Venter slopped some brandy on to his notebook. He raised it to his mouth and gave it a neat lick, and then went on writing. Mac regarded him with distaste. He laboriously wrote down a few details of the affair. Well, there shouldn't be any questions about where we were to judge from the policeman's attitude.
"Captain Macdonald — what is the voornaam — first name?"
"Geoffrey," I replied.
He wrote it down "Jeffrie". That wouldn't do any harm either.
"South African?" he said.
I dropped into Afrikaans with a bonhomie which sounded as false as a sham beard to me, but it didn't worry Venter.
"Man, have you ever heard a rooinek speak Afrikaans like I do? I was born in the Free State."
"Ag, here," he replied matily. "I'm a Transvaaler. Ventersdorp."
"Parys," I replied cheerily, thinking of the little resort which clings to the banks of the Vaal River with one foot in the veld of the Northern Free State, and the other in the Vaal River.
"This calls for a drink," he said without a blush.
I filled up his glass.
"Gesondheid! (good health)," he said. "Man. I'd like to stay and have a party with you boys, but I've got to get back to the station."
Mac breathed a visible sigh of relief. He took his helmet. "Cheerio, heh!" he said. "Totsiens, you chaps." I saw him over the rail. John was convulsed when I returned. "How to win friends and influence people!" he laughed. "Well, well, well. He couldn't have cared less, could he?" "And not a bad thing either," I replied. "It's a nice little chart you have there," said Mac ironically. "Hundreds of miles out to sea, and nothing to prove it to the contrary. What if they ask the other members of the crew?"
"They won't," I replied. "They could swear blind that they'd seen dry land, but John and I could prove beyond any doubt that they were talking nonsense."
"Aye," said Mac slowly, "You'd prove it to me, too. But just for interest's sake, seeing I saw it with my own eyes, where were we?"
"Off the Skeleton Coast," I said looking into his cold eyes, now a little shaded with the whisky he had drunk. "The Skeleton Coast, Mac."
"Aye," he said. "That was all I was wanting to know." We all felt the jar as the boat, inexpertly handled, bumped against the Etosha's side. In the silence, the unease which had been with me in the morning returned. Who was this now? Was there some further shadow looming? I felt sure it was not the police. Some aftermath of Mac's words remained, the meaningful "aye." He might well brood over the Skeleton Coast. As I might.
Heavy feet clumped on the deck. The three of us stood silent, drinks in hand, waiting for the unknown visitor. The imponderable sense of tension running like a tideway under our lives, made us view the newcomer, whoever he was, as an intruder. We followed the progress of the feet down the companionway; they hesitated for a moment, and then chose the cabin door. Without waiting for the knock, I pulled it open swiftly.
Our pre-occupation with the coming of the unknown man to the Etosha at night, the sense of indefinable tension which his presence engendered throughout the later tumultuous events, were characteristic of all I ever knew about the tall, slightly bent figure which blinked in the light as I pulled open the door. - As a figure, he would have passed anywhere without comment, for his sand-coloured hair had receded slightly from the temples and his grey eyes were those of a thousand other respectable citizens. But it was the strong, cruel gash of the face below the bridge of the nose and his quiet, mirthless chuckle which ever afterwards never ceased to frighten me. I still wake at night sweating when I think of that chuckle as he emerged to kill me on the mountain.
"Captain Macdonald?" he asked with a slightly German accent.
"Yes," I said curtly. I have never approved of sudden incursions into my privacy. That privacy was to be respected, as the crew knew.
He stood a moment in his cheap tweeds as his eyes flickered beyond me, a quick, appraising glance.
"Stein," he said holding out a hand. "Dr. Albert Stein. Not 'Stain' if you please, but 'Stine'."
I didn't ask him in. If he'd come about today's business up the coast, he'd go away quicker than he came. I didn't speak.
"May I come in?" The eyes were friendly, but the jaw looked like one of those strange creatures the net brings up out of the depths, snapping at the steel gaff to its last expiring breath.
I stood aside, my ungraciousness apparent.
He looked at John and Mac.
"I haven't also had the pleasure…"
"My mate and engineer," I said briefly.
For some reason he held out his hand to Mac. "This is a very fine ship," he murmured. "You must be proud to be the engineer. Fine big engines, eh?"
Mac ignored the outstretched hand. I blessed him for his taciturnity.
"Engines from the Humber," he said. "Would have been better from the Clyde."
"Ah, the pride of the Scot," said Stein amiably. "Two Scots and one Englishman on such a fine little ship."
"I am a South African," I said, underlining it with a heavy accent.
"But the mate is English, yes? And the ship too? Fine, fast ships the English build."
He nodded to the three of us, but his eyes searched the cabin.
"Can I do something for you, Doctor Stein?" I asked coldly. "You haven't rowed yourself out all this way just to admire my ship. Otherwise…" I waved a hand vaguely towards the companionway.
"Ah but yes," he cried. "It is about business that I wish to talk."
We remained on our feet.
"If it's a matter of business," I began. "We can discuss it ashore some other time. I sell all my fish on a contract basis."
"I am a scientist, not a fishmonger," he smiled and I liked his smile less than a sting ray. "I wish to discuss with you a matter of catching beetles."
Stein certainly didn't look like a crazy beetle hunter, however odd his words sounded.
"The matter of beetle-catching I wish to discuss is private," he said, looking pointedly at John and Mac.
"These men are also my close friends. You may say anything you wish in front of them."
"What a happy little ship," he said encouragingly. "Well, I wish you to take me on a short trip so that I can catch beetles.".
John joined in and he laughed grimly. "You don't catch beetles out in the Atlantic, Dr. Stein," he said. "We may catch a lot else, but not beetles."
Stein grinned in his mirthless way.
"Yes, I know," he went on, as if speaking to a child. "But I wish to take your ship and go up the coast to find beetles, or rather, one particular beetle."
I shrugged. I wasn't having Stein, or anyone else, trippering up and down the coast in Etosha.
"It's worth a lot of money to you," he said. "Five hundred pounds."
"Where to?" I pressed him.
He hedged. "When I wish to find my beetle, I go to people who know about ships, and I ask, which is the finest ship sailing out of Walvis Bay? They tell me, the Etosha. But that is not all I want. The Etosha might be the best ship, but it is the skipper who really matters. And who, I ask, knows these waters best of all the fishing skippers? Macdonald of the Etosha, they tell me. And here I am. Five hundred pounds for my passage."
I was more amused at the offer than anything. "Where do you expect to go for £500 — to South America?"
"No," he said crisply. "I want you to put me ashore on the Skeleton Coast."
I burst out laughing.
"Good God, man, you can't be serious," I exclaimed. "Every policeman knows where every ship goes from this port. I'd only have to tell them what you've said — in front of witnesses — and they'd watch you like a hawk."
"I don't think you'd do that," he said evenly.
"Why not?" I asked.
He looked at me searchingly, and his reply was long in coming.