Алистер Маклин - When Eight Bells Toll

‘And that’s not all of it either,’ I said. ‘I’m also renowned for my kindness to little children.’

‘I’m sorry, Calvert,’ Uncle Arthur said. ‘No offence and no embarrassment, I hope. But if Charlotte thought it important enough to come up here and apologise, I thought it important enough to set the record straight.’

‘That’s not all Charlotte came up for,’ I said nastily, ‘ If that’s what she came up for in the first place. She came up here because she’s consumed with feminine curiosity. She wants to know where we are going.’

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ she asked.

‘Don’t strike the match in front of my eyes.’

She lit the cigarette and said: ‘Consumed with curiosity is right. What do you think? Not about where we’re going, I know where we’re going. You told me. Up Loch Houron. What I want to know is what is going on, what all this dreadful mystery is about, why all the comings and goings of strange men aboard the Shangri-la , what is so fantastically important to justify the deaths of three men in one evening, what you are doing here, what you are, who you are. I never really thought you were a UNESCO delegate, Sir Arthur. I know now you’re not. Please. I have the right to know, I think.’

‘Don’t tell her,’ I advised.

‘Why ever not?’ Uncle Arthur said huffily. ‘As she says, she is deeply involved, whether she wants it or not. She does have the right to know. Besides, the whole thing will be public knowledge in a day or two.’

‘You didn’t think of that when you threatened Sergeant MacDonald with dismissal and imprisonment if he contravened the Official Secrets Act.’

‘Merely because he could ruin things by talking out of turn,’ he said stiffly. ‘Lady – I mean, Charlotte – is in no position to do so. Not, of course,’ he went on quickly, ‘that she would ever dream of doing so. Preposterous. Charlotte is an old and dear friend, a trusted friend, Calvert. She shall know.’

Charlotte said quietly: ‘I have the feeling that our friend Mr Calvert does not care for me overmuch. Or maybe he just does not care for women.’

‘I care like anything,’ I said. ‘I was merely reminding the admiral of his own dictum: ‘Never, never, never – I forget how many nevers, I think there were four or five – tell anyone anything unless it’s necessary, essential and vital. In this case it’s none of the three.’

Uncle Arthur lit another vile cheroot and ignored me. His dictum was not meant to refer to confidential exchanges between members of the aristocracy. He said: ‘This is the case of the missing ships, my dear Charlotte. Five missing ships, to be precise. Not to mention a fair scattering of very much smaller vessels, also missing or destroyed.

‘Five ships, I said. On 5th April of this year the S.S. Holmwood disappeared off the south coast of Ireland. It was an act of piracy. The crew was imprisoned ashore, kept under guard for two or three days, then released unharmed. The Holmwood was never heard of again. On 24th April, the M.V. Antara vanished in St George’s Channel. On 17th May, the M.V. Headley Pioneer disappeared off Northern Ireland, on 6th August the S.S. Hurricane Spray disappeared after leaving the Clyde and finally, last Saturday, a vessel called the Nantesville vanished soon after leaving Bristol. In all cases the crews turned up unharmed.

‘Apart from their disappearances and the safe reappearances of their crews, those five vessels all had one thing in common – they were carrying extremely valuable and virtually untraceable cargoes. The Holmwood had two and a half million pounds of South African gold aboard, the Antara had a million and a half pounds’ worth of uncut Brazilian diamonds for industrial use, the Headley Pioneer had close on two million pounds’ worth of mixed cut and uncut Andean emeralds from the Muzo mines in Columbia, the Hurricane Spray , which had called in at Glasgow en route from Rotterdam to New York, had just over three million pounds’ worth of diamonds, nearly all cut, and the last one, the Nantesville,’ – Uncle Arthur almost choked over this one – ‘had eight million pounds in gold ingots, reserves being called in by the U.S. Treasury.

‘We had no idea where the people responsible for these disappearances were getting their information. Such arrangements as to the decision to ship, when, how and how much, are made in conditions of intense secrecy. They, whoever “they” are, had impeccable sources of information. Calvert says he knows those sources now. After the disappearance of the first three ships and about six million pounds’ worth of specie it was obvious that a meticulously organised gang was at work.’

‘Do you mean to say – do you mean to say that Captain Imrie is mixed up in this?’ Charlotte asked.

‘Mixed up is hardly the word,’ Uncle Arthur said dryly. ‘He may well be the directing mind behind it all.’

‘And don’t forget old man Skouras,’ I advised. ‘He’s pretty deep in the mire, too – about up to his ears, I should say.’

‘You’ve no right to say that,’ Charlotte said quickly.

‘No right? Why ever not? What’s he to you and what’s all this defence of the maestro of the bull-whip? How’s your back now?’

She said nothing. Uncle Arthur said nothing, in a different kind of way, then went on:

‘It was Calvert’s idea to hide two of our men and a radio signal transmitter on most of the ships that sailed with cargoes of bullion or specie after the Headley Pioneer had vanished. We had no difficulty, as you can imagine, in securing the cooperation of the various exporting and shipping companies and governments concerned. Our agents – we had three pairs working – usually hid among the cargo or in some empty cabin or machinery space with a food supply. Only the masters of the vessels concerned knew they were aboard. They delivered a fifteen-second homing signal at fixed – very fixed – but highly irregular intervals. Those signals were picked up at selected receiving stations round the west coast – we limited our stations to that area for that was where the released crews had been picked up – and by a receiver aboard this very boat here. The Firecrest , my dear Charlotte, is a highly unusual craft in many respects.’ I thought he was going to boast, quietly of course, of his own brilliance in designing the Firecrest but he remembered in time that I knew the truth.

‘Between 17th May and 6th August nothing happened. No piracy. We believe they were deterred by the short, light nights. On 6th August, the Hurricane Spray disappeared. We had no one aboard that vessel – we couldn’t cover them all. But we had two men aboard the Nantesville , the ship that sailed last Saturday. Delmont and Baker. Two of our best men. The Nantesville was forcibly taken just off the Bristol Channel. Baker and Delmont immediately began the scheduled transmissions. Cross-bearings gave us a completely accurate position at least every half-hour.

‘Calvert and Hunslett were in Dublin, waiting. As soon–’

‘That’s right,’ she interrupted. ‘Mr Hunslett. Where is he? I haven’t seen–’

‘In a moment. The Firecrest moved out, not following the Nantesville , but moving ahead of its predicted course. They reached the Mull of Kintyre and had intended waiting till the Nantesville approached there but a south-westerly gale blew up out of nowhere and the Firecrest had to run for shelter. When the Nantesville reached the Mull of Kintyre area our radio beacon fixes indicated that she was still on a mainly northerly course and that it looked as if she might pass up the Mull of Kintyre on the outside – the western side. Calvert took a chance, ran up Loch Fyne and through the Crinan Canal. He spent the night in the Crinan sea-basin. The sea-lock is closed at night. Calvert could have obtained the authority to have it opened but he didn’t want to: the wind had veered to westerly late that evening and small boats don’t move out of Crinan through the Dorus Mor in a westerly gusting up to Force 9. Not if they have wives and families to support – and even if they haven’t.