For a moment there was dead silence, then Skelton and Vogel together leaped on the enraged Roux as he sprang at his accuser, and grabbed his arms.
“Let me go!” Roux shouted furiously, “and I will strangle him!”
As this was precisely what Vogel and Skelton feared, they hung on. Monsieur Duclos stroked his beard calmly and regarded the struggling Roux with interest.
“Thief and liar!” he repeated, as though we had not heard him the first time.
Roux yelped with rage and tried to spit at him.
“I think, Monsieur Duclos,” I said, “that it will be better if you go upstairs.”
He struck an attitude. “I will leave the beach, Monsieur, only when Roux has apologized.”
I was about to argue that the apology, if any was due to Roux, when Mademoiselle Martin, who had been having hysterics in the background, created a diversion by flinging her arms round her lover’s neck and exhorting him to kill. She was removed in floods of tears by Frau Vogel and Mary Skelton. By this time, however, Roux had found tongue and was hurling insults at all and sundry.
“Species of monkeys!”
Monsieur Duclos’s calm deserted him. He leaped into the breach. “Species of impotent goat!” he retorted hotly.
Mademoiselle Martin screamed. Roux, incensed, focused his attention once more on his enemy.
“Species of diseased camel!” he bawled.
“Misbegotten cretin!” roared Monsieur Duclos.
Roux licked his lips and swallowed hard. For a moment I thought he was beaten. Then I saw that he was gathering his forces for the coup de grace. His lips worked. He drew a deep breath. There was a fraction of a second’s silence. Then, with the full force of his lungs, he hurled the word in Monsieur Duclos’s face.
“Bolshevik!”
Given the appropriate circumstances almost any word denoting a political or religious creed can become a deadly insult. At a conference of Moslem dignitaries the word “Christian” could no doubt be used with devastating effect. At a gathering of middle-aged White Russians the word “Bolshevik” would probably be reckoned a virulent term of abuse. But this was not a gathering of White Russians.
For a moment there was not a sound. Then someone giggled. It was, I think, Mary Skelton. It was enough. We started to laugh. Monsieur Duclos, after one bewildered look round, managed to join in convincingly. Only Roux and Odette Martin did not laugh. For a moment he glared at us savagely. Then he wrenched himself free of Vogel and Skelton and stalked off across the beach towards the steps. She followed. As she caught up with him he turned and shook a fist at us.
“Well,” said Skelton, “I don’t know what it was all about, but we certainly do see life at the Reserve.”
Monsieur Duclos was preening himself-a Ulysses after the fall of Troy. He shook hands all round.
“A dangerous type, that!” he commented at large.
“A type of garngstair!” said Herr Vogel.
“Yes, indeed!”
To my relief they seemed to have forgotten the original point at issue. Not so, however, the Skeltons.
“I followed most of that,” said the girl. “The old Frenchman was right, wasn’t he? You did say that the locks were forced, didn’t you?” She looked at me curiously.
I felt myself reddening.
“No. You must have been mistaken.”
“In other words,” said Skelton slowly, “it was one of the guests.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“O.K. We get it.” He grinned. “The stuff returned and no questions asked. Say no more.”
“Speak for yourself, Warren. As between friends, Mr. Vadassy, was it one of the servants or wasn’t it?”
I shook my head miserably. This was very difficult.
“You don’t mean to say it was one of the guests?”
“It wasn’t anybody.”
“You’re most unconvincing, Mr. Vadassy.”
This I could well believe. Fortunately, Monsieur Duclos chose this moment to announce in penetrating tones that he was going to make a formal complaint to the manager.
I excused myself to the Skeltons and took him aside.
“I should be most grateful, Monsieur, if you would say nothing further about the matter. The whole affair has been most unpleasant and in a sense I am responsible. I am anxious for it to be forgotten. I should esteem it a personal favor to myself if you would overlook this unfortunate occurrence.”
He stroked his beard and shot a quick glance at me over the top of his pince-nez.
“The man insulted me, Monsieur. And in public.”
“Quite so. But we all saw how you dealt with the fellow. He came out of the affair very badly. I cannot help feeling that you would lose face by prolonging the issue. It is best to ignore such types.”
He considered the point. “You may be right. But he had no right to say that the locks were forced when I had told him quite clearly that there was no question of violence.” His eyes met mine without a flicker.
One could only bow to such devastating mental agility. “His behavior demonstrates,” I agreed, “that he was well aware of being in the wrong.”
“That is true. Very well, Monsieur, at your request I take the matter no further. I accept your assurance that my honor has been upheld.”
We bowed. He turned to the others.
“At this Monsieur’s request,” he announced impressively, “I have agreed to take the matter no further. It is concluded.”
“A wise decision,” said Vogel gravely and winked at me.
“Yes, indeed!”
“This Roux, however, must take care,” added Monsieur Duclos ominously. “I will suffer no further insults from him. A dirty type, beneath contempt. You observe that he is not married to Mademoiselle. Poor child! That such a type should lure her from the path of virtue!”
“Yes, yes.” Herr Vogel hitched up his trousers, winked at me, and wandered off, followed by Duclos.
“A dirty type,” I could hear the old man saying; “a very dirty type.”
The Skeltons were anointing each other with sun oil. I lay back on the sand and thought of Roux.
A bad-tempered, unpleasant man; and yet you could see why the woman found him attractive. There was a lithe precision in his movements; he was at once aggressively masculine and subtly feminine; probably he was a good lover.
He gave the impression of possessing both rat-like cunning and rat-like simplicity. A small, quick mind and a dangerous one. You would know what he thought when he acted. Yes, he would be dangerous all right. Physically strong, too: his body was amazingly wiry. He reminded you of a ferret.
Ferret! That was a word that Schimler had used. “It’s amazing the way they ferret things out.” I could hear him saying it. “We heard that a Gestapo agent had been sent into France.” Fool! I ought to have thought of that before. The Gestapo agent, the man who had been sent into France to “persuade” a German to return to Germany, the man whom Schimler thought had identified him, the man who would not act until he was sure of his prey-Roux. It was as clear as daylight.
I shut my eyes, smiling to myself.
“What’s the joke, Mr. Vadassy?” said Mary Skelton.
I opened my eyes. “There’s no joke. I was just thinking.”
“Well, it looks pretty good from here.”
It felt good, too. I had had another idea.
15
T he beach was deserted earlier than usual. A cool wind had sprung up and, for the first time since I had left Paris, I saw the sky heavy with cloud. The sea had changed in color to a dingy gray. The red rocks no longer glowed. It was as if, with the going of the sun, the life of the place had also gone.
As I went up to put on some warmer clothes I saw that the waiters were laying the tables in the dining-room on the first floor. In my room I heard the first drops of rain patter through the leaves of the creeper outside my window.
I finished changing and rang for the chambermaid.