Алистер Маклин - When Eight Bells Toll

‘There’s not a better man or a kinder man ever sailed into Torbay,’ MacDonald said warmly. That hard brown face could conceal practically anything that MacDonald wanted it to conceal but this time he was hiding nothing. ‘Maybe his ways aren’t my ways. Maybe he’s a hard, aye, a ruthless businessman. Maybe, as the papers hint, his private life wouldn’t bear investigation. That’s none of my business. But if you were to look for a man in Torbay to say a word against him, you’ll have a busy time on your hands, Mr Petersen.’

‘You’ve taken me up wrongly. Sergeant,’ I said mildly. ‘I don’t even know the man.’

‘No. But we do. See that?’ He pointed through the side window of the police station to a large Swedish-style timber building beyond the pier. ‘Our new village hall. Town hall, they call it. Sir Anthony gave us that. Those six wee chalets up the hill there? For old folks. Sir Anthony again – every penny from his own pocket. Who takes all the schoolchildren to the Oban Games – Sir Anthony on the Shangri-la. Contributes to every charity going and now he has plans to build a boatyard to give employment to the young men of Torbay – there’s not much else going since the fishing-boats left.’

‘Well, good for old Skouras,’ I said. ‘He seems to have adopted the place. Lucky Torbay. I wish he’d buy me a new radio-transmitter.’

‘I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, Mr Petersen. I can’t do more. If anything turns up I’ll let you know at once.’

I told him thanks, and left. I hadn’t particularly wanted to go there, but it would have looked damned odd if I hadn’t turned up to add my pennyworth to the chorus of bitter complaint.

I was very glad that I had turned up.

The midday reception from London was poor. This was due less to the fact that reception is always better after dark than to the fact that I couldn’t use our telescopic radio mast: but it was fair enough and Uncle’s voice was brisk and businesslike and clear.

‘Well, Caroline, we’ve found our missing friends,’ he said.

‘How many?’ I asked cautiously. Uncle Arthur’s ambiguous references weren’t always as clear as Uncle Arthur imagined them to be.

‘All twenty-five.’ That made it the former crew of the Nantesville. ‘Two of them are pretty badly hurt but they’ll be all right.’ That accounted for the blood I had found in the captain’s and one of the engineers’ cabins.

‘Where?’ I asked.

He gave me a map reference. Just north of Wexford. The Nantesville had sailed from Bristol, she couldn’t have been more than a few hours on her way before she’d run into trouble.

‘Exactly the same procedure as on the previous occasions,’ Uncle Arthur was saying. ‘Held in a lonely farmhouse for a couple of nights. Plenty to eat and drink and blankets to keep the cold out. Then they woke up one morning and found their guards had gone.’

‘But a different procedure in stopping the – our friend?’ I’d almost said Nantesville and Uncle Arthur wouldn’t have liked that at all.

‘As always. We must concede them a certain ingenuity, Caroline. After having smuggled men aboard in port, then using the sinking fishing-boat routine, the police launch routine and the yacht with the appendicitis case aboard, I thought they would be starting to repeat themselves. But this time they came up with a new one – possibly because it’s the first time they’ve hi-jacked a ship during the hours of darkness. Carley rafts, this time, with about ten survivors aboard, dead ahead of the vessel. Oil all over the sea. A weak distress flare that couldn’t have been seen a mile away and probably was designed that way. You know the rest.’

‘Yes, Annabelle.’ I knew the rest. After that the routine was always the same. The rescued survivors, displaying a marked lack of gratitude, would whip out pistols, round up the crew, tie black muslin bags over their heads so that they couldn’t identify the vessel that would appear within the hour to take them off, march them on board the unknown vessel, land them on some lonely beach during the dark then march them again, often a very long way indeed, till they arrived at their prison. A deserted farmhouse. Always a deserted farmhouse. And always in Ireland, three times in the north and now twice in the south. Meantime the prize crew sailed the hi-jacked vessel to God alone knew where and the first the world knew of the disappearance of the pirated vessel was when the original crew, released after two or three days’ painless captivity, would turn up at some remote dwelling and start hollering for the nearest telephone.

‘Betty and Dorothy,’ I said. ‘Were they still in safe concealment when the crew were taken off?’

‘I imagine so. I don’t know. Details are still coming in and I understand the doctors won’t let anyone see the captain yet.’ Only the captain had known of the presence aboard of Baker and Delmont. ‘Forty-one hours now, Caroline. What have you done?’

For a moment I wondered irritably what the devil he was talking about. Then I remembered. He’d given me forty-eight hours. Seven were gone.

‘I’ve had three hours’ sleep.’ He’d consider that an utter waste of time, his employees weren’t considered to need sleep. ‘I’ve talked to the constabulary ashore. And I’ve talked to a wealthy yachtsman, next boat to us here. We’re paying him a social call to-night.’

There was a pause. ‘You’re doing what to-night, Caroline?’

‘Visiting. We’ve been invited. Harriet and I. For drinks.’

This time the pause was markedly longer. Then he said: ‘You have forty-one hours, Caroline.’

‘Yes, Annabelle.’

‘We assume you haven’t taken leave of your senses.’

‘I don’t know how unanimous informed opinion might be about that. I don’t think I have.’

‘And you haven’t given up? No, not that. You’re too damn’ stiffnecked and – and–’

‘Stupid?’

‘Who’s the yachtsman?’

I told him. It took me some time, partly because I had to spell out names with the aid of his damned code-book, partly because I gave him a very full account of everything Skouras had said to me and everything Sergeant MacDonald had said about Skouras. When his voice came again it was cagey and wary. As Uncle Arthur couldn’t see me I permitted myself a cynical grin. Even Cabinet Ministers found it difficult to make the grade as far as Skouras’s dinner-table, but the Permanent Under-Secretaries, the men with whom the real power of government lies, practically had their own initialled napkin rings. Under-Secretaries were the bane of Uncle Arthur’s life.

‘You’ll have to watch your step very carefully here, Caroline.’

‘Betty and Dorothy aren’t coming home any more, Annabelle. Someone has to pay. I want someone to pay. You want someone to pay. We all do.’

‘But it’s inconceivable that a man in his position, a man of his wealth–’

‘I’m sorry, Annabelle. I don’t understand.’

‘A man like that. Dammit all, I know him well, Caroline. We dine together. First-name terms. Know his present wife even better. Ex-actress. A philanthropist like that. A man who’s spent five consecutive seasons there. Would a man like that, a millionaire like that, spend all that time, all that money, just to build up a front–’

‘Skouras?’ I used the code name. Interrogatory, incredulous, as if it had just dawned upon me what Uncle Arthur was talking about. ‘I never said I suspected him, Annabelle. I have no reason to suspect him.’

‘Ah!’ It’s difficult to convey a sense of heartfelt gladness, profound satisfaction and brow-mopping relief in a single syllable, but Uncle Arthur managed it without any trouble. ‘Then why go?’ A casual eavesdropper might have thought he detected a note of pained jealousy in Uncle Arthur’s voice, and the casual eavesdropper would have been right. Uncle Arthur had only one weakness in his makeup – he was a social snob of monumental proportions.