Free Dangerous Inheritance by Dennis Wheatley

no possible excuse for trying to prevent her. But hadn’t he? Douglas was free and twenty-one, but he was not white. This could not be allowed to happen. However strong her infatuation for him, she must be protected against herself. If it did happen, Truss felt convinced that she would bitterly regret it afterwards. Sooner or later it seemed certain that she would marry, and Truss had been brought up in the belief that before marrying all decent couples told one another the truth about themselves. To admit to having premarital affaires was all right. Everyone had them these days. But how could she confess to a fiancé that she had allowed a coloured man to have her? And if she didn’t she would always have it on her conscience, with the fear that, somehow or other, her husband would find out.
    Suddenly throwing back the bedclothes Truss jumped out of bed and pulled on his dressing gown. He had convinced himself that it was no less than his duty to intervene before it was too late.
    Shuffling into his soft shoes he pulled open the door and began to stride along the corridor. It then crossed his mind that Douglas might not be with Fleur, but had gone to the dining room to get himself a last drink. Changing his pace to an almost noiseless tiptoe he went ahead, but Douglas was not in the dining room. His worst forebodings renewed, the powerful young American, now seized with a fierce desire to get his big hands on the Sinhalese, proceeded quietly down the further corridor.
    When he reached the door of Fleur’s room he paused to listen. No sound of subdued laughter or muffled exclamations of endearment, such as he had expected to hear, came to him. Controlling his heavy breathing, he knelt down and put his ear to the keyhole. Still silence. In so short a time it seemed hardly possible that Fleur had undressed, made her toilette for the night and was already in bed dropping off to sleep; yet no streak of light came from beneath the door.
    Perhaps, then, she was not there. During his visits to her they had always felt a slight uneasiness that in the night her mother might be taken ill or, for some other unforeseen reason, come along to her and catch them
in flagrante delicto
. It would have been bad enough had she been caught with him, but to have been found with Rajapakse in her bed would have meant utter disgrace and perhaps even a refusal to supply her with funds to go overseas and take up the welfare work on which she had set her heart. It seemed possible that rather than take the slightest risk of that she had told Douglas that they must make do with one of the big swing hammocks out on the terrace.
    Grasping the knob of the door firmly, Truss turned it and pressed gently. The door opened a crack and made no sound. Opening it further, he peered in. Enough moonlight came through between the curtains for him to see that Fleur’s bed had not been disturbed and that the room was empty.
    Closing the door he padded softly back to the main hall ofthe villa and out on to the terrace. Bright moonlight made it as light as day, except where deep shadows were thrown by awnings and chairs. He listened intently but not a sound came to indicate that anyone was occupying one of the hammocks. Wondering where the devil they could have got to he advanced to the hammocks to make quite certain they were not lying silently embraced in one of them. Only then did he catch the subdued murmur of voices.
    They came from below the end of the terrace. Stepping softly across to the balustrade, Truss peered over. They were sitting on a stone seat about twelve feet below him, a foot or more of space between them and not even holding hands.
    Fleur’s voice came up to him. ‘As you already have Family Planning I could apply to go out there. It’s the part of Welfare that I’m keenest on, and I’d thought of India when I start in the autumn on the Field Service I must do before I can take my Ph.D. But Ceylon sounds much more