'Shagata's coming. We've got to finish the deal.'
'To hell with your deal!' Peter Marlowe screamed, brinked on insanity.
'To hell with the diamond! They're going to cut off my arm.'
'No they're not!'
'You're goddam right they're not. I'm going to die first —'
The King backhanded him hard, then slapped him viciously.
The raving stopped abruptly and Peter Marlowe shook his head. 'What the hell —'
'Shagata's coming. We got to get ready.'
'He's coming?' Peter Marlowe asked blankly, his face burning from the blows.
'Yes.' The King saw that Peter Marlowe's eyes were once more guarded and he knew that the Englishman was back in the world. 'Jesus,' he said, weak with relief. 'I had to do something, Peter, you were shouting your head off.'
'Was I? Oh, sorry, what a fool.'
'You all right now? You got to keep your wits about you.'
'I'm all right now.'
Peter Marlowe slipped through the window after the King. And he was glad of the shaft of pain that soared up his arm as his feet hit the ground.
You panicked, you fool, he told himself. You, Marlowe, you panicked like a child. Fool. So you have to lose your arm. You're lucky it's not a leg, then you'd really be crippled. What's an arm? Nothing. You can get an artificial one. Sure. With a hook. Nothing wrong with a false arm. Nothing. Could be quite a good idea. Certainly.
'Tabe,' Shagata greeted them as he ducked under the flap of canvas which shielded the overhang.
'Tabe,' said the King and Peter Marlowe.
Shagata was very nervous. The more he had thought about this deal the less he liked it. Too much money, too much risk. And he sniffed the air like a dog pointing. 'I smell danger,' he said.
'He says, 'I can smell danger.''
'Tell him not to worry, Peter. I know about the danger and it's taken care of. But what about Cheng San?'
'I tell thee,' Shagata whispered hurriedly, 'that the gods smile upon thee and me and our friend. He is a fox, that one, for the pestilential police let him out of their trap.' The sweat was running down his face and soaking him. 'I have the money.'
The King's stomach turned over. 'Tell him we'd better dispense with the yak and get with it. I'll be right back with the goods.'
The King found Timsen in the shadows.
'Ready?'
'Ready.' Timsen whistled a bird call in the dark. Almost at once it was answered. 'Do it fast, mate. I can't guarantee to hold you safe for long.'
'Okay.' The King waited and out of the darkness came a lean Aussie corporal.
'Hi, cobber. Name's Townsend. Bill Townsend.'
'Come on.'
The King hurried back to the overhang while Timsen kept guard and his Aussies fanned out ready for the escape route.
Down by the corner of the jail, Grey was waiting impatiently. Dino had just whispered in his ear that Shagata had arrived, but Grey knew that the preliminaries would take a while. A while, and then he could move.
Smedly-Taylor's phalanx was ready too, waiting for the transfer to take place. Once Grey was in motion, they too would move.
The King was under the flap with Townsend nervously beside him.
'Show him the diamond,' the King ordered.
Townsend opened his ragged shirt and pulled out a cord and on the end of the cord was the diamond ring. Townsend was trembling as he showed it to Shagata, who focused his portable lamp on the stone. Shagata examined it carefully, a bead of ice-light on the end of a piece of string.
Then he took it and scratched the glass surface of the lamp. It screeched and left its mark.
Shagata nodded, sweating. 'Very well.' He turned to Peter Marlowe.
'Truly it is a diamond,' he said and took out calipers and carefully measured the extent of the stone. Again he nodded. 'Truly it is four carats.'
The King jerked his head. 'All right. Peter, you wait with Townsend.'
Peter Marlowe got up and beckoned to Townsend and together they went outside the flap and waited in the darkness. And around them they could feel eyes. Hundreds of eyes.
'Bloody hell,' Townsend winced, 'wish I'd never got the stone. The strain's killing me, my bloody oath.' His palsied fingers played with the string and the jewel, making sure for the millionth time that it was around his neck. 'Thank God this's the last night.'
The King watched with increasing excitement as Shagata opened his ammunition pouch and planked down three inches of notes, and opened his shirt and brought out a two-inch bundle, and from his side pockets more bundles until there were two piles of notes, each six inches high.
