Dictator's Way (26 page)

He paused. Bobby said nothing. There was a horror in that quiet recital which possessed him utterly. There was sweat on his forehead and he wiped it away. Peter seemed quite unaffected. He might have been talking about a good hole at golf. Bobby found himself mumbling:

“Does Olive know?”

“I daresay she suspects,” Peter answered. “She doesn't know. No one does. Except you. I feel better now I've told someone. I suppose you always want to tell someone. I suppose that's why it's always so easy for police to get a confession. There's a kind of wish to tell. I had to do what I did and I would again. It was his life – or that of others and ruin for many more. Well, I've got that off my chest. Of course, I shall deny every word, and I've got my alibi. That's been seen to. Only I think somehow I wanted you to know.”

“Why?”

“I don't know,” Peter said. “I think we might have been friends – if things had happened differently. I had to tell someone anyhow, and I didn't want it to be Olive. I knew you suspected. I suppose you call it murder?”

“Yes,” Bobby answered.

“I thought you would, I thought you would feel like that. Just as well I've got my alibi fixed up.”

“I shouldn't trust too much to that,” Bobby said slowly. “A sham alibi is – well, it's sham, and shams don't hold. When they know it's you they go on digging up evidence, bit by bit, more and more, slowly very slowly, till in the end they've got enough. I know, for so often I have helped to do it.”

“I know,” said Peter again. “British. You just go on, don't you? I suppose that's why you always get there. All the same, I had to do it. I could do no other. Luther said that, didn't he? or was it someone else? Anyhow, I say it, too, hang or not.”

“You burnt the list of names?” Bobby asked. “That was the ashes in the dustbin?”

“Safer burnt,” Peter answered.

“I was thinking it would have been evidence,” Bobby explained. “Might have brought it down to manslaughter. I don't know. Now there's nothing to show. No proof. Did you take the hundred pounds that Macklin had?”

“Secret service money,” Peter said. “It was to pay the go-between, whoever he may have been. I think Judson myself, but I'm not sure. Perhaps it was a man named Yates.”

“Yates? Do you know that was the man who attacked Miss Farrar? At least, he may have been. She told you about that?”

“She said something about it. Looks as if the Etrurian Secret Service had got on to her, too. Luckily there was nothing in the cottage, nothing at all. We used to meet there sometimes and it was a kind of clearing post, registration office in a way. There were two men, weren't there?”

“Yes. I've been thinking since, it's come to me now. I half believe the man I saw bolting was Waveny. Do you know him?”

Peter nodded.

“Olive knows him,” he said. “She introduced me once. He and Macklin had a row. He thought Macklin was annoying her. Really Macklin was trying to pump her – they suspected her, they suspected everyone. Dictators always do.”

“What made you leave those one-pound notes outside the back door?” Bobby asked.

“Bit feeble, wasn't it?” admitted Peter. “I think the idea was to make it look like an ordinary robbery. I took his watch as well. I threw it in the lake, the revolver and the knife, too. I expect they are there still. I kept the rest of the money. I liked the idea of using our pet Redeemer's own coin against him.”

“It'll be traced to you,” Bobby said. “Then there'll be evidence.”

Peter shook his head.

“All precautions taken,” he said. “Another thing, now you know the truth, don't go after anyone else. I may be a bloody-minded murderer, as I expect you're thinking, but I don't happen to care about seeing anyone else let in for what I did. That's another reason why I wanted you to know the truth.”

But Bobby found himself wondering if it was the truth. In what he believed to be his country's cause, Peter said that he had killed. It followed then he would be willing to lie, too, if he thought the lie serviceable and if he wished for any reason to prevent the facts being known. Difficult, Bobby felt, to see a clear way through such tangled motives, where right, it seemed, became wrong, and men of good will and honesty of purpose could think secret killings and dark intrigues were justified. And Olive – where did Olive stand in this scheme of things so remote from all ordinary standards? He thrust away the awful thought that would keep trying to force a way into his mind, and yet he knew if it were so, it would make no difference. Whatever the truth might be, the truth remained a part of her. He said suddenly and loudly:

“Precautions my hat. They'll trace the money to you and then they'll have you.”

“Changed the same evening at a greyhound racing-track – and not by me,” Peter answered. “No questions asked at greyhound racing-tracks.”

Bobby made no comment. But he thought that Peter had really a very small idea of the persistence, the methods, the resources, of the C.I.D.

Peter guessed his thoughts and laughed.

“You're thinking you'll get me hanged all the same,” he said. “My dear fellow, not you. Though I'm not altogether sure you'll ever get a chance to try.”

Olive came again to the door of the cabin. She was wearing an apron now. She said:

“Supper's ready, but the men want you first. They want to know what to do. The other boat's getting up speed. It looks as if they are getting ready.”

“It's not dark yet, is it?” Peter asked. “I thought they would wait till then. All right. I'll have a look.” To Bobby he said: “Like to come along?” He led the way out of the cabin. Over his shoulder, he said: “I wish I knew if they had a searchlight.”

The question was soon answered. The darkness was rapidly increasing, for always heavier clouds were gathering in the west where the sun, though not yet set, was hidden beneath their lowering mass, so that already the gloom of night was heavy on that lonely sea.

“We had better show no lights,” Peter said, and almost at the same instant a beam shot from the other yacht and searched and found them, picking them out in its steady unwinking glare.

“To tell us we are for it,” said Peter.

The wind was increasing with every passing moment, blowing in sharp gusts that each time they came seemed to be more violent, to last longer, to lash the sea into a greater turmoil.

A spurt of water splashed over the deck. Two or three of the crew became busy, making all taut and ready for the coming gale. Peter said:

“Thank God for bad weather.”

The other yacht had drawn nearer. It was quite close now, running on a parallel course. A man on it was shouting something through a megaphone. It was impossible to catch more than a word or two of what he was saying and to Bobby even what little he did hear conveyed no meaning since it was Etrurian the other was speaking. To Peter, Bobby said:

“What is it? Can you hear?”

“I can guess,” Peter answered. “It's ‘Dilly, dilly, duck, come and be killed.'”

“They want you to surrender?”

“They want it very badly. They think that if we did they might be able to find out things – with the help of a rubber truncheon. Not for us, thank you. We won't sink the ship or split her in twain, for there's still a chance. But better fall into the hands of God than into the hands of – into their hands.”

The man with the megaphone had given up shouting now. Instead they were signalling with an electric light. Morse.

“Same thing,” said Peter. “Promises. Pardons. Rewards. Appeals. Invitations to the crew to hand me over. Invitations to me to hand the crew over. Invitations to us all to hand each other over. Why not help the Redeemer go on redeeming? I gather I myself would shortly be made Commander-in-Chief of the Etrurian Navy. Oh, well, it all takes time, thank God, and while there's time, there's hope.”

“Can you trust your men?” Bobby asked in a low voice.

“They can't trust the Redeemer, anyhow,” retorted Peter and then added: “That's a mean way to put it. Yes, I can trust them and they me, for there is not one of us counts his life the value of a match stalk against our cause.”

He lapsed into silence. The winking light ceased suddenly.

“Giving us half an hour to think it over,” said Peter. “Good. Half an hour saved is half an hour gained.”

Beneath the increasing force of wind and wave the tiny boat was tossing so violently that Bobby had to crouch down in what shelter he could obtain – and that was little – and, by Peter's advice, made himself fast with rope against the risk of being thrown overboard by some specially violent jerk or being swept away by one of the waves that now and again cascaded across the deck. Olive had been on deck for some time, moving to and fro by the help of the life-lines that had been rigged up. She had brought food with her and hot coffee in vacuum flasks, whisky as well, and had been busy distributing it, and urging them to eat, though indeed few of them had much appetite for food. The hot coffee was welcome, though, and so was the whisky. Her task done, Peter brought Olive back to where Bobby crouched, since that was the most sheltered spot there was, or rather the least exposed.

“May as well stay on deck,” he said, “better stop up here than risk being trapped down below.”

He made fast a rope to secure her by and then brought them two life-belts.

“Put 'em on if you like,” he shouted, for the roar of the wind and the splash of the waves was beginning to make hearing difficult, “but I can't say I advise 'em. Drowning's easier quick than slow.”

He went away again then and they were left alone, crouching side by side in the darkness and the storm. No lights were showing and all around reigned the black night, save for the beam of the searchlight that crossed it between the two boats, a gleaming bridge as it were. Now and again they could see members of the crew moving silently to and fro, crouching, bending low, swaying to the storm and guiding and supporting themselves by the lifelines. The air was full of spray, now and again a heavy splash, a rush of water along the deck showed that a wave had broken on board. Then the little yacht would reel and stagger beneath the blow and shake herself free and rise again, buoyant and light as before, to meet the menace of the next oncoming wave. The searchlight still followed them. Sometimes it lost them for a moment or two and then it swept to and fro, like a probing finger till again it picked them out, showing them clearly in a tiny pool of light against that enormous background of the tossing seas, the racing clouds above.

Olive had brought the rest of the sandwiches and coffee with her. She gave them to Bobby and offered him whisky from a flask, but that he refused. This was not the time, he felt, for soporifics – a drink of whisky and soda might be all very well as a night-cap, to help sleep to come, but not now. The coffee, however, had been a welcome stimulant, welcome and warming. Though where they crouched together was the most sheltered position on deck, they were both by now drenched to the skin, drenched indeed as thoroughly as though they had been bodily immersed. It was fortunate the season was summer and the wind comparatively warm. In winter they would probably both have frozen to death. Once, owing to some change in the relative position of the boats, the searchlight picked them out as the lime-light picks out the leading actor in a play. Then it moved further back and Olive said:

“Peter's taken the wheel.”

They could see him in the tiny wheel-house. But as they were watching he beckoned to a companion to take over the steering and came along the deck. As he passed them, bending to the wind, holding to a life-line, he shouted:

“Half-hour's up.”

One of the crew joined him. They talked to each other, shouting to make themselves heard, but speaking Etrurian so that Bobby could not understand. But Olive said:

“It's about trying to shoot. It's Louis Peter's talking to and Louis understands guns.”

“Is there a gun?” Bobby asked, and Peter heard and answered:

“No, only a rifle and only about a dozen rounds of ammunition. Louis wants to take a few pot shots and try to smash the searchlight. What a hope, when we're pitching and rolling the way we are.”

The searchlight switched off suddenly and the signalling began again.

“The final summons,” Peter said. “We'll answer this time. There's an old Etrurian song every child in the country knows – almost like your British ‘Rule Britannia'. The first line is ‘Etrurians were not born to be serfs'. We'll signal that back. It always,” explained Peter, “makes the Redeemer and his pals so beastly cross. They can't very well forbid it because it celebrates the great national uprising nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, but they do hate it so.”

He went back to the wheel. Bobby put out his hand and took Olive's. It was very cold. She let it lie in his. They pressed closely against each other. It gave them a little more warmth, a sense of comradeship. Bobby said:

“That coffee was jolly good. Is there any left?”

Olive gave him what remained. She said:

“Peter's very clever. I've heard them say he can do anything with a boat except make it talk.”

Bobby was conscious of an absurd thrill of jealousy. He wished he could hear her speak of him in that tone of confidence and trust. But of course she never would, why should she? He was no sailor, knew nothing of handling boats. It surprised him indeed that he was not prostrate with sea-sickness, but he supposed that the tension and excitement were too great for that. Presumably an imminent risk of death is enough to cast out even sea-sickness. “You're cold,” he said, feeling her shiver.

“No, only afraid,” she answered.

A great glow of tenderness and pity filled him. He did not know what to say. There was nothing to say. He heard himself mutter: