Dennis Wheatley - They Found Atlantis

'Nicky's not so bad. He's rather fun I think, and quite a famous film star. You've only got a hate against him because you don't like crooners—you said so the other day.*

'I'd croon him if I had him in a ship with me,' said the McKay grimly. 'I took a dislike to that young man before I even knew what brand of idiocy he indulged in. 1 suppose the odds are really on the Prince. Vladimir is a handsome looking bounder and she'd like another title, wouldn't she?'

Sally shrugged and regarded the McKay with mild amusement. 'She doesn't tell me much. I'm only the female counterpart of Rene P. Slinger—just a paid companion she trots round with her to do her chores. 1 don't think she'll be in any hurry to take a second husband though. We only unloaded the Duke three months ago and her experience with him would last most girls a lifetime.*

The McKay began to chuckle to himself.

'What are you laughing at?' Sally asked suspiciously.

•Just the story of Camilla and her Duke,' he confessed.

'Most men in his situation would have spent the rest of their lives tagging round after wealthy wifey like a kind of super footman on any pocket money she cared to dole out to them, but Ragina had the sense to fix things up properly before taking her to church. Then, when she started her tantrums, he was able to quit the party with enough cash to keep him in clover for the rest of his days as some compensation for the trouble she had put him to.'

'Trouble!' exclaimed Sally hotly. 'Not many men find it any trouble to make love to a pretty girl.'

'True,' the McKay agreed slowly, 'but Camilla's got a temper and her education is pathetic, despite all the thousands her guardians must have spent on it, whereas Ragina, I'm told, is a peace-loving cultured sort of chap so he probably found her a most awful bore to live with after the first fortnight.'

Sally flushed and hastened to the defence of her cousin. 'How can you! He was a rotten little blackguard who trapped her into that wicked marriage settlement by trading on the fact that she had fallen for him.'

'Fiddlesticks! Camilla wanted large coronets on her silk undies and the Duke was getting a bit weary of ye ancient family overdraft so they made a deal of it.'

'Thats not true. Before she was twenty-one her guardians would hardly allow her to see a man so she was horribly inexperienced and developed one of those wild short-lived passions the very moment she met him, just as any girl might who had been cooped up that way. He was terribly in love with her too—to begin with.'

The McKay's blue eyes twinkled beneath their bushy, sandy-white, caterpillar brows. 'Steady m'dear, you're getting almost as excited as if it had happened to you.'

'Well I certainly feel that way at times. You see, I've been with Camilla ever since she left school, and I'll never forget those months that she was married. D'you know that little swine used actually to beat her—with his braces.'

The McKay suddenly sat back and roared with laughter.

With an angry frown Sally stood up but he stretched out a detaining hand and caught at her bathrobe. 'Now, now, don't run away. Camilla doesn't seem to have had any bones broken and lots of girls enjoy a playful hiding sometimes. It probably did her a power of good to learn that she could not carry her millions into the bedroom. Besides, you must admit that there's a funny side of it. Just picture the little dark Duke chasing that great hoyden of a girl round the room to give her a leathering.'

'You brute,' exclaimed Sally her grey eyes wide with indignation but as he struggled to his feet she had difficulty in repressing a smile.

'Come on young woman,* he said firmly. 'It's time for the odd spot before lunch so if you will deign to accompany the imperial carcass up to the hotel I'll buy you a sherry cobbler.'

'Thanks.' She turned with him, then paused as she saw the speed-boat hurtling towards them across the water. 'Here come the others. They haven't been long have they? Do let's wait for a moment and learn the mystery about this queer ship.'

They stood silent until the speed-boat drew alongside. The tall, dark, Roumanian Prince sprang on to the landing steps. Nicolas Costello, the film star, jumped out beside him. The Swedish Count took the golden-haired Camilla's hand to assist her ashore. Rene P. Slinger, a bald-headed thin-nosed man who was the Duchess's confidential adviser, followed and after him came a fat puffing stranger who mopped his bare head, from which thick fair hair sprouted like the bristles of a brush, with a red bandana handkerchief.

'Darling!' shrilled Camilla as she landed, 'meet Herr Doktor Tisch. We just caught him leaving his wonder-ship and brought him ashore to lunch with us.'

The perspiring German thrust his handkerchief into his pocket and bowed stiffly from the waist.

'Isn't it too thrilling,' Camilla hurried on. 'The Herr Doktor is out to rediscover the biggest hoard of gold there's ever been in the world. With that ball thing on his boat he plans to go a mile deep in the sea and dig up all the vast treasure from the lost continent of Atlantis.'

The Sunken Continent

The Duchess da Solento-Ragina was certainly a lovely young woman. In face and figure she was very like her cousin Sally and in the distance they might easily have been mistaken for each other but, close to, Camilla's better breeding showed in her slim wrists and ankles, the more delicate bone construction of her face and larger eyes, the blue of which against her golden hair gave her a slightly more attractive colouring than Sally.

However, slim ankles do not guarantee a good temper or fine eyes a kindly consideration for the feelings of other people and Camilla, without being by any means an ill-natured girl was a little inclined to abuse the power which her millions gave her. She took an almost childish delight in watching her lovers quarrel for her favour and liked to tantalise them by withdrawing herself unexpectedly at times.

Now therefore, having introduced herself to Dr. Herman Tisch immediately on his ship's arrival and secured him as her guest for luncheon, she did not invite what the McKay cynically termed her 'circus' to join her table, so only Sally and Rene P. Slinger were privileged to share with her the Herr Doktor's account of his projected descent to the bottom of the ocean.

None of his auditors knew more of Atlantis than the bare legend that it had once existed as an island in the centre of the Atlantic, but the fat little German was an expert on his subject so it needed neither the two girls' eager questioning northe bald sharp-featured Slinger's mild scepticism torelease a positive spate of facts and figures, geological, botanical, and ethnological from the Doctor betweenthe mouthfuls ofa very hearty lunch.

Afterwards he asked to be excused in order that he might attend to his letters, which he had collected from the Hotel bureau, but promised to join them again later as they went out to drink their coffee on the terrace.

Nicolas Costello, his sleek fair hair brushed flatly back, and resplendent in a pale blue flannel suit, that no man other than a film star would have dared to wear, had already secured a table and ringed it with basket chairs. He held one facing the lovely prospect of the bay for Camilla and then, without a glance at the others, plumped himself down beside her.

Count Axel Fersan placed his long delicate hand on the back of another and drew it out for Sally, then he settled himself with leisurely ease between her and Slinger.

'Where is the Prince?' enquired Camilla with a little frown.

'Here, Madame!' The tall Roumanian appeared in the French window behind her. He was a magnificent figure of a man and his velvety eyes held a ready smile as he bowed to her.