Rudyard Philips made a brief and rather formal appearance, with Mademoiselle Narron on his arm, and gave only guarded answers to those passengers who asked after Sir Peregrine's health. "He was overtired, after the storm," he replied, his mouth opening and closing like a money box. "He hadn't slept for twenty-six hours."
Louise Narron, in an extraordinary turquoise organza gown which came down in tiers like an ornamental fountain, looked as happy and as carefree as any woman who has deliberately decided to fall in love. Whenever Rudyard spoke, whatever he said, she smiled at him admiringly, and pursed her lips as if she felt like kissing him.
Jack Dempsey was asleep in one of the corner armchairs, his lips vibrating with every breath. Since he had exhibitionistically loped twenty times around the promenade deck that evening, to demonstrate how fit he was, and then skipped for quarter of an hour to "The Darktown Strutters' Ball" on his Victrola, it was hardly surprising that he had dropped off as soon as dinner was over; although his appetite would probably arouse him in time for supper.
Dame Clara Butt was not in the smoking lounge. She detested smoke and gambling and raucous noise, and so she had retired to her cabin, where her maid was massaging her large white buttocks him with Lanes' Emulsion. If the painter Ingres had been on board—which he couldn't have been, since he had been quite dead for fifty-seven years—but if he had been on board, he would have painted Dame Clara in this position for all posterity to admire, and called the painting "Venus and Thetis."
Now Baroness Zawisza rose, to exaggerated applause, to the small auctioneer's rostrum which had been set up for the bidding, and looked beautifully and a little tiredly all around her, so that Sabran would be able to see how wan she was, and how exquisite. Sabran, in fact, was playing rummy with Maurice Peace, and rapidly losing both his temper and all the spending money that the baroness had given him for the entire voyage.
"Tonight's auction will be the most exciting," said the baroness, in her melodious Polish accent. "We have been tossed hither and thither by a summer storm, we have clung on for our dear lives. We are lucky to have covered any nautical miles at all, and not to be lying under the ocean, conversing with the haddocks. So, without further preamble, I will tear open this envelope and tell you how many miles the Arcadia travelled in her first full twenty-four hours of sailing... and the answer is 622!"
There was a falsetto cry of delight from Lady FitzPerry. "I've won! That's mine! Six-two-two! Isn't that wonderful?"
There was more applause, and a few appreciative noises from the gentlemen as Lady FitzPerry came up to the rostrum in her flowing Drecoll organdie dress, under which her small breasts jumped up and down like a pair of boisterous lambs. Maurice Peace, who was still playing rummy with Sabran, glanced momentarily up at Mark Beeney, and smiled. He was, after all, five hundred pounds better off, quite apart from the cash which he was taking from Sabran.
When he had finished the hand, he excused himself and crossed the smoking lounge to the sofa where Mark and Marcia were sitting.
"Well," he said, with his placid and anonymous smile, "it seems as if the Arcadia didn't quite manage it."
Mark reached into his inside pocket, and counted out five 100 dollars bills, which he folded and handed over to Maurice Peace without comment. Maurice who had been born suspicious of the flavour of his mother's milk, counted each note before tucking them away into his wallet. "You want to bet on tomorrow's distance?" he asked. "Fair weather all the way, from what the officers tell me."
Mark looked up at him for a moment or two, and then pointed a finger at him. 'I know you, don't I?" he said.
Maurice shrugged. "No reason why you should."
"I've seen you before, I am sure of it. Did you ever travel on the Melusine, of the American TransAtlantic line?"
"I know the Melusine," said Maurice ambiguously.
"Well, I think I know you," replied Mark. "You're a gambling man, aren't you? One of our professional passengers, to put it politely."
"You're not obliged to bet with me, Mr. Beeney," said Maurice affably.
"I'm sure I saw you aboard the Melusine the last time I sailed on a to Rio de Janeiro," Mark told him. "A great many of our passengers lost a great deal of money on the gaming tables on that trip; and it wouldn't surprise me at all if most of it was lost on your account."
"You know how it is," smiled Maurice. "Memory sometimes plays odd tricks on you."
"Not half so odd as some of the tricks that you play, I'll bet."
Maurice turned to Marcia and gave her an avuncular beam. "This young man of yours is a stylist, and no mistake. Has he promised him marry you yet?"
"Not yet," said Marcia, more piquantly than Mark would have liked.
"Maybe he hasn't had his fill of thrills yet," said Maurice. "So how about it, Mr. Beeney? One more bet, on tomorrow's distance? Name your odds."
Marcia said, "You don't have to bet with him, Mark. He's a professional. You'll only be throwing your money away."
"Now then, Miss Conroy," said Maurice, "you shouldn't interrupt a gentleman when he's betting, nor when he's praying, nor when he's making water. That's what my old grandmother told my mother, in any case. She said, what does anybody want with a man who's busted, who's damned to eternal hellfire, or who's got wet feet?"
Marcia raised her elegantly plucked eyebrows, and couldn't think what to say in reply. She wasn't used to American folk humour. But Mark raised his hand, as if he were pledging allegiance to the flag, and said seriously, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll each pick a mileage for the next twenty-four hours; and whoever is nearer to the real mileage will be the winner. From you I expect as a stake a sizeable portion of the winnings you've taken so far. Would five thousand pounds sounds acceptable?"
Maurice was taken aback. "Five thousand pounds?" he asked Mark, lifting his cupped hand to his right ear, as if he hadn't heard properly. "Pounds, did I hear you say, or dollars?"
"Pounds," said Mark with a tight smile.
"But that's my whole living," protested Maurice. "If I step off this steamer with scarcely any money, then what will have been the point of my travelling on her at all?"
"She will have taken you home from Ireland," said Mark. "She will have fed you and cared for you, and washed your shirts. And considering you probably didn't pay your fare to begin with, that's not to be sneezed at."
Maurice expostulated, "Are you trying to suggest that I'm stowing away? Now there's an old-fashioned idea for you. Jim Hawkins on board the Arcadia."
"It doesn't matter to me," said Mark. "It's not my ship. At least not yet. I'm more interested in taking your money from you."
"Well, of course you are," said Maurice. "'And I shan't deprive you of the opportunity. It's a great risk, of course, but it's a fair one. All I want to know is, what can you put up in return? It has to be something pretty spectacular. Bonds, notes, something of that kind. After all"— and he said this with an unusual hint of concern—"you may be depriving me of my living."
For the first time, Mark saw a flaw in Maurice Peace's calm and enigmatic facade. The revelation was only brief—nothing more than a twitch at the comer of his ceaseless smile—but it was enough to show Mark that Maurice was growing a little too old and a little too cautious for big-time bets. Maurice was still a master of poker and rummy, and he could probably continue to make a respectable living out of cards for the next twenty years, or until he died. But to stake almost the entire gambling proceeds from the richest ocean voyage in postwar years on one single number—well, that was something different. That required a particular variety of nerve which Maurice Peace might no longer possess.