“It seems a very fair price,” said Graham hurriedly.
Mr. Kuvetli shrugged. “Perhaps. It could be reduced more, but …” He turned and nodded to the driver, who suddenly grinned broadly. They got into the cab.
“Did you say,” said Graham, as they drove off, “that you had never been in Greece before?”
Mr. Kuvetli’s smile was bland. “I know little Greek,” he said. “I was born in Izmir.”
The tour began. The Greek drove fast and with dash, twitching the wheel playfully in the direction of slow moving pedestrians, so that they had to run for their lives, and flinging a running commentary over his right shoulder as he went. They stopped for a moment on the road by the Theseion and again on the Acropolis where they got out and walked round. Here, Mr. Kuvetli’s curiosity seemed inexhaustible. He insisted on a century by century history of the Parthenon and prowled round the museum as if he would have liked to spend the rest of the day there; but at last they got back into the car and were whisked round to the theatre of Dionysos, the arch of Hadrian, the Olympieion, and the Royal Palace. It was, by now, four o’clock and Mr. Kuvetli had been asking questions and saying “very nice” and “formidable” for well over the allotted hour. At Graham’s suggestion they stopped in the Syntagma, changed some money and paid off the driver, adding that if he liked to wait in the square he could earn another fifty drachmes by driving them back to the wharf later. The driver agreed. Graham bought his cigarettes and books and sent his telegram. There was a band playing on the terrace of one of the cafés when they got back to the square and at Mr. Kuvetli’s suggestion they sat down at a table to drink coffee before returning to the port.
Mr. Kuvetli surveyed the square regretfully. “It is very nice,” he said with a sigh. “One would like to stay longer. So many magnificent ruins we have seen!”
Graham remembered what Haller had said at lunch about Mr. Kuvetli’s evasions. “Which is your favourite city, Mr. Kuvetli?”
“Ah, that is difficult to say. All cities have their magnificences. I like all cities.” He breathed the air. “It is most kind of you to bring me here to-day, Mr. Graham.”
Graham stuck to the point. “A great pleasure. But surely you have some preference.”
Mr. Kuvetli looked anxious. “It is so difficult. I like London very much.”
“Personally I like Paris better.”
“Ah, yes. Paris is also magnificent.”
Feeling rather baffled, Graham sipped his coffee. Then he had another idea. “What do you think of Señor Gallindo, Mr. Kuvetli?”
“Señor Gallindo? It is so difficult. I do not know him. His manner is strange.”
“His manner,” said Graham, “is damnably offensive. Don’t you agree?”
“I do not like Señor Gallindo very much,” conceded Mr. Kuvetli. “But he is Spanish.”
“What can that have to do with it? The Spanish are an exceedingly polite race.”
“Ah, I have not been to Spain.” He looked at his watch. “It is quarter-past four now. Perhaps we should go, eh? It has been very nice this afternoon.”
Graham nodded wearily. If Haller wanted Mr. Kuvetli “probed” he could do the probing himself. His, Graham’s, personal opinion was that Mr. Kuvetli was an ordinary bore whose conversation, such as it was, sounded a little unreal because he used languages with which he was unfamiliar.
Mr. Kuvetli insisted on paying for the coffee; Mr. Kuvetli insisted on paying the fare back to the wharf. By a quarter to five they were on board again. An hour later Graham stood on deck watching the pilot’s boat chugging back towards the greying land. The Frenchman, Mathis, who was leaning on the rail a few feet away, turned his head.
“Well, that’s that! Two more days and we shall be in Genoa. Did you enjoy your excursion ashore this afternoon, Monsieur?”
“Oh, yes, thank you. It was …”
But he never finished telling Monsieur Mathis what it was. A man had come out of the saloon door some yards away and was standing blinking at the setting sun which streamed across the sea towards them.
“Ah, yes,” said Mathis. “We have acquired another passenger. He arrived while you were ashore this afternoon. I expect that he is a Greek.”
Graham did not, could not, answer. He knew that the man standing there with the golden light of the sun on his face was not a Greek. He knew, too, that beneath the dark grey raincoat the man wore there was a crumpled brown suit with lumpy padded shoulders; that below the high-crowned soft hat and above the pale, doughy features with the self-conscious mouth was thinning curly hair. He knew that this man’s name was Banat.
CHAPTER SIX
Graham stood there motionless. His body was tingling as if some violent mechanical shock had been transmitted to it through his heels. He heard Mathis’ voice a long way away, asking him what the matter was.
He said: “I don’t feel well. Will you excuse me, please?”
He saw apprehension flicker over the Frenchman’s face and thought: “He thinks I’m going to be sick.” But he did not wait for Mathis to say anything. He turned and, without looking again at the man by the saloon door, walked to the door at the other end of the deck and went below to his cabin.
He locked the door when he got inside. He was shaking from head to foot. He sat down on the bunk and tried to pull himself together. He told himself: “There’s no need to get worried. There’s a way out of this. You’ve got to think.”
Somehow Banat had discovered that he was on the Sestri Levante. It could not have been very difficult. An inquiry made at the Wagon-Lit and shipping company offices would have been enough. The man had then taken a ticket for Sofia, left the train when it crossed the Greek frontier, and taken another train via Salonika to Athens.
He pulled Kopeikin’s telegram out of his pocket and stared at it. “All well!” The fools! The bloody fools! He’d distrusted this ship business from the start. He ought to have relied on his instinct and insisted on seeing the British Consul. If it had not been for that conceited imbecile Haki … But now he was caught like a rat in a trap. Banat wouldn’t miss twice. My God, no! The man was a professional murderer. He would have his reputation to consider-to say nothing of his fee.
A curious but vaguely familiar feeling began to steal over him: a feeling that was dimly associated with the smell of antiseptics and the singing of a kettle. With a sudden rush of horror, he remembered. It had happened years ago. They had been trying out an experimental fourteen-inch gun on the proving ground. The second time they fired it, it had burst. There had been something wrong with the breech mechanism. It had killed two men outright and badly injured a third. This third man had looked like a great clot of blood lying there on the concrete. But the clot of blood had screamed: screamed steadily until the ambulance had come and a doctor had used a hypodermic. It had been a thin, high, inhuman sound; just like the singing of a kettle. The doctor had said that the man was unconscious even though he was screaming. Before they had examined the remains of the gun, the concrete had been swabbed down with a solution of lysol. He hadn’t eaten any lunch. In the afternoon it had begun to rain. He …
He realised suddenly that he was swearing. The words were dropping from his lips in a steady stream: a meaningless succession of obscenities. He stood up quickly. He was losing his head. Something had got to be done; and done quickly. If he could get off the ship …
He wrenched the cabin door open and went out into the alleyway. The Purser was the man to see first. The Purser’s office was on the same deck. He went straight to it.
The door of the office was ajar and the Purser, a tall, middle-aged Italian with the stump of a cigar in his mouth, was sitting in his shirt-sleeves before a typewriter and a stack of copies of Bills of Lading. He was copying details of the Bills on to the ruled sheet in the typewriter. He looked up with a frown as Graham knocked. He was busy.