always appeared at the precisely correct moment with the precisely
correct wine. But never for me. I drank soda water. It was in my
contract. The coffee appeared. This was the moment when I had to earn
my money. When antoine was on duty and on top of his form, conversation
was a desecration and a hallowed hush of appreciation, an almost
cathedral ecstasy, was the correct form. But about forty minutes of
this rapturous silence was about par for the course. It couldn’t and
never did go on. I never yet met a rich manor woman, for that matter of
it who didn’t list talking, chiefly and preferably about themselves, as
among their favourite occupations. And the prime target for their
observations was invariably the officer who sat at the head of the
table. I looked round ours and wondered who would set the ball rolling.
Miss harrbrideher original central-european name was
unpronounceable-thin, scrawny, sixtyish, and tough as whalebone, who had
made a fortune out of highly expensive and utterly worthless cosmetic
preparations which she wisely refrained from using on herself? mr.
greenstreet, her husband, a grey anonymity of a man with a grey sunken
face, who had married her for heaven only knew what reason, for he was a
very wealthy man in his own right? tony carreras? his father, miguel
carreras? there should have been a sixth at my table, to replace the
curtis family of three who, along with the harrisons, had been so
hurriedly called home from kingston, but the old man who had come aboard
in his wheel chair was apparently to have his meals served in his cabin
during the voyage, with his nurses in attendance. Four men and one
woman; it made an ill-balanced table. Senor miguel carreras spoke
first. “The campari’s prices, mr. carter, are quite atrocious,” he said
calmly. He puffed appreciatively at his cigar. “Robbery on the high
seas would be a very fitting description. On the other hand, the
cuisine is as claimed. You have a chef of divine gifts. It is perhaps
not too much to pay for a foretaste of a better world.” this made senor
carreras very wealthy indeed and was old hat to me. Wealthy men never
mentioned money, lest they be thought not to have enough of it. Very
wealthy men, on the other hand, to whom money as such no longer
mattered, had no such inhibitions. The passengers on the campari
complained all the time about the prices. And they kept coming back.
“From all accounts, sir, ‘divine’ is just about right. Experienced
travellers who have stayed in the best hotels on both sides of the
atlantic maintain that antoine has no equal in either europe or america.
Except, perhaps, henriques.”
“Henriques?”
“Our alternate chef. He’s on to-morrow.”
“Do I detect a certain immodesty, mr. carter, in advancing the
claims of the campari?” there was no offence meant, not with that
smile. “I don’t think so, sir. But the next twenty-four hours will
speak for themselves-and henriques-better than I can.”
“Touche!” he smiled again and reached for the bottle of remy
martin-the waiters vanished at coffee time. “And the prices?”
“They’re terrible,” I agreed. I told that to all the passengers
and it seemed to please them. “We offer what no other ship in the world
offers, but the prices are still scandalous. At least a dozen people in
this room at this very moment have told me that-and most of them are
here for at least their third trip.”
“You make your point, mr. carter.” it was tony carreras speaking
and his voice was as one might have expected slow, controlled, with a
deep resonant timbre. He looked at his father. “Remember the waiting
list at the blue mail’s offices?”
“Indeed. We were pretty far down the list and what a list. Half
the millionaires in central and south america. I suppose we may
consider ourselves fortunate, mr. carter, in that we were the only ones
able to accept at such short notice after the sudden departure of our
predecessors in jamaica. But don’t forget that to catch the boat we had
to make a hurried four-hundred-mile dash from the capital to carracio by
air and road. And what roads!” sefior carreras obviously didn’t share
the carracio agent’s respectful terror of the revolutionary government.
I wondered how a man of carreras’ obviously aristocratic background had
been able to retain his obvious wealth in the face of the forces of
change that had overcome and completely wiped out the old order-and why,
if money was so desperately short on the island, he was allowed to
convert very large sums of it into dollars to pay for this cruise, or
how and why he had been able to leave the island at all. But I kept my
wonderings to myself. Instead I said, “you’re still a long way off the
record, sefior carreras. Last trip we had a family from santiago and
two men from beirut, both of whom had flown to new york specially for
the round voyage.”
“And they can’t all be wrong, eh? don’t worry, mr. carter, I
intend to enjoy myself. Can you give us any idea of our itinerary?”
“That’s supposed to be one of the attractions, sir. No set
itinerary. Our schedule largely depends on the availability and
destination of cargoes. One thing certain, we’re going to new york.
Most of our passengers boarded there and passengers like to be returned
to where they came from.” he knew this anyway, knew that we had coffins
consigned to new york. “We may stop off at nassau. Depends how the
captain feels-the company gives him a lot of leeway in adjusting local
schedules to suit the best needs of the passengers -and the weather
reports. This is the hurricane season, mr. carreras, or pretty close to
it. If the reports are bad captain Bullen will want all the sea room he
can get and give nassau a byez.” I smiled. “Among the other
attractions of the s.s. campari is that we do not make our passengers
seasick unless it is absolutely essential.”
“Considerate, very considerate,” carreras murmured. He looked at
me speculatively. “But we’ll be making one or two calls on the east
coast, I take it?”
“No idea, sir. Normally, yes. Again it’s up to the captain, and
how the captain behaves depends on a certain dr. Slingsby caroline.”
“They haven’t caught him yet,” miss harrbride declared in her rough
gravelly voice. She scowled with all the fierce patriotism of a
first-generation american, looked round the table, and gave us all the
impartial benefit of her scowl. “It’s incredible, frankly incredible.
I still don’t believe it. A thirteenth-generation american!” I could
imagine how unthinkably remote thirteen generations of american
ancestors must be to miss hatrbride; she’d have traded her
million-dollar cosmetic empire for even a couple of them. “I was
reading all about him in the tribune two days ago. Did you know that
the 5lingsbys came to the potomac in 1662, just five years after the
washingtons. Three hundred years! imagine, american for three hundred
years, and now a renegade! a traitor! thirteen generations!”
“Don’t take it too hard, miss harrbride,” I said encouragingly.
“When it comes to skipping with the family silver, dr. caroline just
doesn’t begin to be in the same class as my countrymen. The last
englishman who deflected to the communist world had an ancestor in the
doomsday book. Thirty solid generations. Yet he took off and lit out
at the drop of a hat.”
“Faugh!” said miss harrbride. “We heard about this character.”
tony carreras, like his father, had had his education in some ivy league
college; he was rather less formal in his attitude towards the english
language. “Slingsby caroline, I mean. Makes very little sense to me.
What’s he going to do with this weapon-the twister, they call it, isn’t
it? Even if he does get it out of the country? who’s going to buy it?
I mean, as nuclear devices go it could be ranked almost as a toy: it
certainly isn’t going to change the balance of world power, no matter
who gets his hands on it.”
“Tony’s right,” miguel carreras agreed. “Who is going to buy it?
besides, there’s nothing secret any more about the making of nuclear
weapons. If a country has enough wealth and technical resources-so far
there are only four in the world-it can build a nuclear weapon any time.
If it hasn’t, all the plans or working models in the world are useless
to them.”
“He’s going to have an interesting time in hawking the twister
around,” tony carreras finished. “Especially since from all
descriptions you can’t get the twister into a suitcase. But what’s this
guy got to do with us, mr. carter?”
“As long as he is at large every cargo vessel leaving the eastern
seaboard gets a pretty thorough going over to make sure that neither he
nor the twister is aboard. lows up the turn-round of cargo and