“So they’d get wet,” said Darkside. “Don’t suppose it would do them any harm. They can both swim, can’t they?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Gideon,” said Ardmore, provoked by the irritation which the accountant seemed always to inspire in him to say more than I think he had intended. “The tides here are among the most powerful in the world, and the currents correspondingly dangerous. You’d have to be a very strong swimmer indeed to have any chance of making it across St. Clement’s Bay when the tide is in.” He meant, it seemed to me, that it could not be done. “It would be better to stay put on the rock and hope to be rescued — but it wouldn’t be very long before you were underwater.”
“O dear God,” said the Count.
“But it couldn’t conceivably happen to Gabrielle,” said Ardmore, becoming aware that these last remarks were less than reassuring. “It can only happen to people who don’t know about the tides or are silly enough to forget about them. It’s out of the question for Gabrielle to do such a thing.”
“Suppose…” said Lilian timidly, “suppose they fell asleep.”
“My dear girl, that really is nonsense, you know. On a hot summer afternoon, perhaps, with a couple of hours to spend out at the rock before they had to come back, I suppose it could happen. But first thing in the morning, knowing they’d only got twenty minutes out there — no, my dear, the idea’s absurd.”
I did not doubt that he was right. And yet the image having once entered my mind would not easily leave it of a dark young man and an auburn-haired woman, asleep as if spellbound on the Sirens’ Rock, while the sea crept in to surround them in its implacable embrace.
The Count rose suddenly from his chair.
“I am sorry, but I can’t bear it, simply to go on sitting here. So many terrible things have happened, and Gabrielle is my wife. How can I sit here and do nothing when she may be in danger? Please, Patrick, I know that you will think me very foolish, but will you drive me out to St. Clement?”
“If that’s what you want, Giovanni, then of course I’ll drive you there. But I’m sure there’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing in this world.”
“But you see, Patrick,” said the Count sombrely, “I am not sure that it is anything in this world that I am afraid of.”
CHAPTER 17
I have endeavoured throughout my account of the Daffodil affair to present the evidence to my readers in the order in which it became available to me, neither concealing any facts of which I was aware nor anticipating those of which I was as yet ignorant. It would be difficult, however, to understand clearly what occurred during the next half hour without knowing of certain other events which took place outside the range of my observation. I have accordingly thought it right — all the more readily because the contrary decision might perhaps have been attributed to a vulgar and meretricious desire to create what is termed suspense — to interpolate at this point in my narrative a letter, written by Julia, which I did not in fact see until some time later.
SOMEWHERE OVER THE CHANNEL
TUESDAY MORNING
Dearest Selena,
Although it seems far from certain when, if at all, I shall be able to send this to you, or whether, if and when I am, it will represent the most expeditious means of communication, I shall not on that account deprive myself of the consolation of writing to you and the benefit, if only in fancy, of your always invaluable advice. I am beginning to feel that I may have acted unwisely.
When Cantrip rushed into my room yesterday afternoon, saying that he was obliged to go instantly to Jersey and asking me to stand substitute for him in the arrangements made for the entertainment of his uncle, he gave me little opportunity for reflection or refusal. Taking my compliance for granted, he rushed out again, pausing only to thrust into my hands two telex messages, one from Clementine and one from Gabrielle, which he claimed would enable me to explain everything to Henry. You will have found these enclosed with the note I left for you.
The Colonel’s idea of a real evening out, apparently, is one which begins at about eleven o’clock at night and continues until dawn. I accordingly took the precaution of having two or three hours’ sleep beforehand, and was sufficiently invigorated to share his disappointment when the nightclub which enjoyed our custom decided to close at the absurdly early hour of 4 A.M. I persuaded him to leave, however, without any unduly vigorous protest, and we set forth in search of breakfast.
It is extraordinary how difficult it is to find breakfast in central London at four o’clock in the morning — one would have thought, with all the initiative and enterprise that is supposed to be about nowadays, that the area round Co vent Garden would at that hour be full of charming little cafés eager to offer refreshment to the passing reveller. This proving, however, not to be the case, we were eventually obliged to walk back to Lincoln’s Inn and make coffee for ourselves in Chambers.
It was thus that I found much earlier than could reasonably have been expected the telex message from Hilary which I also enclosed in my note to you — the one which seemed to imply that if Cantrip went to Jersey he would be in some serious danger. I read it with great anxiety, shared, when I showed it to him, by the Colonel.
We drank some strong coffee to clarify our minds, wondering what we should do, and it occurred to me that it might be helpful to look again at the two other telex messages which Cantrip had given me. It struck me, when I looked more closely at the one purporting to be from Gabrielle, that there was something distinctly odd about it.
Gabrielle, as you know, has spent most of her adult life in the employment of a Swiss bank, and on matters of secrecy and confidentiality she has become, if I may so express it, more Swiss than the Swiss. And yet there, where any Swiss banker I have ever met would have written “in connection with the matter we were speaking of,” was the phrase “in connection with the Daffodil Settlement.”
I told the Colonel that in my opinion the message was spurious, and we were at one in concluding, in the light of the telex from Hilary, that it had been sent for some very sinister purpose.
“Dirty work at the crossroads,” said the Colonel. “We’d better get over there and put a stop to it.”
Left to myself, I am bound to say, I should not have thought of so energetic a course of action, but I would not have liked the Colonel to think — nor indeed would I have wished to think it of myself — that if Cantrip were in serious danger I would be deterred by mere indolence from doing anything to assist him. I reflected, moreover, that the Colonel, by virtue of his profession, had long experience of what to do when people are trying to kill people, whereas I had the good fortune to have none, and accordingly it was right that I should defer to his judgment. I pointed out, however, that the early morning plane to Jersey, even if we could obtain seats on it, was unlikely to arrive in time for us to play any useful part in whatever dirty work might be in progress.
The Colonel spoke dismissively of aeroplanes and said that what we wanted was a helicopter. I at first found this remark somewhat lacking in realism, since I saw no prospect of our being able to obtain such a thing, still less of our finding anyone to fly it.
“Nonsense, my dear,” said the Colonel, “I was flying choppers before you were born. And I know where to get hold of one easily enough — still got a few contacts from the old days, you know. The problem’s getting to it — pity we’ve got no wheels.”