'So you've had it, Craig,' said Naxos. 'You're out. I'd be justified in shooting you like a mad dog. You know that.'
'You've had too much money for too long, Harry,' said Craig. 'You're going nuts.' For a moment he thought Naxos was going to leap over the table to attack him, but he recovered at last. 'Anyway, I'd like to hear from the other judges,' said Craig.
The girl said at once. 'You are a liar, a murderer, and a cheat. I think you should die very slowly, because you do not seem to be any of these things, and you mislead the people who trust you. You pervert honor, Craig. You deserve death.'
Dyton-Blease said: 'I don't know. The chap's got courage anyhow. I admire that, Naxos. I really do. I tell you what I suggest: we let him use his courage. Make him fight for his life—and if he's good enough—well let him five. But you're in the way of the world, Craig. It's time you died.'
'Who?' the girl asked. 'Who will he fight?'
'Well there's only me, really,' said Dyton-Blease. 'I'm the obvious one, surely, now we know old Theseus isn't keen.'
'I agree to that,' said the girl. 'When will it be?'
'When we get to my island,' Dyton-Blease said.
'Yes,' said Naxos. 'I'll agree to that too. That should be worth watching.'
Craig said: 'What about Pia? Are you going to give her a chance and let her fight you too?'
Naxos said, 'Miss Busoni had her chance. She let it slide.' 'I'm very much afraid that her fate is yours, Craig,' said Dyton-Blease. 'If you win, I promise you she'll live.'
'I guess that wraps it up,' Naxos said. 'You can go and rest now until tomorrow.'
'How's Flip?' Craig asked. Ts she in on this too?'
Naxos's fist slammed on to the table.
'Don't push your luck,' he said. 'You know you slipped her some heroin last night. It took me three hours to make her give it up. That's what you're really paying for, Craig. And this.' His hand dipped into one pocket, and he hurled a sheaf of glossy photoprints at Craig: Fhp with one breast exposed, Fhp in his arms, submissive, pleading. Craig glanced at them, let them dribble through his hands.
'You poor, stupid bastard,' he said.
Theseus said: 'That's enough. Let's go,' and again the three lined up, and Craig and Pia were locked in his cabin once again. He went round the walls of it slowly, carefully, and found no microphone, no leads. That proved nothing. There were ways of scooping sound out of a room from outside now, and he had no doubt Dyton-Blease would know all about them, and so would Andrews. Not that it mattered. He sprawled on the bed, and Pia lay down beside him, her hand very gently rubbing the bruised muscles of his neck.
'So you had your chance, Miss Busoni,' said Craig. 'Just what were you supposed to do?'
'Let you seduce me,' Pia said. 'Then have you arrested for rape.'
'Why didn't you?'
'I like you too much,' said Pia. 'You make me laugh.'
Craig said: 'It was a pleasure. I mean that.'
'I know,' she said, 'but look where it's got me. Craig, I'm frightened.'
So what could he say? Me too? Because tomorrow I may be dead, and if I die, you die?
'There's still a chance,' said Craig.
She pulled him over to face her, looked hard at him, imploring, and he smiled, because a smile to her meant confidence, and the day after tomorrow, and smiling was so easy.
'You mean that? You really mean it?'
'Well, of course,' said Craig, and thought of Grierson. With Grierson loose there had to be a chance.
'Please,' said Pia. 'Love me. I promise I won't scream.'
« o o
'You mucked it up,' said Loomis.
'Yes, sir,' said Grierson, and tried to suppress a yawn. The countess's coolness had been more apparent than real. 'For all we know, Craig could be dead.' 'Yes, sir,' said Grierson.
'And you're not doing him any good sitting around London, are you?'
'No, sir,' said Grierson.
'Yes, sir; no, sir; three bags full, sir!' Loomis said savagely. 'You're a child, Grierson. A mixed infant.'
He sniffed at a tiny cup of black coffee, then emptied it in one smacking gulp. Grierson sipped more cautiously at his. It was boiling hot.
'Craig could be dead. You realize that? You go frigging around with countesses, and Craig could be dead. But he found out about the cobalt. A ruddy mountain of the stuff. Brought us back a sample. It's bloody lethal—rich, the experts call it. I was lucky he was on that Greek island. I knew that old Greek was a smuggler. I hoped for a crumb, and he gave me the whole cake.'
Grierson said: 'There's still Andrews, sir.'
'Andrews is a technician—tweeters and screwdrivers— that's Andrews. He's no good with giants.'
'You think Dyton-Blease has got him then?'
Loomis's enormous body squirmed in its overstuffed chair, and he glowered at his ceiling's elegant stucco.
'It's in the papers,' he snarled. 'Naxos's wife is feeling poorly. He's taken her off to recuperate in the Greek islands. That's his way of telling us the deal's off.'
'So we've had it?' said Grierson.
'Not completely. Mrs. Naxos is a junky. You know that. And Naxos thinks there's only one man who can cure her. And he's British, d'you see. British to the core. He won't go gadding off to Greek islands—and even if he would, I won't let him. So Mrs. Naxos'll have to come to him. You better go off to the Aegean and see if Craig's still alive. If he is I want him back.' Grierson climbed wearily to his feet. Perhaps he could get some sleep on the plane. 'We've had a lot of bumf from the Eyeries about you,' Loomis said. 'You've been lucky, old sport. You said you were helping Craig, and Naxos denied he'd ever heard of Craig, so it would have been easy for me to say I'd never heard of either of you. You better watch it; you won't be lucky twice.'
'Yes, sir,' said Grierson. Sometimes he wondered whv he hadn't strangled Loomis years ago. As he left Loomis pressed a communicator button and bellowed: 'Send what's his name in.'
'Very good, sir,' said the communicator, in a voice at once metallic, female, and sexy.
Loomis snarled: 'And keep your hands off him. He's a Fellow of the Royal College or Physicians.' He switched off, and thought about Craig. He mustn't be dead, and yet, if Dyton-Blease knew his job as he should, he had to be. The big man would have no choice, even if he wanted one.
There was a soft tap at his door, and a redhead came in, tall, full-blown, with mat creamy skin, green eyes, and a mole at the corner of her mouth. Behind her walked a small man who had decided long ago that intellectual dynamism was a more than adequate substitute for lack of inches. His eyes and walk were Napoleonic, his head projected from his shoulders like a questing bird's—a bird with a shrewdness, greed, and determination nicely blended—a herring gull, say, or a jackdaw. He seemed perfectly happy to be following the redhead.
'Sir Matthew Chinn,' said the redhead.
'That will be all, Miss Figgis,' said Loomis.
The redhead frowned deliciously. One of Loomis's least amiable characteristics, in a personality noted for its lack of amiability, was the invention of inappropriate names for her. She left, and Sir Matthew sighed, sadly, reminis-cently.
'Gorgeous, isn't she?' said Loomis. 'You should see her when she's been off her diet for a couple of weeks.'
'The name puzzled me rather,' Sir Matthew said. 'Figgis seems wildly inappropriate.'
'That's cover stuff,' said Loomis. 'Her real name's Tania Tumblova. She defected from the Bolshoi with the secret of next year's tutus.'
'I suspect,' said Sir Matthew, 'that your use of puerile humor is supposed to make me angry. We'd get on much quicker, Loomis, if we kept our conversation as unemotional as possible.'
Loomis shrugged. 'You're going to hate me in three minutes. And anyway, everybody rejects me eventually,' he said. 'Psychologically I'm a mess.'
