“I’d like to go to the Shangri-la first, sir. To look for Hunslett.”
“I see. To look for Hunslett. Has it occurred to you, Calvert, that if they are hostile to us, as you admit is possible, that they may not let you look for Hunslett?”
“Yes, sir. It’s not my intention to go through the Shangri-la, a gun in each hand, searching for him. I wouldn’t get five feet, I’m just going to ask for him, if anyone has seen him. Assuming they really are the bandits, don’t you think it might be most instructive, sir, to observe their reactions when they see a dead man walking aboard, especially a dead man coming alongside from a boat to which they’d shortly beforehand dispatched a couple of killers? And don’t you think it will become more and more instructive to watch them as time passes by with no sign of First and Second Murderers entering left?”
“Assuming they are the bandits, of course.” “I’ll know before we say good-bye to them.” “And how do we account for our knowing one another?” “If they’re white as the driven snow, we don’t have to account to them. If they’re not, they won’t believe a damned word either of us say anyway.”
I collected the roll of flex from the wheelhouse and led our prisoner to the after cabin. I told him to sit down with his back to one of the bulkhead generators and he did. Resistance was the last thought in his mind. I passed a few turns of flex round his waist and secured him to the generator: his feet I secured to one of the stanchions. His hands I left free. He could move, he could use the towel and the bucket of cold fresh water I left to administer first aid to himself whenever he felt like it. But he was beyond reach of any glass or sharp instrument with which he could either free himself or do himself in. On the latter score I wasn’t really worried one way or another.
I started the engines, weighed anchor, switched on the navigation lights and headed for the Shangri-la. Quite suddenly, I wasn’t tired any more.
SIX
Wednesday: 8.40 p.m. -10.40 p.m.
Less than two hundred yards from the Shangri-la the anchor clattered down into fifteen fathoms of water. I switched off the navigation lights, switched on all the wheelhouse lights, passed into the saloon and closed the door behind me.
“How long do we sit here?” Uncle Arthur asked.
“Not long. Better get into your oilskins now, sir. Next really heavy shower of rain and we’ll go.”
“They’ll have had their night-glasses on us all the way across the bay, you think?”
“No question of that. They’ll still have the glasses on us. They’ll be worried stiff, wondering what the hell has gone wrong, what’s happened to the two little playmates they sent to interview us. If they are the bandits.”
“They’re bound to investigate again.”
“Not yet. Not for an hour or two. They’ll wait for their two friends to turn up. They may think that it took them longer than expected to reach the Firecrest and that we’d upped anchor and left before they got there. Or they may think they’d trouble with their dinghy.” I heard the sudden drumming of heavy rain on the coach-roof. “It’s time to go.”
We left by the galley door, felt our way aft, quietly lowered the dinghy into the water and climbed down the transom ladder into it. I cast off. Wind and tide carried us in towards the harbour. Through the driving rain we could dimly see the Shangri-la’s riding light as we drifted by about a hundred yards from her port side. Half-way between the Shangri-la and the shore 1 started up the outboard motor and made back towards the Shangri-la.
The big tender was riding at the outer end of a boom which stretched out from the Shangri-la’s starboard side about ten feet for’ard of the bridge. The stern of the tender was about fifteen out from the illuminated gangway. I approached from astern, upwind, and dosed in on the gangway. An oilskinned figure wearing one of the Shangri-la’s crew’s fancy French sailor hats came running down the gangway and took the painter.
“Ah, good-evening, my man,” Uncle Arthur said. He wasn’t putting on the style, it was the way he .talked to moat people. “Sir Anthony is aboard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wonder if I could see him for a moment?”
“If you could wait a——” The sailor broke off and peered at Sir Arthur. “Oh, it’s – it’s the Admiral, sir.”
“Admiral Arnford-Jason. Of course – you’re the fellow who ran me ashore to the Columba after dinner.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll show you to the saloon, sir.”
“My boat will be all right here for a few moments.” The unspoken implication was that I was his chauffeur.
“Perfectly, sir.”
They climbed the gangway and went aft. I spent ten seconds examining the portable lead that served the gangway lightj decided that it would offer much resistance to a good hefty tug, then followed the two men aft. I passed by the passage leading to the saloon and hid behind a ventilator. Almost at once the sailor emerged from the passage and made his way for’ard again. Another twenty seconds and he’d be yelling his head off about the mysteriously vanished chauffeur. I didn’t care what he did in twenty seconds.
When I reached the partly open saloon door I heard Sir Arthur’s voice.
“No, no, I really am most sorry to break hi upon you like this. Well, yes, thank you, small one if you will. Yes, soda, please.” Uncle Arthur really was having a go at the whisky to-night. “Thank you, thank you. Your health, Lady Skouras. Your health, gentlemen. Mustn’t delay you. Fact is, I wonder if you can help us. My friend and I are most anxious, really most anxious. I wonder where he is, by the way? I thought he was right behind——”
Cue for Calvert. I turned down the oilskin collar that bad been obscuring the lower part of my face, removed the sou-wester that had been obscuring most of the upper part of my face, knocked politely and entered. I said: “Good evening, Lady Skouras. Good-evening, gentlemen. Please forgive the interruption, Sir Anthony.”
Apart from Uncle Arthur there were six of than gathered round the fire at the end of the saloon. Sir Anthony standing, the others seated. Charlotte Skouras, Dolhnann, Skouras’s managing director, Lavorski, his accountant, Lord Charnley, his broker and a fifth man I didn’t recognise. All had glasses in their hands.
Their reaction to my sudden appearance, as expressed by their faces, was interesting. Old Skouras showed a half-frowning, half-speculative surprise. Charlotte Skouras gave me a strained smile of welcome: Uncle Arthur hadn’t been exaggerating when he spoke of that bruise, it was a beauty. The stranger’s face was noncommittal, Lavorski’s inscrutable, Dollmann’s rigid as if carved from marble and Lord Charnley’s for a fleeting moment that of a man walking through a country churchyard at midnight when someone taps him on the shoulder. Or so I thought. I could have imagined it. But there was no imagination about the sudden tiny snapping sound as the stem of the glass fell soundlessly on to the carpet. A scene straight from Victorian melodrama. Our aristocratic broker friend had something on his mind. Whether the others had or not it was difficult to say. Dollmann, Lavorski and, I was pretty sure, Sir Anthony could make their faces say whatever they wanted them to say.
“Good lord, Petersen!” Skouras’s tone held surprise but not the surprise of a person weJcoming someone back from the grave. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”
“My goodness, yes. Petersen and I have been colleagues for years, Tony. UNESCO, you know.” Uncle Arthur always gave out that he was a British delegate to unesco, a cover that gave him an excellent reason for his frequent trips abroad. “Marine biology may not be very cultural, but it’s scientific and educational enough. Petersen’s one of my star performers. Lecturing, I mean. Done missions for me in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.” Which was true, enough, only they weren’t lecture missions. “Didn’t even know he was here until they told me at the hotel. But dear me, dear me, mustn’t talk about ourselves. It’s Hunslett. Petersen’s colleague. And mine in a way. Can’t find him anywhere. Hasn’t been in the village. Yours is the nearest boat. Have you seen anything of him, anything at all?”
“Afraid I haven’t,” Skouras said. “Anybody here? No? Nobody?” He pressed a bell and a steward appeared. Skouras asked him to make inquiries aboard and the steward left. “When did he disappear, Mr. Petersen?”
“I’ve no idea. I left him carrying out experiments, I’ve been away all day collecting specimens. Jellyfish.” I laughed deprecatingly and rubbed my inflamed face. “The poisonous type, I’m afraid. No sign of him when I returned.”