by John Creasey
He reached the edge of the gangway.
Both men were hauling at a rope, and putting a lot of effort into it. There wasn’t much doubt that the girl was at the other end. One man’s hair was black, and brushed down tightly; and there was a look of the driver of the killer Renault about him.
They paused.
One of them spoke, but what he said didn’t reach the Toff. The other leaned on the rope. Then the man who had spoken bent over the rail and began to pull.
The girl’s head appeared; in spite of the water, it still glistened like jet. Her shoulders gleamed a beautiful golden brown. It was impossible to tell whether she was conscious or not.
Rollison could move now, and the men wouldn’t have a chance. He could pick up the spanner from the engine-casing and crack their skulls, as the beggar’s had been cracked. He could knock them out, and could pitch them overboard. In that moment he felt that he hated them both, that nothing would be more than they deserved.
He watched.
The man leaning over was, grunting. He had his arms beneath the girl’s, but she was too heavy for him to lift over the rail. The other man dropped the rope and went to help; but it took experience and skill to lift a dead weight over the deck’s rail, and they had neither.
The Toff turned, went down the stairs – stairs, not gangway, was the word. They were carpeted in deep red, and the carpet had thick pile. At the foot was a door leading into a saloon, or lounge, and a passage seemed to run right round this saloon, with more doors leading off it.
The Toff heard the sounds of the men above his head as he took a quick look round.
The saloon was surprisingly spacious. The door was open, and showed the corner of a tiny chromium bar, with a mirror behind it, upholstered seats round the walls and several low chairs and tables. The whole place had an air of opulence.
Rollison glanced inside, and saw photographs on the walls – all beautiful studies of girls, mostly in the nude.
He moved out of the main saloon, and stepped along the passage. This ran right round the main cabin, and formed a square with one side missing. A narrow door led off each side, and when he opened one, he saw two bunks, one atop the other. The others were the same, so the cruiser could sleep six with comfort. He didn’t know where the crews’ quarters or the galley was, and didn’t trouble to find out, for he heard a thud on deck.
Then came footsteps; they were bringing the girl down.
The footsteps were slow and heavy; sliding noises came with them from time to time. Were the men so badly out of condition? Rollison stood in the passage behind the saloon, out of sight of the stairs. He heard the couple when they reached the head of the stairs and when they started down.
One man was gasping for breath. There were more thumping and bumping sounds before they stopped moving, and Rollison judged that they were at the door of the saloon.
A man said gaspingly: “Where shall we take her?”
“To the bunks – shall we?”
They paused, still gasping, until one of them said: “No, in here, I think. We shall take her ashore when we get back, it will not be so long.”
More sound of movement came, and seemed much closer. Rollison didn’t move. He heard them go inside the saloon. When silence fell, he guessed that they had laid the girl on the floor. After a moment there was the unmistakable sound of clinking glasses; one of them was pouring out drinks.
There were the usual platitudinous comments. Gradually the heaving breathing quietened. A man chuckled.
“She nearly got away.”
“She has courage,” the other said.
“Courage—pst!” There was a pause. “After this, she will not try to cheat us again.”
The other man didn’t speak, and Rollison sensed constraint between them. That was a pity. The more they talked, the more he was likely to learn, and he had come down here and let them bring her so that he could have a chance to listen-in.
Matches scraped.
“Sautot has a very bad hand,” said the man who had remarked upon the girl’s courage. “The bullet went right through it. Ugh! The blood made me sick. He will not be any use for a little while.”
“Don’t you believe it; Sautot is tough.” This was the man who had sneered at the girl’s courage; he had dark hair, unless the Toff had missed his guess. “He’ll soon be all right. Old Morency was very frightened, too. He is no use, that one; too old.”
“He has been very good.”
“Gérard,” said the sneering man, “when are you going to learn that there is no room for sentiment? He is old, he will soon be useless, and one day he will be snuffed out.”
There was a full minute of silence before the same man went on:
“It is a good thing we got the girl; if we had lost her, Chicot would have been like a fiend.”
The voices were muffled by the wall of the saloon and by the distance; and yet in the way the man said ‘Chicot would have been like a fiend’ there was a different note from anything that had gone before. Fear? Awe? It was something like that. Chicot mattered; Chicot could afford to rage, and the possibility that he would worried even the man who sneered at the girl’s courage.
Violette.
The Toff remembered her when she had come for the audition. She was not as beautiful as some, but most beautifully made, with a skin as lovely as the skin of a fresh peach. She had deep, violet eyes, so was well-named. Now she lay on the floor of the saloon, and the Toff did not know whether she was hurt, or unconscious, or conscious and terrified.
He did not even know if she was dead.
One man said: “It is time we start back, Gérard. Will you go and start the engine?”
The other man didn’t answer. That sense of estrangement was noticeable again, quite unmistakable. The sneering man was Raoul, the other Gérard; and clearly Gérard didn’t trust Raoul.
“You will not hurt her,” he said at last.
“Why should I, you fool?” Raoul said tartly. “Look at her; she is half dead. Go and start the engine; I’ll get some blankets for her.”
The man named Gérard still didn’t move.
“What is the matter with you?” Raoul sounded ill-tempered.
“My friend,” said Gérard quietly, “you remember what Sautot said. He was questioning her about this letter to the Englishman, Rollison, who calls himself the agent of Ram-beau. And he was—hurting her.”
“Why be squeamish?” Raoul rasped. Rollison could remember the way he had looked when at the wheel of the Citroen. “He was making her talk, wasn’t he? If he had to twist her arm or bend her finger back to make her open her mouth, what does it matter? What is your trouble, Gérard?” The constraint was near the open now; they weren’t far from a sharp quarrel. “Does she mean anything to you? Do you wish to have her for yourself? Is that it?”
Gérard didn’t answer.
“Because if it is,” sneered Raoul, “Chicot will be very interested.”
“Raoul,” said Gérard softly, “don’t you do anything to her. Understand? Sautot had his orders, to find out how much she had said to this Rollison, but you haven’t any. You don’t know what he was trying, to find out from her. Wait until we get back, and telephone Chicot for orders. Make sure of that, because you might do the wrong thing.”
Silence fell.
“I won’t hurt her,” Raoul said.
After a moment’s pause, more movement followed. Gérard left the saloon and walked briskly up the stairs. Odd noises began soon after he reached the engine.
There was no sound inside the saloon, and Rollison made none.
He had learned a little, and it might become a great deal. Chicot was the man they feared. Sautot was the stocky man with a bullet-hole through his right hand. Morency – a name which might be English or American – was the old
man, and a doctor. These two were Raoul and Gérard, and they knew that Sautot had been questioning the girl when she had escaped and run, screaming, to a desperate hope of safety.
Violette—
Rollison found himself smiling at thought of her grace.
Then the engine started.
It ran more smoothly from the first note this time, and in a few seconds they would be on their way. It wasn’t far back to the jetty.
He moved round to the saloon, trying to remember whether it was possible to glance down the stairs and see the front door of the saloon. He didn’t think so. He was nearly sure that Gérard would look down, trying to make certain that Raoul was not ‘questioning’ the girl. There wasn’t much that Raoul would stop at.
Rollison reached the doorway, and peered inside.
Raoul stood with his feet apart, his right elbow crooked, as if he had a glass in his hand. His sleek black hair was slightly out of place – not very much, just ruffled out of its usual sleekness. He wore a biscuit-coloured suit, like the driver of the Citroen; beyond doubt it was the same man.
The girl lay on the floor, with two blue rugs over her. Her feet showed at one end, and she had lost her shoes. Her hair was lank and wet, and a large dark patch on the carpet seemed to be spreading. She faced the door, and her head lolled. She looked as if she were unconscious; but Rollison saw that her eyes were flickering.’
Suddenly Raoul moved.
He flung the contents of his glass into the girl’s face. She gasped, her body heaved, her eyes opened wide, and her hands appeared, and she put them to her face. Raoul bent down on one knee, snatched at her right wrist, and twisted savagely. The blankets fell back from her lovely shoulders. She was held in a torturing grip – the kind of grip she had tried to escape when in the villa.
“Now you’ll tell me what was in that letter to Rollison,” Raoul said in a voice which only just reached the Toff. “Tell me, or I’ll break your arm.”
He sounded as if he meant it.
If the Toff went in now, a shout would bring Gérard running.
Chapter Seven
Violette
The greatest danger would come from the girl.
She lay there helpless, mouth open in a strangely muted scream. Her head was raised. Raoul knelt between her and the Toff, who could see her so plainly that he knew that if she caught a glimpse of movement she would give him away.
“What was in the letter?” growled Raoul, and a slight movement of his wrist made her gasp; he clapped his right hand over her mouth, to silence the sound, twisted again, and then took his hand away. “What was in it?”
“I asked him to see me,” she gasped; “that is all, everything.”
Raoul didn’t believe her.
Rollison was inside the room now, behind the man. If Violette looked up she would see him. There were only seconds to spare, for Gérard might come at any moment. The Toff moved, swift as a gust of wind, and his hands were stretched out to grasp Raoul by the neck.
Violette saw it.
She gasped again and her gaze shifted; Raoul couldn’t fail to understand that someone was there. He would expect Gérard. He sprang to his feet, twisting round as he did so; and the Toff stopped clutching at his neck, just clenched a fist and smashed it into his chin.
Raoul toppled backwards. He caught a leg against Violette, and fell. He banged his head on the edge of the shiny bar, a bottle quivered and rattled against two glasses. One toppled. Raoul slithered down the wall, and Rollison went after him, reached him, struck again.
Once …
Twice.
Raoul slumped down inert, the little gasp coming as he fell. He didn’t move, but lay between Violette and the wall, eyes closed and mouth slightly open, but very slack. There was a trickle of blood at his lips and chin.
The girl just raised her hand towards the Toff, as if wanting to hug him in the ecstasy of her relief. Long, bare, shapely arms—
Rollison took her hands and squeezed.
“Lie still,” he warned; “don’t make a sound.”
He moved towards the bar, and picked up one of the bottles. It was whisky; either Raoul or Gérard didn’t share Simon Leclair’s tastes. Holding it like a club, Rollison went to the door. The thing he dreaded was to see Gérard peering down, but there was no sign of him. The engine was chugging away peacefully; the cruiser seemed to be going at a good clip.
Rollison started up the stairs.
He could see Gérard’s back, bent over the engine, as if there were something amiss, after all. He reached the deck.
Gérard was fiddling with something, with that peculiar application of born engineers. His head was on one side, as if he were listening for a faint irregularity in the beat of the engine. Rollison looked only at him, but not far away there was the green-topped villa and the beautiful garden, the jetty and the other craft.
Other men, too?
Rollison couldn’t see over the roof of the engine-house without making himself visible to anyone watching from the house or the jetty. He didn’t stand upright, but took another step towards the man at the engine.
Gérard straightened up.
“Gérard,” said Rollison very softly.
The youth started violently, and turned his head. He was fair-haired, fresh-faced, open-mouthed; no ghost could have affected him more than the sight of Rollison then. He didn’t move, but leaned further back. The engine purred, and the green-topped villa seemed to draw nearer.
“Who—who—who—” began Gérard, and gulped in desperation. “Who—”
“Gérard,” said the Toff, still softly, “turn her round. We’re not going back to the He de Seblec; we’re going to Cap Mirabeau. Head her out to sea, get the right bearing, and then lash the helm.”
“Bu—bu—bu—” began Gérard.
“Or I’ll smash your head in,” Rollison said, and raised the whisky bottle.
The youth turned, too frightened even to shout or to argue. He touched the helm. There was nothing to stop him from heading straight for the jetty, ramming it, making sure that they couldn’t get away. He didn’t. He glanced over his shoulder once, at the near-naked figure of the Toff, who was holding the bottle as if it were a club. The cabin-cruiser swung round in a sweeping arc, and then headed south from the big bay. Out at sea there was little danger; in the bay there were so many small boats that he dare not leave the cruiser with her helm lashed. Later, to reach Cap Mirabeau, they would have to swing inshore and head for a spot where there was plenty of anchorage and public as well as private jetties. Now the Toff needed time more than anything else. He looked round, tensely.
No one was in the grounds of the villa, which lay burning in the sun. The heat rose in a shimmering haze from the tiled roof, from the paths, from the water itself. Never had water looked so blue as it did close to the Maria. The Maria, the Toff repeated to himself, and saw the name painted in gilt letters on a lifebelt fastened to the top of the engine-house.
He felt the fair-haired youth’s pocket for a gun, and found only an ordinary pen-knife. He took this, then watched the distant, open sea.
Gérard turned his head, and Rollison had a feeling that he had seen him before. He was scared out of his wits, yet there was something almost attractive about him. Seen sunning himself on the pebbles at Nice, or sun-bathing aboard one of the yachts at Cannes, one would have noticed him and thought ‘nice lad’. His hair was very fair and very curly; he had the kind of skin that never really tanned, yet didn’t redden.
“Are you—are you Rollison?”
“Am I?” murmured the Toff, and added very softly: “Look where you’re going.”
Gérard turned his head back.
“Lash the helm.”
“I—I am about to,” said Gérard. ‘Lash’ was too strong a word; there was a loop of rop
e nearby, and a row of wooden pins; he put the loop over one of the pins, so that the wheel couldn’t move, and then turned round again. “What are you going to do when we—”
The Toff struck him beneath the jaw.
“Hallo, Violette,” said the Toff, reaching the saloon and smiling amiably at the girl. “Feeling better?” She was sitting on the edge of the wall seat, and had been watching Raoul, who hadn’t moved. “You won’t know yourself when we get ashore. There’s another one—Gérard by name. Know him?”
It was good to feel that he could relax, even for a few minutes.
The girl said huskily: “Raoul is the bad one.”
“I don’t think we ought to be too sorry for Gérard yet,” said Rollison dryly.
He started to drag the unconscious Gérard into the saloon, but changed his mind. Raoul was stirring, but would be too dazed to be dangerous for a while.
“I’ll be back,” Rollison said. He edged his way out of the saloon, still holding Gérard by the shoulders, then dragged him to the nearest of the three bunk-rooms. The porthole was too small for men of the size of Gérard and Raoul to squeeze through. He lugged Gérard inside, and hoisted him to the upper bunk.
He went back for Raoul.
Violette was standing near the dark-haired man, with a bottle in her hand. Hatred showed in her eyes. She had a rug draped round her shoulders, she shivered, and yet she looked strangely magnificent; as a Red Indian squaw might look with a tribal blanket round her shoulders and eyes ablaze with the fire of war.
“He tried to get up,” she said thinly. “Try to find some string,” Rollison said briskly. “Strong stuff, please; cord would be better. Once they’re tied up we can take it easier.”
