Роберт Фиш - The Wager

“Hey!” Rafferty said in a loud voice. He had wanted to warn Jamison that the overhead bunks on the MV Andropolis , seldom used on cruises, were not counterbalanced and required care in lowering them. But he was too late. Jamison, sitting on the floor and holding tightly to his nose, was looking at him reproachfully, tears welling in his eyes despite his attempt to contain them. Rafferty bent over him, concerned; after all, as security officer he imagined the captain would expect him to see that bunks didn’t fall on people. “You all right?”

Jamison started to struggle to his feet. Rafferty instantly came to his aid with a hand under the other’s arm. Jamison fumbled a handkerchief loose, pressed it urgently to his nose, and staggered to the bathroom. Rafferty looked after him a moment, shrugged, and put the last of the empty vanity drawers in place. He then felt around the overhead bunk enough to convince himself that no package of the requisite size was hidden there, then closed and latched the cumbersome contraption, after which he sat down and calmly awaited Jamison’s return.

If there was no time in the tight schedule for daydreaming, there was certainly none for accidents. Jamison bravely put aside the wet washcloth that had replaced the handkerchief, and returned to the job, determined not to be deterred from his duty by mere pain, although it did occur to him that there should be some limit to the battering one agent had to endure on any particular job. If a person had to take risks of that nature, he might as well be in the FBI and get paid accordingly.

Rafferty noted the livid welt across the bridge of the other’s nose, thought it fitted in well with the puffy ear, the lumpy jaw, and the more ancient but still visible bruised cheek, but he wisely made no comment on it. “Bunk was empty,” he reported succinctly. “Want to tackle the suitcase now?”

Jamison nodded; speech might affect his nose. And there wasn’t anything else in his search program, and time was running out. He walked over to the luggage rack and started to lay on hands with the experience of many years and many, many suitcases. He pushed aside the shirts on top and felt carefully along the edges of one side of the opened case. Nothing hard or rectangular came to hand. He moved to the other side of the suitcase and reached beneath, while Rafferty stared with admiration at the colorful attire.

“Ah!” Jamison looked up in triumph and withdrew whatever had caught his attention. It was a square bottle of brandy. His face fell. For a moment he was tempted to either take it into the bathroom and pour it down the sink as a sort of punishment, or take a strong nip for his troubles, but he thought better of it. He shoved it back, straightened out the top pieces of clothing, and shook his head dolefully.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I didn’t really think we’d find anything here, but we had to be sure. I doubted that Huuygens would trust a confederate with anything that valuable.” He sighed and glanced around the room. There were no signs that anyone other than the room steward had been there. He nodded, satisfied. “Eleven twenty-eight. Two minutes to get to Huuygens’ cabin. Let’s go!”

The main difference between the cabin of Kek Huuygens and that of André — other, Jamison was happy to note, than the absence of a third overhead bunk — was that the place had a lived-in look. There were books on the small ledge beneath the porthole, revealed when the drapes were drawn; there were two suitcases plus an overnight bag neatly stacked in one corner of the room, indicating that their contents were distributed in the proper drawers or on the proper hangers; a dish of caramels and a small clock were on the vanity, and the liquor bottles were lined up on the dresser.

The bathroom was disposed of with accustomed ease; Jamison was sure that no bathroom in the future would ever present a searching problem. The closets inspected proved to be devoid of interest, although Jamison carefully pressed each hanging suit and each pair of slacks between his palms before giving them clearance. The life jackets were opened, poked, and returned to place. During this endeavor, Rafferty had upended the chairs and determined that the stacked suitcases and overnight bags were, indeed, empty. Jamison approached the vanity and dresser with confidence; the answer simply had to be there. He found himself voicing this thought.

“It has to be there,” he said, logic on his side. “I saw him with the package in Barbados. He didn’t even try to hide it.”

“Umphh,” Rafferty mumbled, not disagreeing, but not agreeing, either. He reached down and pulled out the first drawer, carrying it to the bed for Jamison’s more expert search while Rafferty peered back into the dresser through the opening, and then probed for hidden treasure with an extended arm. This procedure was followed faithfully with each succeeding drawer in both dresser and vanity, from shirts to underwear and socks through pajamas, cummerbunds, handkerchief and ties. Jamison was becoming more and more petulant as time went on. And time seemed to be flying.

“Impossible!” he muttered blackly as the last dresser drawer was slid back into place. “It has to be here! I saw it.” The final possibility occurred to him; he moved the dish of caramels and the clock from the vanity, wrestled it away from the wall; but all he discovered was a year’s accumulation of dust. In disgust he shoved the furniture back in place, replaced the items on top of it, and dropped into a chair, glowering.

“Maybe he ducked it someplace else on the ship,” Rafferty suggested. In his own opinion anyone wishing to hide something on the MV Andropolis had to be pretty lacking in imagination to choose his own stateroom. There were so many better places available; under the rowing machine in the gym, for example. Nobody had used the machine to his knowledge since the ship was launched; or behind the ancient deckle-edged books in the library, mostly H. Rider Haggard and Elinor Glyn, with an occasional time-and-tide table thrown in for interest. Anything placed there could remain undetected for generations.

“No, no!” Jamison said impatiently. “This carving is valuable! Hide it where some stranger might inadvertently stumble on it and keep it? Never! Not Huuygens.” He looked around the sunlit room in desperation, willing himself not to look at the small clock on the vanity and see how time was escaping. “Damn it! It has to be here! I saw him with the package myself!”

“Well,” Rafferty said, more to fill in the conversational gap than for any other reason, “if I was going to hide something that size in a stateroom, myself, I’d put it in the air-conditioning duct, myself. The outside grillwork is—”

Jamison frowned at him. “The what?”

Rafferty pointed. “The air-conditioning duct. That thing there. The outside grillwork just snaps in place. Two seconds and you could hide—”

But Jamison was no longer paying attention to the other’s final words; he was dragging a chair over to the wall. He climbed on it, tugged the small wire grillwork free, and peered within. Less than six inches from his eyes was the neatly wrapped but gaudy package he had seen pressed so tightly under Huuygens’ arm just the day before. An unbelieving smile broke across his horseface; he looked like a sixty-to-one shot who finds himself to his own amazement in the winner’s circle.

“It’s here.” He said the words in a half-whisper, as if he really couldn’t bring himself to believe it. “It’s here!” He stared at the package worshipfully for several additional seconds, and then carefully replaced the grillwork and stepped from the chair, dusting his hands. Rafferty frowned at him.