When Eight Bells Toll

What the deuce did they want?’ He gave the distinct impression of having himself had some trouble with the customs in the past.

‘They were looking for stolen chemicals. Stolen from some place in Ayrshire. Wrong boat.’

‘Idiots!’ He thrust out a stubby hand, he’d passed his final judgment on the unfortunate customs and the subject was now closed. ‘Skouras. Sir Anthony Skouras.’

‘Petersen.’ His grip made me wince, less from the sheer power of it than from the gouging effects of the large number of thickly encrusted rings that adorned his fingers. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see some on his thumbs but he’d missed out on that. I looked at him with new interest. ‘Sir Anthony Skouras. I’ve heard of you of course.’

‘Nothing good. Columnists don’t like me because they know I despise them. A Cypriot who made his shipping millions through sheer ruthlessness, they say. True. Asked by the Greek Government to leave Athens. True. Became a naturalised British citizen and bought a knighthood. Absolutely true. Charitable works and public services. Money can buy anything. A baronetcy next but the market’s not right at the moment. Price is bound to fall. Can I use your radio transmitter? I see you have one.’

‘What’s that?’ The abrupt switch had me off-balance, no great achievement the way I was feeling.

‘Your radio transmitter, man! Don’t you listen to the news? All those major defence projects cancelled by the Pentagon. Price of steel tumbling. Must get through to my New York broker at once!’

‘Sorry. Certainly you may – but, but your own radio-telephone? Surely -’

‘It’s out of action.’ His mouth became more tight-lipped than ever and the inevitable happened: it disappeared. ‘It’s urgent, Mr Petersen.’

‘Immediately. You know how to operate this model?’

He smiled thinly, which was probably the only way he was capable of smiling. Compared to the cinema-organ job he’d have aboard the Shangri-la, asking him if he could operate this was like asking the captain of a transatlantic jet if he could fly a Tiger Moth. ‘I think I can manage, Mr Petersen.’

‘Call me when you’re finished. I’ll be in the saloon.’ He’d be calling me before he’d finished, he’d be calling me before he’d even started. But I couldn’t tell him. Word gets around. I went down to the saloon, contemplated a shave and decided against it. It wouldn’t take that long.

It didn’t. He appeared at the saloon door inside a minute, his face grim.

‘Your radio is out of order, Mr Petersen.’

‘They’re tricky to operate, some of those older jobs,’ I said tactfully. ‘Maybe if I -’

‘I say it’s out of order. I mean it’s out of order.’

‘Damned odd. It was working -’

‘Would you care to try it, please?’

I tried it. Nothing. I twiddled everything I could lay hands on. Nothing.

‘A power failure, perhaps,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll check -’

‘Would you be so good as to remove the faceplate, please?’

I stared at him in perplexity, switching the expression, after a suitable interval, to shrewd thoughtfulness. ‘What do you know, Sir Anthony, that I don’t?’

‘You’ll find out.’

So I found out and went through all the proper motions of consternation, incredulity and tight-lipped indignation. Finally I said: ‘You knew. How did you know?’

‘Obvious, isn’t it?’

‘Your transmitter,’ I said slowly. ‘It’s more than just out order. You had the same midnight caller.’

‘And the Orion.’ The mouth vanished again. ‘The big blue ketch lying close in. Only other craft in the harbour apart from us with a radio transmitter. Smashed. Just come from there.’

‘Smashed? Theirs as well? But who in God’s name – it must be the work of a madman.’

‘Is it? Is it the work of a madman? I know something of those matters. My first wife -’ He broke off abruptly and gave an odd shake of the head, then went on slowly: ‘The mentally disturbed are irrational, haphazard, purposeless, aimless in their behaviour patterns. This seems an entirely irrational act, but an act with a method and a purpose to it. Not haphazard. It’s planned. There’s a reason. At first I thought the reason was to cut off my connection with the mainland. But it can’t be that. By rendering me temporarily incommunicado nobody stands to gain, I don’t stand to lose.’

‘But you said the New York Stock -’

‘A bagatelle,’ he said contemptuously. ‘Nobody likes to lose money.’ Not more than a few millions anyway. ‘No, Mr Petersen, I am not the target. We have here an A and a B. A regards it as vital that he remains in constant communication with the mainland. B regards it as vital that A doesn’t. So B takes steps. There’s something damned funny going on in Torbay. And something big. I have a nose for such things.’

He was no fool but then not many morons have ended up as multi-millionaires. I couldn’t have put it better myself. I said: ‘Reported this to the police yet?’

‘Going there now. After I’ve made a phone call or two.’ The eyes suddenly became bleak and cold. ‘Unless our friend has smashed up the two public call boxes in the main street.’

‘He’s done better than that. He’s brought down the lines to the mainland. Somewhere down the Sound. No one knows where.’

He stared at me, wheeled to leave, then turned, his face empty of expression. ‘How did you know that?’ The tone matched the face.

‘Police told me. They were aboard with the customs last night.’

‘The police? That’s damned odd. What were the police doing here?’ He paused and looked at me with his cold measuring eyes. ‘A personal question, Mr Petersen. No impertinence intended. A question of elimination. What are you doing here? No offence.’

‘No offence. My friend and I are marine biologists. A working trip. Not our boat – the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.’ I smiled. ‘We have impeccable references, Sir Anthony.’

‘Marine biology, eh? Hobby of mine, you might say. Layman, of course. Must have a talk sometime.’ He was speaking absent-mindedly, his thoughts elsewhere. ‘Could you describe the policeman, Mr Petersen?’

I did and he nodded. ‘That’s him all right. Odd, very odd. Must have a word with Archie about this.’

‘Archie?’

‘Sergeant MacDonald. This is my fifth consecutive season’s cruising based on Torbay. The South of France and the ægean can’t hold a candle to these waters. Know quite a few of the locals pretty well by this time. He was alone?’

‘No. A young constable. His son, he said. Melancholy sort of lad.’

‘Peter MacDonald. He has reason for his melancholy, Mr Petersen. His two young brothers, sixteen years old, twins, died a few months back.

At an Inverness school, lost in a late snow-storm in the Cairngorms. The father is tougher, doesn’t show it so much. A great tragedy. I knew them both. Fine boys.’

I made some appropriate comment but he wasn’t listening.

‘I must be on my way, Mr Petersen. Put this damned strange affair in MacDonald’s hand. Don’t see that he can do much. Then off for a short cruise.’

I looked through the wheelhouse windows at the dark skies, the white-capped seas, the driving rain. ‘You picked a day for it.’

‘The rougher the better. No bravado. I like a mill-pond as well as any man. Just had new stabilisers fitted in the Clyde – we got back up here only two days ago – and it seems like a good day to try them out.’ He smiled suddenly and put out his hand. ‘Sorry to have barged in. Taken up far too much of your time. Seemed rude, I suppose. Some say I am. You and your colleague care to come aboard for a drink to-night? We eat early at sea. Eight o’clock, say? I’ll send the tender.’ That meant we didn’t rate an invitation to dinner, which would have made a change from Hunslett and his damned baked beans, but even an invitation like this would have given rise to envious tooth-gnashing in some of the stateliest homes in the land: it was no secret that the bluest blood in England, from Royalty downwards, regarded a holiday invitation to the island Skouras owned off the Albanian coast as the conferment of the social cachet of the year or any year. Skouras didn’t wait for an answer and didn’t seem to expect one. I didn’t blame him. It would have been many years since Skouras had discovered that it was an immutable law of human nature, human nature being what it is, that no one ever turned down one of his invitations.

‘You’ll be coming to tell me about your smashed transmitter and asking me what the devil I intend to do about it,’ Sergeant MacDonald said tiredly. ‘Well, Mr Petersen, I know all about it already. Sir Anthony Skouras was here half an hour ago Sir Anthony had a lot to say. And Mr Campbell, the owner of the Orion, has just left. He’d a lot to say, too.’