Die Rich Die Happy

'Yes, Craig. The man who was looking after your security.'

Naxos turned to the policemen.

'He's lying,' Naxos said. 'I don't know anyone called Craig. My bos'n looks after my guests.'

'But listen'—Grierson looked round desperately. 'I didn't do this. I came here to look after people. You can ask—'

'Yes?' said Naxos.

But Grierson couldn't name Andrews. Craig might need him.

'Nobody,' Grierson said. 'But I didn't kill him.'

'No?' said a policeman. 'Then why is he wearing your dagger?'

He turned to Naxos. 'I'm sorry, sir, I shall want a list of your other guests. No one had better leave.'

'They can't,' said Naxos. 'No gondolas until four. What about him?' He nodded at Grierson.

'We'll take him to the station,' said the policeman, and produced handcuffs, snapped one band round Grierson's wrist, the other round his own. They had all the room they needed as they walked across the ballroom, Grierson and the senior policeman in the lead, Naxos a half dozen steps behind, the other pohceman promising action immediately and with the minimum of fuss.

As they passed through the door, Grierson saw a powerboat ready to go, and a young man dressed as Meph-istopheles waiting with massive patience as two sailors scurried to cast off. Grierson hesitated, but there was no choice at all. He had handled that dagger; his prints would be all over it, and the bravos wore gloves. This time all he had left was violence, crude, vulgar, and one hoped, efficient. He stumbled dehberately on the steps, pulling the pohceman off balance, then cooked him off with a judo chop just as Mephistopheles, bless him, revved up his engines and blotted out the yells from behind him. He let his handcuffed wrist go slack, and slammed the steel against the pillar as he had been taught. When his manacles snapped open he leaped down the steps in three frantic bounds, gathering momentum as he went, and the fourth bound sent him soaring over the canal, to land with a crash on the bottom boards of the boat. He felt a blow like a fist low on his chest, and only then remembered that he carried a gun. The police had been too overawed to search him properly and he'd been unaware that he had anything to hide. The powerboat rocked, and its owner looked down on him.

'I agree,' he said. 'A truly awful party.'

He accelerated, and his wash set a row of gondolas bobbing like frantic swans. He was monumentally drunk. 'Awful on an epic scale,' he continued. 'A significant achievement in awfulness: a Ninth Symphony say, or a War and Peace. Big, painstaking, costly—and awful. I only went because everybody else did. I'm always doing that and regretting it. Where can I drop you?'

'Anywhere at all,' said Grierson. 'I just felt like some

air.'

'Good,' said the devil, and hiccoughed. The powerboat slithered past San Marco, and Grierson crawled wearily to his feet and took the wheel.

'Thanks,' said the devil. 'I really am rather drunk.'

'Yes,' said Grierson.

'You are British, I take it? It's funny, isn't it, I assumed at once that you were. I'm Italian, you know. My name's di Traverse—Count Mario di Traverse as a matter of fact. I'm usually called Nono.'

'I'm Philip Grierson,' Grierson said.

Nono bowed, uncomprehending.

'I speak English like this because I went to one of your schools,' Nono said.

'As a matter of fact so did I,' said Grierson.

'My dear chap, I realize that,' said Nono. 'One can tell by the noises you make. Exactly the same as mine. A sort of clipped quacking.' He tilted back his head. 'Quack, quack,' he bawled, in a very gentlemanly voice. 'Quack, quack.' He slumped back into his seat. 'I don't make noises like that in Italian,' he said.

Grierson took the boat into the darkness of the lagoon, and risked a quick glance over his shoulder. A police launch, lights blazing, sirens screaming, bulldozed its way through the boats around it. Grierson stepped up the revs.

'Where are we going?' he asked.

'I've got an island near Murano, about a mile east of it as a matter of fact,' Nono said. Grierson altered course.

'I've got a girl there. That was one habit I didn't acquire at school. Not being fond of girls I mean. As a matter of fact that's how I came to be sacked. My mother was awfully upset. I had to change schools. That's why I left this party so early.'

'I don't think I follow,' said Grierson. He looked back again. The police boat was well behind.

'Seeing old Swyven,' said Nono. 'I hated old Swyven. He was my house tutor you know. At my new school. Fearfully down on women.'

'What was he fond of?'

'Boys,' said Nono.

'Nothing else?'

'No,' said Nono. 'He was the sort of chap who was always against things.'

'What, for example?'

'Oh, capitalism, the British Empire, women, the H-bomb, me. He was rather a menace actually.'

'Really? I should have thought you could handle him.'

'Oh yes. I could handle him. It was his cousin.' Nono yawned softly.

'A chap called Dyton-Blease. He was enormous.' He chuckled reminiscently.

'He didn't like girls either. Or boys. Just his muscles. Bit of a narci—narcissi—fond of himself, you know. And the Middle East. Funny that.' He chuckled. 'Claimed Europe grows decadent every few hundred years or so, and it needs a cleansing desert wind to make it pure. Last thing he ever said to me was that he was going to Arabia and fetch back the wind from the desert. Told me I wouldn't last five minutes, as a matter of fact. Suppose he was joking.'

'No,' said Grierson. 'He means it.'

Nono's head lolled on his chest; he snored. Quack, quack. Grierson circled Murano and looked out for Nono's island. There was a tiny one near by, a sliver of beach, a house, another powerboat, and a tangle of garden, nothing more. Grierson edged the boat up to a half-rotted jetty, stopped the engine, and hauled Nono upright. He was still out cold.

The house door was open, and he walked straight in. It should be easy—hand Nono over to the girl, borrow some clothes, borrow the boat. If she were all that fond of Nono, and she must be, to come out here, she'd be too busy pouring coffee down him to argue. There were lights just off the hall, and he pushed open another door. Two women were waiting for Nono, two tall, cool blondes in slacks and blouses of heavy silk. They sat facing each other in icy silence,

Mice a sister act after a quarrel, and whatever they had expected to see come through the door, it had not been a masked gentleman in crimson with a rapier over his hip, carrying the devil. They rocketed out of their seats like cool, blond pheasants, and Grierson laid Nono tenderly on a divan and turned to the two women, who had begun to scream. Grierson took a very deep breath.

'Shut up,' he roared, and the noise of it blotted out the screams for a moment, but the screams went on. Grierson took another breath, and the screaming stopped. The women watched him, wary as cats at a dog show, but terrified that he might roar again.

'Look,' Grierson said. 'Nono wasn't feeling well—'

'Drunk,' said one blonde.

'Again,' said the other.

'He asked me to drive him home. Under the circumstances I thought I'd better.'

'Who are you?' the blondes said together.

'My name's Philip Grierson,' he said. 'Nono and I were at school together. Who are you?'

'I'm Angelina Visconti,' said one blonde.

'And I,' said the other, 'am the Countess di Traverse. Now that we're introduced, don't you think you should