Codeword Golden Fleece

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘Hist!’ whispered Richard. ‘Why waste time talking to Vimeru and risk his wanting proof that the “Fleece” is ours before he lets us go off with it?’

  Rex nodded. ‘Okay! You stay here and keep cave while I slip inside. I’m a quicker mover, these days, than you.’ As he spoke he grasped one side of the tall door firmly and drew it steadily open about two feet. It made only a faint grating noise.

  Richard had used his legs more during the past two hours than he had at any time since his smash, and he now leaned against the wall of the house to rest himself. A faint glow came from the partly opened garage doors as Rex switched on his torch inside. The wireless was still playing, and for the people in the other side of the house must have drowned the faint sounds that came to Richard of Rex moving about.

  While he waited Richard could feel his heart pounding beneath his ribs. This was the culminating point of their long and arduous chase, during which they had met with so many heartbreaking delays and disappointments. Rex seemed a long time, but the Ford V8 must be there, otherwise he would have been out again by now.

  Richard fought down a temptation to look inside the garage and kept his head moving from side to side, alternately glancing at the approach from the back of the house and the front door. Would Rex never come? What the devil was he doing in there? He had had time enough to search half a dozen cars.

  Suddenly the glow of light disappeared, the grating noise came again, and Rex was standing beside him.

  ‘Well?’ whispered Richard.

  ‘It’s not there.’

  ‘Are you—are you certain?’ Richard stammered, aghast at the new misfortune.

  ‘Of course I’m certain.’ Rex’s voice was bitter with disappointment. ‘I turned the Ford inside out. Vimeru must have found it. Come on, let’s tackle him and find out what he’s done with the darned thing.’

  Still furious at having been baulked when they had thought themselves so near their goal, they walked to the front door and rang the bell.

  It was answered by a dark, youngish woman whom they took to be Madame Vimeru herself. On their asking to see her husband she replied in very poor French:

  ‘I regret, but he is from home.’

  Richard swallowed hard and said: ‘We have important business with him. The people at his office told us that he would be back by nine o’clock tonight.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, I expected him, but my uncle arrived from Mangalia about an hour ago. He has been with my husband there today and brought a message that Monsieur Vimeru will not be back in Constanta till tomorrow morning. If you go to his office then, perhaps …’

  Lamely they thanked her and turned away. There was nothing else that they could do.

  ‘What God-awful luck!’ moaned Richard as they walked slowly back up the track.

  ‘It sure is,’ Rex agreed, but this time he made an effort to console his friend by adding: ‘Still, the boat doesn’t sail till tomorrow afternoon, so if we can nail Vimeru in the morning maybe we’ll have lost nothing.’

  ‘That’s true, but somehow there seems to have been a hoodoo on us all the time we’ve been chasing the Golden Fleece. Day after day has been swallowed up in rushing from place to place or waiting for things to happen that never come off.’

  ‘You’re telling me! And if we don’t get our hooks on it in the next twenty-four hours the game will be up.’

  In moody silence they walked on until they reached their taxi, and having given the man directions they did not speak again before it pulled up outside the ‘Sultan Ahmed’.

  ‘Well,’ said Richard, as Rex helped him out, ‘they say the darkest hour is just before the dawn; let’s hope the old proverb proves correct in our case.’

  Rex was about to reply as they passed through the swing doors. Instead, he suddenly grabbed Richard’s arm and exclaimed:

  ‘Holy Michael! Look over there!’

  Richard followed his glance to the far end of the lounge and gave a cry of delight. Simon was sitting there; before him on a small table were three glasses and beside him in an ice-bucket was a magnum of champagne.

  He had already seen them and came hurrying forward, grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘You chaps have been a time,’ was his greeting. ‘Been awfully thirsty work waiting for you to turn up.’

  ‘You old so-an’-so, how did you know we were around?’ grinned Rex, clapping him affectionately on the shoulder.

  ‘Yes,’ smiled Richard. ‘We didn’t expect you till midday tomorrow at the earliest; so we hadn’t even left a message for you yet.’

  Simon wriggled his neck. ‘They told me at the desk that you were staying here, and that you’d gone out at six o’clock. Hoped you’d be back in time to join me for dinner, but guessed you must be dining out, as it wouldn’t have taken you all this time to drive to Vimeru’s and back. Knocked off a bottle to my own check while I fed but thought I’d have something on the ice for when you came in. Just thought you might need a spot of cheering up.’

  Richard’s eyes widened. ‘What the devil d’you mean?’ he cried suddenly, grasping Simon by the arm.

  ‘Well, must have been a bit hard for you chaps, missing the boat like that.’

  Rex grabbed his other arm and shook him. ‘Come clean you old sinner. Don’t just stand there grinning like an ape. D’you mean you’ve got it?’

  Simon nodded. ‘Um, it was just where you left it; under the back seat of the car. I fished it out this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, can you beat that?’ Rex sighed from pure relief and happiness, and Richard echoed his sigh.

  A porter took the hats and coats of the newcomers; they went to Simon’s table, and a waiter opened the magnum; the band was playing one of those enchanting catchy tunes that are entirely special to Rumania and haunt the cafés for a season without, to the world’s loss, ever getting further afield. The glasses were filled and they drank deep of the cool, sparkling wine.

  ‘But how in heck did you hit this dump so quickly?’ Rex wanted to know, as soon as he set down his glass.

  ‘Quite simple,’ Simon smiled. ‘Soon as I got your wire I chartered a private plane.’

  ‘By Jove!’ exclaimed Richard. ‘Then we’ll be in Istanbul by lunchtime tomorrow. I tried to get one here this morning but there wasn’t a thing to be had.’

  ‘Ner.’ Simon shook his head. ‘Sorry, Richard, but my chap would only fly me from Cernauti, here. I tried to book him to go on, but his licence doesn’t allow him to leave the country. We’ll have to go on to Turkey by ship. There’s one leaving at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I booked on it just before the Travel Office shut, and I learned that you chaps had reserved cabins on her, too.’

  ‘But tell us,’ grinned Rex, ‘how did you manage to beat us to the Ford?’

  ‘Got in just after midday. Went straight to Vimeru’s office. They gave me his address but told me he wouldn’t be back till this evening. Thought it worth while to drive out and have a look round. Walked down to the house. No one about, but the garage door was open. Looked in and saw the Ford. Nothing to make a fuss about really, a child could have done it.’

  ‘Well, I know two children who didn’t,’ laughed Richard. ‘Let’s have another glass of that wine.’

  It was the first time all three of them had been together since Simon and Rex had left Richard on the train at Giurgevo, nearly four weeks before, so they had much to tell one another. It was the first time, too, in all those long days and anxious nights of waiting, travelling and scheming, that they had felt really able to relax; so they made a night of it, and a second magnum had gone the way of the first before they eventually sought their beds at half past two.

  Next morning they enjoyed the luxury of sleeping late, then at half past ten Richard went into Simon’s room. When they had exchanged greetings he said:

  ‘I didn’t feel that last night was the time to speak of it, but Rex could only give me a secondhand account of what happened outside the British Legation. All of us realise,
I think, that dear Greyeyes was not the man to die in bed. He would have wanted to go down fighting in some desperate encounter for something that he believed to be terribly worthwhile. I’d like to know the details of his last heroic stand to save the Golden Fleece.’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Simon. And for some twenty minutes he lived again for Richard that agonising scene to the last glimpse he had had of the Duke, his gun dropped from his hand, lolling half out of the taxi.

  Neither of them looked at the other, and when Simon had done they sat for a little in silence, heavy of heart for the great loss they had sustained. Then, with a word of thanks, Richard went back to his own room to dress.

  Two o’clock found the three friends down at the docks and soon after they were settling themselves into their cabins in one of the little cargo steamers that made a twice-weekly trip down to Istanbul. The passenger accommodation was very simple; six cabins, three on each side, which opened on to a small saloon with one central table; the saloon served for lounge, dining-room and bar. The Captain, a bearded Rumanian, made them welcome, and they found that they had only one other fellow passenger, a Turkish tobacco manufacturer. But there was also a motley collection of about a score of cheap-fare passengers who, accompanied by a variety of livestock, were to pass the night on deck.

  At a little after three o’clock the ropes were cast off, and the ship left port. The weather was good and the sea calm. The friends spent what was left of the afternoon and the early evening up on the afterdeck, then at seven-thirty they partook of a plain but quite passable dinner at which the Captain and his Chief Engineer joined them. The conversation was scrappy and in many tongues, but it served to pass away the time. At nine o’clock the Captain excused himself to go up to his bridge, as a sea mist had arisen. The others talked on for a little, then went up on deck for a breath of air before turning in. The mist had increased to a fog. The forepart of the ship was shrouded in it, and the unfortunate deck passengers were now huddling under their wraps, but the ship was proceeding smoothly at only slightly reduced speed, and the chill of the fog soon drove the three friends to their cabins.

  All three were asleep when at about one o’clock they were roused by the sounds of excited shouting. Someone was bellowing from the nearby bridge through a megaphone, and there were fainter, but not less urgent, cries coming, it seemed, from seaward to the port side of the ship.

  Suddenly there was a dull thud, and the vessel shuddered slightly. The thud was followed by a bumping, scraping sound. There were more shouts, then a creaking and a rending crash as though some great tree had splintered and been brought down in a heavy gale. The shouting continued for a few moments, then ceased; the cries to seaward gradually faded; the silence of the fog-enshrouded ship was broken only by muffled footsteps and subdued cursing.

  Rex was first out on deck; Simon went into Richard’s cabin to help him get a coat on. As they started up the companionway they met Rex coming down again.

  ‘It’s nothing serious,’ he said at once. ‘We collided with a poor little fishing-boat, and she got the raw end of the deal. She bumped us on our port bow and scraped along our beam. Her mast got caught in one of our steel boat davits and snapped clean off; but we weren’t doing more than six knots, and I wouldn’t think we’ve even sprung a plate.’

  The silence was now uncanny, and Richard suddenly asked:

  ‘Why have our engines stopped, then?’

  ‘I couldn’t say.’ Rex turned, and they followed him up to the bridge.

  The Captain was apparently having a heated argument down the voice-pipe with his Chief Engineer. They could not understand a word he said, but when he had finished he turned to them and spoke in French.

  ‘Some of the gear from the broken mast of that filthy fishing-boat has fouled our propeller. It may mean a slight delay, but there is nothing to worry about; so if you are wise you will go back to your beds.’

  In view of the urgency of their journey they all felt a little uneasy, but the Captain having said a ‘slight’ delay was reassuring. After all, the consequences of a collision at sea might have been so much worse, and, as Rex pointed out on their return to the saloon, it was the first accident which had caused them any delay at all during the many hundreds of miles that they had travelled on their quest for the Golden Fleece. Disquieted but not seriously alarmed, they returned to their bunks and soon dropped off to sleep.

  When they awoke the engines were still silent, and Simon, who was up first, went out to make anxious enquiries of the Captain. On his return he found Rex helping Richard to dress, and they both saw from his face that he had bad news for them.

  ‘We’re in a muddle,’ he announced. ‘Apparently the propeller was still going when that gear got tangled up in it. Something got twisted and a new propeller will have to be fitted. We can’t do anything but lie here until we sight something big enough to tow us in to Varna.’

  ‘Shucks!’ snapped Rex. ‘What’s the matter with radioing for a tug to come out and tow us in?’

  ‘Small coasters like this are not fitted with wireless yet.’

  Richard glanced at the porthole. ‘But the fog!’ he cried in quick alarm. ‘Look! It’s as thick as ever. It may be hours before anything comes near enough to spot us in this murk.’

  ‘There’s our siren,’ Simon murmured, not very happily. ‘Anything that gets near enough to hear it will head for us to find out what’s wrong.’

  Even as he spoke the short wailing blasts of the hooter, that had been sounding at intervals of a few moments all night, came again.

  In gloomy silence they ate their breakfasts, then went up on deck. The sea was still calm, there was not a breath of wind, and the fog showed no signs of lifting. It was now the 18th, so they had only three days and two nights to go, and even when they reached Istanbul they would have to communicate with London, and London would have to issue instructions in time for Sir Reginald Kent to complete the deal before midnight on the 20th. Now terribly conscious of every wasted moment, they sat up on the afterdeck straining their eyes into the murk for the first sight of any rescuing ship and their ears for a reply to their wailing hooter.

  At the first opportunity they spoke to the Captain, and asked him to have them transferred to any ship that appeared in order that they might be landed at Varna at the earliest possible moment, to which he readily agreed; but it was two o’clock in the afternoon before a sudden stir announced that a vessel had at last been sighted.

  The vessel proved to be only another fishing-smack, and the friends were faced with the awful question as to whether they should go aboard her or wait until something more speedy and reliable appeared on the scene.

  By means of megaphones their Captain and the Master of the fishing-smack held a staccato conversation, after which the Captain reported that the Master said that if the fog lifted he should be able to reach Varna that night, but if it did not it was unlikely that there would be enough wind to enable him to make port until next day.

  All suffering the most chronic anxiety and indecision, the friends discussed the matter, and finally, swayed by an intense craving to end their enforced inactivity rather than from any judgment that the soundest brain could have made, they decided to chance a transfer to the smack. A boat was accordingly lowered, they were put aboard, and ten minutes later as the two vessels drifted apart they watched the steamer disappear in the chill grey mist.

  The hours that followed were positive torture, and the misery they felt was aggravated by the fact that neither the Master of the smack nor his crew of two spoke a word of any language Simon, Rex or Richard could understand. In consequence they could not enquire how far from Varna they were or what prospects there were of the fog lifting. They could only sit in cramped discomfort weighed down by the appalling responsibility to the Allied Cause which had been placed upon them.

  After what seemed an eternity the fog appeared to grow gradually denser, then they realised that this was not actually the case but that darkness was f
alling; and with breaking hearts they knew that they were condemned to another night at sea.

  The fact that their evening meal consisted of steaks cut from a freshly caught white dolphin would normally have provoked their interest; but this passed unnoticed until Rex afterwards examined the fin of the great fish and, having counted its rings, astonished them by remarking that it had been well over two hundred years old, and that some giants of the species were credibly reported to have disported themselves in the Black Sea for eight hundred years before being caught.

  When morning came they felt like death from having spent the night huddled together in the one narrow cabin, but the fog had lifted somewhat. Grey wisps of it still obscured the horizon, but there was enough breeze for the fishermen to run up the mainsail.

  By eight o’clock the last remnants of the accursed fog had been swept away, and under a blue sky they were lapping along through a slightly choppy sea. But they had been the best part of sixty miles from Varna when the fishing-smack had picked them up and the efforts of the Master had not reduced the distance by as much as half, so it was getting on for two o’clock when they landed at the Bulgarian port.

  Another hour went in interviewing the immigration authorities and securing transit visas permitting them to go on as soon as possible to Turkey. They then hurried to the Harbour Hotel and made enquiries as to the quickest means of continuing their journey. When they had learned them it seemed that they were already faced with defeat.

  It was Thursday the 19th, and the only passenger-carrying coaster plying between Varna and Istanbul left the former on Wednesdays and Saturdays. To have gone by train would have been equally futile, as the journey was, by comparison, even more roundabout than that from Constanta, necessitating a run inland of nearly one hundred and fifty miles to Tirnovo, then a corkscrew passage south through the Balkan Mountains and a further four hundred and fifty miles as the railway meandered through the south-eastern tip of Europe. It was in fact nearly seven hundred miles by rail as compared with only one hundred and forty-six by sea.