"Well, you're a flat tyre," complained Philly.
"I may well be just what you say I am, miss," said Monty. "But I'm afraid I've got far too much on my plate taking care of this ship and her passengers, not to mention the stewards and the stewardesses and God knows what else, and I simply can't—"
Monty suddenly turned and stared at Harry. Harry had been just about to shuffle himself sideways into the inner office, so that he could get a better look at the key board. Monty didn't say anything, but the look on his face was enough. You keep out, squire. Harry had to grin, and retreat towards the main cabin door like a schoolboy who has been caught near a greenhouse with a catapult in his hand.
Harry tried to appear nonchalant, but he was sweating with muscular tension. It was ten o'clock already, and if he couldn't get into that cargo hold by noon, the chances were high that Maurice Peace or George Welterman would discover his sticks of dynamite, and the Arcadia would sail into New York as smugly and as elegantly as she had left Liverpool, a floating triumph for decadence and oppression. Admittedly, Harry had learned some surprising new things about the rich since he had been travelling in first class. They had appeared to him for the first time to be almost as human, and a as idiosyncratic, and often as comradely, as any of the workers he had known. They were, despite their wealth, no more than people. But he knew that he couldn't allow his political ideals to be compromised by his personal susceptibility to first-class comfort and to individual gestures of friendship and generosity. No matter how pleasant the rich may be, they upheld a society which Harry believed to be criminal. The ark of Mammon, her passengers and crew, would have to go to the bottom.
"I, er—I suppose that absolutely means I can't take this young lady into breakfast?" Harry asked.
"Sorry, squire," Monty told him. "Just not possible. Now, if you'll please excuse me...?"
There was a moment of hiatus, a moment in which all three of them were posed in a tableau, as if waiting for fate or fortune to supply them with their next line. And fate, or fortune, did. Because Dick Charles suddenly appeared at the door, his face white, and said, "Mr. Willowby! Wanted urgently forward!"
"What's wrong?" asked Monty.
"C-can't tell you," stuttered Dick. "But quick! On the duh, on the dun, on the double, Mr Deacon said."
Monty clenched his teeth at Harry and Philly and said, "You'll excuse me." Then he was off along the deck, waddling after Dick Charles like the walrus following the carpenter.
Harry spread his hands. "For one time in my life, I've actually had some luck," he said. "He's gone, and he's left his office open. I'm beginning to feel there might be a God up there after all."
Philly was busy adjusting her lipstick, screwing up her nose at herself in the mirror of her powder compact. "What a toad! If I'd known how ugly he was, I wouldn't even have agreed to do it! But you won't forget my hundred, will you?"
"Fifty."
"Fifty? What kind of bunk is that? You said a hundred."
"I said a hundred if it worked. It didn't work. It's only an accident he's gone off now, and left the place unattended. You're lucky to get fifty."
"If you don't give me a hundred I'll scream rape."
"Go ahead, scream rape."
"All right. Rape!"
"That wasn't loud enough," said Harry. He was scanning the keyboard now, his fingers touching each hook in turn, looking for the label which read AFTER CARGO HOLD.
"What do you mean, that wasn't loud enough?" demanded Philly.
"You heard me," said Harry. Laundry, Library, Linen Store (1st); Linen Store (2nd); Linen Store (3rd).
"How about this, then? Rape! I say, rape!"
Louder," Harry urged her.
"Okay, smart buns. Rape!"
Claude Graham-White, who happened to have been passing the purser's office on his way forward, put his head through the door, and said, "I say, is everything all right?"
Philly said indignantly, "No, everything is not all right. This man's raping me."
Claude Graham-White looked first at Philly, with her fists planted indignantly on her hips, and then across into the inner office at Harry, him had his back to both of them.
"I don't like to split hairs," he said, "but that gentleman is standing eight feet away from you with his back turned. I rather fail to see how he can be—well, interfering with you in any way."
"Take my word for it," said Philly. "He's interfering with me."
"But how?"
"He said he'd pay me a hundred and now he says only fifty."
"Well,' said Claude Graham-White, "I'm afraid I can scarcely intrude on a commercial transaction. Not really my business."
"Are you trying to suggest—" squawked Philly. But Harry interrupted her by saying, "All right. A hundred. Now, just keep quiet."
Claude Graham-White went off, slightly bewildered, to his cabin. He had eaten one too many bloaters and felt a desire to return to his room and meditate on the meaning of digestion. Philly said, "Huh!" and crossed her arms as emphatically as she knew how. She felt cheated, although she wasn't quite sure why. It was probably because Monty Willowby had denied her entrance to the first-class dining lounge for breakfast, and despite the fact that Harry hadn't really intended to take her there at all, she had been made to feel distinctly steerage.
But Harry was more interested in the ship's keys. At last, he found a label which identified the long key which depended from the hook beneath it as belonging to the after carriage hold. He said to Philly, "Carriage? Do you think they could have used "carriage" as a fancy word for "automobile"?"
"How should I know?"
Harry bit his lip. Then he said, "I don't know. I suppose I'll just have to risk it," and he lifted the key off its hook. He also took the key which opened the door of the after cargo hold, just in case.
"Right," said Harry, ushering Philly out of the purser's cabin, and onto the deck. "You go back to the third-class deck. I'll see what I can do with these keys."
"But you won't forget the money? You won't go back on your promise? A hundred?"
Harry kissed her cheek. "A hundred it is. Just as soon as I sell my liquor. Now, you take the forward lift. I'll go down the stairs."
Harry was so intent on what he was doing that he didn't notice the strange feverish atmosphere on the deck. He collided with one or two passengers hurrying forward, and said, "Pardon me," because even after four years he still wasn't English enough to say, "Excuse me," in that particularly frosty tone that the English used; but he didn't stop long enough to realise that anything unusual was happening.
He reached the first-class stairway and made his way down to the entrance to the first-class lounge. From there, he walked quickly along the corridor aft to the double doors which led down to the first-class cabin deck. Then down again, and again, and again, and again, until at least he reached the orlop deck, and jogged along to the door of the hold where the automobiles were stored. Gasping for breath, he tried the key in the lock, and it turned smoothly. He opened the heavy door, and swung it forward with a deep feeling of relief. In his anxiety about finding the key, he had almost forgotten the magnitude of what he was about to do, or the danger to himself.
The hold was lit only by a dim row of inspection lamps on the bulkheads. It echoed to the deep drumming of the Arcadia's turbines, and it smelled of heavy grease and automobile polish. Harry closed the door behind him, and cautiously crossed the metal floor to the first row of automobiles—seven Rolls-Royces, all shining as if they were strange religious trophies being ferried from one land to another. Then another row of Pierce-Arrows and Austro-Daimlers.