As he spoke the door opened again, and Pia came in, with the count, who seemed drunk, and Swyven, who seemed anxious.
'They've been in business for a long time,' Craig continued. They usually manage to get the things they want—and at their own price.'
They won't this time,' said Naxos.
The count slumped into the chair Naxos had used. Craig was conscious of a feeling of outrage, as if a scullion had dared to occupy a throne.
'I should like a drink, if it is permitted,' said the
count.
'Help yourself,' said Naxos. 'We're through talking business.'
Swyven began to mix three drinks, and his hands shook so that the decanter clattered on the glasses.
'Business,' said the count. 'That is all the English are interested in—eh, Pia?'
'Oh, be quiet,' said Pia. 'Why can't you mind your own affairs?'
'They look like men, they even try to act like men, but there is no manhood in a cash register,' said the count.
'Tavel, for heaven's sake,' said Swyven.
'My dear Mark, I do not include you,' said the count. 'You are a gentleman.'
Craig sipped again at his Scotch, then turned to put down the glass, and in doing so faced both Swyven and the count.
'Craig is not a gentleman,' said Tavel.
'That's right,' said Craig. 'I'm a businessman. You said so yourself.'
'You tried to seduce Pia—' said the count.
'For God's sake,' said Pia.
'—then in the middle of it you got bored and you went off to talk business.'
'Did she tell you this?' Naxos asked.
'I was watching. I saw it all,' said the count.
Philippa tried to speak then, but Naxos shook his head, the suspicion of a grin on his face.
'You saw it?' Craig asked.
'I did,' said the Count de Tavel.
T wonder what that makes you?' said Craig. 'Don't the French have a word for it?'
Tavel leaped from his chair, his whole body aimed at Craig's throat, his hands squeezing hard. Craig grabbed his wrists, pulled up, then hard down, and the hands came away. Tavel continued the movement and his hands were free. He brought his knee up, missed the blow at the crotch, and hit Craig's stomach. Craig gasped, sagged back, and Tavel came in with his fists. Craig took one blow on the shoulder, another on the cheekbone, and staggered back to the bulkhead. Tavel leaped in to finish the fight, slamming a hard right for Craig's jaw but Craig was already sagging at the knees, his head rolling on his chest. Tavel's fist brushed his hair and slammed into the bulkhead. The count screamed, and then the scream was chopped off short as Craig's fist came down like a mallet on the side of his neck. He fell hard, twitched once, and was still.
'What the hell is going on?' said Craig.
'Really it's too bad of him,' said Swyven, and his hand groped out for a drink.
'You'd better wait till you stop shaking,' Craig said. 'And anyway it's my drink.'
'I'm most awfully sorry,' said Swyven.
'That's all right,' said Craig. He turned to Naxos, who was wheezing horribly, then the wheezing turned to a roaring laughter that sounded like a mob yelling for blood.
'What the hell—' Craig said again.
'You hit hard,' said Swyven.
'Bloody hard,' said Pia. 'Bim, Bam. Ker-pow.'
'He hit me,' said Craig.
'He often does. Hit people I mean,' said Swyven. 'He was in the French army—Algeria, Vietnam, and all that. Nowadays he picks fights with people and hits them. It's a sort of emotional release.'
'Don't they hit back?' Craig asked.
'Not usually. He's very good at fighting.'
'So's Craig,' Naxos wheezed. 'He was in the Special Boat Service. They taught him pretty good.'
'That was a long time ago,' said Craig. 'It's funny the things you remember.'
'Like riding a bike,' said Naxos. 'That's a hell of a Sunday punch, John. Dirty too.'
'If I fight clean I always lose,' said Craig.
Tavel groaned, and Naxos's smile disappeared; his features rearranged themselves into a frown.
'I told him last time—no more fights with my friends. Guests yes, friends no.' Then the frown disappeared. 'Ah, what the hell. He lost, didn't he?'
Craig rubbed his aching stomach, glad of the hard ridge of muscle that had taken the blow.
'Maybe he couldn't tell the difference,' said Craig.
I wonder if I made it convincing, he thought. No judo, no karate, just the rough stuff they teach you on a Commando course. The count knew it all too. But he drinks too much. He's brittle. And what was the object of the exercise anyway? To see if I would fight? To see how much I knew? To put me out of action?
Naxos picked up the telephone and called the doctor, then turned to Craig.
'I really am sorry about it, John,' he said. 'I honestly thought he was cured.'
Philippa sat in the chair, her hand running along the coarse silk of the cushion, picked at a loose piece of thread. 'He hit you too,' said Philippa. 'Are you all right?'
'Yes,' said Craig. He looked down at Swyven who had knelt beside Tavel, and was bathing his forehead with a napkin dipped in an ice bucket.
'I'm fine. So long as people don't get the idea it was my fault for not letting him beat me unconscious.'
Swyven said: 'He's a friend of mine. I worry about
him.'
'You do right,' said Craig, and turned to Pia. 'Did you put him up to this?'
'Of course not,' said Pia. 'He isn't a friend of mine.' Swyven winced.
'He's just a dirty Peeping Tim.'
'Tom,' said Craig. 'Peeping Tomf
'Tim, Tom, I'm glad you hit him,' said Pia. Then the doctor came in, and glanced quickly at Philippa before he bent over the prostrate Tavel.
« Chapter
When Craig got to his cabin he went at once to the suitcase. Someone had found the false bottom, all right. He took out the gun, and examined it cautiously, inch by inch. The screw that held the firing pin had been removed. He looked at the magazines. They were empty. Only the knife was intact. Tavel would have done better if he'd held the shells in his hand. Tavel had a broken knuckle and a bruise on his neck and a vicious headache, and he'd earned them all, but as an operator he didn't begin to make sense. Nor did Swyven. He was a physical coward. And Swyven had been afraid before the fight. He'd known it was coming. And somebody had worked out the excuse for setting up the fight: Tavel's known eagerness and talent for fisticuffs. Somebody also had a reason for setting it up, and that was obvious. Craig had to be out of the way before the yacht reached Venice. He wondered who the man was behind these clowns. His technique was brilliant—offer Tavel and Swyven on a plate—and Pia too perhaps? Make them keep Craig busy, while he, the unknown, got on with the dirty work. His only fault was that he'd overdone it slightly. He was too thorough.
He thought about the thread Philippa had picked from the cushion—black cotton thread from a red silk cushion. The chair Tavel had sat in. Naxos's chair. The thread Craig had put over the lock on his door. It looked as if he was better at searching rooms than beating ex-sailors unconscious. And Naxos had just stood by and laughed. Naxos had thought it was funny. And maybe it was. Craig would have liked to laugh too, but laughter hurt his stomach.
He woke next morning, and found he was famous. The people Naxos had asked along didn't dislike Tavel. They didn't like Craig either, but Craig had won, and that made him interesting. He discovered something else, too.
