“Anything else?”
“Some fog patches in the islands, but nothing to worry about.”
Gradually the wind died, the sea calmed and they ran into a clear September morning with a slight mist rising from the water Mallory opened a window and inhaled the freshness. When he turned she was smiling at him.
“You can handle a boat, Mr. Mallory. I’ll say that for you.”
Don”t forget to. mention the fact in my reference.”
She smiled, picked up the tray and went out again. He leaned over the chart and checked the course.Foxhunter rounded Les Hanois lighthouse on the western tip of Guern-sey an hour and a half later and seagulls and cormorantscried harshly in the sky, sweeping in across the deck from the great cliffs.
Already visibility was becoming worse, fog drifting in patches across the open sea as Guernsey dropped behind the horizon. He set the automatic pilot, leaned over the chart and Anne Grant came in.
“How are we doing?”
“With any kind of luck we should reach lie de Roc in an hour to an hour and a half. Depends on the fog. If we run into any really bad patches things could get tricky.”
“There’s a large-scale Admiralty chart of the island and its approaches in the top drawer,” she said. “I bought it specially.”
He took it out and they leaned over it together. He de Roc was perhaps two miles long and three across, the only anchorage a bay at the southern end. The entire area was en-circled by a network of sunken reefs with only two deep-water channels giving anything like a safe passage through.
Til take her if you like,” Anne said. “I know these waters like the back of my hand and you need to.”
“The damned place looks like a death-trap.” Mallory shook his head. “I wouldn’t like to be drifting in on those shores on a dirty night.”
“A lot of good ships have done just that. You see St. Pierre a mile to the north? In the old days whenever a gale was blowing in from the Atlantic ships were often swept between the two islands to founder on the great sunken reef which links them. At low tide the water-level drops as much as thirty-feet and you can see some of those old wrecks.”
“Dangerous waters to go swimming in.”
She nodded. “Especially at the wrong time. As a matter of fact, the barman from Owen Morgan’s hotel was drowned only the other day. His body drifted in the evening before I left.”
“Not so good.” Mallory moved on quickly. “I see there’s a castle marked on St. Pierre.”
“A Gothic mausoleum. It’s out on a twenty-year lease to a French count, Philippe de Beaumont.”
“The place is going to be busier than I thought.”
She shook her head. “We don’t see much of him. He stays pretty close to home and we don’t get many visitors on the island. The hotel only has six bedrooms. They’re booked right through the summer, of course, but Owen usually ends the season at the beginning of September. He likes to enjoy the last of the good weather himself.”
“He won’t need much staff, then?”
“Only during the season and then he uses Guernsey girls. He’s had a French cook living in full-time for nearly a year now. She should have left at the end of the season, but stayed on.”
“Sounds a rather obvious set-up.”
She shrugged. “It’s their own affair and she’s a nice girl. I hope he marries her.”
The fog lifted a little and on either hand the sea broke in a white foam over great reefs. Mallory smiled grimly. “I think this is where you start doing your stuff.”
She took over the wheel and altered course half a point. A moment later, through a sudden break in the fog, the tower-ing cliffs of the island loomed into view and then the grey curtain dropped into place again.
Mallory reduced speed and Anne Grant took the cruiser forward into the fog. She seemed completely unperturbed and he shrugged fatalistically, pulled down the other seat and took out a cigarette.
At that moment the whole boat rocked violently and Mal-lory and the girl were thrown across to the other side of the wheelhouse.Foxhunter yawed alarmingly and Mallory shoved the girl away and scrambled across to the spinning wheel.