Night Over Water (33 page)

Being this close to the famous Delhi Suite was so tantalizing as to be almost sexy. Somewhere on this plane, no more than a few yards from where he sat, was a fortune in jewelry. His fingers itched to touch it.

A million dollars in gems would be worth at least a hundred thousand from a fence. I could buy a nice flat and a car, he thought, or maybe a house in the country with a tennis court. Or perhaps I should invest it and live on the interest. I’d be a toff with a private income!

But first he had to get hold of the stuff.

Lady Oxenford was not wearing the jewelry; therefore it had to be in one of two places: the cabin baggage, right here in the compartment, or the checked baggage in the hold. If it were mine I’d keep it really close, Harry thought: I’d have it in my cabin bag. I’d be scared to let it out of my sight. But there was no telling how her mind worked.

He would check her cabin bag first. He could see it, under her seat, an expensive burgundy leather case with brass comers. He wondered how he might get inside it. Perhaps there would be a chance during the night, when everyone was asleep.

He would find a way. It would be risky: thieving was a dangerous game. But somehow he always got away with it, even when things went wrong. Look at me, he thought: yesterday I was caught red-handed, with stolen cuff links in my trousers pocket; I spent last night in jail; and now here I am going to New York on the Pan American Clipper. Lucky? It’s not the word!

He had once heard a joke about a man who jumped out of a tenth-floor window, and falling past the fifth floor was heard to say: “So far, so good.” But that was not him.

The steward, Nicky, brought the dinner menu and offered him a cocktail. He did not need a drink, but he ordered a glass of champagne just because it seemed like the right thing to do. This is the life, Harry boy, he said to himself. His elation at being on the world’s most luxurious plane vied with his anxiety about flying across the ocean, but as the champagne took effect, elation won out.

He was surprised to see that the menu was in English. Did the Americans not realize that posh menus were supposed to be in French? Perhaps they were just too sensible to print menus in a foreign language. Harry had a feeling he was going to like America.

The dining room seated only fourteen, so dinner would be served in three sittings, the steward explained. “Would you like to dine at six, seven thirty, or nine o’clock, Mr. Vandenpost?”

This might be his chance, Harry realized. If the Oxenfords ate earlier or later than he, he might be left alone in the compartment. But which sitting would they choose? Harry mentally cursed the steward for starting with him. A British steward would automatically have spoken to the titled people first, but this democratic American was probably going by seat numbers. He would have to guess what the Oxenfords would choose. “Let me see,” he said to gain time. Rich people ate their meals late, in his experience. A laborer might have breakfast at seven, dinner at noon and tea at five, but a lord would breakfast at nine, have lunch at two and dine at eight thirty. The Oxenfords would eat late, so Harry picked the first sitting. “I’m kinda hungry,” he said. “I’ll eat at six.”

The steward turned to the Oxenfords, and Harry held his breath.

Lord Oxenford said: “Nine o’clock, I think.”

Harry suppressed a smile of satisfaction.

But Lady Oxenford said: “That’s too long for Percy to wait—let’s make it earlier.”

All right, Harry thought uneasily, but not too early, for heaven’s sake.

Lord Oxenford said: “Seven thirty, then.”

Harry felt a little glow of pleasure. He was one step nearer the Delhi Suite.

Now the steward turned to the passenger opposite Harry, the guy in the wine red waistcoat who looked like a policeman. His name was Clive Membury, he had told them. Say seven thirty, Harry thought, and leave me alone in the compartment. But to his disappointment Membury was not hungry, and chose nine o’clock.

What a pain, Harry thought. Now Membury would be here while the Oxenfords were eating. Maybe he would step out for a few minutes. He was a restless type, always up and down. But if he would not go of his own accord Harry would have to find a way to get rid of him. That would have been easy if they had not been on a plane: Harry would have told him he was wanted in another room, or there was a telephone call for him, or there was a naked woman in the street outside. Here it might be harder.

The steward said: “Mr. Vandenpost, the engineer and the navigator will join you at your table, if that’s agreeable.”

“Sure is,” Harry said. He would enjoy talking to some of the crew.

Lord Oxenford ordered another whiskey. There was a man that had a thirst, as the Irish would say. His wife was pale and quiet. She had a book in her lap, but she never turned a page. She looked depressed.

Young Percy went forward to talk to the off-duty crew, and Margaret came and sat next to Harry. He caught a breath of her scent and identified it as Tosca. She had taken off her coat, and he was able to see that she had her mother’s figure: she was quite tall, with square shoulders and a deep bust, and long legs. Her clothes, good quality but plain, did not do her justice: Harry could imagine her in a long evening dress with a plunging neckline, her red hair up and her long white neck graced by drop earrings in carved emeralds by Louis Cartier in his Indian period.... She would be stunning. Obviously that was not how she saw herself. She was embarrassed about being a wealthy aristocrat, so she dressed like a vicar’s wife.

She was a formidable girl, and Harry was a little intimidated by her, but he could also see her vulnerable side, and he found that endearing. He thought: Never mind endearing, Harry boy—just remember that she’s a danger to you and you need to cultivate her.

He asked her if she had flown before. “Only to Paris, with Mother,” she said.

Only to Paris, with Mother, he thought wonderingly. His mother would never see Paris or fly in a plane. “What was it like?” he asked. “To be so privileged?”

“I hated those trips to Paris,” she said. “I had to have tea with boring English people when I wanted to go to smoky restaurants that had Negro bands.”

“My ma used to take me to Margate,” Harry said. “I used to paddle in the sea, and we had ice cream and fish-and-chips.”

As the words came out he realized that he was supposed to lie about this, and he felt panicky. He should be mumbling something vague about boarding school and a remote country house, as he normally did when forced to talk about his childhood to upper-class girls. But Margaret knew his secret, and no one else could hear what he was saying above the hum of the Clipper’s engines. All the same, as he found himself spilling out the truth, he felt as if he had jumped out of the plane and was waiting for his parachute to open.

“We never went to the seaside,” Margaret said wistfully. “Only the common people went paddling in the sea. My sister and I used to envy the poor children. They could do anything they liked.”

Harry was amused. Here was further proof that he had been born lucky: the wealthy children, driving in big black cars, wearing coats with velvet collars and eating meat every day, had envied him his barefoot freedom and his fish-and-chips.

“I remember the smells,” she went on. “The smell outside a pie-shop door at lunchtime; the smell of the oiled machinery as you go past a fairground; the cozy smell of beer and tobacco that comes out when a pub door opens on a winter evening. People always seemed to be having such fun in those places. I’ve never been in a pub.”

“You haven’t missed much,” said Harry, who did not like pubs. “The food is better at the Ritz.”

“We each prefer the other’s way of life,” she said.

“But I’ve tried both,” Harry pointed out. “I
know
which is best.”

She looked thoughtful for a minute, then said: “What are you going to do with your life?”

It was a peculiar question. “Enjoy myself,” Harry said.

“No, but really.”

“What do you mean, ‘really’?”

“Everyone wants to enjoy themselves. What will you do?”

“What I do now.” Impulsively, Harry decided to tell her something he had never revealed before. “Did you ever read
The Amateur Cracks-man,
by Homung?” She shook her head. “It’s about a gentleman thief called Raffles, who smokes Turkish cigarettes and wears beautiful clothes and gets invited to people’s houses and steals their jewelry. I want to be like him.”

“Oh, come on, don’t be silly,” she said brusquely.

He was a little hurt. She could be brutally direct when she thought you were talking nonsense. But this was not nonsense; this was his dream. Now that he had opened his heart to her, he felt the need to convince her that he was telling the truth. “It’s not silly,” he snapped.

“But you can’t be a thief all your life,” she said. “You’ll end up growing old in jail. Even Robin Hood got married and settled down eventually. What would you
really
like?”

Harry normally answered this question with a shopping list: a flat, a car, girls, parties, Savile Row suits and fine jewels. But he knew she would pour scorn on that. He resented her attitude; but all the same it was true that his ambitions were not quite so materialistic. He very much wanted her to believe in his dreams; and to his surprise he found himself telling her things he had never admitted before. “I’d like to live in a big country house with ivy growing up the walls,” he said.

He stopped. Suddenly he felt emotional. He was embarrassed, but for some reason he wanted very badly to tell her this. “A house in the country with a tennis court and stables, and rhododendrons all up the drive,” he went on. He could see it in his mind, and it seemed like the safest, most comfortable place in the world. “I’d walk around the grounds in brown boots and a tweed suit, talking to the gardeners and the stable boys, and they’d all think I was a real gent. I’d have all my money in rock-solid investments and never spend half the income. I’d give garden parties in the summer, with strawberries and cream. And five daughters all as pretty as their mother.”

“Five!” she laughed. “You’d better marry someone strong!” But she became serious immediately. “It’s a lovely dream,” she said. “I hope it comes true.”

He felt very close to her, as if he could ask her anything. “What about you?” he said. “Have you got a dream?”

“I want to be in the war,” she said. “I’m going to join the A.T.S.”

It still seemed funny, to talk about women joining the army, but of course it was common now. “What would you do?”

“Drive. They need women to be dispatch riders and ambulance drivers.”

“It will be dangerous.”

“I know. I don’t care. I just want to be in the fight. This is our last chance to stop Fascism.” Her jaw was set firm and there was a reckless look in her eye, and Harry thought she was terribly brave.

He said: “You seem very determined.”

“I had a ... friend who was killed by the Fascists in Spain, and I want to finish the work he began.” She looked sad.

On impulse, Harry said: “Did you love him?”

She nodded.

He could see that she was close to tears. He touched her arm in sympathy. “Do you still love him?”

“I always will, a little bit.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “His name was Ian.”

Harry felt a lump in his throat. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, and he would have done so had it not been for her red-faced father sitting on the far side of the compartment drinking whiskey and reading The Times. He had to be content with giving her hand a quick, discreet squeeze. She smiled gratefully, seeming to understand.

The steward said: “Dinner is served, Mr. Vandenpost.”

Harry was surprised that it was six o’clock already. He was sorry to break off his conversation with Margaret.

She read his mind. “We’ve got lots more time to talk,” she said. “We’re going to be together for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Right.” He smiled. He touched her hand again. “See you later,” he murmured.

He had started out befriending her in order to manipulate her, he remembered. He had ended up telling her all his secrets. She had a way of overturning his plans that was kind of worrying. Worst of all was that he liked it.

He went into the next compartment. He was a little startled to see that it had been completely transformed, from a lounge into a dining room. There were three tables each for four people, plus two smaller serving tables. It was set out like a good restaurant, with linen tablecloths and napkins, and bone china crockery, white with the blue Pan American symbol. He noticed that the walls in this area were papered with a design showing a map of the world and the same winged Pan American symbol.

The steward showed him to a seat opposite a short, thickset man in a pale gray suit that Harry rather envied. His tie was fixed with a stickpin that had a large, genuine pearl. Harry introduced himself, and the man stuck out a hand and said: “Tom Luther.” Harry saw that his cuff links matched the tiepin. Here was a man who spent money on jewelry.

Harry sat down and unfolded his napkin. Luther had an American accent with something else at the bottom of it, some European intonation. “Where are you from, Tom?” Harry said, probing.

“Providence, Rhode Island. You?”

“Philadelphia.” Harry wished to hell he knew where Philadelphia was. “But I’ve lived all over. My father was in insurance.”

Luther nodded politely, not much interested. That suited Harry. He did not want to be questioned about his background: it was too easy to slip up.

The two crew members arrived and introduced themselves. Eddie Deakin, the engineer, was a broad-shouldered, sandy-haired type with a pleasant face: Harry got the impression he would have liked to undo his tie and take off his uniform jacket. Jack Ashford, the navigator, was dark-haired and blue-chinned, a regular, precise man who looked as if he had been born in a uniform.