Journey Into Fear (18 page)

“Good morning, Mr. Graham. You feel all right today, eh?” It was Mr. Kuvetli.

Graham turned his head. “Yes, thanks.”

“Monsieur and Madame Mathis are hopeful to play some bridge this afternoon. Do you play?”

“Yes, I play.” He was not, he knew, being very gracious but he was terrified lest Mr. Kuvetli should attach himself to him.

“Then perhaps we make party of four, eh?”

“By all means.”

“I do not play well. Is very difficult game.”

“Yes.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Josette step through the door from the landing on to the deck.

Mr. Kuvetli’s eyes flickered in her direction. He leered. “This afternoon then, Mr. Graham.”

“I shall look forward to it.”

Mr. Kuvetli went. Josette came up to him.

“What was he saying?”

“He was asking me to play bridge.” Something in her face set his heart going like a trip hammer. “You’ve got it?” he said quickly.

She shook her head. “The box was locked. He has the keys.”

He felt the sweat prickling out all over his body. He stared at her trying to think of something to say.

“Why do you look at me like that?” she exclaimed angrily. “I cannot help it if he keeps the box locked.”

“No, you cannot help it.” He knew now that she had not intended to get the revolver. She couldn’t be blamed. He couldn’t expect her to steal for him. He had asked too much of her. But he had been banking on that revolver of José’s. Now, in God’s name, what was he going to do?

She rested her hand on his arm. “You are angry with me?”

He shook his head. “Why should I be angry? I should have had the sense to keep my own revolver in my pocket. It’s just that I was relying on your getting it. It’s my own fault. But, as I told you, I’m not used to this sort of thing.”

She laughed. “Ah, you need not worry; I can tell you something. This man does not carry a gun.”

“What! How do you know?”

“He was going up the stairs in front of me when I came back just now. His clothes are tight and creased. If he carried a revolver I would have seen the shape of it in his pocket.”

“You are sure of this?”

“Of course. I would not tell you if …”

“But a
small
gun …” He stopped. A nine millimetre self-loading pistol would
not
be a small gun. It would weigh about two pounds and would be correspondingly bulky. It would not be the sort of thing a man would carry about in his pocket if he could leave it in a cabin. If …

She was watching his face. “What is it?”

“He’ll have left his gun in his cabin,” he said slowly.

She looked him in the eyes. “I could see that he does not go to his cabin for a long time.”

“How?”

“José will do it.”

“José?”

“Be calm. I will not have to tell José anything about you. José will play cards with him this evening.”

“Banat would play cards. He is a gambler. But will José ask him?”

“I shall tell José that I saw this man open a wallet with a lot of money in it. José will see that he plays cards. You do not know José.”

“You’re sure you can do it?”

She squeezed his arm. “Of course. I do not like you to be worried. If you take his gun then you will have nothing at all to fear, eh?”

“No, I shall have nothing at all to fear.” He said it almost wonderingly. It seemed so simple. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Ah, but he had not known before that the man did not carry his gun. Take the man’s gun away from him and he couldn’t shoot. That was
logical. And if he couldn’t shoot there was nothing to fear. That was logical too.
The essence of all good strategy is simplicity
.

He turned to her. “When can you do this?”

“This evening would be best. José does not like so much to play cards in the afternoon.”

“How soon this evening?”

“You must not be impatient. It will be some time after the meal.” She hesitated. “It will be better if we are not seen together this afternoon. You do not want him to suspect that we are friends.”

“I can play bridge with Kuvetli and the Mathises this afternoon. But how shall I know if it is all right?”

“I will find a way to let you know.” She leaned against him. “You are sure that you are not angry with me about José’s revolver?”

“Of course I’m not.”

“There is no one looking. Kiss me.”

“Banking!” Mathis was saying. “What is it but usury? Bankers are money lenders, usurers. But because they lend other people’s money or money that does not exist, they have a pretty name. They are still usurers. Once, usury was a mortal sin and an abomination, and to be a usurer was to be a criminal for whom there was a prison cell. To-day the usurers are the gods of the earth and the only mortal sin is to be poor.”

“There are so many poor people,” said Mr. Kuvetli profoundly. “It is terrible!”

Mathis shrugged impatiently. “There will be more before this war is finished. You may depend upon it. It
will be a good thing to be a soldier. Soldiers, at least, will be given food.”

“Always,” said Madame Mathis, “he talks nonsense. Always, always. But when we get back to France it will be different. His friends will not listen so politely. Banking! What does he know about banking?”

“Ha! That is what the banker likes. Banking is a mystery! It is too difficult for ordinary men to understand.” He laughed derisively. “If you make two and two equal five you
must
have a lot of mystery.” He turned aggressively to Graham. “The international bankers are the real war criminals. Others do the killing but they sit, calm and collected, in their offices and make money.”

“I’m afraid,” said Graham, feeling that he ought to say something, “that the only international banker I know is a very harassed man with a duodenal ulcer. He is far from calm. On the contrary, he complains bitterly.”

“Precisely,” said Mathis triumphantly. “It is the System! I can tell you …”

He went on to tell them. Graham picked up his fourth whisky and soda. He had been playing bridge with the Mathises and Mr. Kuvetli for most of the afternoon and he was tired of them. He had seen Josette only once during that time. She had paused by the card-table and nodded to him. He had taken the nod to mean that José had risen to the news that Banat had money in his pocket and that sometime that evening it would be safe to go to Banat’s cabin.

The prospect cheered and terrified him alternately. At one moment the plan seemed foolproof. He would go into the cabin, take the gun, return to his own cabin,
drop the gun out of the porthole and return to the saloon with a tremendous weight lifted from his shoulders. The next moment, however, doubts would begin to creep in. It was
too
simple. Banat might be insane but he was no fool. A man who earned his living in the way Banat earned his and who yet managed to stay alive and free was not going to be taken in so easily. Supposing he should guess what his victim had in mind, leave José in the middle of the game, and go to his cabin! Supposing he had bribed the steward to keep an eye on his cabin on the grounds that it contained valuables! Supposing …! But what was the alternative? Was he to wait passively while Banat chose the moment to kill him? It was all very well for Haki to talk about a marked man having only to defend himself; but what had he to defend himself with? When the enemy was as close as Banat was, the best defence was attack. Yes, that was it! Anything was better than just waiting. And the plan might well succeed. It was the simple plans of attack that
did
succeed. It would never occur to a man of Banat’s conceit to suspect that two could play at the game of stealing guns, that the helpless rabbit might bite back. He’d soon find out his mistake.

Josette and José came in with Banat. José appeared to be making himself amiable.

“… it is only necessary,” Mathis was concluding, “to say one word—Briey! When you have said that you have said all.”

Graham drained his glass. “Quite so. Will you all have another drink?”

The Mathis, looking startled, declined sharply; but
Mr. Kuvetli nodded happily.

“Thank you, Mr. Graham. I will.”

Mathis stood up, frowning. “It is time that we got ready for dinner. Please excuse us.”

They went. Mr. Kuvetli moved his chair over.

“That was very sudden,” said Graham. “What’s the matter with them?”

“I think,” said Mr. Kuvetli carefully, “that they thought you are making joke of them.”

“Why on earth should they think that?”

Mr. Kuvetli looked sideways. “You ask them to have to drink three times in five minutes. You ask them once. They say no. You ask them again. They say no again. You ask again. They do not understand English hospitality.”

“I see. I’m afraid that I was thinking of something else. I must apologise.”

“Please!” Mr. Kuvetli was overcome. “It is not necessary to apologise for hospitality. But”—he glanced hesitantly at the clock—“it is now nearly time for dinner. You allow me later to have this drink you so kindly offer?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And you will excuse me please, now?”

“By all means.”

When Mr. Kuvetli had gone, Graham stood up. Yes, he’d had just one drink too many on an empty stomach. He went out on deck.

The starlit sky was hung with small smoky clouds. In the distance were the lights of the Italian coast. He stood there for a moment letting the icy wind sting his
face. In a minute or two the gong would sound for dinner. He dreaded the approaching meal as a sick man dreads the approach of the surgeon with a probe. He would sit, as he had sat at luncheon, listening to Haller’s monologues and to the Beronellis whispering behind their misery, forcing food down his throat to his unwilling stomach, conscious all the time of the man opposite to him—of why he was there and of what he stood for.

He turned round and leaned against a stanchion. With his back to the deck he found himself constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure that he was alone. He felt more at ease with no deck space behind him.

Through one of the saloon portholes he could see Banat with Josette and José. They sat like details in a Hogarth group; José tight-lipped and intent, Josette smiling, Banat saying something that brought his lips forward. The air in there was grey with tobacco smoke and the hard light from the unshaded lamps flattened their features. There was about them all the squalor of a flashlight photograph taken in a bar.

Someone turned the corner at the end of the deck and came towards him. The figure reached the light and he saw that it was Haller. The old man stopped.

“Good evening, Mr. Graham. You look as if you are really enjoying the air. I, as you see, need a scarf and a coat before I can face it.”

“It’s stuffy inside.”

“Yes. I saw you this afternoon very gallantly playing bridge.”

“You don’t like bridge?”

“One’s tastes change.” He stared out at the lights. “To
see the land from a ship or to see a ship from the land. I used to like both. Now I dislike both. When a man reaches my age he grows, I think, to resent subconsciously the movement of everything except the respiratory muscles which keep him alive. Movement is change and for an old man change means death.”

“And the immortal soul?”

Haller sniffed. “Even that which we commonly regard as immortal dies sooner or later. One day the last Titian and the last Beethoven quartet will cease to exist. The canvas and the printed notes may remain if they are carefully preserved but the works themselves will have died with the last eye and ear accessible to their messages. As for the immortal soul, that is an eternal truth and the eternal truths die with the men to whom they were necessary. The eternal truths of the Ptolemaic system were as necessary to the mediæval theologians as were the eternal truths of Kepler to the theologians of the Reformation and the eternal truths of Darwin to the nineteenth century materialists. The statement of an eternal truth is a prayer to lay a ghost—the ghost of primitive man defending himself against what Spengler calls the ‘dark almightiness.’ ” He turned his head suddenly as the door of the saloon opened.

It was Josette standing there looking uncertainly from one to the other of them. At that moment the gong began to sound for dinner.

“Excuse me,” said Haller; “I must see my wife before dinner. She is still unwell.”

“Of course,” said Graham hurriedly.

Josette came over to him as Haller went.

“What did he want, that old man?” she whispered.

“He was talking about life and death.”

“Ugh! I do not like him. He makes me shudder. But I must not stay. I came only to tell you that it is all right.”

“When are they going to play?”

“After dinner.” She squeezed his arm. “He is horrible, this man Banat. I would not do this for anyone except you,
chéri
.”

“You know I am grateful, Josette. I shall make it up to you.”

“Ah, stupid!” She smiled at him fondly. “You must not be so serious.”

He hesitated. “Are you sure that you can keep him there?”

“You need not worry. I will keep him. But come back to the
salone
when you have been to the cabin so that I shall know that you have finished. It is understood,
chéri?”

“Yes, it is understood.”

It was after nine o’clock and, for the past half hour, Graham had been sitting near the door of the saloon pretending to read a book.

For the hundredth time his eyes wandered to the opposite corner of the room where Banat was talking to Josette and José. His heart began suddenly to beat faster. José had a deck of cards in his hand. He was grinning at something Banat had said. Then they sat down at the card-table. Josette looked across the room.

Graham waited a moment. Then, when he saw them cutting for the deal, he got slowly to his feet and walked out.

He stood on the landing for a moment, bracing himself for what he had to do. Now that the moment had come he felt better. Two minutes—three at the most—and it would be over. He would have the gun and he would be safe. He had only to keep his head.

He went down the stairs. Cabin number nine was beyond his and in the middle section of the alleyway. There was no one about when he reached the palms. He walked on.