The Adventurers (27 page)

"Medicinal baths?"

"Yes, they're very stimulating. All the girls at school take them." She reached over and turned on the cold-water tap.

Dax almost jumped out of the tub when the icy water hit his back. "You're both crazy!" he yelled.

The two girls pushed him back into the water.

"Sit there, don't be such a baby. Here, take a drink of this," Enid said, holding out a bottle.

"What is it?" he asked suspiciously.

"Brandy."

He took the bottle and squinted at it. It was half empty. "Where'd you get this?"

"From Daddy's liquor cabinet."

"Half empty?"

"We were bored," Mavis said. "What did you expect us to do? You didn't want to have a party."

"Then we got the idea of giving you a medicinal bath," Enid added. "Miss Purvis, at school, always claims they're the best remedy for physical tiredness."

That explained it. They were both high. Dax shrugged his shoulders and took a swig of the brandy. At least it warmed him.

Mavis touched the water. "I think it's cold enough now. What do you think?"

Enid put in her fingers. "It's cold enough."

Dax took another swig of the brandy, and lay back in the tub, resigned. "Now what?"

"You'll see," Mavis said. "Get out of the tub."

"All right. Hand me a towel."

"No." She held the towel just out of his reach. "Get out of the tub first."

"I will not."

"Oh, no?" Enid giggled. Quickly she turned on the cold water again.

He was out of the tub almost before the icy spray hit. He stood there shivering as they began to slap at him with the rough Turkish towels. "Hey, that hurts. Cut it out!"

Instead they flicked the towels harder. He jumped around trying to avoid their attack and at the same time not drop the bottle. Finally he managed to duck past them into his bedroom. He dove into bed, pulling the covers up over him.

They stood at the foot of his bed, owlishly watching him.

"Now that you've had your fun, why don't you go back to bed?"

A curious look passed between them. "All right," Mavis said. "Give us back our bottle."

Dax took another sip. "Why should I?" He began to feel the spread of its warmth. "I think I'm entitled to something after all I went through. I may even come down with pneumonia."

"We won't leave without the brandy."

He was beginning to feel good now. "If you want it you'll have to take it away from me."

They moved toward him threateningly. He pushed the bottle under the pillow and crossed his arms on his chest. Abruptly they snatched the blanket away, leaving him naked on the bed. This time he made no move to cover himself. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Did you ever see anything so immensely beautiful?" Enid whispered in an almost awed voice as she reached up to unbutton the blouse of her pajamas.

Sometime during the night one of the sisters had gone out and fetched another bottle of brandy but Dax was not sure which. They kept changing places so often that he was never quite clear which was which. The one thing he was certain of was that this was not the first time they had played games like this together.

Now Enid—or was it Mavis?—took a drink from the bottle. "I don't know ever when I felt so well screwed." She sighed, and looked down at Dax's face in her lap. "And to think we had you down for a fag."

Mavis—or was it Enid?—raised her face from his lap and saw the puzzled expression on his face. "You know—fagot, queer, homosexual."

He laughed. "What made you think that?"

"So many are, you know," she said seriously. "It's these damned public schools. They all get buggered so much they begin to like it."

"With girls like you around?" he said, reaching for the bottle.

"That's the only way some of them will do it," Mavis replied. "They say it's better that way." She rolled over and took the bottle from Dax. "Next time we'll try it that way."

"Fongool," Enid said, giggling.

Dax woke at the first morning light. He flung out a hand and touched warm naked flesh. Sitting up in bed, he reached across Enid and picked up his wristwatch from the night table. It was almost five o'clock. He looked down at the sleeping girls. The French were right about English women; they did not have the charm of their own women. But when they were in bed there were none like them; they had all the amatory instincts of alley cats.

He reached over and shook them. Mavis opened her eyes. "It's morning," he whispered, "you'd better be getting back to your own rooms."

"Oh." She sat up and stretched. "Is Enid up?"

But Enid wouldn't open her eyes and in the end the two of them had to carry her back across the hall. Dax dropped her onto her own bed and turned to leave.

Mavis stopped him, her hand on his arm. "Dax."

He looked down at her. "Yes?"

"It was a good party, wasn't it?"

He smiled. "It was great."

She hesitated; her glance fell before his. "Will there be a next time?"

"Of course."

She looked up into his face and smiled. "The house will be too full this weekend. Too bad you can't get down to Brighton during the week. We have our own apartment near school."

"Who says I can't? Will it be all right if I bring a friend?"

"Of course." Then she looked up at him, a worried look in her eyes. "But—"

"He's all right, he knows how to keep his mouth shut. You know him. Sergei. The Russian who plays on the French polo team with me."

"Oh, yes." She began to smile. "That could be real fun. When would you come?"

"Monday night, if that's all right with you."

Later that morning, before anyone arrived, he went down to the village and called Sergei at the hotel in London. As a reward for winning, the whole team was staying over. He wasn't worried about Sergei not coming once he'd explained. Sergei would know just what he was talking about.

CHAPTER 12

Sir Robert looked down at the photographs on his desk. His face did not change expression as he looked up. "You could go to jail for this, you know."

Dax remained impassive. He did not answer. He knew that Sir Robert was bluffing. Silence fell into the room; only the faint hum of commerce seeped through the walls from the banking area outside.

Sergei had used almost the same words when Dax had broached the idea to him at the hotel in Brighton but Dax had laughed. "On what grounds? Do you think Sir Robert would want the publicity? Don't forget it's his daughters who will be involved."

"Just make sure my face isn't in the pictures," Sergei had said, acquiescing.

"It isn't your face I need," Dax had answered. He paid the luncheon check and got to his feet. "Let's go. We still have to buy a camera and some film."

"You'd better get developing equipment as well. You can't take pictures like that into the corner store to be developed. But what if the girls won't go along with the idea?"

"When they've had enough to drink they'll do anything," Dax had answered, and he'd been right.

Sir Robert shuffled the photographs and placed them in a small neat pile in front of him. "How much do you want for these?"

"Nothing," Dax replied, "they're yours."

The banker looked at him for a moment. "The negatives then?"

"There are four ships in Macao that were promised to my father two years ago. When they arrive in Corteguay the negatives will be mailed to you."

"That's out of the question," Sir Robert said. "I don't control those ships."

"Ramirez thinks you do."

Sir Robert stared at him. "So that's what happened to the letter."

Dax did not answer.

"Is that your conception of honor?" Sir Robert demanded angrily. "To betray your welcome in the home of your host?"

The beginnings of anger stirred in Dax's voice. "You're not the one to lecture me. When your own value of honor is how much you gain by its betrayal."

It was Sir Robert's turn to be silent. He stared down at the pile of photographs. "I do what I think is best for England."

Dax rose to his feet. "For your sake, Sir Robert, and my own, I would much prefer to believe that than to believe you acted out of greed."

He started for the door. Sir Robert's voice stopped him. "I need time to consider this."

"There's no hurry, Sir Robert. I'm returning to Paris today. If, say, by the end of next week I do not have a favorable reaction to my request, Ramirez' letter will be shown to your cousin the baron, and to my father. Then a thousand duplicates of each of those photographs will be distributed all over Europe."

Sir Robert's lips were tightly pressed together. His eyes stared coldly at Dax. "And if I should, as you put it, react favorably? You surely don't expect me to communicate with you directly?"

"No, Sir Robert. I shall learn of your decision soon enough from my father."

"And Ramirez? Don't you want me to do something about him?"

A yellow light flashed in Dax's dark eyes. The banker felt a chill run through him at the sudden savageness that came into the boy's voice. "No, Sir Robert. I have my own plans for him."

Sir Robert's breakfast coffee slowly turned cold as he read a headline in his newspaper the following morning:

former diplomat and aide murdered on italian riviera

He felt his hands begin to tremble as he remembered the look in Dax's eyes. He shuddered, recalling how he had urged the boy to stay with them when he entered Sandhurst. Beneath it all the boy was nothing but a savage; all the education, the polish, was merely a thin veneer covering up the jungle. There was no telling what an animal like that might do. They might all have been murdered in their beds.

It was strange how suddenly near at hand it all seemed. No longer was it merely numbers and notations on a balance sheet at the bank. Now it was people, human beings, himself and his daughters, life and death.

His daughters. He felt a chill as he thought of them coupled with that savage. Whatever had possessed them to behave as they had? They had never given him the slightest trouble before. He hadn't been able to bring himself to talk to them about the pictures. They were such proper young ladies he did not know how to begin to discuss it.

Suddenly he was angry. It all came clear to him. He was a fool for even having doubted them for a moment. Everyone knew that savages in the jungle had access to mysterious potions that even modern science knew nothing about. That had to be it. Somehow the boy had managed to give the girls an aphrodisiac. Perhaps in a harmless cup of tea.

He realized suddenly what he had to do. He had to get them away from here. His wife came into the breakfast room and sat down opposite him. "How are you, my dear?" she asked, spreading marmalade on a slice of toast.

"The girls are going to your cousin in Canada!" he exclaimed angrily.

She stared at him in surprise, her toast forgotten. "But I thought we agreed that they didn't have to. That Chamberlain would never permit a war in Europe."

"He's not prime minister yet! The girls are going, there will be no further discussion about it."

Sir Robert got to his feet abruptly and walked from the room, leaving his wife staring bewilderedly after him. As he walked down the driveway to the car that would take him to his offices in the city he decided that was only part of the answer. The other part was that Corteguay would get her four ships.

Because now it wasn't the threat of scandal or exposure or even for that matter the possible besmirching of his honor if his cousin learned of his betrayal. It was much simpler and more basic than that. For the first time in his life Sir Robert no longer felt protected by his position and his money. They were scarcely the armor that would deflect the thrust of a savage's knife. The ice-cold fear of death danced on his spine.

The sound of the muffled drums echoed hollowly on the dock behind him as Dax followed the flag-covered coffin up the gangplank. The sailors snapped awkwardly to attention in their new and unaccustomed uniforms of the Corteguayan merchant marine. Silently Dax watched as the coffin passed into their hands from the honor guard of French soldiers who had carried it aboard.

Then the soldiers stood at attention as the sailors moved down the deck with the coffin. Slowly he followed them, moving stiffly in his stiff new morning suit and holding his shiny top hat awkwardly. He closed his eyes as the sailors tilted the coffin in order to get it through the narrow doorway of the stateroom.

How ironic, he thought, that his father would never know he was returning in a ship bearing his name. That was the first thing Dax had noticed when the cortege stopped dock-side. jaime xenos. The white lettering on the black paint was still fresh enough to allow one to discern the former name beneath. Shoshika Maru. It was the first voyage between France and Corteguay for the newly created merchant marine.

It was only a little over a month since the day he had sat in his father's office and Marcel had brought in the cable from England. He still remembered the smile on his father's face when he looked up after reading it.

"Our friend Sir Robert has managed to get the ships for us!"

Dax had smiled at the happiness in his father's eyes.

"Now perhaps when the time comes we shall return home aboard our own ship."

The time had come, Dax thought, but in a way neither of them had foreseen. His father was returning home. But not he. He was to remain. The cable from el Presidente had been explicit:

"My condolences over the death of your father, who was a true patriot. You are hereby appointed consul, and will remain at your post until further notice."

He watched while they tightened the straps around the coffin to secure it against the turbulence of the sea. Then, one by one, the sailors left, saluting as they passed, until only he and Fat Cat remained in the cabin.

He turned to his friend. Fat Cat said in a quick whisper, "I will wait outside."

Dax looked down at the coffin, still covered by the green and blue flag with the soaring white eagle of Cortez, from whom the country had taken its name. Then he quietly walked over and rested his hand lightly on the lid of the casket.