something a little strange about you, but you probably had an excuse trumped up. A temporary fit of amnesia, perhaps.”
“Correct,” Greystoke said. “I used that excuse often. I was always running into somebody about whom I’d not been instructed. And occasionally I’d do something very un-British.”14
“Lord, the mystery of the century!” cried Holmes. “And I can’t say a word about it!”
“How do I know I can trust you?” Greystoke said.
At these words my mounting anxiety reached its peak. I had wondered why Greystoke was so frank, and then the sickening certainty came that he did not care what we had learned because dead men cannot talk. The only hope I had was that Greystoke had not murdered his cousin after all. Perhaps he was a decent fellow under all that savagery. This hope collapsed when I considered the possibility that he might not have been altogether frank. What if he had murdered his cousin?
Though I felt that it was dangerous to pursue this subject, I could not restrain my curiosity. “Your Grace,” I said, “I hope that you won’t think I’m too inquisitive. But... just what did happen to your cousin? Did he die as described in the second novel, die of a jungle fever after making a deathbed confession that he had cheated you out of your birthright and your lover? Or...?”
“Or did I slit his throat?” Greystoke said. “No, Dr. Watson, I did not kill him, though I must admit that the thought of doing so did cross my mind. And I was glad that he died, but, unlike so many of you civilised creatures, I felt no guilt about being glad. Nor would I feel any regret, shame, or guilt in putting anyone out of the way who was a grave threat to me or mine. Does that answer your question?”
“More than sufficiently, Your Grace,” I said, gulping. He may have been lying, but my hopes rose again when I reflected that he did not have to lie if he intended to kill us.
“You have implied that you have read Watson’s narratives,” Holmes said. “Admittedly, they are somewhat exaggerated and romanticised. But his portrayal of our moral character is quite accurate. Our word is our bond.”
Greystoke said, “Hmmm!” and he frowned. He fondled the hilt of the huge knife in his scabbard, and I felt as cold as the moon looked. As dead, too.
Holmes seemed to be more meditative than frightened. He said, slowly, “We are professional men, Your Grace. If we were to take you as our client, we could not disclose a word of the case. Not even the police could force it from us.”
“Ah!” Greystoke said, smiling grimly. “I am always forgetting the immense value civilised people put upon money. Of course! I pay you a fee and your lips are shut forever.”
“Or until such time as Your Grace releases us from the sacred bonds of confidentiality.”
“What would you consider a reasonable fee?”
“The highest I ever earned was in the case of the Priory School,” said Holmes. “It was your uncle who paid it. Twelve thousand pounds.”
He repeated, savouring the words, “Twelve thousand pounds.”
Quickly, he added, “Of course, that sum was my fee. Watson, as my partner, received the same amount.”
“Really, Holmes,” I murmured.
“Twenty-four thousand pounds,” the duke said, still frowning.
“That was in 1901,” Holmes said. “Inflation has sent prices sky-high since then, and the income tax rate is ascending as if it were a rocket.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Holmes!” I cried. “I do not see the necessity for this fishmarket bargaining! Surely...”
Holmes coldly interrupted. “You will please leave the financial arrangements to me, the senior partner and the true professional in this matter.”
“You’ll antagonise His Grace, and...”
“Would sixty thousand pounds be adequate?” Greystoke said.
“Well,” Holmes said, hesitating, “God knows how wartime conditions will continue to cheapen the price of money in the next few years.”
Suddenly, the knife was in the duke’s hands. He made no threatening moves with it. He merely looked at it as if he were considering cleaning it.
“Your Grace is most generous,” Holmes said quickly. Greystoke put the knife back into the scabbard.
“I don’t happen to have a cheque on me,” he said. “You will trust me until we get to Nairobi?”
“Certainly, Your Grace,” Holmes murmured. “Your family was always the most open-handed in my experience. Now, the king of Holland...”
“What is this you said about Zu-Vendis?” I broke in, knowing that Holmes would take a long time to describe a case some of whose aspects still rankled him.