2
Jacques Descartes surveyed the limp piece of bacon on his fork as if mesmerised by it.
“It is a great institution, your English bacon and eggs, is it not?” he observed, entirely without conviction. “A breakfast which is yet adaptable for any mealtime.”
“That’s the best I could do,” Arabella said, sulkily defensive, “with what I found on board. And anyway, I don’t recall being hired as a cook — on my own yacht. You’re lucky to get anything at all.”
“Of course, Madame, of course,” Descartes said hurriedly. “I did not mean... it is an excellent repast — an excellent impromptu repast.”
He looked expectantly around the table, and after a slight delay some grudging grunts of assent were forthcoming from Bernadotti and Pancho.
Simon Templar, who had helped rinse the strips of bacon and spread them out to dry on a towel in the galley, after they had fallen into some washing-up water, thought it politic to change the subject.
“You were saying something to Mrs Tatenor,” he reminded Descartes. “About the bullion robbery.”
“Ah yes — yes.”
Descartes impaled another piece of bacon on his fork, dipped it into the congealing eggs on his plate, and conveyed it to his mouth with a valiantly repressed shudder. After minimal mastication he swallowed it with evident relief and made a visible effort to recover the mood of story-telling flamboyance which Arabella’s culinary offerings had interrupted.
“Picture if you will, Madame — a crystal clear night. The moon is a brilliant yellow cavaillon melon... Suddenly — there is the ship. Outwardly a small passenger vessel, but in secret also a bullion ship. So low she floats in the water — so heavy with gold! Then — a burst of shots in the air, we stop her, we climb aboard. Everyone — hands up! We open the cargo hold — and there — there it is, gleaming in the moonlight. Gold, Madame — so much gold! Gleaming bricks of gold. So many, one could build a house from them!”
Descartes glanced at the faces of his audience of four — two of whom were remembering the night with him as he spoke. He continued with rising animation.
“So much gold! And all is perfect. No violence, as it was with the pirates of old. We had done it better — the shots only for effect. And then...”
“Then — the champagne!” reminisced Bernadotti, his fork in his left hand and his automatic in his right where it had remained all through the evening.
“Yes!” Descartes beamed as he relived the excitement. “Some passengers are drinking champagne. We take it. We drink our own toast — to success!”
The Saint pushed his empty plate aside.
“And where’s friend Karl during all this revelry?” he asked.
“Karl? He is in our boat. At the wheel, waiting.” As he continued the story Descartes’ smile slowly faded. “You will understand — Karl was employed with the Paris bank, and so he was important to the planning of the robbery. But also, even then, he was a driver of fast boats.”
Arabella shifted impatiently on her chair.
“Well — what happened next?”
“The champagne, alas, was our undoing. We finished first the loading — we transfer the gold. Now our launch — she is low in the water, but still a very fast boat. We drink a final toast. Then suddenly, comes the French coastguard — an armed boat! And we are caught.”
He paused and leaned forward, his smile completely gone now, and his face reddening.
“Do you listen, Madame? We are caught — except for Karl, and the gold. Brrrmmm! He goes. Very fast. The gunboat shoots, he drives dodging. They chase — many miles. So it is told at the trial, our trial. But Karl — he escapes. And afterwards, there is prison for us.”
“We get eight lousy years apiece in jail.” Bernadotti spat the words out sourly. “And your goddamn Charles gets clean away. Pfft! Vanishes into thin air.”
“Until last month,” Descartes continued, “when we see a magazine regarding the boating, and the race which is to take place from the island. And there on the page — a photograph. He is older, yes. White hair, yes. A different name. But the same man. Our Karl Schwarzkopf!” He turned again to Arabella. “Madame, would you not, in our place, desire that gold?”
“Yes,” said Arabella. “And in my place, too... Anyone for more bacon?”
During the answering rush of unenthusiasm Simon thought over the account they had just heard. It had certainly put some colourful flesh on what until then had been the bare bones of a story; but it had added nothing much of new substance, except perhaps the fact that Schwarzkopf, as he then was, had given the coastguard the slip after “many miles” in a good boat that must have been heavily weighed down with gold. Whether it could have reached the Coriscan coast from the vicinity of Marseille in one hop, or at all, was certainly open to question.
The Phoenix, however, had indubitably made that trip on a number of occasions, if Finnegan was to be believed; and she was now, as the night wore on, a good halfway there once again. A little while before, Simon had given the helm back, somewhat dubiously, to a Finnegan who was at least two sheets to the wind.
“Don’t you worry. I could navigate her in me sleep, so I could,” he had maintained.
Simon hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but as a precaution he had insisted that Bernadotti receive some elementary instruction and be prepared to stand by as a reserve helmsman. This arranged, Simon and Arabella had at last settled their suitcases in the Phoenix’s two comfortable guest staterooms. Descartes and his henchmen having cautiously elected to remain for the night in the saloon, that left Finnegan in continued occupation of his regular port-side cabin, which adjoined the galley.
Arabella, pleading tiredness, had gone to her cabin soon after the bacon-and-egg meal; and the Saint now decided to amble back up to the wheelhouse to reassess the current juggedness of Finnegan.
The two sheets to the wind had become two and a half, as the Saint had guessed from the movement of the boat. The bibulous Captain was groggy and bleary-eyed, but still standing.
“In Dublin’s fair ci-ty,” he sang, and wound the wheel right “...where the girls are so pret-ty... I forrst set me eye-ees...” He wound the wheel left, as he sang unsteadily on: “... on sweet Mol-ly Ma-lone...”
Simon shook his head sadly in a kind of tolerant wonderment, and went aft to look out over the stern.
On the calm sea the Phoenix’s wake was clearly visible in the moonlight for perhaps half a mile back. It described a pronounced zig-zag; a small redeeming feature being that the directional trend of the wake, if the zig-zags were averaged out, was fairly consistent, which meant that Finnegan was at least managing to maintain the Phoenix’s over-all course.
The Saint was making his way forward again — having decided to leave Finnegan where he was for a while longer but to remove all and any further alcoholic temptation that might be at hand — when he became aware of a pulsating quality in the light reflecting off the sea on the ship’s starboard side. At the same instant a bellow from Bernadotti, who happened to be on deck at the time, indicated that he too had noticed the pulsations of light and had likewise worked out what must be happening.