Now there was an interruption, welcome for many reasons, as Chief Steward Vincent led forward two more of their fellow-guests. He stood over them as they sat down.
"I'd like to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Kincaid," he said, professionally hearty. "Sir Hubert and Lady Beckwith, Mr. and Mrs. Tillotson, Mr. Walham."
The newcomers were greeted with slightly overdone enthusiasm; in the circumstances, any dilution of the table could only come as a relief. Kincaid looked what he was: a tough professional politician who had failed to make the grade from medium to top rank, from the hatchet to the walking-stick. The shock of grey hair and the gaunt face might have suited a governor or even a senator, if Kincaid had ever succeeded in becoming either; as he had failed, in circumstances of some notoriety, the hair looked, subtly, like a wig, and the gaunt face seemed merely hungry. His wife had that disappointed look peculiar to women who, goading their husbands by every means short of a spear between the shoulder-blades, see the goal receding, the world passing them by, the plums of office shrinking like raisins in the sun. But whatever the setbacks, the betrayals, the deals that came unstuck, the Kincaids were still in the ring, as their manner showed unmistakably; their reaction to "Sir Hubert and Lady Beckwith" was little short of a round of cheers, and their greeting of the others was on the same scale of buoyant good-fellowship. The habit of vote-snagging clearly died hard. On this occasion, they only lacked babies to kiss.
"Well, well, well," said Kincaid heartily, rubbing his hands. "Looks like we're all set for a wonderful trip."
This had not been the general impression a few seconds earlier; but such was the power of suggestion, the contagion of good humour, that for several minutes all was love. Tillotson and Kincaid discovered some mutual acquaintances in New York; Mrs. Kincaid was so determinedly obsequious to Lady Beckwith that the latter actually gave her a faint sketch of a smile; and Walham, burrowing his way into a second helping of the fish course, was for the moment neutralized. Then two spanners, one of them obscure, alighted in the works with successive thuds.
The first came when Mrs. Kincaid made the error of assuming that the Beckwiths had the Princess Suite.
"I hear it's lovely," she said enthusiastically. "How wonderful for you!"
"It certainly would be wonderful," said Lady Beckwith, with a return of her most acid manner, "if we had it. But we haven't. There was some stupid mix-up over the bookings."
"Oh," said Mrs. Kincaid, uncertainly. "I was sure—"
Mrs. Tillotson, who had overheard, leant forward, unwisely happy. "We have the Princess Suite," she said, with ingenuous satisfaction. "And you're quite right—it's a dream!"
"There was some mix-up," repeated Lady Beckwith, busily murdering a soft roll.
"I hadn't heard that," said Mrs. Tillotson quietly.
"Well, obviously there must have been," said Lady Beckwith. She made a gesture which somehow managed to include her husband's dinner-jacket, her own extensive jewellery, and Mrs. Tillotson's modest cocktail dress. "I mean to say . . ."
There was a glacial silence. It was broken by Walham, who leant across the table towards Kincaid, his mouth crammed, and asked:
"How are things in Dade County?"
Kincaid's expression changed, from public well-being to a kind of wary hostility. "You know Dade County?" he asked curtly.
"Only what I read in the newspapers." Walham's tone was offensively loaded. "But that's enough, for sure."
A hood seemed to come down over Kincaid's eyes. "You have to know all the circumstances—" he began.
His wife interrupted him. "The chief of police was a crook," she said, almost snarling. "That was proved!"
"I only asked," said Walham. "You've got to admit, Dade County was in the news."
Sir Hubert Beckwith, who had been dissecting his pheasant with the grace and skill common to all titled Englishmen eating off the cuff, looked up.
"Am I the only one," he asked superciliously, "who knows nothing at all about Dade County—not even where it is?"
"It's in Florida," said Walham. He grinned, unpleasantly. "Or it was, up till the time we sailed."
"Now just a minute—" began Kincaid angrily.
"The whole thing was a frame-up," said Mrs. Kincaid, near to shouting. Gone with the wind were public relations. "Those photostats were all fakes. What would my husband want with land-options? Just tell me that! Everyone knows this other gang had every hoodlum in Miami working for them! It was just smear, smear, smear, from beginning to end. Even the call-girls were fixed!"
In the interested silence that followed, Sir Hubert said coldly:
"I have never really understood American politics."
Unseen by him, a man and a woman had approached their table and now stood behind him, waiting uncertainly. The chief steward was busy with another table, and had not noticed their entrance. Finally the man, who was the sombre man from the Tapestry Bar, came forward a pace, bowed formally, and said:
"Zucco."
"No, thank you," said Sir Hubert, without turning his head.
"Zucco, Transaction Pictures," said the man again. He was now wearing a white tuxedo, a red bow-tie, and a scarlet cummerbund edged with sequins, but his expression of gloom was unaltered. "We're proud to be sitting with you fine people," he went on, as if he were the heavy lead in some stark Biblical drama. "And now I'd like you all to meet my lovely wife." -
The men stood up awkwardly as the introductions were made. Mr. Zucco's lovely wife was an exceptionally ugly woman of about fifty, the planes of whose face seemed long ago to have dissolved like melting gelatine. The wardrobe department of Transaction Pictures might well have had a hand in her jewellery, which was uniformly barbaric—enormous single-stone rings, bangles like slave-shackles, ear-rings like dwarf chandeliers. As she sat down she said: "I hope we haven't missed all the go-go-go stuff."
Her husband remained standing, looking down at the table-full of glum or angry people. Suddenly he stepped back, "sighting" them through his half-clenched hand against a background of cold ham and Stilton cheeses on a centre table. Then he shook his head and said: "Meaningful."
"Hannibal never stops running," said his wife in explanation.
Mr. Zucco said: "I'd like to get a shot of this whole significant group. Gracious living goes to sea. Fabulous! I can see it visually."
Sir Hubert Beckwith, whose expression indicated unmistakably that he feared the Zuccos were Jews, inquired acidly:
"How else would you see it?"
Mr. Zucco turned the full force of his sombre gaze on Sir Hubert. "That's something you can never get on film," he said finally. "No matter how hard you try."
"Try what?" asked Sir Hubert. "I don't understand."
"The British sense of humour," said Mr. Zucco, sitting down at last. "It just doesn't translate. Controlled! Razor-sharp! And subtle as hell!"
"I can assure you—" began Sir Hubert.
"Hubert!" said his wife crisply.
"Yes, dear?"
"Break off this scintillating conversation," said Lady Beckwith, "long enough to order some wine."
"Of course, dear."
"And I'd like a cigarette."
"Sorry, darling."
"And I want my other stole from the cabin."
"I'll get the steward."
"And pass the salt," said Walham.
First Officer Tiptree-Jones, in spite of an impeccable social manner, was having a hard time, and he was beginning to show it. At his table there was (as he privately phrased it) a really ripe collection of deadbeats; the three Beddingtons, who were uniformly speechless, the Gersons and the Bancrofts, who loathed each other, Mrs. Consolini, who thought she ought to be at the Captain's table, and Mrs. van Dooren, who by now had gone about as far as she could, alcoholically, without actually falling head first into the fruit basket. In the intervals of trying to entertain this truly remarkable melange of misfits, Tiptree-Jones brooded on the fact that the Captain must have done it to him on purpose. But why? It was not reassuring that he had eighty-four days in which to find out the answer.