CHAPTER 15
In the casino gardens, Ashford found Bobby waiting for him, as he'd promised. The poor boy looked terribly worried, but then he always did, particularly when St. Briac was in Nice. Ashford hated St. Briac. It really would be best to get Bobby away from him. Of course he could never tell Bobby what he'd done, but it would be nice to have him all to himself. He was making more than enough for both of them, churning out playsuits for those great cows.
Bobby's Citroen was waiting for them on the Pier. He had hardly spoken a word on the way to it, and he had a new chauffeur, a dark, squat man who drove off as soon as the car door slammed, heading toward Villefranche.
Ashford said, 'My dear, I thought we were going to eat in that scrumptious place in the Promenade des Anglais.' He was trembling, and when Bobby didn't answer, he trembled even more.
'Bobby, what's wrong?' he asked, and then, stupidly, 'What have I done?'
The Citroen left the town behind, and in the darkness Bobby turned to him and hit him in the mouth with his fist, again and again. The car moved faster and the chauffeur, Pucelli, grinned. La Valere might be a queen, but he knew how to hit. Not that it would do him any good when the colonel got back. The colonel had no time for little friends, men or women. Things wouldn't look too good for La Valere when the colonel heard how he, Pucelli, had seen Ashford in the casino bar, talking to
Craig. Then Pucelli didn't grin any more. The bomb in Craig's car had been his responsibility, and Craig was still alive. He'd seen him, and he'd told La Valere.
Craig went back to the old town, through the Place Massena to the rue Desmoulins, and looked at the society's offices. They were of solid gray stone, the doors reinforced, the windows protected by steel grilles. As they stood, a gendarme appeared from a doorway lower down the street and moved toward them, and when they walked on, followed them until they went back to the Place Massena.
'Not a hope,' said Grierson, 'unless we can do something when he gets out of the car.'
'There's the villa,' said Craig. 'Let's have a look at that.'
They got out the Alfa, and drove along the Corniche toward Villefranche. Before Villefranche, they turned off, onto the quiet road on which St. Briac's villa stood, behind an eight-foot wall of granite setts. The whole place glowed with light, and Craig kept on going. Next to it, as Ashford had told him, was another villa, empty and in darkness. Craig drove past it and swung the car in to a narrow, rutted farm track that ran below its hedge of wildly soaring box. They climbed over the walls of the empty villa, and moved across its grounds. Pools stagnant, fountain dry. flowers growing wild and rank. The same high wall separated the two buudings, and an inch above the wall ran a wire.
'Electrified,' said Grierson.
Craig nodded, and lobbed a dry twig on to the wall. There was a hiss, a crackle of sparks, a faint smell of woodsmoke. The two men moved silently back toward the empty house. It was padlocked at every window, every door, but Grierson broke in, using a picklock. They moved through the deserted house, past elegant furniture shrouded in gray dust sheets, up the staircase, higher, higher until fitted carpet and linoleum took its place. From a high, attic window they looked down into St. Briac's garden.'
Batteries of fights hung from the trees showed it to them as bright as day. In all its expanse there was no protection; every approach could be covered from the house. At regular intervals a man with an automatic carbine walked through. With him were three Alsatians.
Grierson said, 'You'd never get near.'
Craig peered out again.
'We could try it from here if we can get hold of a rifle,' he said.
Grierson shook his head.
'When St. Briac's here, they patrol this place too.' he said.
They went to the other end of the house. Another attic window showed them St. Briac's sheds, garages, outhouses. One of them in particular looked interesting. A little wooden building that housed a generator.
'You'd have to find him in the dark,' said Grierson.
'I mightn't have to,' said Craig. 'I could be with him already.'
He began to talk, and Grierson listened, reluctantly at first, then with more eagerness.
'It's the only move we've got left,' Craig said. 'Either that or a V-bomber.'
'You won't have a chance.'
'Oh yes,' Craig said. 'I'll have one chance. I always do. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be doing it.'
'What about a gun? They're bound to search you.rt
'I'll take two. Maybe they'll only find one. If not-' He looked at his hands; strong hands, carefully tended, the hands of a craftsman.
'When?' asked Grierson.
'Tomorrow night. Nine o'clock. The moon rises at ten. We ought to be in Cap Ferrat by then-if we're not on a plane.'
As they watched, memorizing the layout of the house, they heard a high-pitched scream, a man's scream, that was choked off into silence.
'We ought to make it sooner,' Grierson said.
Craig said, 'We ought to, but we can't.'
They drove back to the hotel, and Craig wrote a letter to Tessa, then another to Loomis, asking him to take care of her. He had already arranged to leave her all his gun-running money, if anything went wrong, but he wanted to be sure she lived to spend it. He wanted guarantees, where no guarantee was possible. As he wrote, Grierson tried to telephone Ashford. He would need tools, insulated stuff; and then there were the cars. The Alfa was all right, but the Mercedes was far too big. Each time he called the number, there was no answer. Grierson wasn't worried yet. It wasn't midnight, and Ashford had been going out. By one o'clock he began to worry. At two, he went in and woke Craig. He remembered the choked-off scream, so shrill and yet so obviously male. Craig agreed that it might be Ashford.
'You'd better get busy with that picklock of yours,' he said. 'I think we should move in next door.'
The room across the hall was empty, and Grierson broke in, swift and silent, and the two men took turns resting and watching. At half past three, in the utter silence before dawn, they heard the elevator go past their floor, then the soft slither of feet coming downstairs, walking along a deep-piled carpet, stopping outside Craig's room. From the tiny gap of the door opposite, they watched as two men stood poised, one of them fumbling with a passkey. Grierson opened the door, the Colt in his hand, and Craig moved out from behind him like a cat.
'Don't move,' said Grierson.
The man with the passkey started to turn, and Craig hit him once, catching him before he fell. The other man froze as Craig took his gun from him, then turned and leaped. Craig felt hands clawing for his throat, and struck at the other man's stomach, winding him, then grabbed his arm, spun him around, holding him in a hammer-lock until Grierson had dragged the unconscious man inside. Craig pushed him in, and looked at him. Tall, elegant, yellow hair close-cropped, a magnificent suntan.
'You must be Bobby,' he said, and searched him for more weapons as Grierson searched the unconscious man. The elegant one groaned, as air forced itself back into his lungs.
'Captain La Valere?' Grierson asked.
'Tell us,' said Craig, very softly, 'or I'll make you.'
'I'm La Valere,' said the elegant one.
'You have Ashford, haven't you?' Craig asked. La Valere was silent.
'You must have,' said Grierson. 'He's the only one who could have told you we were here.'
'What were you going to do?' asked Craig. 'Kill me?'
'You've already been sentenced,' La Valere said. 'Whatever you do now, you will not survive for very long.'
'I might take a bit of company with me,' Craig said. La Valere shrugged.
'I don't matter now,' he said. 'That little swine-' He swayed a little, put his hand on the table. 'I was very
