When Eight Bells Toll

"I didn't tell you. I shone a torch in his face. The face didn't register, just a white blur with screwed-up eyes half-hidden behind an upflung hand. I was really looking lower down, picking the right spot to kick him. But they weren't to know that. They wanted to find out if we would recognise him. We didn't. If we had done we'd either have started throwing the crockery at him or yelped for the cops to arrest them - if we're against them then we're with the cops. But we didn't. Not a nicker of recognition. Nobody's as good as that. I defy any man in the world to meet up again in 'the same night with a man who has murdered two other people and nearly murdered himself without at least twitching an eyebrow. So the immediate heat is off, the urgent necessity to do us in has become less urgent. It's a safe bet that if we didn't recognise Durran, then we recognised nobody on the Nantesville and so we won't be burning up the lines to Interpol"

"We're in the clear?"

"I wish to God we were. They're on to us."

"But you said------"

"I don't know how I know," I said irritably. "I know. They went through the after end of the Firecrest like a TrebleChance winner hunting for -the coupon he's afraid he's forgotten to post. Then half-way through the engine-room search - click! - just like that and they weren't interested any more. At least Thomas wasn't. He'd found out something. You saw him afterwards in the saloon, the fore cabins and the upper deck. He couldn't have cared less."

"The batteries?"

"No.  He was satisfied with my explanation.   I could tell. I don't know why, I only know I'm sure."

"So they'll be back."

"They'll be back."

"I get the guns out now?"

"There's no hurry. Our friends will be sure we can't communicate with anyone. The mainland boat calls here only twice a week. It came to-day and won't be back for four days. The lines to the mainland are down and if I thought for a moment they would stay down I should be back in kindergarten. Our transmitter is out. Assuming there are no carrier pigeons in Torbay, what's the only remaining means of communication with the mainland?"

"There's the Shangri-la." The Shangri-la, the nearest craft to ours, was white, gleaming, a hundred and twenty feet long and wouldn't have left her owner a handful of change from a quarter of a million pounds when he'd bought her, "She'll have a couple of thousand quids' worth of radio equipment aboard. Then there are two_s maybe three yachts big enough to carry transmitters. The rest will carry only receivers, if that."

"And how many transmitters in Torbay harbour will still be in operating condition to-morrow?"

"One."

"One. Our friends will attend to the rest. They'll have to. We can't warn anyone. We can't give ourselves away,"

"The insurance companies can stand it." He glanced at his watch. "This would be a nice time to wake up Uncle Arthur."

"I can't put it off any longer." I wasn't looking forward to talking to Uncle Arthur.

Hunslett reached for a heavy coat, pulled h on, made for the door and stopped, "I thought I'd take a walk on the upper deck. While you're talking. Just in case. A second thought - I'd better have that gun now. Thomas said they'd already checked three boats in the harbour. MacDonald didn'tcontradict him, so it was probably true. Maybe there are no serviceable transmitters left in Torbay now. Maybe our friends just dumped the cops ashore and are corning straight back for us."

"Maybe. But those yachts are smaller than the Firecrest. Apart from us, there's only one with a separate wheel-house. The others will carry transmitters in the saloon cabin. Lots of them sleep in their saloon cabins. The owners would have to be banged on the head first before the radios could be attended to. They couldn't do that with MacDonald around."

"You'd bet your pension on that? Maybe MacDonald didn't always go aboard."

"I'll never live to collect my pension. But maybe you'd better have that gun."

The Firecrest was just over three years old. The Southampton boatyard and marine-radio firm that had combined to build her had done so under conditions of sworn secrecy to a design provided by Uncle Arthur. Uncle Arthur had not designed her himself although he had never said so to the few people who knew of the existence of the boat. He'd pinched the idea from a Japanese-designed Indonesian-owned fishing craft that had been picked up with engine failure off the Malaysian coast. Only one engine had failed though two were installed, but still she had been not under command, an odd circumstance that had led the alert Engineer Lieutenant on the frigate that had picked her up to look pretty closely at her: the net result of his investigation, apart from giving this splendid inspiration to Uncle Arthur, was that the crew still languished in a Singapore prisoner of war camp.