The spray came flashing back like drops of crystal sunlight from the bows of the Grey Lady as she rose and dipped, ploughing her way southwards in the teeth of a stiff breeze. The rolling blue of the Mediterranean was crested with multitudinous little white caps. Sometimes the wind lifted the foam bodily from the breaking waves and dashed it like a shower of April rain across the white decks. Susan, holding fast to the rail, tossed her head back to let the wind sweep through her hair.
“It’s wonderful. Grant,” she exclaimed. “This is the best day we’ve ever had on the Grey Lady. The wind’s getting up, too, isn’t it?”
“It’s freshening a little, I think,” Grant admitted. “Thank heavens, you’re all good sailors.”
“Upon me, when sailing,” Cornelius Blunn declared, “the sea has a pernicious and devastating effect. It gives me appetite, it gives me thirst, it fills me with the joy of life. Yet no sooner do I set my foot upon an ocean steamer than I am incapacitated. It is amazing!”
“I’m glad you mentioned that—the little matter of thirst,” Grant observed, smiling. “It is a long time between afternoon tea and cocktails. We must introduce Baron Funderstrom to my famous Scotch whisky. Let’s go into the smoke room. They’ve got the fiddles on the table.”
Baron Funderstrom, a tall, gloomy man, grey-haired, grey-bearded, grey-visaged, of neutral outlook and tired manners, accepted the invitation without enthusiasm or demur. He drank two whiskeys and sodas quite patiently.
“It is good whisky,” he pronounced.
“It is wonderful,” Blunn agreed. “It reminds me of what I used to drink in my younger days.”
“It is not SO potent as our own,” Baron Funderstrom remarked. “One could drink a great deal of this without discomfort.”
His eyes were upon the decanter. Grant refilled their glasses,
“Wonderful!” Blunn repeated. “Mr. Slattery, you are the best host in the world. Never shall I forget our first picnic on board this yacht. It is amazing that you should invite us again so soon. Tell me—you will not think I am presuming, I am sure—but our invitation, as I received it, was a little vague. Do we dine on board to-night, or are we to be landed?”
“You dine on board most certainly,” Grant announced. “If this wind continues, we may not be able to land you until quite late in the evening. However, I think that I can promise that my larder and my cellar will be equal to any demands we can put upon them.”
“So far as one can judge,” the Scandinavian observed, “they are capable of anything. It is a great thing to own a yacht like this. It’s the acme of luxury. Speaking of returning, though, Mr. Slattery, you will not forget that we have to leave for Nice at nine o’clock to-morrow morning.”
“That’s all right,” Grant assured him. “The wind always goes down with the twilight.”
“When shall we change our course?” Cornelius Blunn enquired, looking out of the porthole.
“Presently. It’s pleasanter to make a straight run out.”
Prince von Diss swaggered into the smoke room. He seemed smaller than ever in his nautical blue serge, and he was perhaps not quite such a good sailor as the others. He was certainly looking a little pinched.
“Mr. Slattery,” he said, in a loud and important tone, “I have been talking to your navigator. Isn’t it almost time we altered our course? We have been out of sight of land for an hour and more.”
“I expect Captain Martin knows what he’s about,” Grant observed coolly. “Come and try this whisky. Prince, or would you prefer a brandy and soda?”
“I never drink spirits,” was the prompt reply. “Wine, if you have any.”
“I have some Clicquot—a very excellent year.”
“I will drink some Clicquot,” Prince von Diss decided.
They all sat down again while the steward produced an ice pail. There was a disposition on Blunn’s part to forget that they had been drinking whisky and soda. Grant managed to slip away. He reached the deck and sat down by Gertrude’s side.
“Really,” she observed, with her eyes fixed upon the horizon, “we might almost be taking that sea voyage.”
He smiled.
“A marvellously favourable wind!”
“Are they all right?” she asked, dropping her voice a little.
“Perfectly contented, so far! They’ve begun on champagne now after whisky and soda. I’m hoping that they may feel like a nap before dinner.”
“Champagne!” she murmured. “That’s Otto, I’m sure. He never drinks anything else. I don’t think, though,” she went on, “that you’ll ever get him to drink enough to make him sleepy. When do you think the trouble will come?”
“Not until after dinner,” Grant assured her. “I shall set the course a little differently before then. As soon as it is necessary to get steam up, I shall be sent for down to the engine room.”
“Really, life might have been very amusing,” she sighed, “if only—”
“It will be amusing enough presently,” he interrupted. “I can see that your husband is already in rather an uncertain mood,—ready to make trouble at the slightest provocation.”
“Our friend the Baron, I should think, will remain perfectly philosophical, especially if he has already touched the fifty thousand pounds,” Gertrude declared. “He’s the most colourless person I have ever met.”
Cornelius Blunn came out of the smoking room and walked towards them. His expression was inclined to be thoughtful. He stood for a moment watching their course. Then he looked at the sun.
“You’ll have a long beat back,” he remarked to Grant.
“I shall steam back,” the latter told him. “We’re sailing now—for one thing, because it’s so much pleasanter, and the women enjoy it so.”
“I’m not a nautical man,” Blunn confessed, “but I presume it would be impossible to get back under canvas.”
“With this wind it would take us at least twenty-four hours,” Grant acknowledged. “I don’t think we should make it then. Nowadays every yacht of any size has auxiliary power of a sort.”
“We would wish to avoid even the appearance of interfering with your arrangements,” Blunn said, “but you will not forget that our friend, Baron Funderstrom, is a delegate; that means he must leave for Nice at nine o’clock to-morrow morning.”
“He’ll be back before midnight.”
“It is rather a pity Lord Yeovil was not able to join us. We should have felt quite safe with him here.”
“He and Lymane are hard at it, getting things ready for to-morrow,” Grant explained. “It isn’t very often he misses a day on the sea. What about a rubber of bridge before dinner. I’ll order a table.”
He strolled away. Blunn turned towards Gertrude. He looked at her for a moment thoughtfully.
“Has anything about this cruise struck you as being in any way peculiar?” he asked.
“Why, no,” she replied. “It all seems very pleasant. Mr. Slattery is a wonderful host.”
“Marvellous!” he assented. “Still, I don’t quite see why he’s standing such a long way out or why he was so particularly anxious to have Funderstrom as a guest. Funderstrom is not an attractive man.”
“As a matter of fact, it was I who suggested him,” she admitted. “And having once mentioned his name, I suppose Mr. Slattery was trying to be civil.”
“It was you who suggested him,” Blunn repeated thoughtfully. “Ah, well, we shall see. I expect I’m being very foolish. We shall soon know.”
“I don’t know about being foolish but you’re very mysterious,” Gertrude said, with slightly uplifted eyebrows.
“It is because I am on the scent of a mystery,” he replied. “A crude mystery, a clumsy affair, without a doubt—but still a mystery. We shall see.”
It was a significant fact to Cornelius Blunn that cocktails were introduced before the accustomed time and pressed upon every one to the limits of hospitality. Grant, himself, who was, as a rule, exceedingly moderate, set an example by drinking one every time they came round, and when they descended into the saloon for dinner, there were magnums of champagne upon the table.
“When we get on deck after dinner,” he announced, “we shall be headed for the land and under steam.”
“At what time do you propose to get rid of us?” Gertrude asked.
“In time for a final flutter at the Casino, if you’re keen about it,” he assured her.
The service of dinner proceeded. The wine circulated, conversation, which had languished at first, soon became gay, even uproarious. Cornelius Blunn alone seemed to be scarcely in his usual spirits. He looked often out of the porthole; more than once he glanced at the clock.
“What about the course, now?” he asked his host once.
“We are round by this time,” Grant answered. “You’ll hear the engines directly.”
Another half an hour passed, however, and the engines remained silent. Then one of the junior officers came in and whispered in Grant’s ear. He laid down his table napkin.
“May I be excused for a minute?” he begged. “A matter of etiquette. My engineer always has to consult me. A perfect bluff, of course.”
He was gone about ten minutes. When he came back they all looked at him a little curiously. It was Gertrude who became spokeswoman.
“Is anything wrong, Grant?” she asked. “We’re not going to be shipwrecked or anything, are we?”
“Not a chance of it,” he assured her. “I wish there were. I’d show you what an Admirable Crichton I should make. As a matter of fact, there’s a little trouble with one of the pistons. We may not be able to get going for an hour or so.”
There was a brief silence. Then Susan laughed gaily.
“What fun! Shall we have to sleep on board?”
“Not so bad as that, I don’t suppose,” was the cheerful reply. “If you do, though, I fancy we can manage to make you comfortable. Bad luck it’s a head wind, or we could beat in. We’re gaining a little all the time, as it is.”
Baron Funderstrom finished his glass of champagne and looked to see if there was any more in the nearest bottle.
“There will be no doubt, I trust, about my being landed in time to get to Nice to-morrow?” he enquired.
“Not the slightest,” Grant promised, making a sign to the steward. “Now, gentlemen, we must just finish this champagne. Then I’m going to introduce you to my Madeira. Vintage port I can’t offer you, but my Madeira—well, I bought it on the island myself, and I believe there is nothing else quite like it.”
They sat for the best part of an hour round the table. The women went out on deck, but Susan soon returned in glistening oilskins.
“Dark as pitch,” she declared, “and little spits of rain all the time. Really, Mr. Host, you do provide us with lots of variety, even in the way of weather.”
Grant rose to his feet.
“We’ll have a look round,” he proposed. “I thought we should have heard the engines before now.”
They trooped out on deck. One of the stewards was busy handing out oilskins and sou’westers. They walked up and down for a moment or two. There were no lights in sight, and they seemed to be doing little more than drift.
“I’ll go and have a talk to Captain Martin,” Grant suggested. “Perhaps I’d better look downstairs first, though, and see what Henderson can arrange, in case we have to give you a shakedown.”
“I’d like to come with you,” Cornelius Blunn, who had been curiously silent for some time, proposed. “Which way are your quarters?”
Grant led them along the oak-panelled passage and threw open the door of his own little suite. Blunn, who was following close behind, suddenly pushed against him, so heavily that Grant slipped. The Prince, who had joined them on the stairs, slammed the door. Grant felt the cold pressure of a pistol against his forehead.
“If you utter a sound,” Blunn threatened, “as sure as I’m a living man, you’ll be a dead one. Hold up your hands and back away there.”
Grant held up one hand and stooped and picked up a cigar with the other.
“I give you my word of honour that I am not armed,” he said, “and I haven’t the faintest intention of quarrelling with a man who is. Now what’s it all about?”
“Will you give the order to start your engines?” Blunn demanded.
“I’ll see you damned first,” was the emphatic reply.