by Basil Copper
While the boat thrust on through the small chop which was setting out from the islands, Phillips and I got ready for the evening’s entertainment. I stripped into a pair of sharkskin swimming trunks but kept my thick shirt on. I wore a belt over the top of the shirt and trunks and there was a useful knife in a rubber sheath attached to the belt. I stowed my watch in a waterproof bag Phillips had fixed to his wrist with a piece of webbing.
He also had his revolver and spare ammunition in there; that was additionally wrapped in oiled silk with another rubberised waterproof bag round that. I guessed he must have been in Combined Operations during the war. Then I did some arithmetic and decided he was too young. He’d been trained well, though, I gave him that.
By this time the boat was making a fair pace and the light had faded almost entirely from the sky. The breeze was fresh out here and the sea had an unearthly beauty as it caught and flung back the last of the brightness from the horizon. We had finished our preparations and we sat in the lee of the mast and smoked. The two owners of the boat sat at the tiller and talked in quiet voices. I dozed off for a while. When I woke it was quite dark and the only light came from the swaying lantern in the cubby-hole up forward. I stumbled back in to find Phillips at the set.
“All well,” he said. “Police boat starting off in a few more minutes.”
“Let’s hope the engine holds out all right this time,” I said grimly.
“No worries tonight,” he said. “The sergeant fitted the spare pump this afternoon.”
I sat down on a low bench inside the cabin and finished my cigarette. Something dark and soft rubbed against my leg. I got hold of the lantern and by its re-directed light I saw red eyes and white teeth. A large black cat sat blinking up at me.
“Good luck,” said Phillips facetiously.
It gave me an idea. “We’ll take it with us,” I said.
Phillips looked at me uncomprehendingly. “What the hell for?” he said.
“It’ll shorten the odds,” I said. He laughed as I explained. Then he went up forward and rooted around among the assorted junk. One of the boatmen came and joined us. I told him what we wanted and he helped Phillips in the search. By the time we were organised we were almost at the rendezvous. I came on deck again to find a thin cone of light low down the horizon just off the port bow.
“Gay Lady?” Phillips breathed at my elbow. I nodded. Phillips went aft to talk to the boatmen and a few minutes later they started to slacken sail and the boat began to lose way. We stubbed out our cigarettes and silently watched as the mushroom of light grew nearer.
The boatmen had been well briefed and they made a good job of our approach. We only wanted to leave a few hundred yards for swimming and we relied on the boat itself to distract the yacht’s crew. Once alongside we could rely on luck to get aboard.
When Phillips judged we were in the right position he whispered back to the helmsman. “Now,” he said to me. I went over the starboard gunwale, the side farthest from the yacht. The water was surprisingly warm and I felt less exposed down here. Then he passed me down the cat. I felt a bit mean about this but we had assured the owner of its safety.
We had a big canvas lifebelt. Lashed across the bottom of this we had slats of wood for the cat to stand on. The animal itself was secured to the improvised life raft with thin cord round its neck. Cats don’t like water anyway, so I knew it wouldn’t try to jump over. Just in case it felt like singing I had my hand over its mouth.
It behaved pretty well under the circumstances. As soon as I got clear of the boat I started swimming towards the dim bulk of the yacht. The tide was setting in that direction, which is what we had planned. After a moment the cat lost its uneasiness and stood cautiously in the water swilling about inside the lifebelt. But it didn’t make a sound.
I looked back over my shoulder and saw Phillips’ head bobbing about behind me. He was a powerful swimmer so I didn’t wait for him but pushed ahead with my bundle and the cat and the inspector soon caught up with me.
“No problems,” he said as he came alongside. I shook my head and spat out salt water.
“We’ll make it all right,” I told him. We slacked off momentarily and watched the sail of the fishing boat chopping the night. The Gay Lady’s foredeck was brilliantly lit with floodlamps and we could hear pumps going. The boom was out on the port side, the side away from us, which was where I hoped Mandrake would be diving. The sailboat set out to cross several hundred yards ahead of The Gay Lady’s bows, as we had arranged. Then a searchlight stabbed the sea, held the big sail in its white light and a loud-hailer crackled, “Fishing boat, ahoy.”
A voice weaker and distorted by a megaphone replied and questions were tossed back and forth. The skipper of The Gay Lady or maybe Otto appeared to be satisfied for the sailboat continued on its way. But she had served her purpose by distracting the yacht crew’s attention up ahead; by this time we were well in towards the stem. The searchlight made one or two more ineffectual flickers in the direction of the sail of the receding fishing boat and then went out.
Now we could hear the whine of turbines and a pump thudded monotonously. The sea swirled heavy and viscous along the hull of the yacht and we scraped alongside. I held my hand over the cat’s mouth and stroked the nervous animal. Then I passed him over to Phillips. I found a chain hanging from somewhere overhead, eased up on to the rubbing strake and then grasped the ship’s rail.
I slipped the knife out of its sheath, wiped the water from my eyes and looked around. Nothing was moving. Yellow light split the darkness but the foredeck was hidden from me by the superstructure. Heavy boots were resounding and I could hear the clank of a winch.
I reached down for the cat which Phillips passed up to me. He had tied a piece of webbing over its mouth which it resented greatly. I loosened this before removing it entirely and soothed the cat’s ruffled feelings. Then I put it inside my shirt where it stayed reasonably still. By this time Phillips had joined me. I told him to follow and take his instructions from me. I knew the layout and he didn’t. He had got his revolver out and with the knife I thought we were reasonably well equipped to tangle with trouble.
We crept forward moistly across the deck. I eased open the companion way door and we were back in that familiar corridor. The dim lights burned as before. I grasped Phillips by the arm and guided him forward. We stopped suddenly. There was a big man in the corridor wearing a black sweater and a gold-braided yachting cap. I didn’t give him a chance.
“Who are you?” I said.
He looked me up and down. “Charter skipper,” he said shortly.
“Police,” I told him. “Keep your mouth shut and keep out of the way unless you want to lose your ticket. You got some funny people aboard.”
He looked at me a moment longer and then put his hand to the peak of his cap.
“Right, squire,” he said. “Thanks for the warning.”
He went away about his business fairly smartly and didn’t look back. I saw Phillips grinning when I glanced out of the comer of my eye.
“Lesson One,” he said. “That could have been nasty handled a different way.”
Then we heard footsteps coming down the corridor. I slid back the door of the skipper’s cabin and we got inside. I kept the edge of the door open so I was able to stop Charley Fong before he got by. He looked at me like I was a ghost. He had tears in his eyes and his face was a nasty whitish-yellow.
“Steady, Charley,” I said. “Everything’s under control.” He grabbed hold of me like I was one of his revered ancestors.
“So glad you come, Mistah Faraday,” he said. “Missy in great trouble. I hear her scream. Very bad business.”
I grabbed him by the shoulder so hard he nearly cried out. “What are you talking about?” I said sharply.
He looked at me sadly. “They take her boss’s cabin,” he said. “I show you.”
We went down the deck pretty fast, Phillips’ revolver fanning out ready for business. But nothing stirred in
the length of the corridor. Charley Fong opened the door of Mandrake’s suite and snapped on the switch. We went on in.
I stopped Phillips. “Keep guard here,” I whispered. “You’re the only one with the gun so you’re elected. If things get tough don’t wait but fire.”
He saw the logic of that. I went with Charley Fong through into the bedroom. I knew what to expect but it was rough just the same.
Diane Morris lay on the big master bed, her limbs sprawled out in a position which suggested she had been defending herself. She was quite naked and quite dead. Her body was covered with cuts and bruises and her arms were a mass of scratches. Her eyes were wide open and a little blood had come out of the corner of her mouth as she died.
There was a big hole over her ribs where the bullet had gone in. It was a large calibre automatic, a Luger I had no difficulty in guessing; it had been fired at close range and the flesh round the entry wound was charred and black. There was a smell of powder in the air. I put my hand on her arm. She was very cold. I should think she had been dead about three hours.
I went and got hold of a blanket from somewhere in the cabin and covered her over. I hadn’t really been angry since this case started but something snapped then. Charley Fong was crying out and I let go of his arm and some of the redness went from in front of my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Charley,” I said. We went into the outer cabin where Phillips was. I explained what had happened.
“Here’s what I want you to do, Charley,” I said. I gave him the cat. His eyes brightened.
“Wait here,” he said. He went out. He was only away about three minutes. He handed me a big meat cleaver.
“Better than knife,” he said simply. I thought of Otto’s size and got his point. I took the cleaver gratefully and stuck it in my belt. We crouched inside the cabin door on the floor and talked. I asked Phillips to tackle the crew’s quarters. He demurred at first.
“If you can bottle up the crew members in the forward mess, I can handle Otto,” I said. “Mandrake’s bound to be diving and that will only leave one or two men for the pump. The skipper’s neutral. Charley will give me a hand. And if anything does go wrong you can still come amidships. Besides, this is personal, like I said.”
Phillips looked towards the inner cabin, thought for a moment and then turned back to me.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The three of us went out on deck.
3
We had arranged to give Phillips ten minutes to get in position and we checked our watches again before we started. We watched him duck away among the superstructure on the shadowy side away from the diving operations. When he came to the lit area he got over the rail and stood on the rubbing strake. Only his finger tips were visible on the edge of the deck and nobody would be looking at those.
Charley Fong followed me, carrying the cat. He was breathing heavily. I gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and he turned on an anaemic smile. But I knew he hated Otto so I guessed he’d do his part. We crept forward behind some crates and rested in the shadow while I figured out the next move. I eased forward and took in the scene on the foredeck.
A chain of floodlights blazed overhead, suspended on metal framing from the rigging. The big metal-shod boom was swung out over the port side and from it a wire-rope ladder descended into the shiny black surface of the water.
I couldn’t see Mandrake anywhere around, so I imagined that I had been right; he appeared to be diving. He was using a conventional diving suit which accounted for the pumps.
There were only three men on deck that I could see. The ugly seaman and his friend, who had helped to put me in the tank, were busy turning the handles which drove the air pump. Their grumbles were audible over the steady, rhythmic thump as the old-fashioned big metal wheels kept turning.
The white rubber airline snaked along the deck and disappeared over the rail; it was tied across the top of one of the wooden railed sections of the deck, just by the gangway where I’d gone over when Otto shot me. The thick manila rope of Mandrake’s lifeline drooped slackly alongside the air pipe. Both were supported underneath by a towel tied to the rail, to prevent chafing. The rope ran from the barrel of a winch which was in the locked position. No-one was working the winch and the rope was slack, like I said, so I guessed the diver had reached the bottom.
I shot a glance at my watch. Six minutes had gone by already and I wanted to be sure it was Mandrake on the sea-bed before Phillips opened up. I couldn’t see Otto for a second or two; he had been hidden by a dangling boom but he stepped out, lighting a cigarette. The light made a cavernous mask of his face. Then he blew out the match, flipped it over the side and stepped to the rail.
He looked quietly out over the sea and I was surprised he didn’t find my hatred corroding through the cloth of the coat on his back. He feathered the smoke, then turned around again, looked casually at the two seamen toiling at the air pump and walked across midships. Just at that instant a red light glowed and three sharp, imperative pips sounded through a loudspeaker.
Otto stepped over to a large metal case set down on a crate on the deck. He lifted up a hand microphone excitedly.
“Yeah,” he said rather thickly.
“Otto.” It was Mandrake’s voice. “I have found the buoy.”
Mr. Mandrake’s tones were cool and self-assured but the effect on the three men was extraordinary. It was a moment of high drama for them but I had to forgo the pleasure because something else came up right then. The ten minutes were up and the silence was broken by the single, sharp crack of a revolver somewhere up in the crew’s quarters. Things then started to happen rather suddenly and the situation went rapidly out of control.
I nodded at Charley Fong and we both stepped out into the light. Charley flung the cat in a curving arc at Otto; the big man broke off his conversation suddenly and saliva dribbled out of his mouth. Charley’s aim was good and Otto found a black fury clawing at his face and eyes. He gave a thin scream which mingled with the hissing of the cat and then he went over the crate backwards. One of the seamen had dropped the wheel on his side of the pump and he came up with a cannon in his hand and lead went whining across the deck.
I caught a glimpse of the other seaman doggedly pumping Mandrake’s airline and then Charley Fong stumbled forward, a red stain spreading out on the front of his white housecoat. The gun boomed again and a splinter tore from the mast. By this time I was across the deck swinging the cleaver. Something split through the tail of my shirt as I passed the group round the pump and then madness was boiling in my veins.
I swung the cleaver and bounded to the rail. I sheared through the airline with one blow and it dropped overside in a shower of bubbles. I swung the cleaver again into the thick manila rope whose other end was secured round Mandrake’s body on the sea bed. This was a tougher proposition and it took three chopping blows before that dropped away too.
The gun boomed again while I was doing this and a long splinter of wood screamed angrily from the deck and rained dust and debris into my face. I went tearing into the group round the pump. I guess I must have been a pretty fearsome sight for the seaman still uselessly turning the handle fled. Then I saw Charley Fong get up and come in a long rush at the seaman, who was still aiming at me; the gun flamed once more but this time Charley got him behind the knees and the shot went up among the stars.
Otto was still screaming. He rolled down the deck with the cat’s small sharp teeth fastened into his windpipe. As I reached him, one of his flailing feet caught me a sharp blow across the ankles and I went down. Charley Fong and the seaman were rolling over and I heard the Chinaman groan as his shoulder hit the deck.
Ian Phillips’ revolver cracked again as I got up and feet were pounding the deck in the bows. Otto flung the cat from him and got to his feet. He looked as big as a house. As he came at me across the deck, his hand swung clear and the barrel of the Luger came up. His eyes were wide open and still with the madness in them and froth dribbled down h
is face.
He was too late though by a mile for I had got my balance then and I brought the meat cleaver down from way over my head. It went in the top of his brain box and sheared half of his face off as it came out at his chin. Blood and brains gushed down over the blade and the light in his one remaining eye went out. He went over with a crash like a falling monolith and blood spattered the deck. The Luger slid across the planking and fell with a splash into the sea.
I went over to the seaman and put the butcher blade of the cleaver against the side of his head and tapped him into unconsciousness; Charley Fong rolled over and I helped him up. His feet buckled under him and he lay against the foot of the mast, clutching at his chest.
“You did pretty well, Charley,” I told him mechanically, like I was talking to a child. I dropped the cleaver then and stood away. Ian Phillips had appeared on deck by now. He stood watching silently; the remainder of the crew came out with their hands up. The big figure of the skipper fetched up the rear with a shotgun.
I went over to the loudspeaker. It seemed like a year since I had cut the airline but it couldn’t have been more than a minute in real time. I sat listening to Mandrake choking but in the end even I had had enough. I flipped the switch and turned the noises off.
I went up to Ian Phillips and asked him for a cigarette; I forgot he hadn’t any. He stood quietly covering the crew. I noticed he didn’t go near Otto. I went and stood up in the bows and looked at the night until the skipper came up and put a cigarette in my mouth. He lit it for me and went back to Phillips, still minding his own business.
It wasn’t until I heard the siren of Clay’s police boat coming across the water that I began to tremble at the knees.
Epilogue
1
I SAT with Stella and watched the sea creaming up the beach. The Catamaran seemed its usual, quiet self. The local Press boys and two agency men from Nassau had been and gone and the island was beginning to resume its seasonal lassitude. McSwayne went by along the terrace and gave me a beaming nod; the ten-day wonder had given the hotel a celebrity value that was good for business.