The Toff and the Deep Blue Sea (6 page)

He started for the stern and the anchor, heard another engine, looked towards the distant shore, and saw a launch bearing down upon the
Maria.

Standing in the thwarts were two
gendarmes.

 

 

One
gendarme
was fat, the other thin. They were approaching very fast, and into the slight wind, which had carried away the sound of their approach. Rollison stood and watched, his teeth clamped together. There was no doubt that they were bearing down on the
Maria.
At four hundred yards the fat one put a pair of binoculars to his eyes.

Rollison moved slowly to the engine-house, and deliberately switched off. Few things had ever cost him more effort; now nothing could stop the men from coming aboard. If he had made a run for it, he might have got ashore before they could catch up with him.

He'd taken his chance.

The
Maria
began to slow down. The launch with the two
gendarmes
was now only two hundred yards away. The tall policeman turned to the lean one, and said something; the other nodded.

Was this the vessel they were after?

The only reassuring thing was the fact that their revolvers stayed in their holsters.

The fat man bent down and picked up a megaphone. Rollison's French was good enough to understand nautical terms in spite of the distortion of the great horn.

“How many people have you on board?”

“Two,
messieurs!”
called Rollison, cupping his hands to make the words carry. His heart thumped, but his voice was steady.
“Mademoiselle, et moi aussi!”

“Where is
mademoiselle?
”

Rollison hesitated.

He couldn't even begin to guess what this was about; the questions gave him hope that the police would not come aboard – unless they found new reasons for suspicion. Violette in a
bikini
would not cause a moment's surprise; nylon flimsies might be a different matter.

“Below deck!” he called.

“We wish to see her.”

“I'll tell her to come.” Rollison turned away.

His heart was beating with steady, threatening thuds. The police might be looking for Violette. They might be intending to come aboard, just fooling him by pretending that they weren't in any great hurry.

He called down the saloon.

“Violette, will you come on deck?”

“A moment,” she answered, so quickly that he guessed that she had heard the shouting. At least she wouldn't be taken by surprise. The steadiness of her voice was a help, too. If she draped a rug round her – but would that make sense? The sun was so hot that flimsies would look more reasonable than a woollen rug.

He turned back to the launch.

It was coming up from the stern, after encircling the
Maria,
and was much nearer. The police could come alongside and on board at any moment. At closer quarters the fat man looked tough and leathery, and the lean one wiry. Both had shiny brown belts and holsters, with the revolvers easy to get at. A man at the helm of the launch was just another sailor, wearing a faded blue blouse and a pair of jeans. His blue beret was pushed to the back of his head. He could turn that launch almost in its own length.

Rollison heard the girl coming.

He didn't look round, but scanned the faces of the policemen for signs of surprise; and saw none. There was the same emotion on each; the look on their faces was the look of any man seeing Violette for the first time. The Toff turned to look at her.

She was very, very good; and his heart warmed.

She wore a fantastic modern beach-suit in the new fashion which looked like a harlequin's dress. It was of jade-green colour, with splashes of gold, covering all of her lovely body. She might as well have appeared without a stitch on, she caused the same kind of sensation.

She looked at the two
gendarmes;
and in her eyes was a kind of promise.

Was she aware of that? Did she know that she seemed to promise so much?

“Hallo, Violette,” said Rollison with commendable calm, and turned back to smile at the
gendarmes.
They had recovered from the sensation, but the moment when the man in each had pushed the policeman aside would live forever. “They want to speak to you.”

The fat policeman said: “That is not the lady we are looking for. Have you seen a boat, like yours, named the
Nuit Verte?”

“Nuit Verte,”
echoed Rollison, and found himself translating. “Green Night? No. But then, I haven't seen a cabin cruiser at all. I've had the helm lashed and have been below most of the time. Who's aboard her?”

“A young lady,” said the fat policeman, all his suspicion apparently gone. “One Mademoiselle Bourcy. So—” He held a hand at shoulder height. “No so tall as madame, not so—” He made a delightful gesture with his big clumsy hands and somehow managed to make it seem quite natural. “With fair hair—hair the colour of corn when it is cut.”

Gérard had hair that colour.

So had the girl sitting next to Raoul in the Citroen that morning.

“No,” said Rollison, “I haven't seen anyone like that. Have you, Violette?”

Violette looked down at the policemen as if at the most handsome men in the world.

“No, Richard,” she murmured.

“If you pass the
Nuit Verte,
inform the nearest
commissariat
de police
at once, if you please,” said the fat man. He touched his peaked helmet.
“M'sieu-Madame!”
The lean policeman echoed the last two words, and the man at the helm formed them vaguely with his lips. Then the launch sheered off, and Rollison turned to look into Violette's eyes. He knew that they were quite as beautiful as he had told himself before.

“Where do you keep the other Dior models?” he asked.

Her smile was just a flash of fine white teeth and of red lips. This was the first time that he had seen her without some kind of fear. The transformation seemed to have come with her clothes; she was gay, she was
happy.
Well, who could blame her? She had been through an ordeal by fear, she'd been rescued, she had fainted. When she had come round, she had heard the men talking, and somehow steeled herself to make another effort, and she had made it. Now, relief from tension, from urgent fear, showed in a gaiety that would probably fade as quickly as it had come.

“There are several,” she said; “apparently they always keep some clothes on board.” She eyed Rollison much as a man might eye a girl whom he had not really seen before. Her eyes had a kind of radiant mockery, as if she knew that she was doing to him what he should be doing to her. She made him conscious of his lean, muscular body, of the tan of his skin; and he smiled almost warily into her face. Her eyes laughed. “There is plenty even for you,
m'sieu.”

“Naked and unashamed,” said the Toff, “I am going to eat first; I'm hungrier than it's good to be. Would you care to stay up here and look for the
Nuit Verte?”

“Later,” said Violette, and moved and touched his arm. The radiance and the gaiety had vanished, shadows came back to her eyes. What had brought them back so suddenly? “M'sieu Rollison,” she said, “I owe you so much; I owe you everything. I can never thank you.”

But she tried.

She took his arms and pulled him close, and kissed him fiercely, almost savagely. She willed him to put his arms around her, to add to the pressure of her sudden passion.

Then they moved apart.

Without a word, Rollison led the way to the saloon, to the . succulent ham and the fresh croissants, the unsalted butter and a Camembert cheese which was almost a dream.

As it was almost a dream, anchored here, a few miles off Nice, between the place where he had seen death, and the place where he had sent Simon Leclair. He hadn't thought of Simon for a long time. He wondered if the clown would ever know the whole truth of what had happened. He didn't say much, and the mood of quietness was upon them both. There were a hundred things he wanted to know, but he had plenty of time to ask his questions; and he wanted Violette to begin to talk of her own free will.

She did.

“Last night,” she said, “I heard them plotting to kill you. There was Raoul, Morency and one other man, named Sautot. Morency is the English one.” She spoke as if Rollison knew all of these people, she had but to name them; and she looked into his eyes.

“What had I done to offend them?” Rollison asked mildly.

“You search for the girl, Daphne Myall,” Violette said flatly.

“Is she at the Villa Seblec?”

Violette shook her head, very slowly.

“No,” she said. “At least, I have not seen her there, and I live there. Why do you want her?”

Rollison said: “Her parents are nice people.”

The girl closed her eyes, as if that hurt. Rollison waited, convinced that it would be better if she volunteered everything she had to say.

She opened her eyes.

“That is a very good reason,” she said. “You will not believe it, but it is because of very nice parents that I am here, and in such danger.”

Rollison didn't speak.

“My own parents,” Violette went on. “They did not deserve to suffer,
m'sieu,
but suffer they did. Their other daughter, Marie, disappeared like this Daphne Myall. Then it was discovered that her good name and that of our parents had been used to swindle a man of a large fortune.” Violette paused, and shrugged. “She was last seen in Nice, at the
Baccarat
Club. Then she vanished. I came to look for her.”

Rollison said quietly: “And you haven't found her yet?”

“No,” said Violette. “I have not.”

“What have you found?”

Violette said bitterly: “I thought I had found happiness. I was fascinated, enraptured, blinded. I fell in love with—the Devil.”

The way she spoke told Rollison that this was as she felt.

He murmured: “This Chicot?”

The name seemed to hurt.

“What do you know of him?”

“The two men are frightened of him.”

“Yes, everyone becomes frightened of Chicot,” Violette told him slowly. “It was Chicot who made such a fool of me. I met him at the Villa Seblec, inquiring for Marie. When I think of it, I feel that he exerted a kind of spell. It was not his looks—they are not remarkable—but a kind of magic—”

She meant it.

Rollison waited.

She said abruptly: “I stayed there, with him. That was for some weeks. I allowed myself to be dominated by him. I lent myself to a plot in which an old man was swindled of a great sum of money. Old men are so credulous when a woman is beautiful,” she added wearily.

“All men,” Rollison murmured.

She said: “Then I began to realise what I had done, but I was trapped,
m'sieu.
I could not leave Chicot or the Villa without my share in the great swindle being revealed. That would hurt my parents so much more, and I stayed, telling them that I still searched for Marie.”

She turned away.

He did not force his questions, then.

The fans were on in the saloon. There was a kind of air-conditioning, which helped to cool the air. They had finished a meal, and had long drinks in front of them; hers a squash, his a lager. She still wore the harlequin beach-suit that was all concealing, and he had drawn on a pair of white shorts which he had found in the galley. It was cool, and they were well fed. But not for a moment had they been free from tension.

“Violette,” he said quietly, “I've some questions—and some may hurt.”

“I will answer if I can,” she promised.

“This Chicot—is he at the Villa now?”

“No.”

“Doesn't he live there?”

“No—he visits us sometimes.”

“What is he like?”

She hesitated. “To look at first, just an ordinary little man,” she said. “Nice, perhaps, with curly hair. Almost a boy, so innocent. What is your word?”

“Cherubic?”

“Exactly!” She was almost eager. “Then afterwards—so very cruel.”

“Did he trap your sister, too?”

“I think so.”

“Have you seen her at the Villa?”

“No.”

“Other girls?”

She shrugged.

“They come—and they go.”

“Where do they go?”

“That is what I cannot answer,” Violette told him. “There is something I do not understand. They come, they are gay and happy—and then they disappear. I have tried to find out where, but I cannot.”

“Are you still on good terms with Chicot?”

She flushed.

“I was, until recently.”

“What happened then?”

She said: “I was told to visit you, to find out what you wanted. I tried to. When I was back at the Villa, Chicot was there. I have never seen him or any man so angry.” She raised her hands, almost in self-defence. “How he raged—against
you.”

Rollison said sharply: “But why?”

“Some danger that you brought.”

“But I'd never heard of Chicot!”

“You were here, you were looking for a missing girl. You brought danger. You had to be killed; Raoul and Gérard or Sautot must do that, so—I wanted to warn you.”

“Why didn't you?”

Very simply she said, “Because I was afraid.”

 

On deck there was just the heat, the silence, the distant shore, and all about them the deep blue sea.

Rollison made sure that no other boat was near, and went below again.

 

“I was afraid, and so was Madeleine,” said Violette. “You saw her, perhaps?”

“I saw a fair-haired woman near you on the promenade, trying to attract my attention.”

“I do not mean her,” said Violette; “unless it was one who was anxious to see M. Rambeau's agent. Madeleine sat in the car, beside Raoul.”

Rollison could recall that fair girl and her terror.