Die Rich Die Happy

was neither bewildered nor terrified. He saw danger, and at

once began to look for a means to resolve it. This was a man Schiebel could understand.

'Your father's right, Mark,' he said. 'They won't let you stay.'

Swyven stared, petrified by the pistol and its bulging, extended barrel. Swyven's father moved deliberately in front of a small drinks table and said: 'You have no business here. Our discussion is quite private. If you have come here to rob, get on with it, but don't pry into family affairs.'

Schiebel shot him between the eyes, and the force of the bullet slammed him backward, scattering gin, sherry, glasses, siphons, jugs. It was as he had expected. As he fell, Swyven's father gripped a bottle of whiskey in his fist. Facing danger, he at once looked for a weapon.

Young Swyven's reaction was very odd to SchiebeL who knew every detail of his life. He ran at Schiebel.

'You swine,' he screamed. 'That's my father.'

Schiebel shot him in the chest, and the running stopped at once, then Swyven very slowly crumpled to the floor. Lady Swyven made no move at all. She sat bolt upright in her chair, and looked into the barrel of the pistol, and said nothing, did nothing, because her world was over. Mark, she thought. Oh, my darling Mark. And then, almost too late: Poor Jack. Then Schiebel killed her. He went over to each in turn, felt his pulse, then unscrewed the silencer, put it in his pocket. He went out by the back door. On the way he passed the watcher, breathing now in great snoring gasps. The watcher was well out of things. Schiebel walked to his car. As always, when he had done something right and proper, he felt marvelous.

* Chapter 21 %

When Grierson and Craig got back, Loomis was away, and Flip was with Sir Matthew. They ate a meal, and Selina ate with them: the fight had made her hungry again. As they ate, she told them what had happened to her: the kidnapping, the trip to England, the escape, and then the fight.

'That was splendid,' she said. 'The hand, the fist, the elbow, and then you jump. My brothers will want to learn this—'

'Karate,' said Craig. 'It's a Japanese technique.'

'You learn from your enemies?'

Tf they have anything worth learning. The way you escaped, for instance—by using the house next door.'

Sehna grinned.

Grierson said: 'I don't understand why he brought you to England. Wouldn't you have been safer in Zaarb?'

The girl put down her fork, and looked at him.

'Schiebel hates me,' she said. 'He hated the other girl too—the one you persuaded to betray him. You know what he did to her?'

Grierson nodded. 'He was going to do it to me. I was being kept for his pleasure—when it is all over.' She turned to Craig. 'One of us must kill him,' she said. 'He means what he says about the cobalt, Craig. Hurting, destruction: they're all he knows. He'll use them until he's killed.'

Craig said nothing, and Grierson thought: Schiebel will die, all right. And Craig will kill him. Loomis had it set out that way from the beginning—victim and executioner; and I've known it all along, because Craig is useful in any sort of situation, to drive a car, guard a millionaire, steal a secret, seduce a girl. But his speciality is death, and that's what Loomis wanted him for. At death he's a genius.

Aloud he said: 'Don't worry. Schiebel will be taken care of.'

Craig grinned at him.

'You're talking like a politician,' he said.

That night and the next day they waited for Loomis, taught Selina to play poker, and used her gold coins for chips. Sir Matthew called, and went at once to Fhp. The day dragged slowly on, and Sehna yawned and fought to stay awake. An angry fat man wanted to speak to her. She would not sleep until he came.

A vehicle purred to a halt outside the room at last, and Grierson raised the ante, two sovereigns, a napoleon, and an American double eagle.

'Our leader's back,' he said.

Craig passed, and Grierson waited for Selina. He had dealt her four aces. It would be amusing to see how greedy-she was. The vehicle purred into life again, and Sehna looked hard at Grierson. His eyes were bland, innocent, boyish. Selina said something in Arabic, and Craig rocked with laughter. Then she passed too.

Grierson groaned, and scooped in the heavy shining metal. It wasn't much of a pot for a royal flush.

'She learns very quickly,' Craig said, and took up the cards, his hands rapid and precise as he fitted them together and began to deal.

Sir Matthew came in, elegant in gray, a carnation in his buttonhole, in his hands a bowler hat and a pair of doeskin gloves, the kind you buy for driving, if the car you drive is a Bentley. He looked quickly from Craig to Grierson, then on to Selina. These men had a knack of acquiring pretty girls that might almost be a reflex, it functioned so inevitably. He wondered whether one day he might be allowed to chart their behavior patterns—and their girls'? So often one read of the superior sexual attraction of the French male and the Italian, and Spaniard. It was reassuring to sep two Britons holding their own. Sir Matthew permitted himself a small glow of patriotism.

Grierson said: 'Sir Matthew, I'd like you to meet the Princess Selina.'

Sir Matthew strode napoleonically across to her, and shook the strong, beautiful hand. When he turned, Craig had somehow moved from his chair. The door was closed, and he was leaning against it.

'Were you thinking of going out, Sir Matthew?' Grierson asked.

'I'm going home,' Sir Matthew said. 'No point in hanging about here now.'

'I'm afraid I don't understand,' Grierson said.

'Surely it's obvious?' said Sir Matthew. 'Now that Mrs. Naxos has gone—'

Grierson came out of his chair and towered over the little man in one frantic leap. For a moment Sir Matthew thought he was about to be assaulted, then Grierson made a tremendous effort, and resumed his habitual sleepiness. An extremely well-integrated personality, Sir Matthew noted gratefully.

'Tell me,' he said. 'And make it quick.'

'We spent a very profitable evening,' said Sir Matthew. 'She's making excellent progress. Then just before lunch her husband telephoned her. They conversed for a while, and then he spoke to me. He wished his wife to go aboard their yacht, and Mrs. Naxos confirmed this. I saw no reason to prevent her leaving.

'In any case Loomis telephoned me at my consulting room today and said I could let her go, if her husband insisted on it. He passed on his instructions to you men here, too, I believe.'

'When was this?' Grierson asked.

Sir Matthew looked at his watch.

'Two hours ago, just before I returned here,' he said.

'Did he telephone from London?'

'Naturally.'

'Loomis has been at Chequers since ten o'clock this morning,' Grierson said.

'When did Mrs. Naxos go?' asked Grierson.

'Ten minutes ago. He sent an ambulance for her. His own crew members were driving it. He seemed obsessively anxious for her safety, I thought.'

'What sort of ambulance?'

Sir Matthew shrugged. 'The kind one hires, I assume,' he said.

'It didn't occur to you to tell us, I suppose?' Grierson

asked.

Sir Matthew shrugged again. 'I had no idea you had returned. I merely instructed the guard at the gate.' He stared back at Grierson. 'I am a doctor,' he said, 'not a cloak-and-dagger man. My responsibility is to my patient. I felt that she would benefit from being with her husband, and agreed that she should do so. In fact I had no alternative. She insisted on going back to Naxos, and I had no legal right to stop her, and she had every legal right to go. After all, she'll be safe enough on the yacht.'

'If she ever gets there,' said Grierson.

Sir Matthew turned to look at Craig, but he had moved once again. He was no longer there.