Angel's Ransom Read online

  ‘I think I understand it,’ Blake said. ‘Jules doesn’t want any more killing. He’s afraid that Holtz will shoot us all if he finds out we’re giving trouble. There’s also the fact of the missing gun. The longer he conceals the truth about it, the more trouble with Holtz he can expect if he talks. I think we can count on him to keep quiet as long as we don’t make another attempt.’

  ‘And are we not going to make another attempt?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. It depends on whether I’m able to listen to Radio Grasse this afternoon, and what news there is on the air. Marian should have brought my lunch, instead of you. I need her for a lookout.’

  ‘Marian is - upset.’

  ‘Upset?’ Blake was surprised that he could find her use of the word wryly humorous. It hurt his mouth, where one of Jules’s punches had split his lip. ‘At this late date? What was she before?’

  ‘You do not understand your countrywoman very well,’ Valentina answered seriously. ‘She is not European, remember. At her age, a Polish girl has seen war, death, invasion, the destruction of a world. Violence is commonplace with us, something to live with or die from. To Marian, violence is a thing of the cinema. She does not find it easy to accept the fact of it in her own life.’

  ‘Bruno’s death was real enough.’

  ‘Even then, she did not see him die, nor his body afterwards. She knows he is dead because she is told he is dead. He is another figure in the cinema. I think the moment she saw you beaten to your knees and dragged off by the collar was the first time she saw the realities of our position. Momentarily at least, they stunned and frightened her.’ Valentina smiled. ‘But she has overcome her fright. She will be all right when I tell her that you have not suffered. If that is the truth.’

  ‘Except for sore ribs and a split lip, I’m all right. He didn’t work me over.’

  ‘You have a cut over the eye that has bled and could invite a question.’ Valentina took a small bottle of colorless nail polish from a pocket of her slacks. ‘I thought you might have use for this. If there were some water, I could make you presentable.’

  ‘There’s coffee in the thermos. It will do to wash the blood off.’

  She washed and doctored the cut and the split lip with care. Necessarily with their heads close together while she covered his wounds with a layer of nail polish, Blake was again struck with the serene beauty of her face. Besides having regularity of feature and a flawless complexion, Valentina knew how to make the most of cosmetic aids. She was as carefully turned out as she might have been for an evening at Monte Carlo. It occurred to him that he had never seen her looking otherwise.

  On an impulse, he said, ‘Do you understand the realities of our position?’

  She smiled.

  ‘I am the Polish girl I compared Marian to a moment ago. We have learned to be fatalists, we Poles. I do not worry too much about things that are beyond my control.’

  ‘I asked because you take everything so calmly. Freddy would have panicked before now without somebody like you to set an example.’

  ‘He would always have you.’

  ‘Me?’ Blake was honestly surprised. ‘I’m a hired hand. The help doesn’t set examples. They’re just around earning their pay, to Freddy.’

  She put a final spot of nail polish over his eye, looked critically at her work, and was satisfied. Capping the bottle, she said, ‘I think you understand him even less than you do Marian. You are the only person in the world he trusts as not being after his money. He thinks of you as his single real friend. Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘I – no. You’re exaggerating.’

  ‘I do not exaggerate. What is more, he drinks for the same reason. He is lonely and distrustful, and the friendship that means much to him means nothing to you. It is a terrible thing to be liked by no one.’

  ‘You seem to have learned a lot more about him in a few days than I have in years.’

  ‘Of course.’ She smiled again, easily. I‘ve had to study him. Like Holtz, I am after his money.’

  ‘You’re more honest than most, then.’

  ‘That might equally be said of Holtz.’ She put the bottle of nail polish back in her pocket. ‘You look presentable enough. Keep the left side of your face turned away and you’ll be all right. Is there anything else I can do?’

  ‘I’m going to need a lookout this afternoon. It’s important that I listen to Radio Grasse.’

  ‘I’ll send Marian to you, unless you want me to take her place. Do you think that Holtz could be made to believe that I, too, have fallen in love with you?’

  She waited gravely for his reply.

  He said, ‘I doubt it, and it isn’t necessary to try. He’s accepted Marian as harmless. Tell her to bring me the key to Laura di Lucca’s cabin when she comes.’

  ‘He ordered us to stay off the foredeck. How shall we signal you?’

  ‘You can’t. It’s going to rain before long, and you’d be conspicuous in any exposed position. Marian and I will have to manage it by ourselves.’

  ‘When do you want her?’

  Blake looked at the chronometer.

  Time was rapidly running out. Grasse would broadcast only twice more on schedule, at 4.33 and 6.33, before signing off until the following morning. He hesitated to accept the risk of trying to hear both broadcasts, but a choice was difficult. The only good news the radio could bring to the captives was no news, and either broadcast might sound the warning to Holtz that a search for the Angel was on.

  Deciding, he said, ‘Just before six-thirty. If nothing has happened to us by then, we’ll have a good chance of surviving the night.’

  SIX

  In the early dark of the lowering afternoon, Neyrolle’s face looked even more drawn than usual. He chain-smoked continuously, a cigarette in his mouth and his head tilted to one side to keep smoke from his eyes while he talked at length into the telephone. He had made a dozen calls, one after the other, since George came into his office; giving orders, demanding information, checking the readiness of the men he had stationed at vantage points along the Principality’s coastline, testing and re-testing the lines of the net he had woven for the Angel. It was a full quarter of an hour before he finished with the phone and looked questioningly up at George.

  The reporter had been wandering restlessly around the office while he waited for the sous-chef’s attention. Now he planted himself in front of Neyrolle’s desk and said, ‘You’re overlooking one big lack that could ruin the whole scheme. You haven’t got Roche.’

  ‘I’ve asked for his extradition. It will take time.’

  ‘He’ll do you no good in a week or two. You need him now. Today. You know as well as I do that the Angel won’t come within reach without a signal.’

  ‘I also know that Roche would not voluntarily reveal the signal even if we were able to take him away from the Swiss. He is counting strongly on the elimination of witnesses. Surrendering the signal would be surrendering his hope of freedom.’

  ‘I could make him talk.’

  A gust of wind brought a quick spatter of raindrops against the windowpane at Neyrolle’s elbow. He cocked his head to look at George under a curl of smoke.

  George said, ‘I’ve seen close-mouthed crooks made to open up before. You wouldn’t have to have anything to do with it, if you’re squeamish. Give him to me for half an hour, and I’ll give you the signal.’

  ‘Gangsterism, kidnapping, inevitably the third degree,’ Neyrolle said. ‘I see Monaco rapidly catching up with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, Roche is beyond our reach, for the moment, so your - contribution - will not be necessary.’

  ‘Then how in God’s name do you hope to bring the yacht in?’ George asked roughly. ‘You’re trying to avoid bloodshed. Without the signal, what chance do you have?’

  ‘I am not particularly concerned about shedding blood, so long as it is not the blood of innocent people. The lack of a signal to toll the Angel into our net is a handicap, I admit. But I have the patrol
boat, which I shall use as a last resort, and it is wholly possible that a gang bold enough to seize a yacht in broad daylight will have the audacity to return without attempting to conceal the fact of the yacht’s presence in Monegasque waters. In that event, I shall be equally open in my approach. Do you know our service du pilotage?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A small boat goes out of the port to meet each incoming craft, assigns it a mooring, and offers a pilot if one is wished for entry into the harbor. The Angel can be expected to decline the offer, but not until the pilot boat comes within hailing distance, at least. I shall be in it, together with a pair of my best men. We will be well armed.’

  ‘I want to be in that boat.’

  Neyrolle shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘We made a bargain.’

  ‘We made a bargain that you should have first access to the story, not that you might personally storm the yacht. The pilot boat can carry only two or three men without exciting suspicion, and they will all have to be excellent marksmen. You may be aboard the patrol boat, if you wish. It will bring the Brigade Maritime into action when the first shot is fired.’

  ‘I want to be in the pilot boat,’ George repeated doggedly.

  ‘Why?’

  The reporter had not offered an answer before Neyrolle said again, curiously, ‘Why? The patrol boat will be only minutes behind. There will be no other reporters aboard her. You will have a clear monopoly of everything to be learned aboard the Angel, and with no danger to yourself. Why do you insist on accepting the risk of the pilot boat?’

  The storm that had been gathering over the coast was beginning to show its force. George stood at the window, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, watching the wind slash rain in strong gusts against the pane.

  ‘An eye-witness report is worth money,’ he said at last. ‘If I can say that I was there, that I saw it, it takes me out of the class of the hacks. It’s more than an exclusive, then. It becomes a personal experience. Editors pay cash for those.’

  ‘And you would risk your life for the cash value of a personal experience?’

  ‘I work at making a living.’

  ‘In this case, your living could very well come to an end as a reward for your effort. I admire your courage, but I cannot permit you to accept the danger, for one very simple reason. There will be no room in the pilot boat for anyone whose usefulness is limited to his ability to write about it afterwards if he survives.’

  Neyrolle picked up the telephone and began again to test the lines of his net.

  George left the Bureau while the sous-chef was telephoning. He hailed a taxi, because of the rain, and told the driver to take him to La Rascasse.

  Cesar was there, in the bar, moodily staring into a pastis. He started when George spoke to him, and laughed without humor at his own jumpiness.

  ‘This stuff isn’t what it used to be.’ He nodded at the milky, greenish drink. ‘It doesn’t even make the time pass. Merde, I wish I were back on the Angel. Even in the hands of gangsters. What’s new?’

  ‘Neyrolle expects them to come back for the ransom sooner or later, and he’s setting up a scheme to put him aboard from the pilot boat. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Say it a little more clearly, monsieur. Pastis does not sharpen the brain, when taken in quantity.’

  ‘I’ve got to be the first one to board the yacht, Cesar. Never mind why. But I’ve got to be there, and Neyrolle is keeping me out of the pilot boat because I can’t do him any good in it. You know the Angel. You know the people aboard, and the layout of the ship, and Blake’s piloting procedure, and about everything else there is to know. Tell me something I can use to convince Neyrolle that I’ll be of more use to him in the boat than a man with a gun.’

  ‘Guns in the pilot boat? There’s the flic mind for you, every time. Shoot first, think afterwards. Suppose they do get out to the Angel in a boat, all ready to start shooting. Who do they shoot at? Anybody who makes a sudden move? Eh, I take back what I said about wanting to be there. A clay duck in a shooting gallery would have a better future.’

  Cesar finished his drink, and was surprised to find his audience gone when he put his empty glass down on the bar. George had what he had come to get. He was already on his way back to Sûreté Publique.

  He found Neyrolle with two other men in plain clothes, their heads together over a diagram of the Angel’s deck. George interrupted the conference without apology.

  ‘You’ve got to have me with you in the pilot boat,’ he told the sous-chef. ‘It’s the only way you can know friend from enemy. You may recognize Freddy from his newspaper photographs, but you won’t be able to distinguish between the others who belong aboard and those who don’t. I can.’

  ‘Holtz is a very small man, the Provençal very large,’ Neyrolle answered. ‘We know that. And they will be armed. Recognizing them is not a problem.’

  ‘You don’t know that they’re the whole gang. You can’t be sure that there aren’t others with them. When Roche came ashore, somebody else could as easily have gone back in his place. Several others.’

  Neyrolle looked thoughtful. George pressed his advantage.

  ‘I spent the whole night before they left with Freddy and his guests. I talked with Blake. I know Marian Ellis by sight. I’m the only man who can tell you in a second who belongs on the Angel and who doesn’t. Without me, the only way you’ll know is to wait until somebody else shoots first, and then you’re dead. You’ve failed.’

  The sous-chef said, ‘We are limited to three men, if we are able to use the pilot boat. Any more would be abnormal. You can give us descriptions of all the people you know to be aboard.’

  ‘If I do, will it help you to know that Blake is tall and sun-tanned if another tall, sun-tanned man has a gun!’

  Neyrolle did not answer. He frowned at the diagram on his desk, seeing not it but the Angel itself, and the problem of rescue.

  ‘You’re not holding the strong hand now,’ George went on forcefully. ‘I want to be there. You’ve got to use me. If you don’t, and anything goes wrong because you left me behind, I’ll crucify you in print! And it won’t be for false arrest alone!’

  ‘I am not afraid of what you can do to me,’ Neyrolle answered slowly. ‘But I am bound to save those poor wretches on the Angel, and to do so I would accept help from the devil. If it becomes necessary for me to use the pilot boat you will be in the pilot boat, monsieur. I hope that neither one of us will come to regret it.’

  The barometer dropped slowly all afternoon. So did the thermometer, as the wind strengthened. It blew irregularly for a while, then backed around to come from the south-west, almost at gale force. With its help, the yacht was making considerably better than normal cruising speed.

  Rain began to fall in mid-afternoon. The storm did more than cut visibility and speed the Angel northward. Blake’s muscles, sore from the severe body-beating Jules had given him, stiffened with the drop in temperature. By the time Marian arrived he was as concerned over his physical condition as he was with the need to listen to Grasse. If the time came for action, he was in no shape to lead it.

  Marian had herself under tight self-control. She handed him the key to Laura di Lucca’s cabin without comment. He said, ‘How is she?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Is Jules still avoiding Holtz?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is Holtz now?’

  ‘Still in the salon. He sits over the radio all the time.’

  ‘Jules?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s staying out of sight.’

  ‘We’ve still got to expect either one to come up here at any minute. You’ll have to man the wheel and keep watch through the after windows at the same time you watch forward. Holtz comes up over the boat-deck when he comes: Jules might arrive that way or by the forward ladder. Can you manage it?’

  ‘I have to manage it.’

 
; Her self-control was too tight. Pressures were building up underneath. Something was going to have to give before long, but Blake could not help her. She did not accept help.

  He said, ‘Take the wheel. The course is five degrees.’

  His own state of mind was one of tense and wary hopefulness. The fact that the Angel still drove northward with Holtz continuously attentive to the radio in the salon almost guaranteed that no news of a sea-search was on the air. It was still impossible to know if it meant that the ransom had been paid, or that Roche’s arrest was being kept secret. But it had to be one or the other, unless Roche had somehow failed to present the check, and in all events continued radio silence gave the Angel’s passengers a fair chance of reaching Monaco. What might happen there was something Blake declined to consider until he had confirmed his reasoning. A promise of arrival was necessary first.

  Waiting for the tubes to warm after the hook-up of the power cable was more of a suspense than he remembered from the first occasion. The radiophone picked up strong atmospheric interference from the growing storm, but the Angel was hardly more than a hundred sea miles from the French transmitter, and the familiar ‘Sécurité, Sécurité, Sécurité’ came over clearly enough. A rising wind warning was followed by the usual list of call letters of vessels invited to open communication with the shore station. The Angel’s call was not on the list, nor was her name mentioned. Blake waited only long enough to hear the announcer begin his sign-off before disconnecting the set and hiding the cable. Radio Grasse would not speak again before morning.

  Moving around the pilot-house eased his sore muscles slightly. He plotted a pair of fixes with the direction-finder and found, as he had expected, that the Angel was travelling well over the speed her motors alone could give her. He calculated that she was about eight hours from the northern coast, if the wind held.

  ‘So far, nobody seems to be curious about us, and we’re running ahead of schedule,’ he told Marian. ‘We should be off Monaco early tomorrow morning.’