'I didn't forget,' I started to change out of my soaking clothes. 'I'd no means of knowing how good an actor you are, sir.'
'I'll accept that. So that removed your last doubts.'
'No, sir. Superfluous confirmation, really. I knew before then. Remember that swarthy character sitting beside Lavorski who asked me if Hunslett could swim. I'll bet a fortune to a penny that he wasn't at the
'You would win. How do you know?'
'Because he was in command of the crew of the boat who shot down the helicopter and killed Williams and hung around afterwards waiting to have a go at me. His name is Captain Imrie. He was the captain of the prize crew of the
Uncle Arthur nodded, but his mind was on something else. It was on the scuba suit I was pulling on,
'What the hell do you think you're going to do with that thing?' he demanded,
'Advance notification of intentions, sir. Won't be long. I'm taking a little trip to the
'Something else you forgot to tell me, hey, Calvert? Likethat breaking off the
'I'd like to get there before they replace it, sir.'
'I can't believe it, I can't believe it.' Uncle Arthur shook his head. For a moment I thought he was referring to the dispatch with which I had made the uneventful return trip to the
'So soon? He told me he was waiting for the price to come down.'
Uncle Arthur said nothing. Normally, he would have regarded such a statement as a mortal insult, as he himself automatically collected a life peerage on retirement. But nothing. He was as shaken as that.
'You get the set ready and I'll ask them anything you like,' Uncle Arthur said wearily. He wasn't really listening to me, he was still contemplating with stunned disbelief the possibility that his future fellow peer was up to the neck in skullduggery on a vast scale. 'And pass me that bottle before you go below.'
At the rate Uncle Arthur was going, I reflected, it was providential that the home of one of the most famous distilleries in the Highlands was less .than half a mile from where we were anchored.
I lowered the false head of the starboard diesel to the engine-room deck as if it weighed a ton. I straightened and stood there for a full minute, without moving. Then I went to the engine-room door.
'Sir Arthur?'
'Coming, coming.' A few seconds and he was at the door-way, the glass of whisky in his hand. 'All connected up?'
'I've found Huns-felt, sir.'
Uncle Arthur moved slowly forward like a man in a dream.
The
I touched his face. It wasn't cold yet. He'd been dead two to three hours, no more. I turned his face to see if I could find how he had died. His head lolled to one side like that of a broken rag doll. I turned and looked at Sir Arthur. The dream-like expression had gone, his eyes were cold and bitter and cruel. I thought vaguely of the tales I'd heard, and largely discounted, of Uncle Arthur's total ruthlessness. I wasn't so ready to discount them now. Uncle Arthur wasn't where he was now because he'd answered an advertisement in the
He said: 'Murdered, of course.'
'Yes, sir.'
'His neck is broken, sir.'
'His neck? A powerful man like Hunslett?'
'I know a man who could do it with one twist of his hands. Quinn. The man who killed Baker and Delmont. The man who almost killed me.'
'I see.' He paused, then went on, almost absently: 'Youwill, of course, seek out and destroy this man. By whatever means you choose. You can reconstruct this, Calvert?'
'Yes, sir.' When it came to reconstruction when it was too damn late, I stood alone. 'Our friend or friends boarded the