A Fine Night for Dying (11 page)

T
hey made such excellent time that it was only nine-thirty as they approached St. Denise. There was a small bay with a deep-water channel marked on the chart about a quarter of a mile to the east, and Chavasse decided to give it a try.

He couldn't have made a better choice. The bay was almost a complete circle, no more than a hundred yards in diameter, and guarded by high cliffs that gave excellent cover from the sea. They dropped anchor and went below.

Chavasse put his leather business case on the table, opened it and tossed a couple of packets of francs across to Darcy. “Half for you, half for me. Just in case.”

“You mean I'm getting paid, too?”

Darcy stowed the money away in an inside pocket and Chavasse pressed a hidden catch and removed the false bottom of the case to reveal an interior compartment. Expertly packed away inside were a Smith & Wesson .38 magnum revolver, a Walther PPK and a machine pistol.

Darcy whistled softly. “What is this, Prohibition?”

“Nothing like being prepared.” Chavasse offered him the Smith & Wesson. “Guaranteed not to jam. About the best man-stopper I know.” He dropped the Walther into his pocket, replaced the false bottom in the case and stowed it away in a locker under the table. “And now for the most interesting act of the evening.”

They rowed ashore in the fiberglass dinghy, beached it and scaled the cliffs by means of a narrow path. The sky was blue-black, and every star gleamed like white fire. There was no moon, and yet a strange luminosity hung over everything, giving them a range of vision much greater than might have reasonably been expected under the circumstances. They made rapid progress through the scattered pines and soon came to a point from which they could look down into St. Denise.

There was a light here and there in the cottages and several in the downstairs windows of the Running Man.

“How do you intend to play this thing?” Darcy asked.

“By ear,” Chavasse told him. “Strictly by ear. Let's see how many guests are at the party first.”

They went down the hill, scrambled across a fence and continued along a narrow country lane that soon brought them to the outskirts of the village. Here the cottages were spaced well apart, each with its own small patch of ground under cultivation.

They passed the first house, and as they approached the second, Darcy placed a hand on Chavasse's sleeve. “This is Mercier's place, or did you know?”

“Now that is interesting,” Chavasse said softly. “Let's take a look.”

They moved across the cobbled yard and crouched by the window. Light reached out with golden fingers into the darkness, and through a gap in the curtain they could see Mercier sitting at the kitchen table, head bowed, a bottle of brandy and a tin mug in front of him.

“He doesn't look too happy,” Darcy said.

Chavasse nodded. “Didn't you say something about his wife being an invalid?”

“That's right. Hasn't been out of bed in four years.”

“Then she's hardly likely to interfere if we're quiet. Knock on the door and then get out of sight. I'll handle him.”

Mercier was slow in responding and his footsteps dragged strangely across the stone floor. He opened the door and peered out, took a step forward, an anxious, expectant look on his face. Chavasse touched the barrel of the gun to his temple.

“One cry and you're a dead man, Mercier. Inside.”

Mercier moved backward and Chavasse went after him, Preston close behind. He closed the door and Mercier looked from one to the other then laughed abruptly.

“This'll be a surprise for Jacaud. He told me you were both dead.”

“Where is he?”

“At the Running Man, entertaining his cronies from the village.”

“And Rossiter?”

Mercier shrugged. “They came back this morning, just before noon, in the Englishman's boat.”

“That would be a man called Gorman?”

Mercier nodded. “We've done a lot of business with him in the past. He's always in and out of here.”

“What about the authorities?”

“In these parts, monsieur?” Mercier shrugged. “People mind their own business.”

Chavasse nodded. “What happened to Rossiter and the others? Are they still at the Running Man?”

Mercier shook his head. “Monsieur Rossiter left just after noon in the Renault. He took the Indian girl and the Chinese man with him. The Chinese man was heavily bandaged about the face.”

“How did the girl look?”

“How would you expect her to look, monsieur? As beautiful as ever.”

“I don't mean that. Did she seem afraid at all—afraid of Rossiter?”

Mercier shook his head. “On the contrary, monsieur. She looked at him as if he were…” He seemed to have difficulty in finding the right word. “As if he were…”

“God?” Darcy Preston suggested.

“Something like that, monsieur.”

He was strangely calm and unafraid and the answers came readily. Chavasse let it go for the moment and carried on. “Where did they go?”

“I haven't the slightest idea.”

“Come off it, Mercier, you can do better than that. Try Hellgate, for a start, and Montefiore—don't tell me you've never heard of them?”

“Of course, monsieur. I have heard those two names on several occasions—snatches of conversation between Jacaud and Monsieur Rossiter, but that is all. To me they are names and nothing more.”

He was speaking the truth. Chavasse was certain, which didn't seem to make any kind of sense.

“What's happened, Mercier?” he said softly. “You're a different man.”

Mercier turned without a word, walked to a door, opened it and stood to one side. “Messieurs,” he said, with a small hopeless gesture.

Chavasse and Preston moved to join him and looked into a small, cluttered sitting room. A plain wooden coffin rested on the table, a candle at each end.

Chavasse closed the door gently. “Your wife?”

Mercier nodded. “Not a day without pain for four years, monsieur, and yet she never complained, although she knew there could be only one end. I tried everything. Big doctors from Brest, expensive medicines—all for nothing.”

“That must have cost money.”

Mercier nodded. “How else do you think I came to be working for an animal like Jacaud? For my Nanette—only for Nanette. It was for her that I endured so much horror. For her and her alone that I kept my mouth shut.”

“You're saying you went in fear of your life?”

Mercier shook his head. “No, monsieur, in fear for my wife's life, of what that devil Rossiter might do to her.”

“He made such threats?”

“To keep me quiet. He had to, monsieur, particularly after a trip some weeks ago when I sailed on the
Leopard
as a deckhand.”

“What happened then?”

Mercier hesitated, and Chavasse said, “Let me tell you what happened after we left here last night. The
Leopard
went down in the Channel; did Jacaud tell you that?”

“He said there had been an accident. That the engine had exploded and that the rest of you had been killed.”

“He and Rossiter left us to drown, locked in the saloon,” Chavasse said. “The woman and the old man died trying to swim ashore.”

Mercier looked genuinely shocked. “My God, they are animals, not men. Why, only the other week, monsieur, on the occasion I was speaking of earlier, we were sighted off the English coast by a British torpedo boat. We had only one passenger at the time—a special trip for some reason.” He turned to Darcy. “A West Indian like you, monsieur.”

Preston's face had tightened and he looked ill. “What happened?”

“Rossiter said we'd get seven years if we were caught with him aboard. He put him over the side, wrapped in chains—and he was still alive. Still alive. Sometimes in my dreams, I can still see the look in his eyes when Rossiter put him over the rail.”

Darcy nodded blindly. “And he told you he'd kill your wife if you didn't keep quiet.”

“That's right, monsieur.”

Darcy turned abruptly, wrenched open the door, and went out. Mercier looked bewildered, and Chavasse said quietly, “His brother—his brother, Mercier. We've come to settle the account. Will you help us?”

Mercier took a reefer jacket from behind the door and pulled it on. “Anything, monsieur.”

“Good. This is what you will do. Wait by the Running Man and watch the harbor. In a little while, you will see the
Mary Grant
come in. You know her?”

“Of course, monsieur, Gorman's boat.”

“You will enter the Running Man and tell Jacaud that Gorman has returned and is waiting urgently for him down at the jetty. Make sure that other people hear you tell him this.”

“And afterward?”

“Do you have a boat of your own?”

Mercier nodded. “An old whaleboat with a diesel engine.”

“Good—when we leave the harbor, we will go to a bay called Penmarch. You know it?”

“As I know every inch of this coast.”

“We'll wait for you there.” Chavasse slapped him on the shoulder. “We will fix him, our brave Jacaud, eh, Mercier?”

Mercier's eyes glowed with fire, the hatred of years boiling over, and they went out together.

 

THERE were perhaps a dozen fishermen in the bar when Mercier entered the Running Man, and Jacaud was holding court. They pressed round eagerly as he poured red wine from an earthenware jug, leaving a trail like blood across the counter while the old woman who worked for him looked on with a tight mouth.

“Free,” he roared. “Everything on me. In the morning, I'll be away and you'll never see old Jacaud again.”

Mercier had difficulty forcing his way through to the bar, but when Jacaud noticed him, he greeted him effusively.

“Mercier, old friend, where have you been hiding?”

His speech was slurred and he gave every appearance of being drunk. Mercier was instantly suspicious, never having seen him the worse for liquor in his whole life.

“I've got a message for you,” he said loudly. “From Monsieur Gorman.”

Several heads turned in interest and Jacaud frowned, instantly sober. “Gorman? He is here?”

“At the jetty. He just came in on the
Mary Grant
.”

Jacaud put down the jug and nodded to the old woman. “It's all yours.” He came round the bar and brushed past Mercier. “Let's go.”

Outside a slight wind moved in from the sea and stirred the pines. “Did he say what he wanted? Is it trouble?”

Mercier shrugged. “Why should he talk to me, Monsieur Jacaud, a person of no importance? He told me nothing.”

Jacaud glared at him in surprise, aware of a new belligerency in his tone, but there was no time to investigate now. At the end of the street, Mercier paused.

“I leave you here, monsieur.”

“You are going home?”

“That's right.”

Jacaud tried to inject a little friendliness into his voice. “I'll drop in later, if I may, after I've seen what Gorman wants. I'd like to talk things over with you now that I'm leaving.”

“As you wish, monsieur.”

Mercier faded into the night and Jacaud continued on his way, walking quickly, without even the slightest hint of drunkenness in his manner. If anything, he was worried, for he was not overendowed with intelligence. Rossiter had left him strict instructions as to what he was to do and Gorman hadn't entered into them at all.

The
Mary Grant
waited at the jetty, her engine whispering quietly. He went down the ladder to the deck and paused uncertainly. There was a movement in the wheelhouse and he went toward it quickly.

“Gorman?” he demanded hoarsely.

He reached the door, and the heart in him seemed to stop beating, for the face that stared coldly at him from the darkness, disembodied in the light from the binnacle, was one that he had never expected to see again in this life.

Chavasse smiled gently. “Come right in, Jacaud.”

Jacaud took a step back and the muzzle of a revolver touched him on the temple. He turned his head involuntarily and found himself looking straight at Darcy Preston.

Sweat sprang to his forehead, cold as death, and he started to shake, for what he was seeing simply could not be. He sagged against the wheelhouse door with a groan, and the
Mary Grant
left the jetty and moved out to sea.

 

BY the time they had anchored in Penmarch Bay, Jacaud no longer believed in ghosts, only in miracles, and a miracle was something that could happen to anyone. His awe had been replaced by anger, and he awaited his chance to strike. It came when Mercier arrived and tied up alongside in his old whaleboat. Preston went to catch the line he threw, leaving Chavasse in charge, who suddenly seemed to get careless. Jacaud grabbed for the gun Chavasse was holding, and Chavasse, who had been anticipating just such a move, swayed to one side and clouted him over the head.