Angel's Ransom (28 page)

The door to the Bureau opened while Cesar was conceding that the
Angel
’s
launch would probably float and steer regardless of weather. The hiss of wind-driven rain and
the roar of waves riding hard on the sea wall interrupted the
council as a man in dripping foul-weather clothing put his
head through the doorway to announce, ‘The water level in
the
harbor
is up almost a
meter
. We’ve got the radar
ranging at fifteen kilo
meter
s.’

His name was Corsi. He was one of the two plain-clothes men George had seen bending over the diagram on Neyrolle
’s
desk earlier that day. Neyrolle said, ‘What
’s
the
length of the shadow from the sea wall?’

‘About as far as you can see in this soup. If a boat comes inside the shadow, we ought to be able to spot it with
binoculars
- if it carries running lights, that is. Dark, it would be
hard to say.’

‘Keep the look-outs on their toes. And let me know if the water-level changes, either way.’

Corsi touched a finger to his sou’wester, then stepped backward into the storm and pulled the door closed against
the push of the wind.

George said, ‘What
’s
that all about? How are you using radar?’

‘One or two of the larger yachts in port have it,’ Neyrolle explained. ‘A difficulty was the height of the sea wall. It
throws a shadow seaward for some distance, more or less depending on the elevation of the apparatus on the ship
’s
mast. I am not wholly familiar with the principles, but it
seems that without the help of the storm swell to lift the
antennae above the interference of the jetties, we might not
have been aware of the presence of a small boat within a
certain minimum distance unless we sent one of the radar-equipped yachts to stand outside the
harbor
. In a storm
like this, that would have been plain warning of a trap.’

‘You managed to be pretty secretive about it,’ George said suspiciously. ‘I thought we agreed to keep each other
informed all the way.’

‘You are now informed.’ Neyrolle
’s
answer was without inflection.

He lit a
Gauloise
and motioned to Cesar to resume his explanation, studying the curl of smoke that rose from his
cigarette. The steward had already bee
n
pumped dry of
information, but questioning him helped pass the dragging
minutes. It also took Neyrolle
’s
mind, at intervals, off the
nagging question for which he could find no answer: Why
was George Saunders so in
sistent on risking his life, un
necessarily, to be one of the first aboard the
Angel
if Marian
Ellis was no more to him than the casual acquaintance he
had lied to make her seem? And why had he lied?

Neyrolle frowned thoughtfully at the curl of smoke.

Jules grew increasingly restless as the hours passed. Holtz, after giving his orders, had returned to his vigil with the
radio in the salon, but the sailor was in and out of the pilot-house every few minutes until midnight. From then on he
stayed, taking fixes with the direction-finder at shorter and
shorter intervals to order small corrections of course, then
coming to stand at Blake
’s
elbow and stare intently into
the rainy dark.

It was on one such occasion that a steamer broke out of the murk on their port bow to bring the
Angel
’s
captives
within a hair
’s
breadth of destruction and, in the same
moment, escape. Because of Holtz
’s
command the cruiser
was going too fast for the visibility, even at reduced speed,
and the steamer
’s
course was dead across their own. Blake
’s
reflexes acted automatically to reverse the motors, but he
had an instant in which to think before he put the wheel
over. Instinct and trainin
g told him to
steer to port, op
posing the cruiser
’s
forward way to the way of the larger
ship. His mind saw the opportunity of the other course be-fore the training took over. Without hesitation he put the
Angel
hard over to starboard, feeling her check and squat
under the powerful thrust of the reversed motors, but not
soon enough or strongly enough to prevent the crash he was
taking her into, bow on at first, then broadside as she came
about, finally quartering to the larger vessel as he continued
to hold the rudder over, the motors now pulling her into
collision rather than away from it and only split seconds
remaining before they would strike, with the long row of
lighted portholes looming over them ever closer and more
promising of rescue, above those the green glow of the
steamer
’s
starboard running light, from somewhere beyond
that the startled shout of an invisible look-out and the sharp
clang of a warning bell. They were only inches from the impact when Jules, in the last possible moment before it
could not have happened, reached around Blake
’s
body for
the throttles and stopped the
Angel
dead in the water with a
burst of forward power on the twin screws that left her without stern way or forward way, her wheel slack and
unresponsive
in Blake
’s
hands. The iron bulge of the steamer
’s
hull nudged the yacht gently as it slid on by, and then they
were rocking and bouncing in her wake. The murk closed
in to hide the steamer once again.

Blake could smell Jules
’s
sweat, or his own. The sailor growled, ‘I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one,
Captain. Let
’s
call it bad seamanship. You were lucky you
had me standing by.’

‘I was lucky,’ Blake said. ‘It was bad seamanship.’

‘I’ll take the wheel, just in case it happens again. If Holtz comes up to ask questions, keep your mouth shut. Let me do
the talking.’

Holtz did not come to investigate in the minutes that passed before the chronometer over the chart table said one
o’clock. On the hour, Jules shrugged out of his slicker and
sou’wester and handed them over to Blake.

‘Do your piece now, Captain,’ he said earnestly. ‘Do it right, and you’ll see the last o
f us in a few hours. Make a mist
ake, you’re dead. Keep the hat pulled down over your
eyes.’ Without mockery, he added, ‘Good luck,’ as Blake
left the pilot-house.

That
’s
what we need now, Blake thought. Lots of it.

Going down the ladder to the main deck he caught a whiff of tobacco-smoke, then the gleam of a cigarette coal
reflected on wet oilskin in the shelter made by the bridge
wing. He said, ‘Who is it?’

‘Us,’ Freddy
’s
voice answered. It was more tremulous than usual. ‘Thought we were going to have to swim for it
back there. How much longer to go, Sam?’

‘We’re about an hour from port. A wreck could have got us into the water and picked up while we still had the chance.
I’ve got orders to lock you in your cabins.’

Valentina
’s
cool voice said, ‘Then we have given up?’

‘At this point, we don’t have any choice of action. It
’s
either go to your cabins or get shot. Where is Holtz?’

‘In the salon.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I can’t swear to it. Is it important?’

‘It might be.’

Blake went aft, his head bent into the blast of wind and rain.

Holtz sat by the radio. The gun that rested in his lap rose to point its warning when Blake opened the door.
Without entering the salon, he said, ‘Who comes first?’

‘
S
uit yourself.’ Holtz was bent in concentration over the radio. A tinny voice speaking rapid French was just audible
over the sounds of the storm. ‘A word of warning, Captain.
I would have shot you first had we rammed that steamer,
and not asked whether it was by accident or design. Close
the door.’

Blake closed the door and went back to the foredeck.

‘I couldn’t take the chance of being overheard,’ he said. ‘Freddy, is there any possibility that your signature trick
might not have worked? Could the
check
have been paid
after all?’

‘I don’t see how. The gimmick was the position of the dot. Putting it ahead of the “
i
” would have made the
check
good; putting it behind gave the tip-off. There
’s
no way of
misreading it.’

‘Could you have been confused yourself - moved it the wrong way?’ Blake stood where he could watch the rain-whipped deck. ‘You were pretty fuzzy.’

‘Not that fuzzy. What are you driving at?’

‘I’ve had two chances to listen to Grasse, and Holtz has had the radio going off and on for two days, without either
of us hearing even a hint that a search is on for the
Angel
.
You’re too much in the headlines not to have made a news
broadcast if a search has been begun. That you’re not has to
mean one of three things. Roche never presented the
check
,
or it was paid without question, or he
’s
been gathered in and
the arrest kept quiet.’

‘The second one is out,’ Freddy said reluctantly. ‘I’d like to believe it might be possible, but it
’s
just out. It couldn’t have happened.’

Valentina said, ‘For the first, Roche
’s
fear of his master might not be enough to keep his courage from failing at
the last minute, but it would certainly keep him from
returning to Monaco without having made the attempt.
If he has not presented the
check
, he will not keep the
rendezvous.’

‘No more than he will if he did present the
check
, according to Freddy,’ Blake said.
‘s
o Holtz isn’t going to
get his signal either way. But in one case we can hope that
the police are in charge and realize the spot we’re in
, which
is good. In the other –
’

He hesitated, searching for words to cushion the brutality of the alternative.

Freddy said, ‘In the other, Holtz either starts over again from scratch, which will be bad for me, or he writes the
whole thing off as a failure, which will be bad for all of us.
Isn’t that about it?’

‘There
’s
still the possibil
ity that he may get careless be
fore the showdown. I haven’t given up hoping for a chance to try for the gun.’

‘As Bruno did,’ Valentina said. ‘But we all do what we have to do, in the end, and no one is to blame. Shall we go
to our cabins now?’

‘I have to take you one at a time. Holtz
’s
orders.’

There was a brief, constrained pause before Freddy spoke up, in what failed miserably to be the casual tone he hoped
for. ‘Women and children first doesn’t seem to apply on
this cruise. Lead the way, Sam. ’Bye doll. Where
’s
your
face?’

Oilskins rustled in the shadow.

Blake moved away, turning his back to give them a moment of privacy. The embrace was a brief one, but it
seemed to buoy Freddy
’s
spirit. He led the way aft himself,
and did not hesitate at the door of the salon.

Holtz was beginning to show impatience. He said, ‘I meant that you might suit yourself in the order of their
bringing, Captain, not in the time you might take to do it.
If you expect to win something by delaying me, it will not be what you hope for. Leave the key in the lock when you have
used it.’

He tossed a single key that he took from the top of the radio. The muzzle of the Walther followed Blake
’s
movement as he took a step forward to retrieve the key from
where it fell short, and continued to track the two men warily
until they had disappeared down the companion-way. Holtz
did not leave the security of his isolated position by the
radio.