“Ha! That is what the banker likes. Banking is a mystery! It is too difficult for ordinary men to understand.” He laughed derisively. “If you make two and two equal five you must have a lot of mystery.” He turned aggressively to Graham. “The international bankers are the real war criminals. Others do the killing but they sit, calm and collected, in their offices and make money.”
“I’m afraid,” said Graham, feeling that he ought to say something, “that the only international banker I know is a very harassed man with a duodenal ulcer. He is far from calm. On the contrary, he complains bitterly.”
“Precisely,” said Mathis triumphantly. “It is the System! I can tell you …”
He went on to tell them. Graham picked up his fourth whisky and soda. He had been playing bridge with the Mathises and Mr. Kuvetli for most of the afternoon and he was tired of them. He had seen Josette only once during that time. She had paused by the card-table and nodded to him. He had taken the nod to mean that José had risen to the news that Banat had money in his pocket and that sometime that evening it would be safe to go to Banat’s cabin.
The prospect cheered and terrified him alternately. At one moment the plan seemed foolproof. He would go into the cabin, take the gun, return to his own cabin, drop the gun out of the porthole and return to the saloon with a tremendous weight lifted from his shoulders. The next moment, however, doubts would begin to creep in. It was too simple. Banat might be insane but he was no fool. A man who earned his living in the way Banat earned his and who yet managed to stay alive and free was not going to be taken in so easily. Supposing he should guess what his victim had in mind, leave José in the middle of the game, and go to his cabin! Supposing he had bribed the steward to keep an eye on his cabin on the grounds that it contained valuables! Supposing …! But what was the alternative? Was he to wait passively while Banat chose the moment to kill him? It was all very well for Haki to talk about a marked man having only to defend himself; but what had he to defend himself with? When the enemy was as close as Banat was, the best defence was attack. Yes, that was it! Anything was better than just waiting. And the plan might well succeed. It was the simple plans of attack that did succeed. It would never occur to a man of Banat’s conceit to suspect that two could play at the game of stealing guns, that the helpless rabbit might bite back. He’d soon find out his mistake.
Josette and José came in with Banat. José appeared to be making himself amiable.
“… it is only necessary,” Mathis was concluding, “to say one word-Briey! When you have said that you have said all.”
Graham drained his glass. “Quite so. Will you all have another drink?”
The Mathis, looking startled, declined sharply; but Mr. Kuvetli nodded happily.
“Thank you, Mr. Graham. I will.”
Mathis stood up, frowning. “It is time that we got ready for dinner. Please excuse us.”
They went. Mr. Kuvetli moved his chair over.
“That was very sudden,” said Graham. “What’s the matter with them?”
“I think,” said Mr. Kuvetli carefully, “that they thought you are making joke of them.”
“Why on earth should they think that?”
Mr. Kuvetli looked sideways. “You ask them to have to drink three times in five minutes. You ask them once. They say no. You ask them again. They say no again. You ask again. They do not understand English hospitality.”
“I see. I’m afraid that I was thinking of something else. I must apologise.”
“Please!” Mr. Kuvetli was overcome. “It is not necessary to apologise for hospitality. But”-he glanced hesitantly at the clock-“it is now nearly time for dinner. You allow me later to have this drink you so kindly offer?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And you will excuse me please, now?”
“By all means.”
When Mr. Kuvetli had gone, Graham stood up. Yes, he’d had just one drink too many on an empty stomach. He went out on deck.
The starlit sky was hung with small smoky clouds. In the distance were the lights of the Italian coast. He stood there for a moment letting the icy wind sting his face. In a minute or two the gong would sound for dinner. He dreaded the approaching meal as a sick man dreads the approach of the surgeon with a probe. He would sit, as he had sat at luncheon, listening to Haller’s monologues and to the Beronellis whispering behind their misery, forcing food down his throat to his unwilling stomach, conscious all the time of the man opposite to him-of why he was there and of what he stood for.
He turned round and leaned against a stanchion. With his back to the deck he found himself constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure that he was alone. He felt more at ease with no deck space behind him.
Through one of the saloon portholes he could see Banat with Josette and José. They sat like details in a Hogarth group; José tight-lipped and intent, Josette smiling, Banat saying something that brought his lips forward. The air in there was grey with tobacco smoke and the hard light from the unshaded lamps flattened their features. There was about them all the squalor of a flashlight photograph taken in a bar.
Someone turned the corner at the end of the deck and came towards him. The figure reached the light and he saw that it was Haller. The old man stopped.
“Good evening, Mr. Graham. You look as if you are really enjoying the air. I, as you see, need a scarf and a coat before I can face it.”
“It’s stuffy inside.”
“Yes. I saw you this afternoon very gallantly playing bridge.”
“You don’t like bridge?”
“One’s tastes change.” He stared out at the lights. “To see the land from a ship or to see a ship from the land. I used to like both. Now I dislike both. When a man reaches my age he grows, I think, to resent subconsciously the movement of everything except the respiratory muscles which keep him alive. Movement is change and for an old man change means death.”
“And the immortal soul?”
Haller sniffed. “Even that which we commonly regard as immortal dies sooner or later. One day the last Titian and the last Beethoven quartet will cease to exist. The canvas and the printed notes may remain if they are carefully preserved but the works themselves will have died with the last eye and ear accessible to their messages. As for the immortal soul, that is an eternal truth and the eternal truths die with the men to whom they were necessary. The eternal truths of the Ptolemaic system were as necessary to the mediæval theologians as were the eternal truths of Kepler to the theologians of the Reformation and the eternal truths of Darwin to the nineteenth century materialists. The statement of an eternal truth is a prayer to lay a ghost-the ghost of primitive man defending himself against what Spengler calls the ‘dark almightiness.’ ” He turned his head suddenly as the door of the saloon opened.
It was Josette standing there looking uncertainly from one to the other of them. At that moment the gong began to sound for dinner.
“Excuse me,” said Haller; “I must see my wife before dinner. She is still unwell.”
“Of course,” said Graham hurriedly.
Josette came over to him as Haller went.
“What did he want, that old man?” she whispered.
“He was talking about life and death.”
“Ugh! I do not like him. He makes me shudder. But I must not stay. I came only to tell you that it is all right.”
“When are they going to play?”
“After dinner.” She squeezed his arm. “He is horrible, this man Banat. I would not do this for anyone except you, chéri.”
“You know I am grateful, Josette. I shall make it up to you.”
“Ah, stupid!” She smiled at him fondly. “You must not be so serious.”
He hesitated. “Are you sure that you can keep him there?”
“You need not worry. I will keep him. But come back to the salone when you have been to the cabin so that I shall know that you have finished. It is understood, chéri?”