Angel's Ransom Read online

  Marian said coolly, ‘If all you’re going to do is sit there and jeer at me, I’m going to bed. Good night. We can talk in the morning.’

  ‘No!’ He came up off the bench in a bound, his temper again changing instantaneously. Standing, he came barely to her shoulder, but the driving force of his personality made him seem taller than he was. ‘What did you learn? When do they intend to leave?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Today, I mean. In the morning.’

  ‘It doesn’t leave me much time.’ He chewed at a thumbnail that was already bitten to nothing. ‘Curse them! Where are they off to?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say.’

  ‘When will Farr come aboard?’

  ‘some time before they sail. He couldn’t be more definite.’

  ‘You’re useless! Useless! You accomplished nothing! Have you even an excuse to go back aboard?’

  ‘I left my bag. But if I’m so useless to you, I won’t bother to go back after it. Good night!’

  ‘You must come!’ He seized her wrist as she turned angrily away. ‘I’ve explained how important it is that you be there. I demand it!’

  The strolling agent was near them now, watching. It was the only thing that kept her from snatching her wrist free and walking off. A public scene that might invite police attention was not something either of them would welcome.

  She said frostily, ‘You’re paying me to follow your instructions, not for the privilege of putting your hands on me.’

  He released her, glaring in impotent rage as the agent walked on by. With an enormous effort, he said, ‘Forgive me. I forgot myself. My instructions are that you will accompany me to the yacht tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Very well. Do you want anything more of me now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed. Good night.’ He stood aside to let her pass, and she was conscious of the impact of his silent hatred as she walked away. Little Mr Holtz had an ego far too large for his small body. She took an unkind pleasure in frustrating him when he became too imperative.

  She could not decide whether he or Blake provoked her more. Two more dissimilar men could hardly be imagined; jeering, spiteful, angry little Mr Holtz, with his fluent and wholly unnatural copybook English, a figure she could only think of as ‘foreign’ even while recognizing that she, the American, was the foreigner in his European world; and big, sun-tanned, good-natured Blake, easy of speech, easy of manner, unreserved in his loyalties, uncomplicated in his way of thought. The fact that he had accepted her in good faith only sharpened her irritation. It was his own fault that he was so easily deceived. Deception could be bought, and Belgian baronesses were not the only adventuresses.

  She did not realize until sometime afterward how much of her feeling about Blake was pique. Men were ordinarily more malleable than he when she set out to make them realize that she was desirable.

  Cesar, the Angel’s steward, found the handbag in the morning. Cesar was Monegasque, with a Monegasque’s native wisdom of the world, but he was mildly surprised that the captain had entertained a feminine visitor while the crew slept. Although feminine visitors were commonplace enough aboard the yacht, its owner rather than its captain usually entertained them, and the steward knew that Freddy Farr had spent the night ashore. He explored the contents of the bag for some hint of the owner’s personality, made a shrewd guess at her complexion and tastes, and discreetly left his find on the chart table in the yacht’s pilot-house. The captain would be certain to see it there without having his attention called to it.

  Blake smiled at Cesar’s silent tactfulness when he saw the bag. He went through it for some clue to the girl’s address, and found nothing that would help him return it to her. But she knew of the cruiser’s intended departure, and he thought she might logically be counted on to reclaim her property before they sailed. Otherwise he would have to send it up to Sûreté Publique at the last moment, trusting to the Principality’s efficient police to find her.

  The bag contained nothing of apparent importance or great value. He tossed it back on the chart table as a minor incident of the yacht’s sailing.

  It was a requirement of the Angel’s owner that the cruiser be always in readiness to put to sea. Freddy Farr was essentially a landsman, unable to understand that more than a few minutes were necessary to pump 20 tons of fuel and water and load provisions. Delay made him restless. In the years that he had been Freddy’s skipper, Blake had learned to keep tanks topped up at all times, freezers filled with food, stores in good supply. So prepared, he had a 2,500-mile cruising range under his hand, and he often needed it. Freddy’s whim this time, stimulated by a run of bad luck at the casino on the bluff and the uneasy conviction that the Belgian baroness’s lawyers were closing in on the Angel, was to flee bad luck and writs of attachment for parts unknown. He was, as the newspaper stories implied, perfectly capable of giving the yacht away, in a drunken moment, to a girl who pleased him, as the baroness had pleased him until she had the temerity to try to force delivery of the promised gift. At that point Freddy felt persecuted.

  The Angel had already lingered a day or two longer in port than was safe in view of the baroness’s announced intention to immobilize it by legal action, but given the choice of two evils Freddy would rather lose the yacht than sail without company. Ashore, he picked up and dropped bosom companions as he did roulette chips, certain that the supply would last as long as the fortune he had inherited. At sea, isolated in the small self-contained world of the cruiser, his horror of solitude made it necessary for him to surround himself with cronies who would eat his food, drink his liquor and keep him company as long as it cost them nothing. Alcohol and company were the two necessities of Freddy’s life, and while both were easy for him to come by in normal circumstances, company for a sea cruise of indefinite length to an unannounced destination took time to gather.

  From the baggage that had come aboard that morning, Blake guessed that he would have three or four passengers. But the cruiser would sleep six comfortably, besides her owner and crew, and he was prepared for a maximum up until the moment when, shortly before noon, a fiacre came clattering along the Quai du Commerce and turned out on to the jetty. Freddy, tasseled whip in hand, held the reins on the high driver’s seat.

  Nearing the Angel’s mooring, he spanked the horses into a jouncy trot and brought the carriage wheeling up in style to where Blake stood at the gangplank.

  ‘Morning, Sam.’ Freddy saluted sadly with the whip. ‘Got a dime for a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Cleaned again?’

  ‘Gutted like a fish. Lost everything but my helpers. Meet the mob.’

  Freddy’s round face had the lavender tinge it took on when he had been drinking heavily. Otherwise his condition was not noticeable until he nearly fell from the high driver’s seat while using the tassel of his whip to tickle the nose of a blonde girl asleep in the body of the fiacre.

  ‘Wake up, doll. Meet your genial host, Skipper Blake. This one is Valentina, Sam. She speaks Polish.’

  The blonde girl’s eyes opened lazily. They were honey-colored, and too knowing for her age, which Blake guessed as the middle twenties. She had the smooth, lacquered, flawless prettiness of a window mannequin.

  ‘Good morning, Captain.’ Her voice was husky, her English only faintly accented. Blake was uncomfortably aware that the too-wise, honey-colored eyes were taking his measure. Most of Freddy’s girls regarded the Angel’s captain as a kind of glorified gondolier, and paid him no more attention than was necessary. This one would not be like the others, he was sure. Except in motivation. That never varied.

  Freddy said, ‘The thing she’s using for a pillow is Bruno.’ Valentina’s head rested on the shoulder of a good-looking, olive-skinned young man in evening clothes who snored gently through a classically handsome nose. ‘Or is it Beppo?’

  He giggled witlessly.

  ‘Bruno di Lucca.’ The name was supplied, somewhat snappishly, by a woman sitting on the oth
er side of the snorer. ‘Please, Freddy. Don’t be giggly at this hour of the morning. I am Laura di Lucca, Captain. How do you do?’

  Blake acknowledged the introduction, wondering only momentarily if she were the handsome Italian’s wife or his mother. They resembled each other too little to be related by blood. Laura di Lucca was twice her husband’s age, well and expensively jeweled, and wore make-up that would have been kinder to her under the shaded lamps of Monte Carlo’s gambling tables than in bright morning sunlight. She was not happy about Valentina’s head on her husband’s shoulder, and showed it in the elaborate way she ignored the blonde girl’s existence.

  ‘This one is George,’ Freddy said. ‘Treat him with respect, Sam. Gentleman of the Press. He’s writing me up as a sympathetic character for the tabloids; Fun-loving Fred, the Lovable Lush.’

  The fourth occupant of the carriage lifted his hand to Blake.

  ‘Saunders,’ he said crisply. ‘Glad to know you, Captain. I’m not one of your passengers. I came this far for the fresh air.’

  George Saunders was in his thirties, bull-necked and going bald, with a homely, pugnacious face that matched his manner. He looked like a man who would decline to take orders, or favors, from anyone. There was a kind of belligerence in his reaction to the charge when Freddy leaned down from the driver’s seat to thrust the tasseled whip into his hand.

  ‘If you’re not going to come cruising with us, you can jockey these oatburners back to the character who owns them,’ Freddy said. ‘Don’t pay him anything. Tell him to put it on my bill.’ He blew a solemn kiss to each of the horses. ‘Hail and farewell, sweethearts. It’s been fun.’

  George Saunders said, ‘I’ll deliver them, but the ride is on me.’

  Freddy did not hear him. He was climbing unsteadily down from the high seat to offer his doubtful assistance in helping Valentina from the carriage.

  ‘Come on, doll,’ he said. ‘I’m pooped. Come meet the Angel before I fall over dead.’

  Valentina wore a sheathlike evening gown that made her descent from the fiacre something of a problem but invited inspection of a truly magnificent body. Blake did not wonder that she had caught Freddy’s eye, nor that Laura di Lucca was jealous of her. Bruno, yawningly wakened, did not try to hide his frank admiration of the blonde girl’s provocative figure, ignoring his wife completely to follow Valentina and Freddy aboard the cruiser. It was Blake who helped Laura di Lucca from the carriage and handed her along to Cesar, waiting at the head of the gangplank to sort the guests into their proper cabins.

  When they and their host had disappeared from sight, George Saunders said, ‘You’re going to have hair pulling this trip, Captain. The di Lucca is jealous of her pretty boy. What’s the truth about the baroness? Did Freddy really give her the yacht?’

  ‘About the same way he gave you the horses.’

  ‘I wondered how generous he might be in a weak moment. He handed the blonde dish at least half-a-million francs to throw away at chemin de fer last night.’

  ‘He has more.’

  ‘What’s he worth nowadays? In round billions.’

  ‘I don’t keep the books. I just steer the yacht.’

  ‘Where are you steering it this trip?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  The reporter’s manner changed. Open truculence was in his voice when he said, ‘I’m a working stiff, Captain. I’m after a story. I want to give Freddy a sympathetic treatment if I can, but I don’t have to.’

  Blake felt his own hackles rise. He said, ‘If that’s a threat, you’re wasting your ammunition. I told you I run his yacht for him. I’m not his publicity man, and I don’t give a solitary damn whether you make him look sympathetic or hold him up as a horrible example. It means nothing to me at all. Is that clear enough?’

  George’s lip curled. He said, ‘Pretty independent talk for a sea-going chauffeur.’

  ‘That’s what I am. I can’t tell you where we’re going because I don’t know. I don’t think Freddy knows. We’re just disappearing from sight, to keep the baroness guessing.’

  ‘What kind of money does he pay you to help him run from a woman?’

  Instead of angering Blake further, it made him laugh. To have arrived at the point of exchanging insults with a man he had known only for minutes was ridiculous.

  He said, ‘I’m a working stiff, too. I draw a salary to do the job I was hired for. Do you agree with all the editorial policies of the paper that pays your wages?’

  ‘I’m a freelance. One of the reasons is because I didn’t agree with editorial policies.’

  ‘Your ethical standards are higher than mine, then.’

  ‘They’re higher than most. I like them that way.’ George climbed to the driver’s seat of the fiacre and took up the reins. ‘You’re too smart to listen, but I’ll give you a free tip just the same, Captain. The baroness was an amateur. That blonde piece you’ve got aboard could snatch the yacht right out from under you and Freddy before you even knew what was happening. You may not be drawing a salary from him for long.’

  ‘You know her well?’

  ‘I don’t know her at all. I know her type. For a homely guy without much hair, I’ve been around.’

  ‘I’ll bet you don’t get taken very often by scheming blondes, do you?’ Blake mocked.

  ‘No,’ George said seriously. ‘I don’t. Bon voyage, friend. And you’re never too smart to learn.’

  He slapped the backs of the dozing horses with the reins and drove away. Blake stood looking after the fiacre until it turned off the jetty on to the quay, then shrugged his shoulders and went about the business of preparing for departure. He thought that if he knew George Saunders better he would either like him greatly or detest him. He wasn’t sure which it would be.

  The Angel’s guests were already asleep. They slept soundly through the crash of a case of lubricating oil dropped down the engine-room by Michaud, Blake’s engineer. Michaud was consistently an impediment to the Angel’s sailings. He was a sullen, ill-tempered old Marseillais who bragged of voting the Communist ticket and hated people of wealth, particularly American millionaires. For all that, he was an excellent mechanic, and kept the shiny twin diesels running like clockwork. His contempt for the Angel’s owner showed itself mainly in a refusal to hurry or be hurried about his duties in the engine-room. Blake, who was more concerned with the welfare of the Angel’s machinery than with its engineer’s politics, deferred to Michaud’s pride of caste and was grateful that the cruiser’s Hyland installation gave the steersman direct control of the motors from the pilot house without the need of bell communication through the engineer. Michaud compensated for being bypassed by taking an interminable time before each sailing to report the engine-room ready for sea.

  This time there was a delay not caused by Michaud, when Cesar got into an argument with an idler on the jetty over a matter of port protocol. Blake intervened to quiet the steward, who could not argue without shouting.

  Cesar’s opponent was a round man with a face like a rabbit’s. He wore better clothes than most quayside loiterers, and he spoke with an air of lofty authority that stung Cesar like a barb.

  ‘You will leave the port or you will not leave the port as you see fit,’ the rabbit-faced man announced from the jetty. ‘There is nothing to prevent your going. The ship will merely be fined the next time it returns, for each crew member who has failed to obtain a proper permis before leaving.’

  ‘Fine your grandmother!’ Cesar roared back from the rail. ‘I am a citizen of the Principality! Don’t tell me what is necessary to leave my own country!’

  The rabbit-faced man shrugged.

  ‘It is all one with me. Ask Jules there. He lost a job because of the fine, last week.’

  Jules was a huge man with the weathered skin and muscular hands of a seafarer. He joined the argument at the rabbit-faced man’s invitation, nodding confirmation of the lost job.

  ‘These Monegasque salauds and their regulations!’ He spoke in a bass
voice with a Provencal twang. ‘In France, we would clip their ears for fouling a man’s livelihood.’

  Cesar bristled.

  ‘You may depart for France at any moment, monster. I will personally pay all the fines that you incur for doing so.’

  ‘Be quiet, Cesar.’ Blake spoke to the big Provencal. ‘What is the permis for?’

  ‘I don’t know, Captain. I have never yet obtained one. It is why I lost my job.’

  ‘How long has it been necessary?’

  Jules did not know that either. Nor did the rabbit-faced man, although he thought that the regulation was a relatively new one. Both men were equally positive that crew members of vessels of foreign registry leaving the port of Monaco were required to clear individually with Sûreté Publique beforehand, under penalty of a fine assessed against the ship operator.

  Cesar said obstinately, ‘You may withhold from my wage ten francs for every one you pay on my account, Captain. If this hulk lost his job, it was a well-deserved loss, rest assured. Pay no attention to these foreigners.’

  Blake hesitated.

  He was scrupulous about observing port regulations, more so because Freddy’s attitude towards regulations of any kind was one of casual indifference when he did not flout them deliberately. Freddy used his wealth like a club, buying the right to violate conventions that bound other people, and the Angel and the Angel’s flag had a good name in the yacht harbors of the Mediterranean only because of its master’s rigid observance of the rules, however troublesome. Blake chose to keep that reputation. The only question in his mind was whether to send a man to Sûreté Publique, a ten-minute walk by way of the Quai du Commerce to inquire further about the nature of the permis, or to send the entire crew at once and make certain of minimum delay if, as Jules and the rabbit-faced man agreed, individual clearance for each man was necessary.

  Deciding, he called Michaud from the engine-room and sent Cesar to round up the cook and the two deck-hands. When the steward would have argued further, Blake dismissed him with a firm, ‘Get along!’ Cesar was a good steward, but argumentative.