Hunslett poured himself another drink. A much larger one. Hunslett hardly ever drank. He swallowed half of it in one gulp. He said: “And they hadn’t all gone aft. They’d left a reception committee.”
“They’re very clever. They’re very dangerous. Maybe we’ve moved out of our class. Or I have. A one-man reception committee, but when that one man was this man, two would have been superfluous. I know he killed Baker and Delmont. I’ll never be so lucky again,”
“You got away. Your luck hadn’t run out.”
And Baker’s and Delmon’s had. I knew he was blaming me. I knew London would blame me. I blamed myself. I hadn’t much option. There was no one else to blame.
“Uncle Arthur,” Hunslett said. “Don’t you think—–”
“The hell with Uncle Arthur. Who cares about Uncle Arthur? How in God’s name do you think I feel?” I felt savage and I know I sounded it. For the first time a flicker of expression showed on Hunslett’s face, I wasn’t supposed to have any feelings,
“Not that,” he said. “About the Nantesville. Now that she’s been identified as the Nantesville, now we know her new name and flag – what were they, by the way?”
“Alta Fjord. Norwegian. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. We radio Uncle Arthur—–”
“And have our guests find us in the engine-room with earphones round our heads. Are you mad?”
“You seem damned sure they’ll come.”
“I am sure. You too. You said so.”
“I agreed this is where they would come. If they come.”
“If they come. If they come. Good God, man, for all that they know I was aboard that ship for hours. I may have the names and full descriptions of all of them. As k happens I couldn’t identify any of them and their names may or may not mean anything. But they’re not to know that. For all they know I’m on the blower right now bawling out descriptions to Interpol. The chances are at least even that some of them are on file. They’re too good to be little men. Some must be known.”
“In that case they’d be too late anyway. The damage would be done.”
“Not without the sole witness who could testify against them?”
“I think we’d better have those guns out.”
“No.”
“You don’t blame me for trying?”
“No.”
“Baker and Delmont. Think of them.”
“I’m thinking of nothing else but them. You don’t have to stay.”
He set his glass down very carefully. He was really letting himself go to-night, he’d allowed that dark craggy face its second expression in ten minutes and it wasn’t a very encouraging one. Then he picked up his glass and grinned,
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said kindly. “Your neck—that’s what comes from the blood supply to the brain being interrupted. You’re not fit to fight off a teddy-bear. Who’s going to look after you if they start playing games?”
“I’m sorry,’ I said. I meant it. I’d worked with Hunslett maybe ten times in the ten years I’d known him and it had been a stupid thing for me to say. About the only thing Hunslett was incapable of was leaving your side in time of trouble. “You were speaking of Uncle?”
“Yes. We know where the Nantesville is. Uncle could get a Navy boat to shadow her, by radar if——”
“I know where she was. She upped anchor as I left. By dawn she’ll be a hundred miles away – in any direction.”
“She’s gone? We’ve scared them off? They’re going to Jove this.” He sot down heavily, then looked at me. “But we have her new description——”
“I said that didn’t matter. By to-morrow she’ll have another description. The Hokomaru from Yokohama, with green top-sides, Japanese flag, different masts—–”
“An air search. We could—–”
“By the time an air search could be organised they’d have twenty thousand square miles of sea to cover. You’ve heard the forecast. It’s bad. Low cloud – and they’d have to fly under the low cloud. Cuts their effectiveness by ninety per cent. And poor visibility and rain. Not a chance in a hundred, not one in a thousand of positive identification. And if they do locate them – if – what then? A friendly wave from the pilot? Not much else he can do.”
“The Navy. They could call up the Navy—–”
“Call up what Navy? From the Med? Or the Far East? The Navy has very few ships left and practically none in those parts. By the time any naval vessel could get to the scene it would be night again and the Nantesville to hell and gone. Even if a naval ship did catch up with it, what then? Sink it with gunfire – with maybe the twenty-five missing crew members of the Nantesville locked up in the hold?”
“A boarding party?”
“With the same twenty-five ex-crew members lined up on deck with pistols at their backs and Captain Imrie and his thugs politely asking the Navy boys what their next move was going to be?”
“I’ll get into my pyjamas,” Hunslett said tiredly. At the doorway he paused and turned. “If the Nantesville had gone, her crew – the new crew – have gone too and we’ll be having no visitors after all. Had you thought of that?”
“No.”
“I don’t really believe it either.”
They came at twenty past four in the morning. They came in a very calm and orderly and law-abiding and official fashion, they stayed for forty minutes and by the time they had left I still wasn’t sure whether they were our men or not.
Hunslett came into my small cabin, starboard side forward, switched on the light and shook me. “Wake up,” he said loudly. “Come on. Wake up.”
I was wide awake. I hadn’t closed an eye since I’d lain down. I groaned and yawned a bit without overdoing it then opened a bleary eye. There was no one behind him.
“What is it? What do you want?” A pause. “What the hell’s up? It’s just after four in the morning.”
“Don’t ask me what’s up,” Hunslett said irritably. “Police. Just come aboard. They say it’s urgent.”
“Police? Did you say, ‘ police’?”
“Yes. Come on, now. They’re waiting.”
“Police? Aboard our boat? What——”
“Oh, for God’s sake! How many more night-caps did you have last night after I went to bed? Police. Two of them and two customs. Ifs urgent, they say.”
“It better bloody well be urgent. In the middle of .the bloody night. Who do they think we are — escaped train robbers? Haven’t you told them who we are? Oh, all right, all right, all right ! I’m coming.”
Hunslett left, and thirty seconds afterwards I joined him in the saloon. Four men sat there, two police officers and two customs officials. They didn’t look a very villainous bunch to me. The older, bigger policeman got to his feet A tall, burly, brown-faced sergeant in his late forties, he looked me over with a cold eye, looked at the near-empty whisky bottle with the two unwashed glasses on the table, then looked back at me. He didn’t like wealthy yachtsmen. He didn’t like wealthy yachtsmen who drank too much at night-time and were bleary-eyed, bloodshot and tousle-haired at the following crack of dawn. He didn’t like wealthy effete yachtsmen who wore red silk dragon Chinese dressing-gowns with a Paisley scarf to match tied negligently round the neck. I didn’t like them very much myself, especially the Paisley scarf, much in favour though it was with the yachting fraternity: but I had to have something to conceal those bruises on my neck.
“Are you the owner of this boat, sir?” the sergeant inquired. An unmistakable West Highland voice and a courteous one, but it took him all his time to get his tongue round the “sir.”
“If you would tell me what makes it any of your damn’ business,” I said unpleasantly, “maybe I’ll answer that and maybe I won’t. A private boat is the same as a private house, Sergeant. You have to have a warrant before you shove your way in. Or don’t you know the law?”
“He knows the law,” one of the customs men put in. A small dark character, smooth-shaven at four in the morning, with a persuasive voice, not West Highland. “Be reasonable. This is not the sergeant’s job. We got him out of bed almost three hours ago. He’s just obliging us.”
I ignored him. I said to the sergeant: “This is the middle of die night in a lonely Scottish bay. How would you fed if four unidentified men came aboard in the middle of the night?” I was taking a chance on that one, but a fair chance. If they were who I thought they might be and if I were who they thought I might be, then I’d never talk like that. But an innocent man would, “Any means of identifying yourselves?”