Bagley, Desmond - The Golden Keel Read online

  It is doubtful if Metcalfe would know what they were if he saw them, but the fact that they were masquerading in innocence would make him wonder a lot. It would be a certain clue that we were up to no good.

  A check over the boat showed that everything was in order. Apart from the furnaces, and the spare graphite mats which lined the interior of the double coach roof, there was nothing on board to distinguish us from any other cruising yacht in these waters.

  I said, "Perhaps the Moroccan has been doing some exploring on his own account."

  Coertze swore. "If he's been poking his nose in where it isn't wanted I'll throw him overboard."

  I went on deck. The Moroccan was still squatting on the foredeck. I said interrogatively, "Mr. Metcalfe?"

  He stretched an arm and pointed across the harbour to the Fairmile. I put the dinghy over the side and rowed across. Metcalfe hailed me as I got close. "How's Walker?"

  "Feeling sorry for himself," I said, as Metcalfe took the painter. "A pity it happened; he'll probably be as sick as a dog when we get under way."

  "You leaving?" said Metcalfe in surprise.

  I said, "I didn't get the chance to tell you last night. We're heading for Spain." I gave him my prepared story, then said, "I don't know if we'll be coming back this way. Walker will, of course, but Coertze and I might go back to South Africa by way of the east coast." I thought that there was nothing Eke confusing the issue.

  "I'm sorry about that," said Metcalfe. "I was going to ask you to design a dinghy for me while you were here."

  "Tell you what," I said. "I'll write to Cape Town and get the yard to send you a Falcon kit. It's on me; all you've got to do is pay for the shipping."

  "Well, thanks," said Metcalfe. "That's decent of you." He seemed pleased.

  "It's as much as I can do after all the hospitality we've had here," I said.

  He stuck out his hand and I took it. "Best of luck, Hal, in all your travels. I hope your project is successful."

  I was incautious. "What project?" I asked sharply.

  "Why, the boatyard you're planning. You don't have anything else in mind, do you?"

  I cursed myself and smiled weakly. "No, of course not."

  I turned to get into the dinghy, and Metcalfe said quietly, "You're not cut out for my kind of life, Hal. Don't try it if you're thinking of it. It's tough and there's too much competition."

  As I rowed back to Sanford I wondered if that was a veiled warning that he was on to our scheme. Metcalfe was an honest man by his rather dim lights and wouldn't willingly cut down a friend. But he would if the friend didn't get out of his way.

  At three that afternoon we cleared Tangier harbour and I set course for Gibraltar. We were on our way, but we had left too many mistakes behind us.

  IV. FRANCESCA

  When we were beating through the Straits Coertze suggested that we should head straight for Italy. I said, "Look, we've told Metcalfe we were going to Spain, so that's where we are going."

  He thumped the cockpit coaming. "But we haven't time."

  "We've got to make time," I said doggedly. "I told you there would be snags which would use up our month's grace; this is one of the snags. We're going to take a month getting to Italy instead of a fortnight, which cuts us down to two weeks in hand -- but we've got to do it. Maybe we can make it up in Italy."

  He grumbled at that, saying I was unreasonably frightened of Metcalfe. I said, "You've waited fifteen years for this opportunity -- you can afford to wait another fortnight. We're going to Gibraltar, to Malaga and Barcelona; we're going to the Riviera, to Nice and to Monte Carlo; after that, Italy. We're going to watch bullfights and gamble in casinos and do everything that every other tourist does. We're going to be the most innocent .people that Metcalfe ever laid eyes on."

  "But Metcalfe's back in Tangier."

  I smiled thinly. "He's probably in Spain right now. He could have passed us any time in that Fairmile of his. He could even have flown or taken the ferry to Gibraltar, dammit. I think he'll keep an eye on us if he reckons we're up to something."

  "Damn Walker," burst out Coertze.

  "Agreed," I said. "But that's water under the bridge."

  I was adding up the' mistakes we had made. Number one was Walker's incautious statement to Aristide that he had drawn money on a letter of credit. That was a lie -- a needless one, too -- I had the letter of credit and Walker could have said so. Keeping control of the finances of the expedition was the only way I had of making sure that Coertze didn't get the jump on me. I still didn't know the location of the gold.

  Now, Aristide would naturally make inquiries among his fellow bankers about the financial status of this rich Mr. Walker. He would get the information quite easily -- all bankers hang together and the hell with ethics -- and he would find that Mr. Walker had not drawn any money from any bank in Tangier. He might not be too perturbed about that, but he might ask Metcalfe about it, and Metcalfe would find it another item to add to his list of suspicions. He would pump Aristide to find that Walker and Halloran had taken an undue interest in the flow of gold in and out of Tangier.

  He would go out to the Casa Saeta and sniff around. He would find nothing there to conflict with Walker's cover story, but it would be precisely the cover story that he suspected most -- Walker having blown hell out of it when he was drunk. The mention of gold would set his ears a-prick -- a man like Metcalfe would react very quickly to the smell of gold -- and if I were Metcalfe I would take great interest in the movements of the cruising yacht, Sanford.

  All this was predicated on the fact that Walker had not told about the gold when he was drunk. If he had, then the balloon had really gone up.

  We put into Gibraltar and spent a day rubber-necking at the Barbary apes and looking at the man-made caves. Then we sailed for Malaga and heard a damn' sight more flamenco music than we could stomach.

  It was on the second day in Malaga, when Walker and I went out to the gipsy caves like good tourists, that I realised we were being watched. We were bumping into a sallow young man with a moustache everywhere we went. He sat far removed when we ate in a sidewalk cafe, he appeared in the yacht basin, he applauded the flamenco dancers when we went to see the gipsies.

  I said nothing to the others, but it only went to confirm my estimate of Metcalfe's abilities. He would have friends in every Mediterranean port, and it wouldn't be difficult to pass the word around. A yacht's movements are not easy to disguise, and he was probably sitting in Tangier like a spider in the centre of a web, receiving phone calls from wherever we went. He would know all our movements and our expenditure to the last peseta.

  The only thing to do was to act the innocent and hope that we could wear him out, string him on long enough so that he would conclude that his suspicions were unfounded, after all.

  In Barcelona we went to a bull fight -- the three of us. That was after I had had a little fun in trying to spot Metcalfe's man. He wasn't difficult to find if you were looking for him and turned out to be a tall, lantern-jawed cut-throat who carried out the same routine as the man in Malaga.

  I was reasonably sure that if anyone was going to burgle Sanford it would be one of Metcalfe's friends. The word would have been passed round that we were his meat and so the lesser fry would leave us alone. I hired a watchman who looked as though he would sell his grandmother for ten pesetas and we all went to the bull-fight.

  Before I left I was careful to set the stage. I had made a lot of phoney notes concerning the costs of setting up a boatyard in Spain, together with a lot of technical stuff I had picked up. I also left a rough itinerary of our future movements as far as Greece and a list of addresses of people to be visited. I then measured to a millimetre the position in which each paper was lying.

  When we got back the watchman said that all had been quiet, so I paid him off and he went away. But the papers had been moved, so the locked cabin had been successfully burgled in spite of -- or probably because of -- the watchman. I wondered how much he had b
een paid -- and I wondered if my plant had satisfied Metcalfe that we were wandering innocents.

  From Barcelona we struck out across the Gulf of Lions to Nice, giving Majorca a miss because time was getting short. Again I went about my business of visiting boatyards and again I spotted the watcher, but this time I made a mistake.

  I told Coertze.

  He boiled over, "Why didn't you tell me before?" he demanded.

  "What was the point?" I said. "We can't do anything about it."

  "Can't we?" he said darkly, and fell into silence.

  Nothing much happened in Nice. It's a pleasant place if you haven't urgent business elsewhere, but we stayed just long enough to make our cover real and then we sailed the few miles to Monte Carlo, which again is a nice town for the visiting tourist.

  In Monte Carlo I stayed aboard Sanford in the evening while Coertze and Walker went ashore. There was not much to do in the way of maintenance beyond the usual housekeeping jobs, so I relaxed in the cockpit enjoying the quietness of the night The others stayed out late and when they came back Walker was unusually silent.

  Coertze had gone below when I said to Walker, "What's the matter? The cat got your tongue? How did you like Monte?"

  He jerked his head at the companionway. "He clobbered 'someone."

  I went cold. "Who?"

  "A chap was following us all afternoon. Coertze spotted him and said that he'd deal with it. We let this bloke follow us until it got dark and then Coertze led him into an alley and beat him up."

  I got up and went below. Coertze was in the galley bathing swollen knuckles. I said, "So you've done it at last. You must use your goddamm fists and not your brains. You're worse than Walker; at least you can say he's a sick man."

  Coertze looked at me in surprise. "What's the matter?"

  "I hear you hit someone."

  Coertze looked at his fist and grinned at me. "He'll never bother us again -- he'll be in hospital for a month." He said this with pride, for God's sake.

  "You've blown it," I said ti ghtly. "I'd just about got Metcalfe to the point where he must have been convinced that we were O.K. Now you've beaten up one of his men, so he knows we are on to him, and he knows we must be hiding something. You might just as well have phoned him up and said, 'We've got some gold coming up; come and take it from us.' You're a damn fool."

  His face darkened. "No one can talk to me like that." He raised his fist.

  "I am talking to you like that," I said. "And if you lay one finger on me you can kiss the gold good-bye. You can't sail this or any other boat worth a damn, and Walker won't help you -- he hates your guts. You hit me and you're out for good. I know you could probably break me in two and you're welcome to try, but it'll cost you a cool half-million for the pleasure."

  This showdown had been coming for a long time.

  He hesitated uncertainly. "You damned Englishman," he said.

  "Go ahead -- hit me," I said, and got ready to take his rush.

  He relaxed and pointed his finger at me threateningly. "You wait until this is over," he said. "Just you wait -- we'll sort it out then."

  "All right, we'll sort it out then," I said. "But until then I'm the boss. Understand?"

  His face darkened again. "No one bosses me," he blustered.

  "Right," I said. "Then we start going back the way we came -- Nice, Barcelona, Malaga, Gibraltar. Walker will help me sail the boat, but he won't do a damn' thing for you." I turned away.

  "Wait a minute," said Coertze and I turned back. "All right," he said hoarsely. "But wait till this is over; by God, you'll have to watch yourself then."

  "But until then I'm the boss?"

  "Yes," he said sullenly.

  "And you take my orders?"

  His fists tightened but he held himself in. "Yes."

  "Then here's your first one. You don't do a damn' thing without consulting me first." I turned to go up the companion-way, got half-way up, then had a sudden thought and went below again.

  I said, "And there's another thing I want to tell you. Don't get any ideas about double-crossing me or Walker, because if you do, you'll not only have me to contend with but Metcalfe as well. I'd be glad to give Metcalfe a share if you did that. And there wouldn't be a place in the world you could hide if Metcalfe got after you."

  He stared at me sullenly and turned away. I went on deck Walker was sitting in the cockpit. "Did you hear that?" I said.

  He nodded. "I'm glad you included me on your side."

  I was exasperated and shaking with strain. It was no fun tangling with a bear like Coertze -- he was all reflex and no brain and he could have broken me as anyone else would break a match-stick. He was a man who had to be governed like a fractious horse.

  I said, "Dammit, I don't know why I came on this crazy trip with a dronkie like you and a maniac like Coertze. First you put Metcalfe on our tracks and then he clinches it."

  Walker said softly, "I didn't mean to do it. I don't think I told Metcalfe anything."

  "I don't think so either, but you gave the game away somehow." I stretched, easing my muscles. "It doesn't matter; we either get the gold or we don't. That's all there is to it."

  Walker said "You can rely on me to help you against Coertze, if it comes to that1."

  I smiled. Relying on Walker was like relying on a fractured mast in a hurricane -- the hurricane being Coertze. He affected people like that; he had a blind, elemental force about him. An overpowering man, altogether.

  I patted Walker on the knee. "O.K. You're my man from now on." I let the hardness come into my voice because Walker had to be kept to heel, too. "But keep off the booze. I meant what I said in Tangier."

  II

  The next stop was Rapallo, which was first choice as our Italian base, provided we could get fixed up with a suitable place to do our work. We motored into the yacht basin and damned if I didn't see a Falcon drawn up on the hard. I knew the firm had sold a few kits in Europe but I didn't expect to see any of them.

  As we had come from a foreign port there were the usual Customs and medical queries -- a mere formality. Yachtsmen are very well treated in the Mediterranean. I chatted with the Customs men, discussing yachts and yachting and said that I was a boat designer and builder myself. I gave the standard talk and said that I was thinking of opening a yard in the Mediterranean, pointing to the Falcon as a sample of my work.

  They were impressed at that. Anyone whose product was used six thousand miles from where it was made must obviously be someone to be reckoned with. They didn't know much about local conditions but they gave me some useful addresses.

  I was well satisfied. If I had to impress people with my integrity I might as well start with the Customs. That stray Falcon came in very handy.

  I went ashore, leaving Walker and Coertze aboard by instruction. There was no real need for such an order but I wanted to test my new-found ascendancy over them. Coertze had returned to his old self, more or less. His mood was equable and he cracked as few jokes as usual -- the point being that he cracked jokes at all. But I had no illusions that he had forgotten anything. The Afrikaner is notorious for his long memory for wrongs.

  I went up to the Yacht Club and presented my credentials. One of the most pleasant things about yachting is that you are sure of a welcome in any part of the world. There is a camaraderie among yachtsmen which is very heartening in a world which is on the point of blowing itself to hell. This international brotherhood, together with the fact that the law of the sea doesn't demand a licence to operate a small boat, makes deep-sea cruising one of the most enjoyable experiences in the world.

  I chatted with the secretary of the club, who spoke very good English, and talked largely of my plans. He took me into the bar and bought me a drink and introduced me to several of the members and visiting yachtsmen. After we had chatted at some length about the voyage from South Africa I got down to finding out about the local boatyards.

  On the way round the Mediterranean I had come to the conclusion that
my cover story need not be a cover at all -- it could be the real thing. I had become phlegmatic about the gold, especially after the antics of Walker and Coertze, and my interest in the commercial possibilities of the Mediterranean was deepening. I was nervous and uncertain as to whether the three of us could carry the main job through -- the three-way pull of character was causing tensions which threatened to tear the entire fabric of the plan apart. So I was hedging my bet and looking into the business possibilities seriously.

  The lust for gold, which I had felt briefly in Aristide's vault, was till there but lying dormant. Still, it was enough to drive me on, enough to make me out-face Coertze and Walker and to try to circumvent Metcalfe.

  But if I had known then that other interests were about to enter the field of battle I might have given up there and then, in the bar of the Rapallo Yacht dub.

  During the afternoon I visited several boatyards. This was not all business prospecting -- Sanford had come a long way and her bottom was foul. She needed taking out of the water and scraping, which would give her another half-knot. We had agreed that this would be the ostensible reason for pulling her out of the water, and a casual word dropped in the Yacht Club that I had found something wrong with her keel bolts would be enough excuse for making the exchange of keels. Therefore I was looking for a quiet place where we could cast our golden keel.

  I was perturbed when I suddenly discovered that I could not spot Metcalfe's man. If he had pulled off his watchdogs because he thought we were innocent, then that was all right. But it seemed highly unlikely now that Coertze had given the game away. What seemed very likely was that something was being cooked up -- and whatever was going to happen would certainly involve Sanford. I dropped my explorations and hurried back to the yacht basin.

  So "I wasn't followed," I said to Coertze.

  "I told you my way was best," he said. "They've been frightened off."