"I'm sure they wouldn't do that."
"You've got to watch it all the time," said Walham. He looked closely at the Professor. "Have you had your morning tea, for instance?"
"Of course," answered the Professor. "1 make it myself."
"Make it yourself! Why, for God's sakes? Tea's available from seven a.m. It says so in clear print. I ought to know. That's the time that I have it, every morning. I put in a standing order. And if it doesn't turn up, on the dot, with a jug of hot water as well, I want to know why."
"But I like to make it myself," said the Professor. "It tastes better."
"Tastes?" repeated Walham. "What's that got to do with it? They say you can have tea. Then have tea. Whose side are you on, anyway?"
"No side," answered the Professor, with dignity. "I've usually found that it's perfectly easy to arrange these things without any unpleasantness."
Walham shook his head, irritated and unappeased. "It's people like you," he said, "who let them get away with murder. First thing you know, they'll put a ten-per-cent surcharge on all the stuff you order at the bar. They'll tell you the cost of living's gone up, or some damn' thing."
"Oh, I hope not," said the Professor, with feeling.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," said Walham. He prepared to resume his walk. "Well, let's get our money's worth out of the deck, at least."
"Does that sort of thing really worry you?" asked the Professor innocently.
"It pleases me!" answered Walham, with sudden grisly relish. "Budgeting! I built up my business by watching the budget. Not just half the time, not just when I remembered to check, but all the time. Ten cents here, fifteen cents there—that's cost-accounting! And it's not just a hobby, it's a science. The greatest!"
After a pause: "If it is not impertinent," said the Professor, preparing to move on, "might I ask how that fits in with—" he waved his hand round the Alcestis, "—with all this? It's very much of a luxury, surely?"
"It's a vacation," Walham corrected him, with clipped determination.
"I've earned it, I've paid the asking price, and I'm getting my money's worth. Just watch me!"
"But what about the budget? What about extras?"
"What extras?" asked Walham suspiciously.
"Well—" the Professor cast about for an innocuous phrase, "for pleasure, for entertainment, for—shall we say—the bright lights?"
"Sex," said Walham, reaching past the unessentials. He seemed within an ace of reaching for his notebook as well. "I'm not all that dumb, you know. And I'm not dead yet, either. You'll find an entry under sex in my budget. It's down there in black and white."
No man alive could have resisted the vital question. "How much?" asked the Professor.
"Two hundred dollars," said Walham promptly. "Maximum, twenty dollars a throw—I've been around, I know the prices, don't fool yourself! That's ten throws, spread over three months. It's plenty for a man of my age."
"Two hundred dollars," the Professor repeated, thoughtfully. "I wonder if you can stick to that."
"I'd just like to see the situation," answered Walham, "where I can be gouged for one red cent more."
He took his leave, fiercely confident, while the Professor, shaking with inward laughter, continued on an opposite course. He had a sudden vision, delicious yet terrifying, of the confronting of Diane and Walham—whether before or after the act did not matter-when the question of a twenty-dollar fee was brought squarely into the open. He saw it taking place at dawn; in the wan light Walham was counting out twenty one-dollar bills—no, the last dollar would be in quarters—while an enraged Diane stood with her hand open, repeating " 'Ere, wot's this?" like a London taxi-driver. The Professor laughed aloud at that, and laughing, was himself confronted with someone else he must talk to. It was Mrs. Kincaid, making an early foray into the world of public relations.
"Why, Professor!" She looked at him with a hard stare of speculation, as if the time might have come to re-assess his category.This one could be nuts, her glance seemed to say: I'll have to go over the files. ... " I declare, someone must have told you one of those men's stories!"
The Professor raised his ancient hat, bowing with the irresistible courtliness which had made him very popular on board. "Dear lady!" he exclaimed. "How very nice. . .. No, no story—just a passing thought which I won't inflict on you. And how is the senator, on this fine morning?"
You know darn well my husband isn't a senator." But Mrs. Kincaid was smiling; she liked the Professor, in the sense that he was a nonentity who could neither help nor harm her, and therefore demanded no special handling.
The Professor smiled in turn. "I merely anticipate. As a humble voter, I know a prospective senator when I see one. . . . You are out very early, surely?"
"Just looking round," answered Mrs. Kincaid—and it was bound to be true. She had already established herself as the most inquisitive woman on board; if you wanted to know anything about anyone's antecedents, you came to Mrs. Kincaid. "I was woken up early this morning—a lot of cabin-doors were opening and shutting." She smiled—a crocodile smile which creased her mouth but left her eyes unblinkingly alert. "There's a lot going on in this ship that people don't know about."
"Dear me," said the Professor mildly. "I had no idea. What is going on?"
"I'd hate to tell you. . . . You know that couple that always sit by themselves—the big man, and the blonde girl with the terrible legs?"
The Professor nodded. "The Burrells?"
"The Burrells." Mrs. Kincaid sniffed, as if an air of corruption had invaded the boat-deck. "I don't think they're even married!"
"Dear me," said the Professor again. "What makes you say that?"
"Oh—just a hunch. She's French, you know, or she says she is. There's always something off-beat about Continentals. They don't think the way we do. Sort of loose. You know what I mean?"
"Well—" said the Professor.
"And another thing." Well launched, Mrs. Kincaid held him with a hypnotic glance. "Those Zuccos, the ones that sit at the Captain's table with us. You know, I think they're actually Jewish!"
"I had no idea."
"Oh, you can always tell. Haven't you noticed how he talks with his hands? Gee, I hate that! Their cabin is near ours—too near, if you want to know the truth. They just never stop arguing. I didn't think we'd get that sort of thing on board a boat like this."
"It takes all sorts to make a world," said the Professor, finding refuge in sententiousness. Privately, he considered Mrs. Kincaid entirely odious, but she was a useful channel of communication none the less; long training in the unique arena of Florida politics had given her a matchless instinct for detection—the probing and ruin of the weak, the suspicion and undermining of the strong. If there were any short-cuts to hurtful knowledge, Mrs. Kincaid could supply them. Intent on this aspect, he took pains to produce a conspiratorial smile. "What was that you said about cabin-doors opening and shutting?"
"Now, Professor!" she said, catching his mood. "Sometimes it doesn't do to ask too many questions."
"But really," he insisted.
"Well, I'll tell you." She came close to him—a tough, sketchily-groomed woman in the hard morning sunlight. She looked awful— awful and useful. "You know there's a woman called Mrs. Stewart-Bates?"
"Certainly." Sudden wariness made him confine his answer to this single word.
"She's made one or two trips on this boat already. Claims she's like that with the Captain." Mrs. Kincaid laid one finger on top of the other, in a crude gesture. "I wouldn't know about that. But I do know that someone—maybe the Captain, maybe not—pays a hell of a lot of visits to her cabin. You can hear voices all the time. Don't ask me what the attraction is. Maybe they talk about world conditions. Maybe he's nuts—maybe he'd have to be." Her expression was indescribably vicious and unpleasant. "But the traffic to and fro—I can tell you, it's quite something!"