"And did it?" asked Sir Terence, picking up his cards and fanning them out in his hand.
Maurice dispassionately looked at the natural nine which he had dealt himself. "Not a chance," he replied. "The staff were carrying the guests out to the taxi rank before dinner had even started."
The smoking-room steward came over with his silver tray balanced on his fingertips and took their order. Maurice, as usual, asked for club soda. Sir Terence wanted a dressed crab sandwich to keep him going until dinner.
"Do you have something riding on this voyage?" Maurice asked the man in the toupee in an offhand tone.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You said you wanted to drink to the successful outcome of this voyage. That led me to suppose that you might have something tied up in it. A stake in the shipping company, something like that."
The man said, "Yes, well, I suppose you could put it that way."
"Keys are a bit wobbly on the Stock Exchange," said Sir Terence. "If I were you, I'd order two of those martinis."
"Oh, I'm not a stockholder," said the man in the toupee. "More of a beneficiary."
"Curiouser and curiouser," Sir Terence said to himself.
Maurice was silent for a while, as he concentrated on his game. Then he said, "Did I ever see you in Monte Carlo?"
The man in the toupee lifted his head up. "Possibly," he said, although he didn't sound very sure of himself. "But, of course, you wouldn't have recognised me. I mean, I wouldn't have been dressed like this."
"Why are you dressed like that? All the ladies seem to think that you're a famous film star suffering from leprosy. Well, I don't know about the leprosy, but you're not a famous film star, are you?"
There was a lengthy pause. The man picked up a pencil that had been left on the table, and then set it down again. "No," he said, "I'm not."
"You're British?"
The man nodded.
"And you're not a leper?"
The man shook his head.
Maurice turned to Sir Terence, who was lighting up a Sobranie cigarette with a gold lighter by Terra Nova of Italy. "It's all very mystifying," he said. "Here we have a British gentleman who is not suffering from leprosy travelling in a patently obvious disguise. He may be a Parliamentarian of some kind, because he seems to be worried about welfare housing programme. He plays cards as if he were something of a regular gambler, and yet he plays them cautiously. His caution appears somehow to be connected with an unknown female whom he calls "she". Now, is that a puzzle or is that a puzzle?"
"I agree," said Sir Terence. "It's a puzzle." Then, "Damn," as Maurice beat him yet again.
"He's not a Government minister," said Maurice. "A Government minister couldn't get away from his office for long enough to cross the Atlantic dressed as a failed cellist. Besides, he expressed an anti-Government sentiment earlier on. Nor is he a senior civil servant. Senior civil servants don't usually go to Monte Carlo to gamble, and this chap has admitted that I might have seen him there."
The tall man in the toupee listened to all this with great moroseness, his arms folded on the card table. But behind his tiny dark glasses, his eyes were obviously following the soft sleight-of-hand of Maurice Peace's dealing, and the way the cards seemed to fly in and out of their suits at Maurice's unconscious command. He said nothing, though. Gave nothing away. If they wanted to find out who he was, and why he was here, they were going to have to do it by themselves.
The smoking-room steward arrived with their refreshments. The king-size martini manifested itself in a chilled tulip-shaped glass of magnificent proportions; while Sir Terence's crab sandwich was served on a silver plate that was decorated with cracked crab claws, piped mayonnaise, and flowers that were cut from radishes and tomatoes. It was impossible to order even a humble bacon sandwich on board the Arcadia without it being served up as though it were an exotic dish from one of the world's finest restaurants. Maurice's club sandwich had been a ziggurat of freshly-roasted turkey, Derbyshire cheese, iceberg lettuce, Polish tomatoes, and West Country ham; and it had taken him nearly two hours to eat it.
"Their Majesties," said the tall man in the toupee, rising from his chair and lifting his martini glass.
Sir Terence rose too, and out of respect for the Arcadia's nationality, so did Maurice.
"You know something funny," said Sir Terence, as they sat down again. "I used to know a chap out in Singapore who was an absolute devil for the wives of any officer who was more than one rank above his. I think it was his own quiet way of mocking the Army without getting himself into serious trouble. Randy bugger, and no mistake. The wives used to call him "Half-Hard Horace". Well, one night out at Selarang Park, which was where most of the brass used to stay—"
The tall man in the toupee belched loudly. "I beg your pardon," he said. Then he sat back in his chair and examined his empty martini glass from a greater distance, as if he were longsighted. "I beg your pardon," he repeated.
Maurice, looked at Sir Terence and raised a questioning eyebrow. Sir Terence shrugged. Through the porthole of the smoking room, the evening sun shone as if it were being painted for the cover of a children's annual for 1925.
It was almost time to dress for dinner, and the orchestra could be heard in the background playing a smooth preprandial melody.
"Steward," called the tall man in the toupee. "I believe I'll have another of those martinis."
"I regret that they're limited to one to a passenger, sir."
"I see. Well, bring one for my friend here, and if he doesn't want it, I'll drink it for him."
Maurice took a ten-pounds note off the table and gave it to the steward. "'Bring the gentleman what he wants, okay? I'll make sure that he doesn't throw himself overboard, or anything picturesque like that."
The steward palmed the money as deftly as Maurice had been dealing cards. "Very good, sir," he said, with that distant rabbitlike stare that is acquired through years of pocketing tips.
THIRTY-FOUR
As soon as the storm subsided, Monty Willowby gave instructions for the Arcadia to be cleaned and disinfected, from the boat deck down to the waterline. It was an Augean task, involving the sluicing of hundreds of acres of corridors and dining rooms, the drying out of scores of rugs, and the remaking of more than a thousand bunks and beds. Broken plates and glasses had to be swept up, baths and basins scoured out, lavatories cleaned, and carpets (where anyone had been blessed with sufficient foresight to have them rolled up) replaced and fastened down.
Stewards went from cabin to cabin with tea, coffee, seltzer, and sandwiches. Any passenger who still felt chronically sick was wrapped in a blanket and ushered solicitously to the ship's hospital, which was directly over the swimming pool. Monty Willowby ordered the ship's printing press to run off 2,000 "storm certificates", which would be filled in with each passenger's name and presented as a souvenir of their experience. It had, after all, been the worst summer storm for four years.
Towards the cocktail hour, the ship began to return to normal. Welders and carpenters were out on the foredeck in a flurry of windblown sparks, patching up the damage to the railings and the knightsheads. Stewards were busily laying the tables for dinner and unfastening the fiddles which had kept the lunchtime cutlery in place. The chandeliers were glittering, and all the palms in the Palm Court had been restored to their upright positions. The kitchens began to clatter, and to fill their lungs again with the aroma of ris de veau Brillat-Savarin, chateaubriand cloute aux truffes, and la mousseline de grenouilles au Riesling—a delicate mousse of frogs' legs in Austrian wine.