Angel's Ransom Page 12

  Neyrolle threw his arms wide in a frank gesture of helplessness. ‘I do not know what will happen. I do not know what may already have happened. The scum we are dealing with have too little dimension to be judged. But I believe it more than possible that in fear of a capture they would leave no witnesses to speak against them, alive or dead. Unless that possibility can be extinguished, I will not institute the search, nor agree to the release of news that might set it off.’

  ‘So that’s it!’ George’s chair went over as he sprang to his feet. ‘Not with my help! A story as big as this one can’t be bagged at this stage of the game!’

  ‘It is not a game. Nor is it only a newspaper story. I am thinking of lives. We made an agreement, you and I, that the story should be wholly yours. I have lived up to my part of the bargain. No one else has even a suspicion of what is going on aboard the Angel except its abandoned crew, and I have already taken steps to stop their mouths. I am leaving here within the next few minutes to fly to Geneva to see what further information I can get from Roche, and I will make sure that he is muzzled as well. Before I go, I want your parole that no word of what you know will be released until I give permission.’

  ‘You don’t get it! Aside from the story, your job is to go after crooks, not to help them bring the job off. I never agreed to cooperate in a kidnapping, even the kidnapping of a crumb like Freddy Farr!’

  A faint color came to Neyrolle’s cheeks at the insult, but he kept his temper. He said formally, ‘I regret that I do not have the time to correct your misunderstanding of my purpose, monsieur,’ and turned to open the door near which he had stopped his pacing.

  A pair of uniformed agents stood in the hall outside. The sous-chef said, ‘Take him. He is to talk to no one, under any circumstances.’

  George did not go down without a struggle. He was bigger and heavier than either of the agents, and he knocked one of them over in his quick charge for the door. But the second man put a hold on him that meant a broken wrist if he fought against it, and the first man was in action again before he could knee the other. Neyrolle left the office while they were still struggling.

  FIVE

  Jules came to take the wheel shortly after one in the morning, when Blake had reached the ragged edge of exhaustion. He kept falling asleep on his feet, to start awake and catch his balance as his knees gave way under him, then bring the Angel back on the course from which she had wandered. It did not occur to him until later that Jules must have held off from relieving him until the cruiser’s erratic strayings from the prescribed bearing had told of her wheels-man’s condition. It seemed increasingly apparent that Holtz’s plan was to keep him helpless from fatigue as well as preoccupied by the Angel’s demands for his attention. If so, the plan was succeeding.

  He had just enough energy left to make his habitual security round of the yacht before turning in. He found only Holtz above deck. The gang leader was hunched over the radio in the salon, listening to the mutter of a short-wave news broadcast, and Blake was not permitted access to the passenger cabins. Holtz silently warned him away from the companionway with a gesture of the Walther. He wore a strip of bandage on his cheek, and a half-empty bottle of brandy stood at his elbow.

  He was sober and alert when he woke Blake, before six. This time he did not stay in the cabin doorway while Blake dressed, but disappeared as soon as he had made the call. Blake took time out to shave. It gave him a few extremely important extra minutes to consider the situation revealed by Freddy’s confession of the night before.

  They had lost precious time. Only the day and another night remained before Holtz would learn that he had been checkmated. The prisoners were not and never had been in a position to count on the ransom for their release, as Blake had urged, argued, and commanded that they do, and Freddy’s failure to reveal the truth had made his efforts worse than a waste. It had been a hard fact to accept.

  ‘Don’t rub it in, Sam,’ Freddy had begged. ‘I wanted to tell you before, but we never had much chance to talk, and somebody else was always around when we did. I didn’t want to spill it in front of anybody but you, or where Holtz might be listening. I thought - somehow –’

  The explanation trailed off dismally.

  ‘But why did you do it? A hundred thousand dollars can’t be that important to you.’

  ‘It wasn’t the money! I had to protect myself! I told you I had to protect myself! You know he couldn’t get any more out of me, I know he couldn’t get any more out of me, but does he know it? Like you said, I’ve got more fingers for him to work on. I - I just couldn’t take it.’ Freddy added hopefully, ‘But with Roche in jail they’ll be looking for us, so we’re really better off than we were before. Aren’t we?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Blake had said. ‘I can’t think.’

  Now that his mind was cleared by sleep, he saw nothing to support Freddy’s hopefulness. The dangers had simply increased, adding new problems to old ones, problems that had to be faced quickly. He went aft and found Holtz again in the salon, again listening attentively to the short-wave.

  The lifted pistol stopped Blake a dozen feet from its muzzle. He said, ‘I want the key to Laura di Lucca’s cabin.’

  ‘So you have decided to join with me at last.’ Holtz touched the bandage on his cheek, and a corner of his mouth lifted in the wolf’s grin. ‘She’ll have to be dealt with in front of witnesses, of course. The commitment must be binding. Do you plan to dispose of her with your bare hands, or are you hoping for the use of my pistol?’

  ‘Neither. She can’t be kept locked in day and night. She has human needs.’

  ‘Which can be easily ended whenever you decide to end them.’ Holtz took a single key from his pocket and tossed it. ’She is your responsibility. But I warn you. If she repeats her recklessness, you may have to choose among your other passengers to take advantage of the opportunity I offered you. Bear it in mind.’

  He was listening to the radio again when Blake went below.

  He went first to Freddy’s cabin. Freddy was sound asleep in a chair, fully dressed even to arm sling and yachting cap. In spite of a three-day stubble of beard, he looked oddly childlike, defenseless in the sleep that had come to him at last. Blake shook him awake with difficulty.

  ‘We’ve got to talk again, Freddy. Listen to me and try to concentrate, because I can’t stay here long. Get Valentina and Marian up to the galley right away. Talk about breakfast if Holtz acts curious. Get something started, and stay there until I get there.’ He shook the loose body again. ‘Repeat what I’ve said.’

  ‘Galley,’ Freddy answered blearily. ‘Marian and Valentina. Breakfast.’

  ‘Right away.’

  ‘Right away.’

  ‘Good. Now go soak your head in cold water.’

  He saw Freddy on his feet, staggering but awake, before he left the cabin.

  At Laura di Lucca’s door he rapped, waited, and rapped again before he used the key. She, too, was fully dressed. Lying supine on the bed, she held a crucifix in her clasped hands. Her eyes were closed. For a moment he thought she slept. Then she opened her eyes, turning them toward him, and he saw in them the full, aching consciousness of everything that had happened. Her face, beneath the garish make-up she had not bothered to remove, was that of an old, old woman; drained of life, drained of hope, drained now even of pain. An untouched tray of cold food was on the small table by her bedside.

  He said, ‘The door will be unlocked. You can move around as you like, but please don’t do anything foolish.’

  She gave no sign that she had heard. He said, ‘You can’t hope to punish him yourself.’

  Her lips moved. The words were too faint to hear. He bent over the bed to listen.

  ‘I wanted - him to - kill me,’ she breathed.

  ‘That wouldn’t help Bruno.’

  ‘It would - help me.’ The whisper was barely audible. ‘I want to - die. Why wouldn’t he - kill me?’

  He could make no answer. Her eyes continued
to ask their agonized question while he looked for the mark of Holtz’s blow on her head. He found an ugly scalp cut and caked blood, nothing to indicate serious injury or need for the kind of treatment he could give her.

  Before he left the cabin, he said again, ‘Please don’t do anything foolish.’

  Her answer was the question still in her eyes when he closed the door.

  He did what was necessary in the engine-room, and came up the ladder with a heavy wrench hanging against his leg through a slit in his hip pocket. He had no concrete plan for its use, but a weapon of some kind went with the drastic change of attitude forced by Freddy’s confession. He made that clear to the war council gathered under the softly protecting roar of the galley blowers.

  ‘We’re up against it,’ he said. ‘If none of you has noticed which quarter the sun is on this morning, we turned around last night. We’re heading back toward Monaco. In about a day and a night at the most Holtz is going to learn that the big gamble hasn’t come off. After that even Freddy is going to stop having value for him. He’ll have a getaway to make. We’ll just be in his way.’

  Freddy shifted his feet uncomfortably.

  Valentina said, ‘Why do you say “a day and a night at the most”?’

  ‘If we’re lucky, we’ll have as long as it takes him to make the rendezvous and learn that Roche isn’t going to be there with the money. If we’re not so lucky’ - he would rather have been less blunt, but there was no help for it - ‘Roche’s arrest may finish us off instead of helping us.’

  Freddy said protestingly, ‘Ah, Sam!’

  ‘We’ve got to face facts, Freddy. The probability is that right now there’s an all-ships call out on short wave asking for news of the Angel. Holtz has already picked up a request from Radio Grasse that we communicate, and he’s sitting over the radio most of the day and night. If a police search develops, he’ll know about it. His getaway starts at that point, instead of later.’

  Marian said, ‘Then it becomes more essential than ever to repair the radiophone, doesn’t it? Our only chance seems to be the S.O.S.’

  They were all taking it more coolly than Blake had hoped. He said, ‘It’s not our only chance, but it’s an important one.’

  ‘When shall I come to take the wheel?’

  ‘I don’t want you to come at all.’

  He thought Marian flinched at the rebuff. He said, ‘Holtz almost shot you last night. That’s the second close call you’ve had with him. A third chance is too dangerous for you. Someone will have to take it who can expect to survive a suspicion that we’re up to something, as long as it isn’t proved. That means you, Freddy.’

  Freddy said bravely, ‘It’s a man’s job, anyway. I guess I can steer my own boat.’ To Marian he added, ‘If your conscience still bothers you, kid, forget it. I bungled things too.’

  The unexpected overture was followed by an awkward pause. Freddy was acutely embarrassed by his own gesture, mere so when Valentina said musingly, ‘There is more to you than six million dollars and an unquenchable thirst,’ and lightly patted the arm that was in the sling. ‘I think I am beginning to like you. But if I may make a suggestion, Captain. Marian’s presence with you in the pilot-house is a less suspicious circumstance than Freddy’s would be.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Freddy is not in love with you.’

  Marian made an incoherent sound of protest, putting out her hand in quick appeal to the other woman.

  ‘As Holtz will see it, of course,’ Valentina continued serenely. ‘It is logical, to his kind of mind. He sees on the one hand an impressionable girl, a romantic, contrite for her part in the trouble that has come to us, afraid, as we all are, for herself, and ashamed, desperately in need of a strength to cling to. On the other hand is a man of strength and, what is even more important to the girl, tolerance, understanding. He refuses to blame her for what is not her fault, even while she blames herself. How else can she react but by giving him first her gratitude, then her respect, finally more than respect? Let the little man find you guiltily withdrawing from each other’s arms the next time he interrupts you. He will be suspicious no longer of what goes on in the pilot-house. He will know, and sneer at you because you are human even in danger.’

  ‘There’s more to you than a shape and a profile, doll,’ Freddy said. ‘You’re the boss, Sam. I’ll take orders, and I still think it’s a man’s job. But there’s a lot in what she says.’

  ‘I agree.’ Marian’s voice was low and level.

  Blake could not disagree. Holtz’s mind probably would work that way, to the extent that he might even encourage, rather than discourage, Marian’s presence in the pilot-house as a further preoccupation for the Angel’s wheelsman. He said, ‘It’s unanimous, then. Does anyone have anything else to say while we’re able to talk?’

  The blowers roared softly. After a moment, Freddy said, ‘What about trying to bribe Jules over to our side?’

  ‘I can try. I don’t think anything will come of it. He isn’t liable to take a check.’

  ‘Offer him a - a - a –’ Freddy gave up, helpless. ‘I never thought about that. We haven’t really got anything to give, except a promise.’

  ‘There are values other than money,’ Valentina said.

  Blake avoided meeting her eyes. He looked instead at the galley clock, and said, ‘I’d rather try the promise first. It’s six-forty now. I’ll have felt Jules out by seven o’clock, but we’ll go ahead with the radiophone whatever he says. Freddy, you and Valentina take up your lookout on the foredeck at that time, and you, Marian, come up to the pilot-house as soon as you see Jules leave. Same signals as before. In the meantime –’ Blake tightened his belt against the drag of the heavy wrench in his hip pocket ‘ - you might all be looking around for things we can use in a fight. Don’t risk trying to smuggle them, just mark them down in your mind and remember where you can put your hands on them.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ Freddy asked.

  ‘Any kind. A broken bottle, a club, a meathook, a piece of jagged metal. When the time comes to fight Holtz, we won’t be able to afford niceties. We’ll be trying to survive.’

  The same pair of agents who had taken George from Neyrolle’s office in the evening brought him back in the morning, a few minutes after the sous-chef’s return from Geneva. The circles under Neyrolle’s eyes were more pronounced than usual, and the strain of a night without sleep showed in his face. But his manner was as courteous as ever when George, who had himself slept poorly, stood tight-lipped and hostile before him. The two agents waited near the door.

  ‘Sit down,’ Neyrolle said. ‘There is no need for us to be enemies.’

  ‘My friends don’t lock me in jail overnight,’ George answered stiffly. ‘Am I still under arrest?’

  ‘You have not been under arrest. You were temporarily isolated so you could not talk before I had an opportunity to explain my plans for the rescue of the Angel. I apologize for the inconvenience.’

  George waited, stony-faced. Neyrolle said, ‘Perhaps you will listen while I tell you what I learned in Geneva, as a preliminary to the explanation I owe you. As a newspaperman, you will find it of interest.’

  ‘As a newspaperman, I’ll listen. I’ll also feel free to release whatever you tell me in my own discretion, and I’m going to sue you for false imprisonment as soon as I get out of here. If you want to talk with that understanding, go ahead.’

  ‘I hope to be able to persuade you not to keep either promise. The sous-chef felt in his pockets for cigarettes, found none, and chewed a matchstick instead. ‘The plot against Farr seems to be an elaborate one, carefully planned. Roche’s credentials are absolutely bona fide. He goes by his own name, carries the right passport, the right carte d’identité, everything. Not even a criminal record turned up, so far, although I expect that we will find one. The only thing against him at present is the misplaced dot of an “i” in the signature of Farr’s check, certain evidence of the criminality he continues to den
y. I offered him immunity from prosecution if he would talk, but he seems to be certain that no one will ever be able to testify against him. It is that certainty that confirms me in the course of action I have decided to follow.’

  Neyrolle yawned, suddenly and uncontrollably.

  ‘Excuse me. It is not from ennui, I assure you. Roche’s confidence in his confederates indicates quite clearly, I think, their ruthlessness. Either he returns to the rendezvous with the ransom, or the captives aboard the Angel die. For that reason it is wholly imperative that we permit no leak of information which might warn the confederates, either by radio or through the institution of an organized search for the yacht, that the ransom is lost. This precludes calling on Interpol, the American fleet, or any other organization that could sweep the Mediterranean, and leaves us one solitary weapon to use against the Angel’s captors, the lure of the ransom to bring them back to the rendezvous. Do you still decline to cooperate in the kidnapping of Freddy Farr?’

  For all his anger and resentment, George could not deny the validity of the sous-chef’s conclusions. He said, reluctantly, ‘I can see why you want the story bagged, yes. But you can’t keep it bagged forever. Even if I don’t break it, it’s bound to leak in time. And you don’t know how soon the rendezvous is set to come off, if Roche won’t talk.’

  ‘That is true. On the other hand, the return tickets found in Roche’s pockets talk for him. The trip from here to Geneva, by train to Nice and by plane from there, is a matter of hours only. I myself went there and came back in a single night, as you are aware.’

  ‘You think the rendezvous would be set for the earliest possible moment?’