“All right,” said Fleet’s voice out of the dark, soft, savage and frightening, “bring them back inside. All right! There are other ways.”
He was out of breath, ruffled, bruised. He looked from Luke’s huddled body to his own awed and silent lieutenants; he looked at Bunty, and the ray of the torch showed her his face outlined in abrupt lights and shadows, planes of steep pallor and obliques of dusty black. All the debonair, easy, vigorous bonhomie had cracked and fallen away from those razor-edged surfaces. This was basic Fleet, the bedrock fact of what he had made of himself, for in every aspect of him Fleet was a selfmade man. Neither her life nor Luke’s was worth half a crown now, but for one thing. Fleet still didn’t know where the money was. And Luke was past questioning. A respite for him, at least; he’d had more than enough. Now she was left. Fleet’s marmalade eyes, orange-flecked, glowed almost to red as he stared at her.
Without turning his head he addressed Quilley, who had clambered painfully to his feet again, and was holding himself up by the wall. “Get back upstairs, and keep a sharp eye out. Somebody could have heard the shots.”
“Yes, sure, boss, I’m going. I had to come down… the front door… they’d have made it if I hadn’t…” He edged away along the wall, eager and anxious, hooked an arm heavily over the bannister rail, and began to drag himself back to his guard duty. The torch caught the whites of his eyes, turned back hopefully and fearfully upon Fleet.
“All right, you had to come down! Now get back!”
Quilley went in fear, groaning as he climbed.
“Well, what happened to you two?” But he knew already. “There was nothing there, of course.”
“Nothing. No ring, even. A lot of lies,” Con said indignantly.
“We had to get out of sight fast, too,” Skinner supplemented. “There’s a boat making up-coast, not far offshore. We didn’t want to be seen. But we’d already made sure. He was lying, all right.”
“Bring him in,” said Fleet, and stalked ahead of them into the living-room.
Blackie prodded Bunty before him into the ravaged room, and pushed her down into the settee. The other two dragged in Luke by his arms and tumbled him on the floor in front of her feet, a thin, long, disjointed puppet. They had only the two torches for light, the small, guttering candle that belonged to the Alports, and the illuminated club that had battered Luke into unconsciousness. Fine slivers of glass crunched under their feet, and drew thin silver-point lines the length of Luke’s dangling hand.
By this curiously stagey lighting Bunty looked round the chaos of the room, from the shattered light-fixture to the door-lintel where Fleet’s second bullet had buried itself.
There was no passing this off as a murder and suicide from despair now. Did that make bargaining possible? No, not a hope. There was a lot of room in the sea, and such witnesses as Fleet had at his mercy were better out of the way.
“You’ll need a new script, won’t you?” she heard herself saying with unbelievable calm. “Four bullet-holes to account for, and all this wreckage. And after you’d polished all the prints off the business gun, too! I can’t wait to see you tidy this lot up.”
“Too true,” said Fleet, in a voice as soft as it was vicious. “You couldn’t have put it better—you can’t wait! You’re too sharp, my dear, too sharp altogether. A lot too sharp for your own good. Wouldn’t you do better to cooperate, and tell me where the money’s hidden?”
“No,” she said with a tight, tired smile, “I shouldn’t. That’s the last thing I’d be likely to do, even if I knew. You’re so sure I’ve got no time left. But I have! I’ve got until you know the answer to that, either from him or from me. That long, and not many minutes longer. You think I don’t know a killer when I see one? If I told you what you want to know, that would be the last thing I should do. So wouldn’t I be a fool to tell you? Even if I knew?”
Fleet hit her then, with his open hand, deliberately and yet not too hard. He took pleasure in weighing and measuring the blow nicely, to jerk back her head and send a jarring shock down her spine without, as yet, doing her any damage. And Bunty laughed.
“You think you can open my mouth that way? I should have to find living more uncomfortable than dying before I’d be driven to talk. And I like living. I’ll put up with a lot for it. By the time you’d got me to the amenable stage, I should be incapable of telling you. anything at all. I’m not the kind that dies easily. Either way, you’ll never know.”
Luke, crumpled at her feet, heaved a deeper breath into him, and moaned. Ignoring the guns, Bunty slid from her place and crouched upon the parquet beside him. She lifted his head into her lap, and stroked back his lank hair. A spasm dragged his face awry for a moment, and smoothed out again into the indifference of unconsciousness.
“Boss,” said Blackie in a low voice, “I reckon you’d be wasting time on her. I don’t believe she knows. He’d never trust her that far. Damn it, he only picked her up last night, on the run. It’s him we want.”
She gathered the limp body more closely into her lap, arched over him jealously. Let them think that, by all means, until Luke showed signs of coming round. Until then, he was safe. There was nothing they could do to him, and nothing effective they could do to her. To keep silence might be a slow sentence of death, but to speak was instant death, and between the two there was not much doubt of her preference. Time, if it took sides at all, was on her side, hers and Luke’s. Things become very simple when you have no choice, when there’s nothing left for you but to endure as long as you can, and survive if you can.
“Get him round, then,” Fleet spat viciously. “Pour cold water on him, anything, only bring him round, quick.”
Bunty laid her hand on Luke’s forehead, holding him at rest, willing him to remain absent.
“Damn you!” hissed Fleet through his teeth, in sudden fury, and kicked out ferociously at the limp body before him.
Bunty uttered a brief, furious cry, and flung herself across Luke’s helpless form, spreading her own arm and shoulder to ward off the blow. The face that glared up at Fleet, with bared teeth and flashing eyes, was the face of the antique woman that Caesar respected, the red-haired Celtic Amazon who emerged at need to fight shoulder to shoulder with her menfolk, huge, noble and daunting. Bunty’s Welsh ancestry went back beyond the small dark men. She saw Fleet start back from her in astonishment, almost in dread, so unused was he to people who forget to be afraid. She saw the gun in his hand prick up like a live snake, its cold eye fending her off; and she laughed, staring it down defiantly, with Luke gathered close into her arms from harm.
“Go ahead, then, shoot! Shoot, and then hunt for your money till your heart bursts, and much good may it do you, Mister Fleet!”
His mouth fell slack, he drew back from her a step in almost superstitious recoil; and in the moment of stricken silence they all heard Quilley’s voice calling down the well of the stairs in agitation, and trailing a hollow echo after it :
“Boss… boss! There’s a boat-load of men coming in towards the inlet. They’ve put out their lights… they’re coming in to land…!”
Fleet turned and rushed to the window, dragging the curtains aside and craning to see down into the inlet, to the faint phosphorescent glow that was the sea, palpitating and shimmering with almost imperceptible movement. Skinner, who was nearest to the door, made for the stairs and went up them three at a time. Crouched on the floor with Luke inert in her arms, Bunty heard their footsteps crossing the boards overhead, Skinner rapid and blunt, Quilley dragging like a crippled beast, crossing and re-crossing from front windows to rear, and back again. Con and Blackie crowded to the window behind Fleet’s hulking shoulders, peering, straining their eyes, holding their breath.