Cheval also. Okay, so he'd been sick. Looked well enough now. And April was proud of her French. But: "Pardon, mam'selle," he'd said. "I prefer to speak English." Small talk — all the time small talk, and not much of that. Not enough to trap a casual word and link it with any known facts. And the sun shone, and the flying fish flew, and Mark Slate was up the mast again reporting his action. "And how is Miss Dancer?" "Oh, lush, sir, very lush and golden brown!" And bored and bitchy.
The new passengers made the bar more full. They drank with her, and smiled, and minded their own business. The island of Providencia lay smudged-olive to starboard as the Island Traveller came in wide to miss the currents. Taradata was three days ahead. But at last a link would be there to follow through.
Mark had relayed his session with Chas, who had assumed a new respect in her eyes. The first steward April had met who actually owned the boat in which he so ably served, although in a somewhat menial position. But a key position. Chas had contact with everyone.
Mark had checked out a few more H.Q. details about Chas. He was, in fact, a follower of Y-Shan-U — an obscure but powerful island religious sect — and his status was more or less the equivalent of a high priest. As such he was allowed up to six wives — his weakness being the Palaga "wife", as H.Q. had shrewdly assessed, because that was Chas's only business marriage. Under Palaga law, the names of directors of companies need not be made public. The Palaga "wife" was his co-director, her brother secretary. The money to sustain his other households came through this connection.
H.Q. felt that Chas was a red herring in this affair. He kept out of all rackets, yet collected from as many as he could. Such was the Palaga custom. He'd once been a Silver Greyhound — a British Government Foreign Office messenger — and a wartime V.C. He had even been an undercover man in the Far East and the Caribbean, and on special assignment around the Pacific ports. Then he had gone on to the island boats. Chucked everything. Clammed up. A keeper of a thousand secrets all right. But no part of THRUSH. No part of anything, except himself, and the Y Shan-U in which he fervently believed.
April managed to wangle her tour of the ship, but this too proved frustrating. Maleski, the brisk guide around the working parts, was a slick avoider of the very sections she had hoped to check. Later, having thus observed the lay out of the ship, she donned buttock-tight slacks and did a whistle-stop tour under her own steam. Amidships she found evidence of a new bulkhead. No rust, fresh paint, but a dingy shade which gave an appearance of old paint.
The whole structure had a strange feel. April purposely upset her purse so as to scrabble around on the floor of the section leading to a luggage hold. She had almost reached the conclusion that the bulkhead wasn't steel and had a clearance between it and the floor when, "Yee-ow!" she yelped, as Lucy Padrack's parasol blade penetrated her rump.
"Oh, my dear — it's you!" said Lucy Padrack, as if she didn't know. "I thought it was one of those young girls from Corn Island. The crew's quarters are strictly taboo to them. It's only a little jab — it won't bleed much." Her eyes glittered. "Dropped your purse, did you? Or are you being rather naughty? Some of the crew are so attractively uncouth, aren't they? And they come this way to their quarters."
"You should know," said April savagely.
She wasn't quite sure how it happened.
Lucy Padrack suddenly let fly with a stream of invective, in a flaring jealousy by an older woman against a young and lovely one. The words were coarse and ugly, bitter in their biological descriptions, carried on a richly vibrant voice which added to the sheer horror of them. Spoken in the hysterical strains of a screaming virago, or the fishwife intonations of a slut, they would have been evil enough — but in that staggeringly beautiful voice these obscenities were doubly foul.
This was personal — woman to woman, a gushing release from a tortured mind, yet not uncontrolled. Lucy Padrack's eyes didn't glare. She didn't froth at the mouth, nor claw with trembling hands. The filth poured out of her with deliberate slashing venom.
For a few seconds April assessed the possibility that the Padracks had linked her as an agent and that this was a way of building up to an open attack — perhaps with the parasol stiletto. Then she knew it wasn't so.
No doubt Lucy Padrack had been nursing this ever since she saw April. Many women of Lucy's age felt that way about all young, attractive females. And made a hell of their menfolks' lives with their endless suspicions, real or imagined. The man didn't really matter — he was merely a focal point at which all the pent-up viciousness could be directed. Female youth, beauty, sex appeal, freshness and charm were the enemy.
But Lucy Padrack was different. Obviously unrestricted in personal affairs, she and Simon Padrack appeared to have worked out their own pattern of living. It looked as if both kept all emotion out of their relationship and, if the research files were correct, this system allowed them to be a successful business team. Not unusual, but always harder for the woman to be as objective as the man. And if her need for sexual release is strong and requires such types as Lucy apparently favoured, then a bubbling cauldron can seethe beneath the lid of the marriage pot.
It could boil over more or less safely with the man of her choice, but Lucy could never escape the eternal female pressure caused by a younger, more attractive woman. Her husband had removed himself as a focal point, but if she lambasted him, he would swiftly dissolve the business partnership before it became too threatened. And there was no doubt in April's mind that Simon Padrack wouldn't hesitate to do that. Emotional blackmail would leave him cold.
All this background of human frailty was obvious to the trained mind of the U.N.C.L.E. agent. Such psychological and biological functions, and the patterns of behaviour which emanated from them, had been an important part of her education. She had majored in philosophy, and the U.N.C.L.E. advanced training courses on the role of women in espionage and counter-espionage gave clear knowledge of these matters based upon case files.
This intensive training also made her more aware of her own feminine intuitiveness and how it could be directed, controlled and applied at the correct times. But it was never really easy to use. A prodigious mental effort was needed constantly and objectively. Most women found it easier to go out of control deliberately. A man usually shied from emotional scenes that drained him but fed her, and so would capitulate. Block or remove this obliging and comparatively docile object of release and who the hell would listen to a woman's screaming vituperations? Another woman? Not blooming likely!
As April Dancer reached this moment of truth, she knew why Lucy Padrack had suddenly and apparently gone berserk. And in this moment realized that she too was bored, frustrated, and not a little peeved over lack of attention to her own feminine self — and with a whoop, almost of joy, she burst into glorious action.
"Why, you stupid bitch!" said April Dancer, when Lucy Padrack had paused for breath. "How dare you talk to me like that! How dare you stick your absurd little toy dagger into me! I'll have your guts for garters!"
She slammed a judo chop on Lucy's arm. The parasol fell. April kicked it away.