Angel's Ransom (26 page)

‘Holtz
is a very small man, the Provenç
al very large,’ Neyrolle answered. ‘We know that. And they will be armed.
Recognizing them is not a problem.’

‘You don’t know that they’re the whole gang. You can’t be sure that there aren’t others with them. When Roche
came ashore, somebody else could as easily have gone back
in his place. Several others.’

Neyrolle looked thoughtful. George pressed his
advantage
.

‘I spent the whole night before they left with Freddy and his guests. I talked with Blake. I know Marian Ellis by
sight. I’m the only man who can tell you in a second who
belongs on the
Angel
and who doesn’t. Without me, the only
way you’ll know is to wait until somebody else shoots first,
and then you’re dead. You’ve failed.’

The
sous-chef
said, ‘We are limited to three men, if we are able to use the pilot boat. Any more would be abnormal.
You can give us descriptions of all the people you know to
be aboard.’

‘If I do, will it help you to know that Blake is tall and sun-tanned if another tall, sun-tanned man has a gun!’

Neyrolle did not answer. He frowned at the diagram on his desk, seeing not it but the
Angel
itself, and the problem of
rescue.

‘You’re not holding the strong hand now,’ George went on forcefully. ‘I want to be there. You’ve got to use me. If you
don’t, and anything goes wrong because you left me behind,
I’ll crucify you in print! And it won’t be for false arrest
alone!’

‘I am not afraid of what you can do to me,’ Neyrolle answered slowly. ‘But I am bound to save those poor
wretches on the
Angel
, and to do so I would accept help
from the devil. If it becomes necessary for me to use the pilot
boat you will be in the pilot boat, monsieur. I hope that
neither one of us will come to regret it.’

The barometer dropped slowly all afternoon. So did the thermometer, as the wind strengthened. It blew irregularly
for a while, then backed around to come from the south-west, almost at gale force. With its help, the yacht was
making considerably better than normal cruising speed.

Rain began to fall in mid-afternoon. The storm did more than cut visibility and speed the
Angel
northward. Blake
’s
muscles, sore from the severe body-beating Jules had given
him, stiffened with the drop in temperature. By the time
Marian arrived he was as concerned over his physical condition as he was with the need to listen to Grasse. If the
time came for action, he was in no shape to lead it.

Marian had herself under tight self-control. She handed him the key to Laura di Lucca
’s
cabin without comment.
He said, ‘How is she?’

‘The same.’

‘How are you?’

‘The same.’

‘Is Jules still avoiding Holtz?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is Holtz now?’

‘
S
till in the salon. He sits over the radio all the time.’

‘Jules?’

‘I don’t know. He
’s
staying out of sight.’

‘We’ve still got to expect either one to come up here at any minute. You’ll have to man the wheel and keep watch
through the after windows at the same time you watch forward. Holtz comes up over the boat-deck when he comes:
Jules might arrive that way or by the forward ladder. Can
you manage it?’

‘I have to manage it.’

Her self-control was too tight. Pressures were building up underneath. Something was going to have to give before long,
but Blake could not help her. She did not accept help.

He said, ‘Take the wheel. The course is five degrees.’

His own state of mind was one of tense and wary hopefulness. The fact that the
Angel
still drove northward with Holtz continuously attentive to the radio in the salon almost
guaranteed that no news of a sea-search was on the air. It
was still impossible to know if it meant that the ransom had
been paid, or that Roche
’s
arrest was being kept secret. But
it had to be one or the other, unless Roche had somehow
failed to present the
check
, and in all events continued
radio silence gave the
Angel
’s
passengers a fair chance of
reaching Monaco. What might happen there was
something
Blake declined to consider until he had confirmed his
reasoning. A promise of arrival was necessary first.

Waiting for the tubes to warm after the hook-up of the power cable was more of a suspense than he remembered
from the first occasion. The radiophone picked up strong
atmospheric interference from the growing storm, but the
Angel
was hardly more than a hundred sea miles from the
French transmitter, and the familiar
‘
Sé
curit
é
,
S
écurité
,
S
écurité
’ came over clearly enough. A rising wind warning
was followed by the usual list of call letters of vessels invited
to open communication with the shore station. The
Angel
’s
call was not on the list, nor was her name mentioned.
Blake waited only long enough to hear the announcer
begin his sign-off before disconnecting the set and hiding
the cable. Radio Grasse would not speak again before
morning.

Moving around the pilot-house eased his sore muscles slightly. He plotted a pair of fixes with the direction-finder
and found, as he had expected, that the
Angel
was travelling
well over the speed her motors alone could give her. He
calculated that she was about eight hours from the northern
coast, if the wind held.

‘
S
o far, nobody seems to be curious about us, and we’re running ahead of schedule,’ he told Marian. ‘We should be
off Monaco early tomorrow morning.’

‘What happens after we get there is still a problem, isn’t it?’

‘Probably more of a problem than what will happen if we don’t get there. We’re on a straight heading for port. Tell
Freddy to keep an eye on the compass tell-tale in his cabin.
If there
’s
more than a small change of course during the
night, it will mean that Holtz has heard something on the
radio and is running away.’ He was reluctant to speak the
brutality, but it might be his only chance to pass a necessary
warning. ‘The best thing for all of you then is to try to
barricade your cabin doors and stay behind them. You may
be able to hold out longer than he can afford to spend
getting at you.’

‘And what will you be doing?’

The unexpected sharpness of her tone surprised him. He said, ‘The best I can in the circumstances.’

‘As you did with Jules this afternoon.’

‘I almost got his gun.’

‘You almost got yourself killed! What became of the promise we all made tha
t nobody would do anything reck
less without talking to the others first? Or was that just to
tie our hands, and not your own?’

‘I didn’t have time to talk about it first. I had to take the chance when it came.’

‘That
’s
what Bruno did! That
’s
how he died!’ Her eyes were bright, hot with anger. ‘Why are you
d
ifferent? You
can be murdered as easily as he was! You’re not bullet-proof!’

He said patiently, ‘Certainly I’m not bullet-proof. But I’m the captain of this ship. It
’s
my job to try to recover
command.’

‘You’re not! You’re not!’ She was paying no attention to wheel or compass. ‘You’re
not the captain of anything any
more! You’re just Sam Blake, in trouble like the rest of us!
You don’t have any more obligation to risk your life than
any of us! You don’t have the
right
!
’

He said, ‘That
’s
not quite true,’ and took the wheel from her. ‘If I don’t have command, I still have responsibility.’

‘For what? To whom? Would you have to go down with
your ship if Holtz sank it? You’re so blinded by your stupid
traditions of the sea that you can’t face simple truths! Your
only duty now is to try to keep yourself alive, like the rest of
us! Nobody expects you to be a hero!’

‘You’ve changed your mind pretty thoroughly in the last couple of days!’ He began to feel an anger responsive
to her own. ‘Two nights ago you called me a coward
because I thought we all had good reason to try to avoid
trouble.’

‘I was wrong! I apologized for saying it! I h-hadn’t realized!’ She was on the verge of angry tears. ‘You don’t
have to prove how wrong I was by putting yourself in danger!’

‘I’m not trying to prove anything! I’m trying to get us out
of the trouble your foolishness got us into!’

Having said it, he was instantly, appallingly, sorry. It was as if he had struck her across the mouth. Anger and
color
faded together from her face. Her lips moved, but no words
came. He said, ‘I’m sorry. There was no excuse for that,’
but knew that no apology would ever remedy the damage his
words had done. She turned away, blindly.

‘Wait!’ He had time to seize her wrist. While she struggled to pull free, her face averted, he said, ‘We’re in
it together! We’re going to get out of it together! We
can’t afford to fight each other now! Think what you like
about me, but save you
r fight for Holtz! Do you under
stand?’

She still battled him, silently, bitterly. He could not manage her and the wheel together, and had to release her.
Only after she had gone did the sorry realization come to
him that he had chosen to
release a human being in pain and
shame rather than an inanimate wheel-spoke. In a flare of
rage at his bondage to the
Angel
, he doubled his fist to smash
at something hard and tangible - wheel, bulkhead,
anything
.

He did not strike the senseless blow. Reason said,
The ball and chain won't feel it. Save your own fight for Holtz
. The long,
dangerous night was still ahead.

Under the storm clouds, darkness came early. The hours dragged again until one of the motors began to fire
irregularly
, skipping and stuttering a counterpoint to the steady
purr of its mate. Blake passed uncomfortable minutes watching the tachometer reading of the faulty motor fall, jump,
and fall again, before Jules, in slicker and sou’wester, came
dripping out of the rain to the pilot-house. The sailor
switched on the overhead light to peer at the marks the fight
had left on Blake
’s
face.

‘You’ve got a shiner,’ he said worriedly. ‘You’ll have to keep the left eye out of the light. Take fifteen minutes this
time, and watch out for Holtz. He
’s
prowling again.’

‘I need more than fifteen minutes. The fuel strainers are clogging up, I’ve got to
–
’

Jules cut him off with a foul word.

‘I know how long it takes to clean a strainer! Don’t push your luck any further than you have already, Captain. Luck
is all that
’s
carrying you now. Luck and this.’ He slapped the
wrench that bulged his jersey in place of the lost pistol.
‘Holtz hasn
’t
noticed anything wrong yet, and I’m not going
to give you another chance to cook up trouble. Fifteen
minutes it is.’

He took the wheel, but
put out his big hand to stop Blake before he could leave.

‘Listen to me. I’m risking my neck with Holtz to get you back alive if it
’s
possible, but if it comes to a showdown
you’re finished, not me. I don’t go to the guillotine for you,
the blonde
poule
, or anybody. I’ll strangle you all first myself, with my hands. Quick. Understand?’

‘I never doubted it.’

‘Good. Now move fast. Fifteen minutes is your limit.’