Andersson was in his bunk, flat out, a sheet drawn half across his naked, hairy chest, arms flung wide, chest rising and falling rapidly — as though he was breathless from running. There was a stink of whisky on his breath as Shaw approached. A half-empty bottle stood on the shelf beside the bunk. Shaw jabbed the man with his gun, and Andersson sat up, blinked, looked startled and angry.
He demanded, “What does this mean?”
“Beautifully done,” Shaw said savagely, “but not quite beautiful enough. It means this: you tried to kill me, just as you killed Gresham, and—”
“Really, I don’t—”
“Listen, Karstad. Or Andersson, if you prefer it. I’ll give you thirty seconds. If you haven’t told me by that time exactly what you’re doing aboard this ship, I’ll shoot.”
He held the gun steady at the man’s stomach.
Andersson laughed. He — said calmly, “Really, my dear fellow, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard such a thing… you’ll hear more of this—”
“I’m waiting.”
Andersson shrugged. “Then you may go on waiting, if you wish to. I do not believe you will kill an accredited agent of the Swedish Government!” There was a triumphant, confident glitter in the man’s eyes. As Shaw heard a movement behind, he half turned. Two night-stewards were in the doorway and behind them was a master-at-arms and then more heads bobbing about. He heard Andersson say,
“Will you kindly take this man away at once? I shall make my complaint to the Captain in the morning. Meanwhile, I wish to sleep.”
Shaw swallowed.
One of the men came in, took away his gun. Shaw’s eyes blazed with helpless fury, but he shut his mouth tight, said nothing. In front of all these people there was nothing he was permitted to say, nothing that he must give away in self-justification, and again he had no proof of what Andersson must have tried to do. He was taken away from the cabin, along the alleyways past the curious, staring eyes and the rising sound of many voices, was taken up to the Captain’s cabin.
When he had heard Shaw’s story, Sir Donald, looking grim, poured out two stiff whiskies. He said abruptly, “We both need that. Well, now. You have made an exhibition of yourself — what?”
Shaw looked up, saw the faint twinkle in the Captain’s eye. He said, “I suppose I have, but I know he came to do me in. There wasn’t anything else I could do.”
“That may be, but the problem is, what am I going to do about you? I can’t appear to let this go altogether.” The Captain rubbed his jaw. “Damned unfortunate you didn’t wait till he’d actually got inside the cabin, and then you could have nailed him for good and all.”
“I meant to, but he heard me go for my gun.”
Sir Donald said, “Well, Shaw, I’ll get the doctor to have a look at you. He knows a certain amount about all this now. He can say you were wandering — in the head, I mean, sudden breakdown, anything you and he can work out together. You needn’t be charged with anything then — it’ll be my job to see to that, anyway. So don’t worry.” He gave a short laugh. “We’ll have to persuade O’Hara not to prescribe hospitalization and landing you at Fremantle!”
Shaw sat back thoughtfully in his armchair. He said slowly, “You know… I believe you’ve got something there, sir. Talking about Fremantle, I mean. I’ve been thinking…"
“Well?”'
“I’d better explain fully, hadn’t I?” Shaw told the Captain what the Radio Officer had said about transmissions from the tanker, adding that he himself was satisfied that the Tungtai’s wireless room had been unmanned all the time he had been aboard. Since she was, according to the Radio Officer, unlikely to have a secondary transmitting position— a supposition with which the Captain agreed — Shaw’s deduction was the obvious one: that there may have been in fact another transmitter somewhere in the vessel, but that it may not necessarily have been a ship’s set.
He went on, “That set, whatever it was, was apparently sending out those three-letter groups — and REDCAP operates on three-letter groups. Do you see, sir?”
Sir Donald stared. “You mean they were trying to interfere with REDCAP?”
“Yes, I do. I don’t quite see how, or what they meant to do, unless they can jam REDCAP somehow or other, say by making identical signals from outside. Or something far worse… actually operating REDCAP by remote control, as it were, and not just using it as a blackmailing tool.”
“Good heavens!” Sir Donald’s ruddy face paled. “You can’t mean—"
“It’s all right, sir, nothing’ll have happened yet. You’ll remember Gresham’s signals, the fake set. Let’s assume they were copied. Well, they’ll have been the ones in use aboard the tanker — Andersson could have handed them over to a contact in Port Said — so they’d have been getting negative results. They could even have arranged that as a test, just to make sure. And I think that may have been what Andersson was after to-night — thought I might have the genuine article in my safe, quite apart from the fact that he’d be wanting to get rid of me anyway.”
“But how would he know the fake set had been rumbled? He wouldn’t even have known it was a fake.”
“There was that cable you sent down, sir. It was Greek to me — had to do with his supposed job as a salesman. But that could have given him the tip.”
“That’s possible. Well, who d’you think was using the transmitter aboard the Tungtai, Shaw?”
“Lubin himself.”
Sir Donald nodded rather whitely. “That’s what I was afraid you’d say. And we let him get away.” He pulled at his bushy eyebrows. “My God, Shaw, it rather looks as though we’ve messed things up, doesn’t it!”
“I have, sir. Not you.” Shaw’s face was grey and drawn with worry now, and he sat forward earnestly. “Time’s running out now and something else is going to happen pretty soon. They’ve failed so far, just as much as I have, but they’re bound to have other arrangements which they’ll put into effect if the Tungtai’s not intercepted. Well — they’ve got from now until REDCAP gets to Bandagong. It would be just as well to cut that time to a minimum, or at least let ’em
think it’s cut. And I’ve got an idea which I believe could work.”
“Go on.”
Shaw explained: “If your carpenters could make a crate exactly the same as the one REDCAP’s in, and fill it with anything they can find that’s heavy enough to correspond exactly with the weight, we could land that at Fremantle. I can arrange with my contact in Sydney to have the arrangements switched — ostensibly, that is — to Fremantle. Meanwhile, the ship goes on, takes the real crate round to Sydney, and discharges it as planned. That’ll draw the trail off REDCAP proper, and also draw attention away from the ship, of course.”
Sir Donald said, “Yes, but why not land the real job at Fremantle, and take the fake on to Sydney as a blind?”
“Well, sir, because I’ve a hunch the one landed at Fremantle’s going to come in for a spot of attention. And anyway it’s a little late in the day now to switch full, genuine security precautions. There’s a hell of a lot of route preparation to be done, you see.”
“How’s the word going to reach the other side, Lubin’s people?”
Shaw said, “It won’t take Andersson long to tick over when he sees that crate going ashore in Fremantle. My man in Sydney can arrange a nice little calculated leak too. Well, sir?”
Sir Donald laughed. “It’s certainly all right with me! Only too glad to draw attention away from the ship.” He got up. “I’ll see to it that the crate’s made, as quickly and as secretly as possible.”