Dot-dot-dash-dot . . . dot-dot-dash . . . dash-dot-dash-dot . . . She searched through her memory: wasn't that the call signal of the radio station at Cherbourg? Then he was giving his own call signal. Then, with the swift efficiency of a professional operator, he was tapping out his message. A telegram. "Baudier, Herqueville. . . . Arrive ce soir vers 9 heures demi. Faites préparer phares ..."
The names meant nothing to her; the message was unimportant—obviously Vogel must have a headquarters somewhere, which he would head for at such a time as this. But the fact that was thundering through her head was the radio itself. It wasn't merely in touch with a similar station at his headquarters—it could communicate openly with Cherbourg, and therefore presumably with any other wireless telegraph receiving station that it could reach. The Niton station in the Isle of Wight, for instance, might easily be within range; from which a telegram might be relayed by cable to St Peter Port . . . There seemed to be no question about the acceptance of the message. Obviously the Falkenberg was on the list of registered transmitters, like any Atlantic liner. She almost panicked for a moment in trying to recall the signal by which Vogel had identified himself, but she had no need to be afraid. The letters were branded on her memory as if by fire. Then, if she could only gain five minutes alone in the chair where Vogel was sitting . . .
He had finished. He took off the headphones, swung over the main switch in the middle of the panel, turned out the light which illuminated the cupboard, and closed the bookshelf door. It latched with a faint click; and he came towards her again.
"I didn't know you were so well equipped," she said, and hoped he would not notice her breathlessness. .
He did not seem to notice anything—perhaps he was so confident that he did not care. He shrugged.
"It is useful sometimes," he said. "I have just sent a message to announce that we shall soon be on our way."
"Where?"
"To Herqueville—below Cap de la Hague, at the northern end of the Anse de Vauville. It is not a fashionable place, but I have found it convenient for that reason. I have a chateau there where you can be as comfortable as you wish—after to-morrow. Or, if you prefer, we can go for a cruise somewhere. I shall be entirely at your service."
"Is that where you'll put the Saint ashore?"
He pressed up his under lip.
"Perhaps. But that will take time. You understand—I shall have to protect myself."
"If he gives you his word——"
"Of course, that word of a gentleman!" Vogel smiled sarcastically. "But you must not let yourself forget the other knightly virtue: Chivalry . . . He might be unwilling to leave you."
Loretta had put down her glass. Her head ached with the tumultuous racing of her brain; and yet another part of her mind was numb and unresponsive. She had reached a stage of nervous exhaustion where her thoughts seemed to be torn between the turmoil of fever and the blank stupor of collapse. What did anything matter? She passed a hand over her forehead, pushing back her hair, and said hazily: "But he mustn't know."
"Naturally. I should not attempt to reconcile him to our bargain. But he will want to know why you are staying with us, and we shall have to find a way to satisfy him. Besides, I have too much to risk . . ."
She half turned her head towards a window, so that she need not look at his smooth gloating face. Her head was throbbing with disjointed thoughts that she could not discipline. Radio. Radio. Peter Quentin. Roger Conway. Orace. Steve Murdoch. The Corsair. At St Peter Port. The Royal Hotel, If only a message could get through to them . . . And Vogel was still talking, with leisured condescension.
"You understand that I cannot go about with such a cargo as we shall have on board. And there have been other similar cargoes. The banks are no use to me, and they take time to dispose of. Therefore I have my own bank. Down at the bottom of the sea off Herqueville, under thirty feet of water, where no one could find it who did not know the exact bearing, where no one could reach it who did not possess equipment which would be beyond the understanding of ordinary thieves, I have such a treasure in gold and jewels as you have never dreamed of. When I have added to-day's plunder to it there will be nearly twelve millions; and I shall think that it may be time to take it away somewhere where I can enjoy it. It is for you to share—there is nothing in the world that you cannot have. To-night we shall drop anchor above it, and the gold of the Chalfont Castle will be lowered to the same place. I think that perhaps that will be enough. You shall go with me wherever you like, and queens will envy you. But I must see mat Templar cannot jeopardise this treasure."
He was looking at her sidelong; and she knew with a horrible despair that all his excuses were lies. Perhaps she had always known it. There was only one way in which the Saint could cease to be a danger, by Vogel's standards, and that was the way which Vogel would inevitably dictate in the end. But first he would play with them while it pleased him: he would let the Saint live —so long as in that way she might be made easier to enjoy.
"I suppose you must," she said; and she was too weary to argue.
"You will not be sorry."
He was coming closer to her. His hands touched her shoulders, slipped round behind her back; and she felt as if a snake had crawled over her flesh. He was drawing her up to him, and she half closed her eyes. It was a nightmare not to struggle, not to hit madly out at him and feel the clean shock of her young hands striking into his face; but it would have been like hitting a corpse. And what was the use? Even though she knew that he was mocking her with his promises and excuses, she must submit, she must be acquiescent, just as a man obeys the command of a gun even though he knows that it is only taking him to his death —because until the last dreadful instant there is always the delusion of life.
His lips were an inch from hers; his black stony eyes burned into her. She could see the waxen glaze of his skin, flawless and tight-drawn as if it had been stretched over a skull, filling her vision. Something seemed to break inside her head—it might have been the grip of the fever—and for a moment her mind ran clear as a mountain stream. And then her head fell back and she went limp in his arms.
Vogel held her for a second, staring at her; and then he put her down in a chair. She lay there with her head lolling sideways and her red lips open, all the warm golden life of her tempting and unconscious; and he gazed at her in hungry triumph for a moment longer before he rang the bell again for the steward.
"We will dine at eight," he said; and the man nodded woodenly. "There will be smoked salmon, langoustine Grand Duc, Suprême de volatile Bergerette, fraises Mimosa."
"Yes, sir."
"And let us have some of that Château Lafitte 1906."
He dismissed the man with a wave of his hand, and carefully pierced the end of a cigar. On his way out on to the deck he stopped by Loretta's chair and stroked her cheek . . .
All the late afternoon Simon Templar heard the occasional drone of the winch, the heavy tramp of feet on the deck over his head and the mutter of hoarse voices, the thuds and gratings of the incredible cargo coming aboard and being manhandled into place; and he also thought of Peter and Roger and Orace and the Corsair, back in St Peter Port, as Loretta had done. But most of all he was thinking of her, and tormenting himself with unanswerable questions. It was nearly eight o'clock when at last all the noises ceased, and the low-pitched thrum of the engines quivered again under his feet. He looked out of the port-hole, over the sheen of the oily seas streaming by, and saw that they were heading directly away from the purple wall of cloud rimmed with scarlet where the sun was dipping to its rest. A seaman guarded by two others who carried revolvers brought him a tray of food and a glass of wine; and half an hour later the same cortege came back for the tray and removed it without speaking. Simon lighted a cigarette and heard the key turn in the lock after them. For the best part of another hour he sat on the bunk with his knees propped up, leaning against the bulkhead, smoking and thinking, while the shadows spread through the cabin and deepened towards darkness, before he ventured to take out the instrument which Fortune had placed in his hands so strangely while he was opening the strong-room of the Chalfont Castle in the green depths of the sea.