A Fine Night for Dying

“And Rossiter?”

Mercier shrugged. “They came back this morning, just before noon, in the Englishman’s boat.”

“That would be a man called Gorman?”

Mercier nodded. “We’ve done a lot of business with him in the past. He’s always in and out of here.”

“What about the authorities?”

“In these parts, monsieur?” Mercier shrugged. “People mind their own business.”

Chavasse nodded. “What happened to Rossiter and the others? Are they still at the Running Man?”

Mercier shook his head. “Monsieur Rossiter left just after noon in the Renault. He took the Indian girl and the Chinese man with him. The Chinese man was heavily bandaged about the face.”

“How did the girl look?”

“How would you expect her to look, monsieur? As beautiful as ever.”

“I don’t mean that. Did she seem afraid at all-afraid of Rossiter?”

Mercier shook his head. “On the contrary, monsieur. She looked at him as if he were…” He seemed to have difficulty in finding the right word. “As if he were…”

“God?” Darcy Preston suggested.

“Something like that, monsieur.”

He was strangely calm and unafraid and the answers came readily. Chavasse let it go for the moment and carried on. “Where did they go?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Come off it, Mercier, you can do better than that. Try Hellgate, for a start, and Montefiore-don’t tell me you’ve never heard of them?”

“Of course, monsieur. I have heard those two names on several occasions-snatches of conversation between Jacaud and Monsieur Rossiter, but that is all. To me they are names and nothing more.”

He was speaking the truth. Chavasse was certain, which didn’t seem to make any kind of sense.

“What’s happened, Mercier?” he said softly. “You’re a different man.”

Mercier turned without a word, walked to a door, opened it and stood to one side. “Messieurs,” he said, with a small hopeless gesture.

Chavasse and Preston moved to join him and looked into a small, cluttered sitting room. A plain wooden coffin rested on the table, a candle at each end.

Chavasse closed the door gently. “Your wife?”

Mercier nodded. “Not a day without pain for four years, monsieur, and yet she never complained, although she knew there could be only one end. I tried everything. Big doctors from Brest, expensive medicines-all for nothing.”

“That must have cost money.”

Mercier nodded. “How else do you think I came to be working for an animal like Jacaud? For my Nanette-only for Nanette. It was for her that I endured so much horror. For her and her alone that I kept my mouth shut.”

“You’re saying you went in fear of your life?”

Mercier shook his head. “No, monsieur, in fear for my wife’s life, of what that devil Rossiter might do to her.”

“He made such threats?”

“To keep me quiet. He had to, monsieur, particularly after a trip some weeks ago when I sailed on the Leopard as a deckhand.”

“What happened then?”

Mercier hesitated, and Chavasse said, “Let me tell you what happened after we left here last night. The Leopard went down in the Channel; did Jacaud tell you that?”

“He said there had been an accident. That the engine had exploded and that the rest of you had been killed.”

“He and Rossiter left us to drown, locked in the saloon,” Chavasse said. “The woman and the old man died trying to swim ashore.”

Mercier looked genuinely shocked. “My God, they are animals, not men. Why, only the other week, monsieur, on the occasion I was speaking of earlier, we were sighted off the English coast by a British torpedo boat. We had only one passenger at the time-a special trip for some reason.” He turned to Darcy. “A West Indian like you, monsieur.”

Preston’s face had tightened and he looked ill. “What happened?”

“Rossiter said we’d get seven years if we were caught with him aboard. He put him over the side, wrapped in chains-and he was still alive. Still alive. Sometimes in my dreams, I can still see the look in his eyes when Rossiter put him over the rail.”

Darcy nodded blindly. “And he told you he’d kill your wife if you didn’t keep quiet.”

“That’s right, monsieur.”

Darcy turned abruptly, wrenched open the door, and went out. Mercier looked bewildered, and Chavasse said quietly, “His brother-his brother, Mercier. We’ve come to settle the account. Will you help us?”

Mercier took a reefer jacket from behind the door and pulled it on. “Anything, monsieur.”

“Good. This is what you will do. Wait by the Running Man and watch the harbor. In a little while, you will see the Mary Grant come in. You know her?”

“Of course, monsieur, Gorman’s boat.”

“You will enter the Running Man and tell Jacaud that Gorman has returned and is waiting urgently for him down at the jetty. Make sure that other people hear you tell him this.”

“And afterward?”

“Do you have a boat of your own?”

Mercier nodded. “An old whaleboat with a diesel engine.”

“Good-when we leave the harbor, we will go to a bay called Penmarch. You know it?”

“As I know every inch of this coast.”

“We’ll wait for you there.” Chavasse slapped him on the shoulder. “We will fix him, our brave Jacaud, eh, Mercier?”

Mercier’s eyes glowed with fire, the hatred of years boiling over, and they went out together.

There were perhaps a dozen fishermen in the bar when Mercier entered the Running Man, and Jacaud was holding court. They pressed round eagerly as he poured red wine from an earthenware jug, leaving a trail like blood across the counter while the old woman who worked for him looked on with a tight mouth.

“Free,” he roared. “Everything on me. In the morning, I’ll be away and you’ll never see old Jacaud again.”

Mercier had difficulty forcing his way through to the bar, but when Jacaud noticed him, he greeted him effusively.

“Mercier, old friend, where have you been hiding?”

His speech was slurred and he gave every appearance of being drunk. Mercier was instantly suspicious, never having seen him the worse for liquor in his whole life.

“I’ve got a message for you,” he said loudly. “From Monsieur Gorman.”

Several heads turned in interest and Jacaud frowned, instantly sober. “Gorman? He is here?”

“At the jetty. He just came in on the Mary Grant.”

Jacaud put down the jug and nodded to the old woman. “It’s all yours.” He came round the bar and brushed past Mercier. “Let’s go.”

Outside a slight wind moved in from the sea and stirred the pines. “Did he say what he wanted? Is it trouble?”

Mercier shrugged. “Why should he talk to me, Monsieur Jacaud, a person of no importance? He told me nothing.”

Jacaud glared at him in surprise, aware of a new belligerency in his tone, but there was no time to investigate now. At the end of the street, Mercier paused.

“I leave you here, monsieur.”

“You are going home?”