Young Petrella

by Michael Gilbert

  But for the next hour frustration awaited him at every turn. Three times he found himself outside Marianne’s cabin, and three times he was interrupted. First it was the Captain, who wanted his shoes cleaned. Then the engineer appeared from the depths and demanded hot water.

  Then the cook wanted to borrow a cup and saucer from the saloon crockery, which was the steward’s department. He indicated the empty shelf where the white kitchen crockery, fat cups and thick, plain plates and saucers, had been stored. “The pigs,” he said, “have taken it for their picnic. Am I therefore to be without a cup of coffee?” The steward unlocked the saloon china cupboard and got out two cups. He felt in need of some coffee himself.

  The fourth time he was lucky. All seemed quiet. He turned the handle and went in. The little room was full of the faint but lovely scent she used. It was as if, her physical self being absent, she had left behind a sweet-smelling ghost to watch over her belongings. The steward wasted no time.

  He pulled on a pair of cotton gloves and opened the drawers of the built-in cupboard. Then he turned his attention to the suitcases crowded together at the foot of the bunk. The first two were unlocked and empty. The third – and smallest – was locked. The steward pulled out a bunch of tiny keys, selected one carefully by size and shape, tried it, and rejected it. He was neat, precise, and infinitely patient. The tenth key worked.

  It was a dressing-case. At first sight he thought that this, too, was empty. Then he saw that there was a wallet flap inside the lid. By its bulk, it contained papers. The steward pulled out the contents and stared at them for a moment, the oddest expression on his face. Curiosity. Then incredulity. Finally, something which looked oddly like relief.

  “So that’s it,” he said to himself. Carefully but quickly he fastened the lock. Carefully replaced the cases where he had found them. Quietly left the cabin.

  He did not notice that the galley door was fractionally open. Nor was he aware that from the darkness behind it the cook was watching him.

  The guests were back on board by six o’clock clamouring for attention. They were soaked with sun and surfeited with the unusual exercise of walking up and down a steep hill. “Worth it, though,” said the Major. “Reminded me of the view from the top of Jakko.”

  Clinton, too, seemed in high good humour. He had ordered claret, and as he passed round the third bottle the steward was glad to see that even the Major’s wife was drinking level. He reckoned that the red wine and the sun would work together to his advantage; and it fell out as he had calculated.

  By eleven o’clock the Correts had rolled to their cabins, and ten minutes later the girl followed. Clinton lit his second cigar, called for a brandy, and settled down at the table with a portfolio of papers. When the steward arrived with his drink he said, without looking up, “I shan’t be needing you any more. You’ve had a long day.”

  If the steward felt surprised he managed to conceal it. In three days he had learnt a good deal about concealing his feelings. He went quietly out.

  In the passage he paused. From the nearest cabin came the sound of a reassuring snore. Under the door of the girl’s cabin a light showed. Again he paused, then drew in his breath as if plunging into cold and unknown water, and knocked lightly on the panel.

  With the slightest pause he heard her voice say, “Who is it? A moment, if you please.” Then, “Come in.”

  He pushed the door open. She was sitting in the low chair beside the bunk, smoking a cigarette. Her feet were bare but she had not undressed. She might almost have been expecting him. He shut the door quietly behind him.

  “If you wish us not to be disturbed,” she suggested coolly, “you had better slip the bolt. That’s right. Mr. Clinton, who does not lack for persistence, usually tries my door when he comes past to his cabin.”

  The steward said abruptly, “This afternoon, I opened your dressing-case.”

  “Yes,” said the girl. “You replaced the cases carefully. But not quite carefully enough.”

  “I know, therefore, your real name and your job. You are of the French police.”

  “And you, I judge, of the English police. What is your real name, if I may be permitted—”

  “Petrella,” said the young man. “Sergeant Petrella.”

  “And there is another name?”

  “Patrick.”

  “Tres gentil. Pat-trick.” She made two equal syllables of it, as if it rhymed with hat trick. Petrella thought it sounded delightful. “Now, how can I help you? How much do you know?”

  “I know,” said Petrella, “that the police of both our countries have been watching Clinton for a long time. I know that he is a receiver of stolen goods. That he specialises in precious stones. Some historic pieces have passed through his hands. He breaks them up. Sometimes the stones are re-cut. Then they are shipped abroad, in this yacht, and sold on the continent.”

  “That is all conjecture.”

  “It is all conjecture. If it were more than conjecture, he would be in gaol. But it is conjecture based on some remarkable coincidences. Half a dozen times, stones of great value have been stolen. Up to a certain date we know – we positively and actually know – that they are in England. That’s the date when Clinton takes his yacht and sails to Benodet in her. Then, a little time later, we hear that the stones are in Europe. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Simple,” said the girl, “but not simple. There are a thousand places on a boat like this where a few precious stones might be hidden.”

  “While they are on the ship, yes. But sooner or later the moment comes when they must go ashore. They cannot walk, or fly. They must be carried. And until your picnic this afternoon only two people have touched the soil of France. The cook and myself.”

  “You are wrong.” She stretched out one bare foot. “I have touched it. And very muddy it was.”

  “Yes. I watched you through my glasses.”

  “Then you saw me using the old hulk as a post office?”

  “I saw you do something,” said Petrella. “But you were too quick, and it was too far off for me to be certain. That is why I searched your things and discovered the truth.”

  “I took ashore a note,” she said, “containing a suggestion. It was not an order – I am not in charge of this operation – but I suggested that the embargo be lifted and Clinton and his guests allowed ashore, and I with them. You may be certain that not one step we took, not one move we made, was unobserved.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing happened. We walked up a steep path through the woods. The sailor – the one they call R-r-ron – carried the tea hamper. Do you think, by the way, that he is concerned?”

  “No,” said Petrella. “We’ve checked on the crew very thoroughly. I think they just sail Clinton’s ship for him. The Captain’s an astonishing old soak, but I don’t think that any of them, except perhaps the cook, are concerned. Please go on.”

  “We reached a plateau – an open space of grass, where there is a ruined church; you can see the top through the trees. In the middle of the field there are three stone pillars. They are common in Brittany. They are very old, I think.”

  “Dolmen stones?”

  “Yes. We sat with our backs against them. It was very pleasant. We had our tea.”

  “Was Clinton ever out of your sight?”

  “Not for a minute. He sat next to me. He was very gallant.”

  “I can believe it.”

  “So much so that he nearly spoilt my dress. He—” She broke off, and said, “Don’t talk.”

  Footsteps were tip-tapping down the linoleum-covered passageway. They seemed to pause for a moment, then passed on. The door of Clinton’s cabin slammed.

  “Really!” said the girl. “I hardly call that gallant. He might at least have tried the handle.” She reached up her hand and clicked off the switch. Only the soft bunk lamp glowed.

  “You were telling me about your dress.”

  “It was nothing, really. We were d
rinking from our cups at the same time. He leaned across and clinked his against mine – as if they were wine glasses, you understand. Only they were not wine glasses. They were common crockery cups, and they both broke. In a drawing-room there would have been a mess. In a field it did not matter.”

  A memory stirred. Something he had seen. In the galley, with the cook. “Common, white crockery cups?” he said. “With thick bases?”

  “That is so.” He saw the sudden gleam of interest in her eye. “Is it important?”

  “It might be,” said Petrella. “They are cups that the cook used, for himself, in the galley. Why should they be used for the passengers? There are plenty of china cups in the saloon.”

  She considered it, and shook her head slowly. “There is nothing in that,” she said. “They would not take good cups. In case they got broken – as they did.”

  “What did you do with the pieces?”

  “When we had finished, R-r-ron dug a hole, and buried the scraps. And the paper, and the broken cups – good Lord!” He heard her catch her breath.

  “So it’s occurred to you, too, has it?” said Petrella. “What better hiding place for the journey out? To bake the stones into the bases of a pair of thick china cups, and hang them in the galley, under the cook’s own eye.”

  “You sound so sure.”

  “You saw Clinton this evening,” said Petrella. “You must have noticed the change from this morning. Relaxed, at ease. The job done. It was clear that the stones had gone ashore somehow. And we know how it was done.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I am going to do some digging,” said Petrella. “Where were they buried?”

  “Under the left-hand stone as you stand with your back to the river. What do you propose?”

  “It would be better, I think, not to take the boat. It is a warm night.”

  “Take this, though,” she said. It came out from her bunk. An automatic pistol. No lady’s toy, with inlaid mother-of-pearl grip; but a man’s gun, in shining blue steel.

  Petrella put it into his pocket. As he handled it, the metal was still warm from the warmth of her bed. She leaned forward, said, “Good luck, little Sergeant. Be careful when you get among the trees.”

  Back in his cabin, Petrella stripped naked. Then from his kitbag he picked out and put on a pair of old khaki shorts and a pair of rope-soled deck shoes. The gun was the real problem. In the end he dropped it in his sponge bag and knotted the cords of the bag to one of the belt-loops in his shorts. It swung awkwardly as he walked, but the arrangement left his hands free.

  As he made his way towards the deck he noticed that the cook’s cabin door was on the hook. He looked in. The moonlight showed an empty cabin and an unused bunk. Also, as he saw when he reached the deck, the dinghy was gone. He had heard no sound but it would have been easy enough to cast off and float down with the current until out of earshot.

  If the cook was already ashore he would need twice as much care; and twice as much luck.

  The gangway, which ran past the porthole of Clinton’s cabin, represented an unnecessary danger. Petrella climbed through the stern rail, hung by his hands, and let himself drop. The water was warm to the touch. He drifted quietly downstream. The tide was near full ebb, and the current of the Odet was asserting its strength. His feet touched mud a hundred yards below the landing-stage.

  The riverbank here was built up with concrete blocks against the scour and he pulled himself on to them and sat, for a moment, to disengage the gun and get back his breath and improve his night sight.

  Above him the line of trees was unbroken, but they were mostly pine and oak and he guessed that, with a little care, he could walk through them as quickly, and with less noise than on the beaten track.

  At first it was scrambling, with hands and feet. Then the slope levelled off. Soon after that he saw dim light ahead of him. He pushed through the last of the bushes and was looking out at the upland plateau which the girl had described.

  Under the pale, full moon it was a place of ancient and potent beauty. The grass looked as smooth as a college lawn. In the middle stood the three crooked dolmen stones, throwing long shadows behind them. On the edge of the clearing, the old chapel, silvery-grey in the moonlight.

  Under that soft light, time went back. Black shades of priest and congregation were moving in the doorway, and the lights were on in the chancel.

  Petrella rubbed his eyes. Surely it was a trick of the moon?

  It took an effort of the will to move away from the friendly shelter of the wood. The feel of the heavy gun in his hand helped him.

  As he started to move, the voices started. When he stopped, they stopped too. He told himself that it was the noise of his feet, passing through the dry ankle-high grass.

  When he reached the dolmen stones, he looked across to the chapel, but it had gone. It was hidden in mist, which crept up, unnoticed, to his knees. If it rose higher and thicker, it might be a nuisance. The left-hand stone, she had said. Petrella knelt beside it. A large piece of turf had been cut. It moved to his fingers. Needing both hands, he laid the gun carefully down beside him. At that moment he looked up and saw the cook, five paces away, staring at him. His hand went to the gun. A foot was on it, a booted foot, which stamped on his fingers.

  As he cried out, men came from everywhere: from behind the stones, from the hollow in the field, they rose from the ground. Then the world stopped short on its axis and he himself was diving, upwards and outwards, into space, towards the upside-down river of stars which formed the sky. As he went he heard shouts, and the braying of a siren, but faintly, and more faintly, as he left the busy earth behind him and journeyed outward into space.

  There was sunlight in his eyes when he opened them, and a very pretty girl in a nurse’s uniform was doing something to the slats of the Venetian blind, and saying, “Only five minutes, then. No more.”

  Petrella turned his head painfully, and saw Superintendent Hazlerigg, with his bowler hat between his hands and a look of sardonic interest on his brick-red face.

  “Where am I?” said Petrella.

  “At Quimper,” said Hazlerigg, “in hospital.”

  Petrella gathered from his tone of voice that all was well.

  “Have you got the stones?” he said. “What were they?”

  “The Ladbrook emeralds, none other,” said Hazlerigg. “Six lovely stones. But no thanks to you. Or was it? I’m not sure. This has been rather a muddled trip. As I said to the Commissioner, we ought either to have told you a lot more, or a lot less.”

  “You warned me to expect help from the French police,” said Petrella. “When it turned out to be that girl—”

  “Marianne,” said Hazlerigg thoughtfully. “Yes. She’s in gaol with Clinton. You realise she was not being candid with you?”

  Petrella said nothing. He lay and stared.

  “The papers you were allowed to discover in her suitcase – the ones that seemed to indicate that she was in the French police – they had, of course, been planted there for you to find. Not that we lied to you. There was help on board. I expect you realise that now. The cook. A very experienced hand. The trouble was, he hadn’t been told about you. A bad lack of liaison. But he came to the conclusion that you might be on the side of law and order when he caught you watching the girl through binoculars. That was why he took the shore trip. When you insisted on coming with him, and breathed down the back of his neck in the bistro, he knew exactly where he was.”

  “If he knew I was on his side,” said Petrella faintly, “why didn’t he tell me?”

  “By then it was too late. Clinton and his friends were wise to you, too. I’m not sure they hadn’t suspected you all along.”

  Petrella grasped at the disappearing skirts of reality. “Do you mean,” he said, “that the girl—that she knew? All the time? Then why did she tell me about the broken cups? Why not just send one of her own side to dig them up? Wasn’t it incredibly risky?”

  “I
t would have been risky,” agreed Hazlerigg, “if the stones had ever been in the cups. But they never were. You were told that story simply to make you go on shore. But the cook heard it. He’d fixed a microphone in her cabin.”

  “He’d what?”

  “He’d got them in all the cabins. I tell you, he is a professional, that man. When he heard what was up, he took the boat and went ashore ahead of you and tipped us off. It was a close race, but we got there more or less together. Not in time to stop you getting hurt, but in plenty of time to round up their party. She’d left a message for them on her early morning swim, so they knew what the plan was.”

  Petrella said feebly, “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. What plan? How did the stones go ashore?”

  “That bit was really quite simple,” said Hazlerigg kindly. “You were carrying them. Six stones wrapped in cotton wool, in the magazines of the gun she gave you.”

  At this point the nurse reappeared. “Do you wish to kill the boy,” she said sternly, “with your chattering? Out with you this moment! No, not another word!”

  The Oyster Catcher

  The table was the first thing which caught your eye as you came into the room. Its legs were of green-painted angle-iron, bolted to the floor; its top a block of polished teak.

  Overhead shone five white fluorescent lights.

  On the wide, shadowless, aseptic surface the raincoat looked out of place, like some jolly, seedy old tramp who has strayed into an operating theatre. A coat is such a personal thing, almost a second skin. As it loses its own shape, and takes on the outlines of its wearer, as its pockets become a repository of tobacco flakes and sand and fragments of leaves, and its exterior becomes spotted with more unexpected things than rain, so does it take on an intimate life all of its own.

  There was an element of indecency, Petrella thought, in tearing this life from it. The earnest man in rimless glasses and a white laboratory overall had just finished going over the lining with a pocket-sized vacuum cleaner with a thimble-shaped container. Now he was at work on the exterior. He cut a broad strip of adhesive tape and laid it on the outside of the coat, pressing it firmly down. Then he marked the area with a special pencil, and pulled the tape off. There was nothing visible to the naked eye on the under-surface of the tape, but he seemed satisfied.