Angel's Ransom (27 page)

Blake moved fast.

He was more than surprised to find Freddy and Valentina waiting at the bottom of the engine-room ladder. The sling hung loose from Freddy
’s
neck, and he nursed the
splinted finger in a way that told of the pain the descent of
the ladder must have meant to him. But there was determination in his stubble-bearded face.

‘Holtz is wandering around pushing his rat nose into everything on deck,’ he said. ‘I figured this was one place we
could talk without his butting in. I want you to do
something
for us, Sam.’

‘I’ve got to do something for the fuel strainers first. I haven’t much time.’

‘You’ve got time enough. I tipped a little sugar into the port strainer, that
’s
all.’ Freddy hesitated, stuttered, and
finished with a rush. ‘Marry us while you’re cleaning it.’

Valentina said calmly, ‘Go about your work, Captain. I did not know why he wanted to bring you here, or I would
have stopped him. I thought he had something of
importance
to discuss with you.’

‘It
’s
important to me.’ Freddy was stubbornly insistent. ‘I want to be married. You can do it, can’t you, Sam?
Ship
’s
captain on the high seas?’

‘It wouldn’t hold without witnesses, and I doubt that it would hold even with them. I’m not in command.’ Blake
worked rapidly at the strainer. He could not help adding,
‘This is no time for gestures, Freddy. We’ve only got
a few hours ahead of us before a showdown, one way or
another.’

‘That
’s
the reason I want you to marry us.’ Freddy turned to Valentina. ‘It
’s
more than a gesture, doll. If
something
happens to me, and you get out of it, you’ll have my
money.’

‘Why do you want me to have your money?’

‘Because for the last couple of days it hasn’t meant
anything
to you,’ Freddy scowled intently at his bandaged finger, avoiding the blonde girl
’s
eyes. ‘I know why you first
took up with me. It doesn’t matter. I was ready to pay for
your time. When Holtz got into the act, you lost your chance
but you were — nice - just the same. You treated me like a
human being instead of a slob with a
check
-book. You and
Sam are the only two people in the world who ever gave a
damn for me apart from what I could be worked for, and
he
’s
already in my will. I want you to have something too, if
there
’s
anything I can do about it.’ He ended lamely, ‘There
probably isn’t. But I wanted to try.’

‘Thank you for trying.’ Valentina put her hand on his good hand, just for a moment. Her husky voice was soft.
‘Thank you very much for trying.’

Blake said, ‘I wish you hadn’t said that about your will.’

‘Why? Didn’t you expect to be in it?’

Tight-mouthed, Blake was remembering Holtz
’s
jeer: In such close contact with six million dollars, is it too much to hope that
some of it will rub off on you?

He changed the subject to a grimmer one by repeating for both of them the warning he had given Marian earlier.
If the
Angel
’s
course were changed markedly during the
night, it would be the signa
l of immediate danger. To barric
ade themselves and hope for rescue before Holtz could
penetrate the barricades or sink the cruiser would then be
their only chance, although Blake took some of the ominousness from the warning by explaining his reasons for hope
that the
Angel
would reach the port for which she was
headed. He sent them back up the engine-room ladder
before it occurred to either to ask the all-important question
for which there was no answer: What awaited them in
Monaco, when and if they arrived?

The stuttering motor required the full quarter-hour and minutes over before he had it running smoothly. He
expected to pay for the extra minutes when he returned to
the pilot-house, but Jules was too concerned with bad
weather and poor visibility to make an issue of the tardiness.

The
Angel
was heading squarely across the coastwise shipping lanes, a dangerous course in foul weather, and her
position off the coast was beyond calculation by dead
reckoning in the strong following sea. When Blake relieved
the wheel, the sailor used the direction-finder to plot half a
dozen coordinates on the chart before he was satisfied that
he knew where they were.

‘This wind is kicking us along like a sailboat,’ he grumbled. ‘Let
’s
not tangle gear with the
Messageries
Maritimes before
we have time to sheer off. Cut it to half-speed, and keep a
sharp eye out.’

Blake moved the controls, reducing speed. Jules came to stand at his side and peer through the area of windscreen
cleared of rain by the clacking wipers.

Leaning forward, his face close to the glass, the sailor was an easy target for a blow to the base of the skull. Blake was
only briefly tempted. He had failed once, and disposing of
Jules, even if he could manage it, would not help greatly
as long as Holtz had the only gun. The Walther was the
key to everything. Holtz he could handle easily in a test of
physical strength. If he could be tricked somehow, brought
within reach and his wary attention diverted for even a
moment
...

A blast of wind and moisture from the quickly-reclosed door made him and Jules look round. Holtz, in dripping
oilskins too big for his small body, said demandingly, ‘Why
have we reduced speed?’

‘The wind is giving us a push, and we’re in the steamer lanes.’
Jules reached for the light switch, plunging the pilot-house into darkness except for the small glow on the com-pass card. ‘Anyway, we’re ahead of schedule.’

‘What did you do that for?’

Unconcealed suspicion was in Holtz
’s
question. The oil-skins crackled as he put his hand on the pistol they covered.

‘Turn off the light? It throws a reflection on the glass. You can’t see through it.’

‘Turn it on!’

Jules snapped the switch, but not before Blake had had time to remember his swollen eye. When the light came on
again he was facing the windscreen. Jules
’s
quick thinking had saved the moment.

Behind him, Holtz was silent. Blake could picture the way the mistrustful eyes would be going over the pilot-house,
probing at Jules for a better explanation of the extinguished
light, only gradually losing their doubt. They would never
lose their caution. They could only be misdirected.

The oilskins crackled again, faintly. Holtz said, ‘When will we arrive?’

‘At this speed, around two o’clock. Maybe a little later.’

‘It must be before two.’

‘Open it up, Captain. Not too much.’

Blake nudged the controls. The drum of the motors changed again.

Holtz said,
‘S
o you will both know, this is our schedule. At one o’clock, Jules, you will take the wheel. You, Captain,
will then bring your passengers, one at a time, down to their
cabins, where you will lock each one in with the key I shall
give you in the salon and reclaim afterwards to make sure
that you have used it properly. I shall accept no excuses
or delays. If it is necessary for me to come after any of
you, it will be to shoot, and for no other reason. Is that
clear?’

‘What comes after I’ve taken them below?’

‘It is not necessary for you to know.’

‘You want cooperation. I don’t want to be shot, or see anyone else shot.’ Speaking to the windscreen, Blake felt a
crawling tension in the muscles of his back. ‘I can get them
to their cabins more easily by explaining what it means than
by dragging them. What happens after they’re locked in?’

Holtz hesitated, considering.

‘Very well. At two o’clock we will be standing off the port of Monaco. Roche will signal on the hour if it is safe for us
to go ashore. We will take the launch, and Jules will leave
you tied in a way to permit you to work loose after we are
ashore. You will be free then to take such steps as you like.’

‘You might as well shoot us. In this blow, an unmanned craft will drift on the rocks in fifteen minutes and break up
in ten.’

‘Jules will put down an anchor before we leave.’

‘We don’t have enough chain to anchor off the port. The depth is too great.’

Jules said furiously, ‘Ah, shut your mouth! We’ll anchor off Monte Carlo beach, then! Stop dreaming up more
trouble than you’ve got!’

‘I don’t have to dream it.’ Blake felt old, tired and beaten in more than a physical sense. ‘What happens if Roche
doesn’t signal?’

‘It will mean that he has not yet freed himself from the surveillance the Swiss banker will have placed over Farr
’s
hundred thousand dollars. We will wait as long as necessary
for the signal that he has been able to do so.’

‘What if he never signals?’

‘Don’t suggest that, Captain!’

Holtz spat the command in a way that made the crawling sensation in Blake
’s
back turn to an ugly knot of
expectation
. He waited, rigid, for the rustle of oilskins that would
mean the Walther
leveled
at his back. The windscreen-wipers clacked once, twice, three times.

‘Don’t ever suggest that,’ Holtz repeated in another tone. ‘It implies miscalculation. I do not miscalculate.’

The strong winds of the storm pushed tons of water in through the mouth of the little port, giving the
tideless
Mediterranean a flood to lift the hulls of the vessels moored
in the shelter of the sea wall. One of them was the patrol
boat, a sleekly powerful cutter with an over-large search-light on its deckhouse roof and a 50 mm. swivel gun
mounted in the bow. The cutter had been designed primarily
for use against cigarette smugglers, and the swivel gun was
intended less to do damage than to make a loud noise,
ordinarily enough to stop craft the cutter could not out-run. The gun had never yet been fired with intent to
damage. It was Neyrolle
’s
prayer that its first such use
would not have to be against the
Angel
.

He had taken over the Bureau du Pilotage as temporary headquarters. The Bureau was a small office in the base of
the beacon tower from which the steady green eye of the
north jetty stared at its winking red companion on the far side of the
harbor
entrance. There was barely room in the
Bureau for a table, several chairs, and the three men who
were there: Neyrolle, George, and Cesar.

Neyrolle was patiently questioning Cesar about the
Angel
’s
capabilities and limitations. He said, ‘How near could
she come to shore, safely, in a storm like this?’

Cesar made a weary gesture that dismissed the weather.

‘I have told you before, this is a breeze for her. The captain could bring her into port as easily as you park a car. With someone else at the wheel it might be another matter,
but as I have said a dozen times at least’ - the steward
looked his appeal at George, who was scowling at the floor
and did not catch the look - ‘whoever took her out of the
harbor
nearly smacked the breakwater on a calm day.
With that kind of a wheelsman, there is no such word as
“safely”.’

‘But anyone could bring her close enough to send a boat ashore?’

‘Anyone could bring her close enough to try to send a boat ashore. Me, I would not choose to be in it.’

George made a sound of impatience.

‘It
’s
useless to hope they’ll launch a boat without a signal,’ he said. ‘You’re wasting your time.’

‘I am prepared for all eventualities,’ Neyrolle answered. ‘Unless they are frightened
off, which they will not be ex
cept by extreme carelessness or a stupidity beyond belief,
they must make contact with the shore somehow. Thieves
as bold as these do not abandon thirty-five million francs
without an effort to recover the loot.’ He spoke again to
Cesar. ‘We know that the
Angel
carries a fifteen-foot power-boat. Have you any real reason to believe that it could not
be launched, or would not be seaworthy even in this
weather?’