Angel's Ransom (25 page)

‘Except for sore ribs and a split lip, I’m all right. He didn’t work me over.’

‘You have a cut over the eye that has bled and could invite a question.’ Valentina took a small bottle of
color
less nail polish from a pocket of her slacks. ‘I thought you might
have use for this. If there were some water, I could make
you presentable.’

‘There
’s
coffee in the thermos. It will do to wash the blood off.’

She washed and doctored the cut and the split lip with care. Necessarily with their heads close together while she
covered his wounds with a layer of nail polish, Blake was
again struck with the serene beauty of her face. Besides
having regularity of feature and a flawless complexion,
Valentina knew how to make the most of cosmetic aids. She
was as carefully turned out as she might have been for an
evening at Monte Carlo. It occurred to him that he had
never seen her looking otherwise.

On an impulse, he said, ‘Do
you understand the realities of our position?’

She smiled.

‘I am the Polish girl I compared Marian to a moment ago. We have learned to be fatalists, we Poles. I do not worry too
much about things that are beyond my control.’

‘I asked because you take everything so calmly. Freddy would have panicked before now without somebody like you
to set an example.’

‘He would always have you.’

‘Me?’ Blake was honestly surprised. ‘I’m a hired hand. The help doesn’t set examples. They’re just around earning
their pay, to Freddy.’

She put a final spot of nail polish over his eye, looked critically at her work, and was satisfied. Capping the bottle,
she said, ‘I think you understand him even less than you do
Marian. You are the only person in the world he trusts as
not being after his money. He thinks of you as his single real
friend. Didn’t you know that?’

‘I –
no. You’re exaggerating.’

‘I do not exaggerate. What is more, he drinks for the same reason. He is lonely and distrustful, and the friendship that
means much to him means nothing to you. It is a terrible
thing to be liked by no one.’

‘You seem to have learned a lot more about him in a few days than I have in years.’

‘Of course.’ She smiled again, easily.
I
‘ve had to study him. Like Holtz, I am after his money.’

‘You’re more honest than most, then.’

‘That might equally be said of Holtz.’ She put the bottle of nail polish back in her pocket. ‘You look presentable
enough. Keep the left side of your face turned away and
you’ll be all right. Is there anything else I can do?’

‘I’m going to need a lookout this afternoon. It
’s
important that I listen to Radio Grasse.’

‘I’ll send Marian to you, unless you want me to take her place. Do you think that Holtz could be made to believe
that I, too, have fallen in love with you?’

She waited gravely for his reply.

He said, ‘I doubt it, and it isn’t necessary to try. He
’s
accepted Marian as harmless. Tell her to bring me the key
to Laura di Lucca
’s
cabin when she comes.’

‘He ordered us to stay off the foredeck. How shall we signal you?’

‘You can’t. It
’s
going to rain before long, and you’d be conspicuous in any exposed position. Marian and I will have
to manage it by ourselves.’

‘When do you want her?’

Blake looked at the chronometer.

Time was rapidly running out. Grasse would broadcast only twice more on schedule, at 4.33 and 6.33, before signing
off until the following morning. He hesitated to accept the
risk of trying to hear both broadcasts, but a choice was
difficult. The only good news the radio could bring to the
cap
ti
ves was no news, and either broadcast might sound the
warning to Holtz that a search for the
Angel
was on.

Deciding, he said, ‘Just before six-thirty. If nothing has happened to us by then, we’ll have a good chance of
surviving the night.’

I
n
the early dark of the lowering afternoon, Neyrolle
’s
face looked even more drawn
than usual. He chain-smoked con
tinuously, a cigarette in his mouth and his head tilted to one
side to keep smoke from his eyes while he talked at length
into the telephone. He had made a dozen calls, one after the
other, since George came into his office; giving orders,
demanding information, checking the readiness of the men
he had stationed at vantage points along the Principality
’s
coastline, testing and re-testing the lines of the net he had
woven for the
Angel
. It was a full quarter of an hour before
he finished with the phone and looked questioningly up at
George.

The reporter had been wandering restlessly around the office while he waited for the
sous-chef
’s
attention. Now he
planted himself in front of Neyrolle
’s
desk and said, ‘You’re
overlooking one big lack that could ruin the whole scheme.
You haven’t got Roche.’

‘I’ve asked for his extradition. It will take time.’

‘He’ll do you no good in a week or two. You need him now. Today. You know as well as I do that the
Angel
won’t
come within reach without a signal.’

‘I also know that Roche would
not voluntarily reveal the signal even if we were able to take him away from the Swiss.
He is counting strongly on the elimination of witnesses.
Surrendering the signal would be surrendering his hope of
freedom.’

‘I could make him talk.’

A gust of wind brought a quick spatter of raindrops against the windowpane at Neyrolle
’s
elbow. He cocked his
head to look at George under a curl of smoke.

George said, ‘I’ve seen close-mouthed crooks made to open up before. You wouldn’t have to have anything to do with
it, if you’re squeamish. Give him to me for half an hour, and
I’ll give you the signal.’

‘
Gangsterism
, kidnapping, inevitably the third degree,’ Neyrolle said. ‘I see Monaco rapidly catching up with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, Roche is beyond our reach,
for the moment, so your - contribution - will not be
necessary.’

‘Then how in God
’s
name do you hope to bring the yacht in?’ George asked roughly. ‘You’re trying to avoid
bloodshed. Without the signal, what chance do you have?’

‘I am not particularly concerned about shedding blood, so long as it is not the blood of innocent people. The lack of a
signal to toll the
Angel
into our net is a handicap, I admit.
But I have the patrol boat, which I shall use as a last resort,
and it is wholly possible that a gang bold enough to seize
a yacht in broad daylight will have the audacity to return
without attempting to conceal the fact of the yacht
’s
presence in Monegasque waters. In that event, I shall be
equally open in my approach. Do you know our
service du
pilotage
?’

‘No.’

‘A small boat goes out of the port to meet each incoming craft, assigns it a mooring, and offers a pilot if one is wished
for entry into the
harbor
. The
Angel
can be expected to
decline the offer, but not
until the pilot boat comes within
hailing distance, at least. I shall be in it, together with a pair
of my best men. We will be well armed.’

‘I want to be in that boat.’

Neyrolle shook his head. ‘No.’

‘We made a bargain.’

‘We made a bargain that you should have first access to the story, not that you might personally storm the yacht. The
pilot boat can carry only two or three men without exciting
suspicion, and they will all have to be excellent marksmen.
You may be aboard the patrol boat, if you wish. It will
bring the Brigade Maritime into action when the first shot
is fired.’

‘I want to be in the pilot boat,’ George repeated doggedly.

‘Why?’

The reporter had not offered an answer before Neyrolle said again, curiously, ‘Why? The patrol boat will be only
minutes behind. There will be no other reporters aboard her.
You will have a clear monopoly of everything to be learned aboard the
Angel
, and with no danger to yourself. Why do
you insist on accepting the risk of the pilot boat?’

The storm that had been gathering over the coast was beginning to show its force. George stood at the window, his
hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, watching
the wind slash rain in strong gusts against the pane.

‘An eye-witness report is worth money,’ he said at last. ‘If I can say that I was there, that I saw it, it takes me out of the
class of the hacks. It
’s
more than an exclusive, then.
It becomes a personal experience. Editors pay cash for those.’

‘And you would risk your life for the cash value of a personal experience?’

‘I work at making a living.’

‘In this case, your living could very well come to an end as a reward for your effort. I admire your courage, but I
cannot permit you to accept the danger, for one very simple
reason. There will be no room in the pilot boat for anyone
whose usefulness is limited to his ability to write about it
afterwards if he survives.’

Neyrolle picked up the telephone and began again to test the lines of his net.

George left the Bureau while the
sous-chef
was telephoning. He hailed a taxi, because of the rain, and told the driver to
take him to La
Rascasse
.

Cesar was there, in the bar, moodily staring into a
pastis
. He started when George spoke to him, and laughed without
humor
at his own jumpiness.

‘This stuff isn’t what it used to be.’ He nodded at the milky, greenish drink. ‘It doesn’t even make the time pass.
Merde
, I wish I were back on the
Angel
. Even in the hands of
gangsters. What
’s
new?’

‘Neyrolle expects them to come back for the ransom sooner or later, and he
’s
setting up a scheme to put him
aboard from the pilot boat. That
’s
why I’m here.’

‘
S
ay it a
little
more clearly, monsieur.
Pastis
does not sharpen the brain, when taken in quantity.’

‘I’ve got to be the first one to board the yacht, Cesar. Never mind why. But I’ve got to be there, and Neyrolle is
keeping me out of the pilot boat because I can’t do him any good in it. You know the
Angel
. You know the people aboard,
and the layout of the ship, and Blake
’s
piloting procedure,
and about everything else there is to know. Tell me something I can use to convince Neyrolle that I’ll be of more use
to him in the boat than a man with a gun.’

‘Guns in the pilot boat? There
’s
the flic mind for you, every time. Shoot first, think afterwards. Suppose they do
get out to the
Angel
in a boat, all ready to start shooting.
Who do they shoot at? Anybody who makes a sudden
move? Eh, I take back what I said about wanting to be
there. A clay duck in a shooting gallery would have a
better future.’

Cesar finished his drink, and was surprised to find his audience gone when he put his empty glass down on the bar.
George had what he had come to get. He was already on his
way back to
Sûreté
Publique
.

He found Neyrolle with two other men in plain clothes, their heads together over a diagram of the
Angel
’s
deck.
George interrupted the conference without apology.

‘You’ve got to have me with you in the pilot boat,’ he told the
sous-chef
. ‘It
’s
the only way you can know friend
from enemy. You may
recognize Freddy from his news
paper photographs, but you won’t be able to distinguish
between the others who belong aboard and those who don’t.
I can.’