“You seem very positive that there is going to be a hitch about the will.”
“I am. Camilla don’t you agree with me?”
“Yes, darling. I feel sure that old Simon John will contest it as it stands.”
“Very well then,” the McKay glanced round the ring of anxious faces. “What have we got to worry about? Surely you see that the acceptance or rejection of this will is the crux of the whole affair. If the judge once grants a stay of execution the enemies’ entire plan of campaign breaks down. What would be the sense in shanghaing us to the Falkland Islands then? They will have gone to a very great deal of trouble and expense for nothing so they certainly won’t go to any more, because even if they sent us to the Mountains of the Moon they would be no nearer touching one penny of Camilla’s fortune.”
“But we’ll still be prisoners so that devil will come chasing back here,” Sally insisted.
“Why should he? What’s he got to gain. I suppose you think that having failed to pull off his big coup he’ll try some lesser roguery. Force Camilla to sign him a whacking great cheque or threaten to kill her unless her friends pay up a seven figure ransom. But he can’t m’dear because you see he will have spiked his own guns by having already caused her death to be announced. Her bankers will stop her account immediately they receive the report of it. They always do when anyone dies and even cheques already out are waste paper. Further payments from the estate can only be made by the executors and who could be fool enough to put up any ransom money for a woman that the whole world believes to be dead. No, if his big scheme fails he has sunk himself as far as attempting any other dirty work is concerned. We’ll see no more of him and probably be put ashore at some little fishing village in the Azores while Captain Ardow and his cut-throats sail off into the blue.”
“His big scheme will not fail,” announced Count Axel calmly. “The Judge may grant a stay of execution but this blackguard Kate has definitely anticipated that. You seem to have entirely forgotten the trump card which he has up his sleeve. Three days after the Duchess’s death has been announced her man of business, Rene P. Slinger, will arrive in New York with an eye-witness account of the poor lady’s death and, moreover, be in a position to give his personal testimony of the validity of the will as the man who actually drafted it. The Judge may hold the matter up until Slinger’s arrival, but once he has heard his evidence he will not hesitate for one second to give a verdict in favour of the crooks.”
“Well, Count, you’ve certainly put your finger on the vital spot,” said Nicky. “Sally and Camilla both seem convinced that the will will be contested so if Slinger fails to arrive in New York it means the breakdown of the whole infernal business. It’s up to us to deal with him so that he’s in no fit condition ever to leave this ship.”
Then, for the first time in their acquaintance Prince Vladimar Renescu regarded Nicky with a certain grudging admiration.
CHAPTER X
DAVY JONES’S LOCKER
It was one thing to decide that the treacherous Mr. Slinger should not be allowed to proceed to New York but quite another to determine the method by which he should be compelled to remain in the ship against his will.
Prince Vladimir felt that this was an admirable opportunity for him to prove his devotion to his so beautiful Duchess and asked that the affair should be left entirely in his hands.
He obviously referred to his hands in the literal sense and the ‘affair’ as Slinger’s neck, so Count Axel quickly demurred from the suggestion and the McKay hastened to back him up by pointing out that, even if Slinger were the biggest rogue unhung, murder was still murder, and they would certainly swing for it themselves if they did him in.
To imprison him seemed the obvious solution but how to do that when they were prisoners themselves—within the limits of their cabins, the lounge, dining room and fore-deck while he was their principal gaoler—they did not see.
The idea of rigging some booby trap which should maim him sufficiently to prevent him leaving the ship, but not kill him, was touched upon; yet that seemed such a distasteful piece of work that no one displayed the least keenness to take on the arrangement of it.
The problem of enforcing Slinger’s detention was a knotty one, and although, realising it to be their one real hope of saving Camilla from being fleeced of her fortune, they discussed it in a desultory fashion for nearly two hours, they could devise no satisfactory plan. However, as the McKay remarked at the break up of the conference when the stewards reappeared to serve tea, “We’ve got seven days—six now rather before our friend is due to depart, and one can do a lot of thinking in that time.”
He was right. They did little else but think in the hours that followed, singly or in couples; pessimistically giving each other the benefit of their gloomy and anxious forebodings aloud, or brooding over their inability to do anything about their intolerable situation in silence.
They were still thinking when Slinger appeared in the doorway of the lounge on the stroke of ten o’clock with a couple of gunmen behind him.
“You, dirty double-crossing crook!” Nicky shot at him.
Slinger, looking more like a benign bald-headed vulture than ever, smiled amiably.
“That stuff won’t get you anywhere so you may as well cut it out. Now off you go to bed—all of you.”
An angry murmur of protest went up, but he waved it aside.
“It’s early I know, but we’re instituting a ten o’clock curfew for passengers on board this ship just in case any of you feel tempted to start anything one night. That order, like all our other precautions is instituted for your own protection. Now drink up your drinks and get below.”
Ten minutes later they had further leisure to think—in solitude, each of them having been locked into their cabins, and they were at it again as soon as they woke up the following morning.
Separately or in batches they went up on deck to reconnoitre the enemy’s position; found all the approaches to the bridge and wireless house roped off and strictly guarded as on the previous day; stared morosely for a few moments at the gunmen who were on duty and then resumed their silent, unhappy speculations.
No one except the McKay felt any inclination to use the swimming pool despite the brilliant sunshine and when he appeared in his bathing robe, Sally remarked;
“Well, you’re a nice sympathetic friend. Quite happy to enjoy yourself as usual eh! While the rest of us are racking our brains to try and think of some way out of this ghastly mess we’re in.”
“The old brain’s had an overdose of thinking in the last twenty-four hours m’dear,” he replied quietly. “So we’re going to turn our attention to the imperial carcass for a bit instead.”
“You’ve given up hope already then?”
“Not a bit of it. I never give up hope about anything, even that you might fall in love with me one day, and that’s as unlikely as our getting out of this tangle with flying colours.” He slipped off his robe and stood, just five foot seven inches of bronze muscular body in a pair of dark blue trunks, poised ready to dive into the water.
Sally’s heart missed a beat. He had never said anything quite so nice to her before. Their troubles faded almost magically out of her mind. The sunshine seemed brighter and life full of pleasant possibilities once more, but before she had a chance to reply he had somersaulted into the water, swum round the pool beneath its surface, and come up puffing like a grampus as he shook the water from his eyes and crisp sandy grey hair.
“Don’t sit there like a broody hen you young idiot,” he admonished her. “Get your clothes off and come in for a swim.”
After all, why not, thought Sally. So she went down to her cabin and donned a backless bathing suit which displayed her figure to perfection, then joined him in the water.
Prince Vladimir cast a disapproving eye upon them now and again as he restlessly paced the deck near the pool. He was not a young man of great intelligence, perhaps, but the heart of a lion beat with splendid regulari
ty under his great breast bone and he was utterly disgusted to find himself in the company of men who possessed so little courage. In Nicky he felt “damp feet” as he called it, could be forgiven, for after all Nicky was a “cad” and one did not expect bravery from such people; but that Count Axel should sit placidly smoking right up in the bows of the ship, whole skinned yet unashamed, and the English Captain disport himself with senseless laughter while they were all held prisoners, filled him with disgust and contempt for both of them.
Even when Doctor Tisch appeared to tell them that the bathysphere had been sent down for a trial descent the announcement only roused them from their despondency for a moment. In their extreme preoccupation with the knowledge that, unless they could devise some way to outwit their captors, they were all to be shipped off to a desert island on the borders of the southern iceberg zone, where they would suffer months of acute distress, if not death—from exposure—they had forgotten all about Atlantis. With the exception of the McKay they had not even noticed consciously that the ship had left its anchorage off Horta in the previous night and now lay in the open sea, with the land only showing as a distant smudge on the horizon.
Upon being reminded of the object which had brought them all on board their reaction was only an added fury that any enterprise so speculative should have lured them into this damnable trap, and they soon relapsed into their squirrellike mental revolutions upon the now sickening subject of their uncertain future.
After his swim the McKay joined Count Axel up in the bows of the vessel. “Well,” he enquired with a smile, “did sleep bring you inspiration?”
The Count shrugged. “No, I confess myself at my wit’s end. There are ways of course in which we could prevent Slinger leaving us in five days’ time. Mussolini’s for example which was used to prevent communist leaders from addressing public meetings when Italy very nearly went Red after the war—a pint of castor oil or its equivalent—that would lay him out for two or three days at least, but we couldn’t put it into practice as long as he is accompanied by a couple of these gunmen each time he visits us. Have you had any ideas?”
“Not a ghost of a one,” lied the McKay.
“Then it seems that we shall have to face a situation which I do not care to dwell upon. Think of these poor young women on the rock where we are to be left stranded. The hideous discomfort, the piercing cold of those southern regions. We may be there for a year before we are picked up by a passing vessel or can get away. I have few possessions but I would give them all to be assured that I am only dreaming of this colossal frame up.”
“Yes, we’re in it up to the neck,” the McKay agreed bitterly. He had had no brilliant brainwave for their salvation, only a simple almost automatic idea, for one of his training, which might, as an outside chance lead to their rescue. Having little faith in it himself he did not even consider it worth mentioning and entirely shared the Count’s extreme anxiety.
“The others don’t know what they’re in for yet,” he added thoughtfully, “so best keep it from them till they have to face it for themselves. It would be no kindness to the women to cause them suffering in anticipation as to what we’re likely to be up against this time next month; and I blamed myself afterwards for saying as much as I did when we had our conference yesterday. Unless we can detain Slinger I don’t think there’s the least chance of that will being set aside—do you? This bloke Kate’s been a damn sight too clever for the lot of us.”
“Yes, he must have worked everything out to the last detail, and if we move against Slinger or these gunmen we would just be asking to be shot. The whole affair must have been planned months back, that’s why I hinted that the Doctor was in it, yesterday. What do you make of him?”
“Oh, he’s not a bad little cuss. Absolutely potty on this Atlantis business of course, but he’s a genuine scientist all right. I looked up his record in the ship’s library so I hardly think your theory about his being in with all these crooks can be right.”
Count Axel smiled lazily. “It is just because he is so potty—a monomaniac almost, one might say—about what he terms his life work of the rediscovery of the lost continent that I believe him to be involved. Such expeditions as this are very costly you know and it is not easy to find anyone with sufficient money to finance them. Most capitalists who could afford to do so are hard-headed business men requiring a definite return for such an outlay. The uncertainty of actually securing gold from the venture would bar it out except in the case of a limited few. Farquason was such a one. A man of great vision who knew how to apply his dreams to modern commercial undertakings, and when he had made big money he was willing to apply that to the realisation of dreams which might bring no financial reward.
“Unfortunately he dreamed once too often. He will come back again of course, such men always do, but in the meantime he’s had a nasty set-back and had to leave the Doctor in the lurch. Honestly I believe that Slinger or his Chief heard of the Doctor’s project in Paris and the plight in which Farquason had left him, then tempted him to bring this ship down to Madeira by a promise that if he kept his eyes and mouth shut they would enable him to continue with this work in which he is so passionately interested.
“If you are right we should be well advised to exclude him from our councils.”
“Certainly. Except in the case of some plan which necessitates an open united attack I think it would be wise if we all kept our own counsel for the moment.” Count Axel also had the germ of a scheme already in his mind which was too vague for him to wish to share until he had had further time to deliberate upon it.
“However,” he added blandly, “I believe the Doctor to be more sinned against than sinning. He could not possibly have suspected their intention of shipping us, and him, down to the Falklands. Consequently he is probably almost as much at his wit’s end as we are now and would do anything he possibly could to help us. You see if my theory is right they’ve tricked him too and he would commit murder rather than be robbed of his great chance to rediscover Atlantis.”
“You really do believe in Atlantis then? Surely if the Doctor is in with Slinger’s gang that adds enormously to the supposition that it’s only a myth and that they’ve utilised the old story to bait in an exceedingly clever job.”
“No, my dear Captain. There you are wrong. That is just where these people have been so diabolically cunning. The Doctor is in dead earnest regarding his Atlantis theory so they made use of his fanatical conviction about it to induce Camilla and her friends to come on board this ship. Believe me, so certain am I that the Doctor is right, that if I had a million, and we had some unquestionable manner in which we could prove our bet, I would wager you nine-tenths of it that the land once trodden by living Atlanteans now lies beneath our feet.”
“You know where we are then?”
“Yes. I was so perturbed by what had taken place that I hardly realised the ship had left Horta until we had been under steam for the best part of an hour but I looked out of my porthole then and saw from the stars that we were moving East South East. Unless I am completely astray, that smudge of land which we can still see to the north-west now must be the south-east point of Pico Island.”
“That’s it,” agreed the McKay. “I took a look at the stars myself immediately the ship got under weigh and I’m able to verify the outline of Pico because, although it’s years ago now, I’ve sailed before in these waters. You heard that the bathysphere had been sent down to the bottom?”
“Yes, they are reeling it in now. It took one hour and forty-four minutes going down. 5,168 feet the Doctor told me. I can hardly contain my impatience to learn if it reaches the surface again intact. So much depends on that.”
“Getting on for nine-hundred fathoms, eh? The pressure must be something tremendous at that depth. Do you mean to chance going down there if the test has proved satisfactory?”
“Certainly. I would not forego the possibility of being among the first to behold these remains which have been under water
for over eleven thousand years for anything in the world—not even to be free of this ghastly threat of being marooned on the Falkland Islands afterwards.”
The McKay shrugged his square shoulders. “Well, each man has his particular kind of fun, but I can’t see how you really believe in this old wives’ tale. How could such tremendous destruction have taken place in one upheaval? It isn’t reasonable.”
“My dear Captain, the site of Atlantis is the very centre of an earthquake region. The nearest coast to it is that of Portugal and it was there that the greatest earthquake of modern times occurred. In Lisbon on the first of November 1775 the sound of thunder was heard underground and immediately afterwards a violent shock threw down the greater part of the city. In six minutes 60,000 persons perished. The entire harbour, built of solid marble, sank down with hundreds of people on it and not one of their bodies ever floated to the surface. A score of great vessels were instantaneously engulfed and disappeared with all their crews as though they had never existed. No trace of them has ever been found since and the water in the place where the fine quay once stood is now five-hundred feet deep.”
“That’s terrible enough I grant you, but it was a local calamity.”
“How about the frightful eruptions which devastated the island of Sumbawa, east of Java, in 1815 then? The sound of the explosion was heard for nearly a thousand miles and, in one province, out of a population of 12,000, only 26 people escaped with their lives. Whirlwinds carried up men, horses and cattle into the air, tore up the largest trees by the roots and covered the whole sea with ashes and floating timber. The darkness in daytime was as profound as the blackest night and the area covered by the convulsion was 1,000 English miles in circumference. I tell you the accounts of the Flood in our Bible and the Mexicans’ sacred book—the Popul Vuh—which are almost identical, are not myths at all but actual records of an historical occurrence; and every indication of the locality in which it took place points to Atlantis. Take the island of Dominica in the Leeward group of the West Indies—the nearest land to the south-west of where the lost continent is believed to have been. That too is full of hot springs and in 1880 there was an eruption there of such magnitude that it rained mud in the streets of Roseau, miles from the centre of the disturbance, and simultaneously there was a cloudburst out of which great gouts of water came streaming from the sky. To read the description of it is to picture an exact replica, upon a minor scale, of the Flood described in Genesis where on the same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened …”
They Found Atlantis Page 13