Angel's Ransom (17 page)

‘But we can talk.’

‘We can talk. For a few minutes, anyway. What do you want to talk about?’

‘Jules.’

‘What about Jules?’

‘He - wants me.’

Blake looked quickly sideways at her, not sure that he had heard correctly. She stood with her back to the windscreen
beside the wheel, watching him gravely. He was again
sharply conscious of her beauty, and of the faint perfume
she wore. He said, ‘Has he made approaches?’

‘No. But I know. I did not want to speak of it in front of the others, and I do not have reason for conceit after failing
with Bruno, but I know.’

‘You’re afraid of
him?’

‘Not at all.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I am afraid only of the men who are indifferent to me.’

If she meant it as a gibe, it was a gentle one. Blake said, ‘Why do you tell me, then?’

‘I don’t know what to do. That is why I came to talk to you. It gives us a weapon, of a kind. I thought you might
think of a way to use it.’

Blake shook his head, slowly. ‘It
’s
not the kind of weapon I’d want to try against Jules. Bruno was different. You could
have handled him. With Jules - if he got the idea that you
were trying to use him, make a fool of
him
–’

He did not know how to finish. Valentina said coolly, ‘I did not necessarily have in mind making a fool of him. But
think about it, Captain. Perhaps there is a way I can be of
more use to you than by keeping Freddy company on the
foredeck. The little
Am
é
ricaine
is not the only one who wants
to help.’

Blake was glad of the change of subject. Valentina
’s
golden
eyes saw things far too realistically even for his realistic mind. He said, ‘How is she?’

‘
S
till suffering.’

‘And Laura di Lucca?’

‘
S
till numb. It is hard to say what goes on inside. She does
not speak, or move, or show that she hears.’

‘What about Freddy?’

‘He will surprise you. He has stopped shaking, and even manages to think now and then of something besides his own
unhappiness. He has not once reminded Marian that she is
responsible for his troubles, since Bruno died.’

‘I’m glad of that. She
’s
already at the point of doing something desperate, and we’ve got to be even more careful with Holtz than we were before.’ He turned from the wheel to
look at the chronometer over the chart table. ‘You’d better
go now. He
’s
liable to come around at any time. Tell Marian
to bring my dinner at half past eight. I’ll expect you and
Freddy to be on lookout when she gets here.’

Valentina went obediently toward the doorway. She stopped there, for once uncertain of herself.

‘Please, do not speak to Freddy about what we were discussing. I would not want him to know what I have suggested.’

‘Naturally not.’

It sounded more ironic than he meant it to be. She did not take offence. Without reproach, she said, ‘I do not ask it as a
favor
for myself. He has neither liquor nor company to fall
back on now, only himself and me. If he doubts me, he will
have only himself. And I am better for him than he is for
himself, whatever you may believe of me.’

She left him wondering in his own mind what he believed about Valentina
Walowska
.

Jules relieved the wheel once before nightfall, briefly. He allowed Blake only enough time for a quick check of the
engine-room, where he pocketed a roll of rubber tape to
supplement what he had
already smuggled to the pilot-house. He saw no one before his return to the wheel. A
change in the weather had brought rain, making the open
deck untenable and cutting visibility to a few miles. The two
lookouts were going to be painfully obvious if the rain
continued.

The swish and clack of the windscreen-wipers was a discouraging sound for some time before the rain stopped. When the clouds lifted, shortly after nightfall, Blake saw the
lights of a steamer dead ahead on the horizon. It was the
first vessel the
Angel
had sighted in nearly twenty-four hours.
He found his eyes wandering restlessly from it to the mute,
powerless radiophone almost within reach of where he stood
at the wheel. To be deaf and dumb was far worse than simply
being muzzled.

Marian came to the pilot-house on the dot of eight-thirty. The food she brought was hot, this time, and accompanied
by a thermos of black coffee. She said, ‘I know you’re not
getting much sleep. I thought this might help.’

‘It will. How are things below?’

‘Laura di Lucca is still sitting in her cabin, staring at nothing. I tried to get her to eat something, but she wouldn’t
even look at me.’ Marian added miserably, ‘If she would only
cry, or scream, or hit at me. That awful dead look is worse
than anything she could say.’

‘I think you’re over-punishing yourself,’ Blake said. ‘Try to remember that Holtz put a lot of time and planning into
this thing. He needed a dupe, and he happened to pick you
because you were convenient. He would have brought it off
equally well with someone else. There
’s
no guilt in being
used.’

‘It
’s
no use. I’ve said the same thing to myself a hundred times, and the answer still comes out the same. I
am
to
blame. I
was
used.’

‘Then don’t think about it. Have you seen Holtz?’

‘He
’s
in the salon now. Most of the time he listens to the radio. I had to go that way to get to Laura di Lucca
’s
cabin,
and he snarled at me like an animal. The bar was open.’

It was bad news. Holtz drunk would be even more dangerous than Holtz sober. Blake had no hope that the gang leader would drink enough to lose his watchfulness. Even if
he did, Jules would be more than normally alert.

He said, ‘Jules?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.’

‘He may be sleeping. They’
ll
do it in relays. What about Freddy and Valentina?’

‘They’re already out there. Waiting.’

Like a second answer to the question, a lighter flared on the foredeck. Valentina
’s
classic profile showed briefly in the
small illumination of the flame as Freddy held it for her
cigarette. The glow of the burning coal hung in the darkness
after the lighter snapped off, glowed brightly once, twice and
again, and was extinguished in a shower of wind-whipped
sparks. Afterward there was nothing to see but the brilliant
lights of the steamer Blake had sighted earlier, nearer now
by an hour
’s
steaming.

Its approach was so nearly on their own bearing that he had been steering a point off the course prescribed by Jules
for some minutes, to give the steamer sea-room. Now, coming
back on course, he closed his mind to the thought that the
Angel
’s
, running lights could be used to blink an S.O.S.
Bruno would have been calculating the possibilities of rescue
in the nearness of the other ship, not giving it careful clearance. But Bruno had been a bolder man than he.

‘We might as well get at it,’ he said. ‘Take the wheel. The course is two hundred and forty, and you know what to
watch for. Is there anything else you want me to tell you?’

‘No.’

She was listless, indifferent. To take her thoughts off Bruno
’s
death, he took time to explain what he was doing
while he worked, although he was concerned with the need
to get the radiophone repair job done before they were
interrupted. The wires he had smuggled out of the engine-room, mounted at both ends with spring battery clips, would
serve to make a quick, easily removable bridge between the
snapped ends of the original cable at the bulkhead insulator
and the sawed ends where Jules had cut the cable away. But
while the radiophone
’s
power supply could be shut off in the
engine-room, the jury-rigged cable had practical value only
while the power was on, and that fact made the dangerous
handling of live wires unavoidable. The answer was to
insulate the battery clips with windings of rubber tape, a job
he worked at between hastily snatched mouthfuls of food. Because a light in the pilot-house was necessary for that
labor
, and to preclude the possibility of being seen from
below, he sat
spraddled
-legged on the deck near the chart
table, where tools and wires could be thrust out of sight in
a moment.

He became aware that Marian had not been listening to his explanation when she said, without preliminary, ‘Bruno
was brave.’

‘
S
top thinking about Bruno. It doesn’t do any good.’

‘I can’t help it. I have to think about him. He was brave, and I called you a coward. So he
’s
dead, and you’re alive,
and I - I owe both of you an apology.’ He was glad that, at
the wheel, she could keep her back turned toward him. It
was easier for both of them. ‘I don’t expect you to forgive
me for what I said last night
–’

‘You needn’t talk about it.’

‘- but I want you to know that I - I’m not brave any more. I’m scared. Horribly scared.’

‘It
’s
sensible to be afraid of Holtz. I told you that before. But don’t give up hope that we’re going to get out of
this.’

‘Do you really think he’ll let us go? Is there any reason for him not to shoot us all, now that he
’s
killed one of us?
Wouldn’t he - enjoy it, the way he enjoyed smashing
Freddy
’s
finger?’

Her appeal for reassurance was pathetic.

Blake was silent while he laid a careful turn of tape around a spring clip. It reminded him of the time he had bandaged
her ankle - had it only been two nights earlier? - and his
mouth twisted at the memory. It was so easy to lay blame,
so hard to hold out a promise of hope. But he could not be
less generous than Freddy. He reached for another spring
clip and said, ‘Jules doesn’t want any more killing. He wants
to turn us loose when they get the money. We’ve got to
believe that he can influence Holtz his way. If and when it
begins to look as if he isn’t going to be able to, I’ll try an
S.O.S. with this thing. If that doesn’t work
–’

‘Freddy is lighting a cigarette!’

He bundled wire, tape and tools into a drawer of the chart table as he came to his feet, then jumped for the wheel. More
startling than anything else was the imminence of the lights
of the steamer now looming up ahead of them. The
Angel
’s
bearing would take it past the larger vessel dangerously close
to the steamer
’s
strong bow wave. Even as Blake spun the
wheel and slammed at the throttles, her
whistle boomed a
warning. The
Angel
heeled sharply to starboard, scrambling
for clearance as the door of the pilot-house banged open.

Holtz
’s
voice, ugly with venom, said, ‘Trying to wreck us again, Captain?’

He was drunk. The first rock of the passing wave that lifted the cruiser
’s
hull made him clutch the doorway for
support, but the pistol he held was as unwavering as ever.
Its pointing barrel swung from Blake to Marian, who had
been thrown against the far bulkhead by the yacht
’s
abrupt
change of course.

‘What
’s
she doing here?’

‘S
he brought my dinner.’ Blake did his best to sound calm.
‘
S
he took the wheel while I was eating. No harm done.’

He saw his mistake almost before he had finished speaking. Holtz seemed to shrink in upon himself in the doorway, an animal crouching to spring.

‘What were
you trying to do?’ he said. The blunt nose of the Walther lifted, only a little.