Now he knew that one of them at least was a runner. A few gallons of paint, and a new Vickers machine gun set in the mountings, and the five machines would look magnificent. Gareth would give one of his justly famous sales routines. He would start the one good engine and fire the machine gun by God, the jolly old prince would pull out his purse and start spilling sovereigns all over the scenery.
There was only the damned Yankee to worry about, it might cost him a few bob more than he had reckoned to edge him out, but Gareth was not too worried. The man looked as though he would have difficulty raising the price of a beer.
Gareth flicked at his sleeve where a speck of dust might have settled; he placed the panama back on his golden head, adjusted the wide brim carefully and removed the long slim cheroot from his lips to inspect the ash, before he rose and sauntered across to the group.
The auctioneer was an elfin Sikh in a black silk suit with his beard twisted up under his chin, and a large dazzling white turban wrapped about his head.
He was perched like a little black bird on the turret of the nearest armoured car, and his voice was plaintive as he pleaded with the audience that stared up at him stolidly with expressionless faces and glazed eyes.
"Come, gentle mens let me be hearing some mellifluous voice cry out "ten pounds". Do I hear "ten pounds each" for these magnificent conveyances?" He cocked his head and listened to the hot noon breeze in the top branches of the mango. Nobody moved, nobody spoke.
"Five pounds, please? Will some wise gentle mens tell me five pounds?
Two pounds ten gentle mens for a mere fifty shillings these royal machines, these fine, these beautiful-" He broke off, and lowered his gaze, placed a delicate chocolate brown hand over his troubled brow. "A price, gentle mens Please, start me with a price."
"One pound!" a voice called in the lilting accents of the Texan ranges. For a moment the Sikh did not move, then raised his head with dramatic slowness and stared at Jake who towered above the crowd around him.
"A pound?" the Sikh whispered huskily. "Twenty shillings each for these fine, these beautiful-" he broke off and shook his head sorrowfully. Then abruptly his manner changed and became brisk and businesslike. "One pound, I am bid.
40, I Do I hear two, two pounds? No advance on one pound?
Going for the first time at one pound!" Gareth Swales drifted forward, and the crowd opened miraculously, drawing aside respectfully.
"Two pounds." He spoke softly, but his voice carried clearly in the hush. Jake's long angular frame stiffened, and a dark wine-coloured flush spread slowly up the back of his neck. Slowly, his head swivelled and he stared across at the Englishman who had now reached the front row.
Gareth smiled brilliantly and tipped the brim of his panama to acknowledge Jake's glare. The Sikh's commercial instinct instantly sensed the rivalry between them and his mood brightened.
"I have two--" he chirruped.
Five," snapped Jake.
"Ten," murmured Gareth, and Jake felt a hot uncontrollable anger come seething up from his guts. He knew the feeling so well, and he tried to control it, but it was no use.
It came up in a savage red tide to swamp his reason.
The crowd stirred with delight, and all their heads swung in unison towards the tall American.
"Fifteen," said jake, "and every head swung back towards the slim Englishman.
Gareth inclined his head gracefully.
"Twenty," piped the Sikh delightedly. "I have twenty."
"And five." Dimly through the mists of his anger, Jake knew that there was no way that he would let the Limey have these ladies. If he couldn't buy them, he would burn them.
The Sikh sparkled at Gareth with gazelle eyes.
"Thirty, sir?" he asked, and Gareth grinned easily and waved his cheroot. He was experiencing a rising sense of alarm already they were far past what he had calculated was the Yank's limit.
"And five more." Jake's voice was gravelly with the strength of his outrage. They were his, even if he had to pay out every shilling in his wallet, they had to be his.
Forty." Gareth Swales's smile was slightly strained now.
He was fast approaching his own limit. The terms of the sale were cash or bank-guaranteed cheque. He had long ago milked every source of cash that was available to him, and any bank manager who guaranteed a Gareth Swales cheque was destined for a swift change of employment.
"Forty-five." Jake's voice was hard and uncompromising; he was fast approaching the figure where he would be working for nothing but the satisfaction of blocking out the Limey.
"Fifty."
"And five."
"Sixty."
"And another five." That was break-even price for Jake after this he was tossing away bright shining shillings.
"Seventy," drawled Gareth Swales, and that 411 at was his limit.
With regret he discarded all hopes of an easy acquisition of the cars.
Three hundred and fifty pounds represented his entire liquid reserves he could bid no further. All right, the easy way had not worked out.
There were a dozen other ways, and by one of them Gareth Swales was going to have them. By God, the prince might go as high as a thousand each and he was not going to pass by that sort of profit for lack of a few lousy hundred quid.
"Seventy-five," said Jake, and the crowd murmured and every eye flew to Major Gareth Swales.
"Ah, kind gentle mens do you speak of eighty?" enquired the Sikh eagerly. His commission was five per cent.
Graciously, but regretfully, Gareth shook his head.
"No, my dear chap. It was a mere whim of mine." He smiled across at Jake. "May they give you much joy," he said, and drifted away towards the gates. There was clearly nothing to be gained in approaching the American now.
The man was in a towering rage and Gareth had judged him as the type who habitually gave expression to this emotion by swinging with his fists. Long ago, Gareth Swales had reached the conclusion that only fools fight, and wise men supply them with the means to do so at a profit, naturally.
It was three days before Jake Barton saw the Englishman again and during that time he had towed the five iron ladies to the outskirts of the town where he had set up his camp on the banks of a small stream among a stand of African mahogany trees.
With a block and tackle slung from the branch of a mahogany, he had lifted out the engines and worked on them far into each night by the smoky light of a hurricane lamp.
Coaxing and sweet-talking the machines, changing and juggling faulty and worn parts, hand-forging others on the charcoal brazier, whistling to himself endlessly, swearing and sweating and scheming, he had three of the Bentleys running by the afternoon of the third day.
Set up on improvised timber blocks, they had regained something of their former gleam and glory beneath his loving hands.
Gareth Swales arrived at Jake's camp in the somnolent heat of the third afternoon. He arrived in a ricksha pulled by a half-naked and sweating black man and he lolled with the grace of a resting leopard on the padded seat, looking cool in beautifully cut and snowy crisp linen.
Jake straightened up from the engine which he was tuning. He was naked to the waist and his arms were greased black to the elbows.
Sweat gleamed on his shoulders and chest, as though he had been oiled.
"Don't even bother to stop," Jake said softly. "Just keep straight on down the road, friend." Gareth grinned at him engagingly and from the seat beside him he lifted a large silver champagne bucket, frosted with dew, and tinkling with ice. Over the edge of the bucket showed the necks of a dozen bottles of Tusker beer.