Dennis Wheatley - They Found Atlantis

'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.