Angel's Ransom (31 page)

It was twenty-four hours since he had slept, and then only briefly. The tensions of the night had kept him keyed up
until Holtz reluctantly abandoned the attempt to raise
Roche
’s
signal through the storm, but the let-down had been
bad afterwards. Accumulated fatigue was dulling his reflexes.
He had begun to fear that when his chance at Holtz did
come he might be too slow for success. He did not hope to be
allowed to refresh himself with rest before the time came.

Holtz and Jules had been at sword
’s
point ever since the
Angel
’s
first approach to the shore during the night. Holtz
had seen only excessive timidity in Jules
’s
reluctance to risk
engine failure in dangerous water, Jules had been sullenly
resentful of what he considered a landsman
’s
refusal to listen
to a seaman
’s
cautionings
. He had continued to argue that
their only safe course was to stand out to sea until the storm
died. The arguments were all on his side, the authority on
Holtz
’s
, and the clash of wills had continued even after the
approach of daylight forced Holtz to give in.

Defeat, even temporary, made the gang leader ugly. There was no reason why the prisoners could not have been released from their cabins while the cruiser was out of sight of
land, but he chose to leave them locked in. He was reluctant
even to give Blake a relief from the long wheel watch, as
Blake learned when Jules started up the pilot-house ladder
at seven in the morning. Holtz called him back. Through the
open windscreen Blake caught enough of their conversation
on the foredeck to know that only the sailor
’s
dogged insistence on his own unfamiliarity with the demands of the
cruiser
’s
machinery won Blake a brief respite. Jules
’s
face
was dark with resentment when he came to take the wheel.

‘
Merde
alors
, how ugly can
a man be?’ he growled. ‘Be
cause the wind is against him, everybody is his enemy. Go fill your grease cups, Captain, and stay clear of the little
snake. He is in a mind to kill this morning. Fifteen minutes.’

Blake ignored the warning. Mechanically performing his duties in the engine-room,
he racked his dull brain for ex
cuses that would allow him to approach Holtz during the
quarter-hour of freedom. His mind was fixed on the bargain
he had made with himself; one bullet in exchange for the
Walther. But the price would not be insured unless he could
come unchallenged within a reasonable distance of Holtz,
and it seemed almost like a promise of success when Holtz
came to the top of the engine-room ladder to call to him.

‘Come up,’ the gang leader said bleakly. ‘I want you in the salon.’

The promise of success was not fulfilled. On deck, Holtz stayed well behind him, pistol ready, and shepherded him
into the salon without once standing within the distance that
could be covered in a
single jump. The radio was going, and
the panel of the bar stood open. An empty cognac bottle
rolled back and forth on the deck carpeting with the rock of
the cruiser
’s
hull.

‘What does that mean?’ Holtz said.

He indicated the barograph with a movement of his head. The heavy descending line traced by the machine
’s
stylus
before and during the storm had
leveled
off and was turning
upward.

‘The storm is over,’ Blake said. He was thinking, It
’s
got to be done right. One bullet is all I can afford. It
’s
got to be done just
right.

‘The radio said it is going to blow harder than ever this afternoon and tonight.’

‘Not with a rising barometer.’

‘Don’t toss words at me!’ Holtz seemed to shrink and gather in upon himself behind the
leveled
gun.
‘Why do your
instruments say one thing and the weather report another?’

The ominous coiling to strik
e warned Blake to think more
of
defense
than attack. Holtz was venomously suspicious. He was drunk again, as Blake realized for the first time. A good
ten feet separated them, the distance Bruno had failed to
close before he died with four bullets, instead of one, in his
body. Three of the brass cartridge cases had twinkled
together in mid-air.

‘The barograph must
have run down,’ Blake said care
fully. ‘There
’s
a barometer in the pilot-house.’

‘We’ll take a look at it.’ Ho
ltz jerked his head at the door
way. ‘Go ahead of me.’

He did not move until Blake himself moved.

The same watchfulness kept Blake from hoping for an opportunity on the way to the pilot-house. Holtz did not
speak again until he had studied the barometer over the
chart table. It registered the beginning of a new drop.

‘
S
o you’re a sailor!’ he snarled at the startled Jules. ‘You blockhead, you don’t know enough to wind a clockwork
before you forecast the weather by it! Tonight will be worse
than last night! We haven’t a chance of getting in!’

‘The storm is breaking,’ Jules protested. ‘Look, the wind is down, the rain has stopped
–
’

‘–
and the weather report says a new storm will blow up before nightfall!’ Holtz
’s
voice was thick with rage. ‘You
stupid slab of
Provençal
beef! You belong behind a plough,
with your feet in dung!’

Jules flushed an angry red. His hand went toward the bulge in his belt before he remembered what was there,
under the jersey. He turned the movement into an awkward
gesture of conciliation.

‘If it blows up, it will blow out again,’ he said
placatingly
. ‘We’ve got time.’

‘With that sparrow-gutted Roche sitting on thirty-five million francs?’ Holtz screamed. ‘How long do you expect
his nerve to last? Another night to tremble over what will
happen to him if I do not come to his rescue, and he will
bolt! Go back!’

‘You’re crazy!’

‘I said, Go back!’

In his incredulity Jules hal
f turned from the wheel, far
enough to see the Walther that now threatened him instead of Blake. It was a bitter pill for Blake that the sailor, in the
face of that threat, remained an enemy who would defeat
any attempt to take advantage of the shift of the pistol
’s
menace. And the opening, such as it was, did not last long.
Disobedience of a flat order given in Holtz
’s
raging mood
would have been suicidal. Jules put the wheel over, bringing
the
Angel
about in a wide sweep that sent her heading back
into the boil of her own wake.

‘It will do us no good to return now,’ he said sullenly. ‘Roche won’t be expecting us during the day. Unless he
happens to look toward the sea
–’

‘We will make him look toward the sea!’ Holtz
’s
fury had disappeared with the change of course. In its place was a
driving eagerness, a fierce concentration of will that won
even from Blake a reluctant appreciation of the little man
’s
audacity. ‘We will make all of Monaco look toward the sea!
The world knows that Farr has fled an attachment! What is
more in keeping with his character than that the
Angel
should return to lie tantalizingly beyond reach of process
servers while a boat goes ashore to meet the man who is to
help her owner break the bank at Monte Carlo? Freddy
Farr thumbs his nose at authority again!’

‘I don’t like it. Too many questions can be asked about a ship that leaves without it
s crew and doesn’t answer radio
phone calls.’

‘Questions!’ Holtz laughed, not the fox bark but an
exultant
crow of confidence. He was drunk on more than cognac. ‘No one questions the actions of six million dollars! And if
curiosity is expressed about the
Angel
–’
the Walther again
swung its threat toward Blake ‘
–
it will be turned aside
by the man who holds the lives of his passengers in even
greater value than his own.’ His grin was an animal
’s
baring
of teeth. ‘Will it not, Captain?’

George came instantly awake when the telephone rang at his bedside. He had not been asleep long enough to submerge
in the unconsciousness his mind and body craved after the
strain of the long night, and he was alert when he took up
the receiver. But he found it har
d to believe that he under
stood the sense of Neyrolle
’s
first words.

‘
S
he
’s
back. Standing off outside the
harbor
.’

‘
S
he can't have - what time is it?’

‘Ten o’clock in the morning. I’d hoped for something like this. How soon can you be at the port?’

‘Twenty minutes. Fifteen.’ George had already swung his feet out of bed and was feeling for his slippers. ‘Do we use the
pilot boat?’

‘Yes. You will have your wish to be among the first to board her. But do not waste any time.’

Neyrolle broke the
connection
before he added to himself, worriedly, ‘And I wish I knew why it is so important to you.
Peste
, I hate these unexplainable tag ends.’

Corsi, who was standing by, said, ‘He is a reporter. They are all the same. For a story, they will risk anything.’

‘Not when there is no need for risk,’ Neyrolle said. ‘But let
’s
go take a look at her while we wait for him.’

They did not have to wait long. A taxi p
ut George down on the Quai des
É
tats
Unis in less than a quarter of an hour
after the telephone call. He ran the length of the jetty, and
was directed up a flight of stairs to the top of the sea wall by
an
agent de police
. Neyrolle and Corsi were studying the
Angel
through binoculars.

The rain had stopped. Under still lowering clouds the yacht lay a thousand
meter
s off the bluff of Monte Carlo. She
was hove to, her bow to the now moderate breeze that blew
from the south, and while the
name on her counter was unread
able at that distance, her distinctive lines were unmistakable.
Corsi handed over his binoculars to let George see her better.

‘
S
omebody on the bridge wing has got a glass pointed this way,’ he warned. ‘Don’t show too much interest. Look
somewhere
else now and then.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Neyrolle said. ‘The pilotage would be looking her over if we weren’t. We’re in character.’

They both seemed unbelievably calm. George
’s
own pulses were going faster than his short run from the quay would
justify. He said, ‘How long has she been there?’

‘Half an hour.’

‘What do you suppose brought her back so soon?’

‘Audacity.’ Neyrolle kept his glasses
leveled
at the cruiser. ‘We will meet it with equal audacity.’ To Corsi he said, ‘The
French understand their parts?’

‘Their craft are to remain out of sight behind the capes until our own cutter leaves the port, then stand by to block
an escape if the need arises. Otherwise they will not participate. It is understood.’

‘Good. I have the same feeling for this Holtz as M. Saunders has for his story. I want him all to myself.’

George had been trying to make out the identity of a figure on the yacht
’s
bridge, but the distance was too great.
Where he looked for a face there was only the glint of
binocular
lenses directed at the shore. He thought there was a
similar glint at one of the pilot-house windows, but it could
have been a reflection from the pane. He swept the length of
the cruiser
’s
deck, saw nothing more, and returned the
binoculars to Corsi.