South of the new town lay the old city. It was entirely encircled by vast walls built by the Crusaders and dominated by their huge castle in the north-west corner. To seaward of it lay the commercial harbour and it was there that the Bratislava must have discharged the cargo that she had for Rhodes. After a few enquiries, Robbie located the Port Authority and learned that she had docked on April 7th, sailing again the following evening. He also secured from the clerk who gave him this information the name and address of the shipping agent who had acted for the ship's owners.
He was a Mr. Pilavachi and, when they found the street in which he had his office, Stephanie left Robbie on the corner. She then went on to the office and, presenting herself as Mrs. Sebesta, of the Czechoslovakian Travel Agency, enquired for Mr. Pilavachi. It transpired, as she had expected, that he had never heard of Mrs. Sebesta, but he had corresponded with Krajcir and had actually met Barak when he had flown to Rhodes to meet the Czech group landing from the ship.
Having established these mutual acquaintances, Stephanie said that she believed one of the engineers in the group was an old friend of hers, named Zdenek, and, as she was on a few days' visit to the island, she would very much like to renew her acquaintance with him. Upon this, the Greek shipping agent made no difficulty about telling her that the Czech group was prospecting for oil in the bay of Monolithos, which lay on the south-west coast of the island, some eighty-odd kilometres distant.
When she rejoined Robbie, they walked along to a pleasant cafe on the water-front, with Venetian arches surrounding a square terrace, and over a drink there discussed future plans. Both of them were only too well aware that, now the police were looking for Robbie, time was an all-important factor; so there could be no question of putting off until Sunday an attempt to find out what was going on at Monolithos.
As they thought it almost certain that Barak would believe Robbie either to be lying low in one of the small towns in the
Peloponnesus, or in one of its ports endeavouring to get himself smuggled out of the country, it seemed very unlikely that the Czech group in Rhodes would have been specially alerted to keep a look-out for him. Even so, the chances of his being able to secure photographs of the site during a week-day seemed slender.
In consequence, Stephanie put forward the idea that she should go openly to the site and enquire for her mythical friend, the engineer Zdenek. Presenting herself as a Czech should allay the suspicions of whoever §Jie talked to there and, although she would not be able to take any photographs of the site, she would be able to carry away in her mind a very full picture of it.
Robbie was naturally greatly averse to her exposing herself to danger, but the odds against Barak's being there, or anyone else who knew her, were so long that he had to admit that the risk of her running into trouble was very small. As he could think of no other plan, he reluctantly agreed to hers.
That evening ihey made up for their past three days of privation by an excellent dinner, washed down with a bottle of the local red wine, Chevalier de Rhodes, which they found quite palatable. They followed it with two glasses apiece of another local product, the rich, sweet wine of Kamiros, which they thought really excellent.
There was dancing in the ballroom, but Stephanie evaded further contact with Robbie's large feet by saying that, having got up so early that morning, she was tired out. Shortly before ten o'clock she went up to bed.
He gave her the stipulated half hour, then followed. Although he had every intention of keeping his promise, he could not prevent his thoughts from running riot as he went up in the lift; but on entering their room he saw that she was lying in bed with a woolly bedjacket over her shoulders, reading a book, and she did not even give him a glance. He undressed in the bathroom then, while she continued to ignore him, slipped off his dressing gown and got into bed. For some ten minutes he lay there, not daring to look at her, then she yawned, put down her book, said: 'Good night, Robbie. Let's pray that we have good luck tomorrow,' and switched off the light. For a time he lay awake; but he, too, was tired from his long day and, while still vaguely thinking of her as so near and yet so far, he dropped off to sleep.
He had already informed the office that he was one of those eccentric people who preferred to get up and have his breakfast sitting down at a table downstairs; so when they were called at eight o'clock, he dressed himself in the bathroom, then left her in bed to enjoy her coffee, rose-petal jam and rolls.
They had decided that, as Monolithos lay some distance from any of the main roads in the island, they might have some difficulty in finding it if they hired a car for Stephanie to drive; so Robbie had booked one with a chauffeur.
At half past nine, with a picnic lunch on board, they set off, and they had not gone a mile before they found that their driver, Tino, spoke quite good English. As a Swiss couple of the educated class, it would have been absurd for them to pretend that they did not also speak English, and there was no escaping his determination to act as their guide.
Some thirty kilometres from Rhodes he insisted on pulling up and taking them round the partially overgrown ruins of Kamiros, which had once been the capital of one of the three City-States of the island; but later they were amazed to find that, although he had not a good word for the Italians, the only decent buildings in the squalid little townships through which they passed had been Fascist Headquarters.
Believing them to be tourists, which they were in no position to deny, he took them on a long detour up to the Prophet Elias mountain, from which the whole island, set in its deep blue sea, could be seen. Half an hour later they left the main road, snaked inland through the Ataviros Mountains until, still at over two thousand feet above sea level, they passed through the village of Monolithos, turned into a rough track and, a few miles further on, came out of the woods to a flat piece of ground that was evidently a roughly-made car park. There Tino pulled up and, pointing to a ruined castle perched on a mound a hundred feet or more above them, announced: 'We are arrived.'
When engaging him, Robbie had not realized that Monolithos, although off the ordinary tourist beat, was considered one of the beauty spots of the island, but naturally Tino imagined that to be the reason why he had been hired to bring them there. In the circumstances, and as they still had no idea in which direction from that spot lay the site at which the Czech group was operating, there seemed nothing for it but to accept the situation. By a steep, twisting path between stunted pines they climbed the hill and when, panting, they reached the ruin, they felt that their effort had been well worth it.
The view from the crumbling walls of this long-deserted stronghold was superb, but to them it awarded something more. To the left of the headland, near the shore on the long bay that curved away southward, they could see some scattered buildings. Near them rose a pylon that, from that distance, looked like a child's piece of Meccano, and beyond the tiny line of creaming surf several boats were anchored. These indications made them confident that it was the place they were seeking.
Returning to the car, Robbie gave Tino his instructions. During the next twenty minutes, going slowly over devious stony ways, he brought them down to within a hundred yards of the buildings. There Stephanie got out and went forward on her own.
For some ten minutes Robbie remained in the car, a prey to considerable anxiety, until he saw Stephanie emerge from the largest of the cluster of buildings with a squat, broad-shouldered man beside her. When they reached the car Stephanie, now speaking Czech, introduced her companion as Comrade Rybacke, the engineer in charge of the group, and Robbie to him as Comrade Witold, a Polish travel agent who was making an exploratory tour of Rhodes with her.