“No, thank you,” said Robby.
Kelly snorted. “A mickey? Let’s get to business.”
“I assure you,” said the Major, but let it go at that.
The three were aboard Redoubtable for the confab. Sassi Manoon was locked away in another part of Redoubtable. Jigger and Miss Rushby were locked away aboard Nothing Ventured IV, with Frank on guard.
“We’re empowered to speak for our other partner,” Kelly now told the Major, “and Miss Rushby tells us you’re empowered to speak for her.”
The Major nodded. “Of course. Won’t you at least sit down? I promise the chairs are not booby-trapped.”
“Thank you,” said Robby.
They all took seats, and the Major said, “Now. Frankly, I’m at a loss. What is my friend doing on your boat? What are you all doing in this deserted place?”
“You broke into our caper,” Kelly told him. “It worked like a charm, just the way it was supposed to, and we wound up with Miss Rushby.”
“I beg your pardon. Did you say I broke into your caper?”
Robby explained, “We were after Sassi, too.”
The Major frowned. “Sassi? I don’t quite understand.”
“The kidnapping,” Robby said.
“Kidnapping? You mean Sassi Manoon?” The Major looked at them with shocked innocence. “Surely you aren’t asking me to join you in some sort of illegal—”
“Come off it, Major,” said Kelly. “We’ve had a long talk with your partner. We stole her by mistake out of that screening room.”
“You—” The Major stared from face to face, then suddenly burst out, “You were doing it, too!”
“Of course. That’s what we’ve been saying.”
“Oh, ho ho,” said the Major. He began boisterously to laugh, going. “Ho ho ho ho.” His face was getting red. He held his sides and laughed: “Ho ho ho.”
They waited till he’d subsided, and then Kelly said, “So you broke into our caper.”
“Oh, no, young man,” said the Major, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. “You broke into my caper, if it comes to that.”
“Which is which doesn’t matter,” Robby said. “The point is, we’re all in it together now.”
“I hardly see how you can draw that conclusion,” the Major said. “I have Miss Manoon.”
Kelly said, “We have Miss Rushby.”
The Major looked startled, then said, “I see.”
“So we work together,” Kelly said.
“Unless you’d like to trade even,” Robby suggested. “If you don’t want to work with us, that is.”
“And leave with nothing?”
“With Miss Rushby,” Robby pointed out.
The Major shook his head. “What is your other proposition?”
Kelly said, “Miss Rushby told us you were figuring on asking fifty thousand.”
The Major pursed his lips and said, “You have been chatting with her, haven’t you?”
“That was too little,” Kelly told him. “She’s worth millions.”
“You couldn’t get millions,” the Major said gently.
“I know it. What we were going to ask was her salary for one movie. Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
The Major made a face. “My dear boy, that’s unthinkable!”
“Miss Rushby convinced Starnap that was too much to ask,” Kelly admitted. “So we worked out a compromise figure. Four hundred thousand.”
“Four—”
“It’s high, but we’ll get it. And that makes one hundred thousand for each of us, and one hundred thousand for you and Miss Rushby together.”
Robby said, “This way, you’ll get twice as much as you figured.”
“And it’s safer,” Kelly added. “We’ve got a better way worked out for getting the ransom. That Swiss bank of yours wouldn’t touch the deposit if they knew it was ransom.”
Robby said, “But you’ve got a better hideout than we’d figured on. We were just going to lie low in a cove around on the western side of the island till after the ransom was paid.”
“You’d have been picked up in no time,” the Major told him.
“You may be right,” Robby said.
“Not necessarily,” said Kelly. “Starnap said it would work if we were careful. It said it was the best we could do.”
“I take it,” said the Major, “you want me to lead you to the place I had in mind for myself.”
“Yes,” said Robby. “The island.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you to keep me on as a full partner after we get there.”
“Of course not,” Kelly snapped. “Nobody trusts anybody.”
The Major made a wintry smile.
Robby said, “We have Miss Rushby, to make sure you won’t try anything. You have Sassi, and we’ll give you Frank.”
“Unarmed,” said Kelly.
“We aren’t killers,” said Robby. “And I don’t think you and Miss Rushby are either. Short of murder, there’s nothing any of us can do to get free of any of the others before this thing is over.”
“We know too much about each other,” said Kelly. “We could all pay back a double-cross with interest.”
“That’s perfectly true,” said the Major. He sighed, drilled his fingertips on his chair arm, pursed his lips, gazed out the window toward the other boat, shrugged, and finally said, “Very well. I can see where my best interests lie.”
“Good,” said Kelly.
“But since we are stuck with one another in any event, why bother with hostages? Why not return Miss Rushby, and keep your friend?”
“When we get to the island,” Robby said.
“With Frank over here and Miss Rushby with us,” Kelly said, “nobody’s likely to try any run-out powder.”
“Run-out powder?” The Major grimaced. “I suppose I understand that. Very well.” He got to his feet. “We would appear,” he said, “to be partners.”
“That’s good,” said Robby. He and Kelly also rose.
“But,” said the Major, speaking to Kelly, “it doesn’t seem the handshake sort of partnership, does it?”
“No,” said Kelly. “We’ll send Frank right over to you,” he said, “and then we’ll follow you to your island.”
“Very well.”
The Major watched them go over the side into their dinghy and row back toward Nothing Ventured IV. There on deck was the third young man, watching.
The Creswel boy had been right about one thing; none of them was a killer. If only he were a killer, the Major thought, he could take his Walther out right now and pot all three of them, the two in the dinghy and the one on the other boat over there.
“Drat,” said the Major.
(11)
Afloat
Sassi prowled her pigmy prison like a provoked panther. When it had finally become evident that battering at the door wasn’t going to do her any good, nor was shouting, nor was kicking the wall, nor was throwing the pillows around and dumping the contents of the drawers on the floor, she’d sat down on the bed to sulk and lick her knuckles. But when the boat had stopped, she’d found her own inaction no longer supportable, and so she’d gotten up and had started to march.
Some march. Three strides and about-face. Three strides and about-face. The cabin wasn’t meant for promenades.
What was happening out there? All she could see from the portholes was water and sky. Listening at the door she could hear voices, but not what they were saying. Then she couldn’t even hear voices.
What was going on? Ever since that limey bastard had walked into the screening room and told her Kama had been run over by a tourist, she’d been in a state, first of panic, then — when he’d flashed that nasty gun of his and forced her into his automobile — of terror, then — when he’d gagged her and tied her to a chair on the boat here — of outrage, and most recently — when he’d switched her from the chair to this room — of bewilderment. What was happening? What did he want from her? Not the fate worse than death, he was hardly the type. A kidnapping? That was ridiculous!