Count Axel nodded. 'I think Captain you have given us an admirable forecast of just what is likely to happen. That very able rogue who has engineered this conspiracy is doubtless expecting some difficulty with the Duchess's lawyers and particularly with the trustees of the Hart Institute, who would be certain to contest the will even if it were genuine, providing they thought that there was the faintest chance of upsetting it and retaining such a tremendous benefaction as would be theirs under the earlier document. It is for this reason, doubtless, that all the old legacies have been allowed to stand and our charming Sally allotted the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. All dust for the Judge's eyes when the validity of the will is questioned. He will have to uphold it—there is no serious reason why he should do otherwise—but surely, instead of speculating as to whether he will or no, which is almost a foregone conclusion, would it not be better if we employed ourselves by endeavouring to devise some means of upsetting the enemy's apple cart before the will ever comes before a judge at all.'
'Brava! Braval' Prince Vladimir sat back and clapped his hands. 'The first speaking of sanity which has been made today. We attack eh!—For our so beautiful Duchess we will wipe off these bandits every one.'
Nicky regarded him dubiously. 'You've never been in the States, Prince—have you?'
'No, there I do not dwell.'
'Well, there's nothing wrong with the States as far as ordinary citizens are concerned. They live their lives and don't have to worry overmuch, but I was thinking of the lower East Side, and the bad belt in Chicago—particularly, You don't happen to know anything about them?'
'No—but bandits I understand. My uncle. Count Zir-minie, was what you call Lord Captain de Police Provincial in my zone authoritative last year. In the hillocks lurk bandits who make the workers on our lands pay too dear. We make a meeting with other friends and we take luncheons together. We toast the bandits, we toast ourselves, we toast everybody. Then we go out a moppings up to do. There are no more bandits when we remit ourselves to dine. Next day there is a funeral service, those of us who have come back from our celebration place flowers upon the graves. So it is done. I know all about bandits.'
Nicky sat back and raised his blue eyes to heaven. Tell him the truth someone for the Lord's sake—I can't.'
'It's like this Prince,' the McKay sat forward. 'The people we are up against now are very different. There is every reason to believe them to be excellent shots and they are armed with the latest weapons—even machine guns as I saw for myself this morning. To endeavour to attack them therefore would be sheer suicide. They would shoot you without a second thought, so you had better put the idea right out of your head.'
'They are not then bandits,' said the Prince, 'but what you call gangster such as I have seen in film plays but thought only to be a story for cocks and bulls.'
'That's it—that's right,' a soothing murmur ran round and the Prince temporarily relapsed into silence.
'To get back,' said Count Axel, 'the only chance which I can see of defeating these people's plans is by getting a message through to the authorities.'
'I agree,' the McKay smiled grimly, 'but how?'
'Wireless,' suggested Sally.
'Not a hope m'dear. You heard what Captain Ardow said last night after his Chief had left us. The bridge, the boat deck abaft the bridge, and the deck within twenty yards of the wireless house has been placed out of bounds for all passengers. Any of us overstepping those limits is not to be challenged—but shot on sight. While I was sunbathing this morning I took a dekko over the situation myself. Two of the gunmen were on the bridge and another two posted on the wireless house, the other four relieve them watch and watch about. They've even roped off the ladders and approaches to the limits set. Believe me "Oxford Kate" is taking no chances of our getting near that wireless.'
'We have a week to work in,' announced Count Axel.
'True, but unfortunately we're miles from the track of transatlantic shipping. We may raise a stray cargo ship in the next few days. If so some of us must keep the gunmen occupied while others signal. If we can get a message through to New York they'll send out a destroyer to relieve us and the whole of Mr. Kate's pretty little scheme will be blown sky high—but that's about our only hope.'
'Couldn't we bribe one of the stewards to get a message through to the wireless man,' suggested Sally.
'There's no harm in trying, but the odds are he wouldn't send it. Captain Ardow is sure to have picked his men for this job and the wireless operator is a key man in the whole performance. It is he who had to send the fake message about the accident to the bathysphere and all our deaths remember, so he is certain to be standing in for a big fat cheque when it's all over. If we could reach him we might counter-bribe him with a higher sum but these people we are up against have foreseen that possibility and posted a couple of gunmen on him to keep him clear of all temptations.'
'Well, couldn't we bribe the gunmen first then?' Sally persisted.
'Yes m'dear if you can get near them—and they'll listen to you—which I doubt. Don't you see that this whole thing's been worked out like a chess problem. We are up against a succession of cul-de-sacs whichever way we turn. It is because ideas like yours have been anticipated that the gunmen have been ordered to shoot us on sight if we approach nearer to them than twenty yards. How the thunderin1 blazes can you try and bribe a man if you can't get within talking distance of him without forcing him to disobey his orders under the eyes of his bosses on the bridge or getting yourself shot. That wireless house has been ringed like a bull's-eye with concentric circles governed by the three great factors of discipline, fear, and self interest. We haven't got an earthly chance of getting anywhere near it so you had better count that possibility out.'
Sally made a face. 'We're in a worse jam than I thought then!'
'Why, were you counting on getting a message through?'
'Yes—within a week.'
'Why within a week? We'll have much more chance when Slinger's left us and we're running down to the Falklands. The gunmen may have got slack and bored with their job by then. They'll enjoy sitting up on deck in the sunshine for a bit, but later on they'll probably get fed up with doing nothing and we may be able to make friends with them or catch them off their guard.'
'The Falklands,' groaned Nicky. 'Aw hell! Just think of all those pictures I'm contracted to make. It'll about break me I reckon.'
'And it's winter in the southern hemisphere,' added Camilla miserably. 'Just picture us shivering on that barren rock the McKay says they mean to take us to, without any proper clothes.'
Count Axel gave a heavy sigh. 'I have always enjoyed cooking as an art but I am, I expect, the only one among you who understands it even moderately so I suppose 1 shall have to become cook. As a daily task I do not find it the least attractive.'
'You'll be lucky if there's anything to cook after we've consumed the stores they intend to leave us,' said the McKay bitterly. He did not mean to add to their depression but the remark slipped out and it was only a very moderate expression of the situation which he was visualising. He saw the seven of them and the two servants encamped upon a stony ledge a few yards clear of the spray from the thundering surf. A single lean-to tent had been erected against the cliff face and the edges of its canvas sides weighted down with huge stones in the hope of preventing the whole flimsy structure being lifted bodily into the sea by the bitter ice-cold unceasing gale that screamed and blustered. No fire was possible, for that appalling wind scattered the twigs, gathered with so much difficulty from the infrequent crevices, even before they could become glowing embers. The inmates were crouching, blue with cold, in an indistinguishable huddle of arms and legs against the rock wall in the most sheltered corner of the tent. Only so could they keep the ill-nourished flame of life still flickering in their emaciated bodies. In his mind's eye the McKay regarded that dirty unkempt heap of human flesh again and decided that the bodies only numbered eight. One of them must have died from
exposure the day before and, facing such severe privations unsheltered from the elements it was reasonable to suppose that when the grey dawn came to light those semi-arctic seas another would be found dead tomorrow. He jerked his thoughts back and stared at Sally.
'We've simply got to get a message through in a week,' she said firmly.
'Why? 1 don't see that,' he argued. 'We've got a month before they land us on the Falklands. That's the danger spot —the thing I really dread. If we can't do something before then we are going to be up against the sort of trouble that you have no conception of; but if we wait till Slinger has cleared out we shall still have three clear weeks and the gangsters will be getting slack about their job. That's the time to have a cut at outwitting these birds—in about ten days from now.'
'But my dear don't you see,' Sally insisted, 'for this first week before the faked accident is reported, we are safe. No one is going to try and harm us—but after that—heaven knows. The real trouble is going to start the moment Camilla's death is reported. I've told you that I'm dead certain the faked will's going to be contested. Then, if it fails to go through that devil who was here last night will come back again. What he'll do, I don't pretend to say, but he'll be so mad that he'll probably shoot the lot of us or send us down to our deaths cooped up in that bathysphere. I'm certain he'll come back—certain—and that's why we've absolutely got to get a message through and have him arrested within a week.'
'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 Vladimir Renescu regarded Nicky with a certain grudging admiration.
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 regularity 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.
They Found Atlantis lw-1 Page 12