The Power Cube Affair - Phillifent John T. (версия книг .txt) 📗

Beeman exploded into action, moving incredibly faster than seemed possible for a man of his bulk. Nan Perrell went aside like a doll. Walker grunted and fell aside in the opposite direction. Kuryakin was hurled bodily aside as the fat man rampaged through the door and out into the dark. Solo tore after him, scrambling and hopping over the assorted bodies, charging out into the dark, peering about, just in time to see a gross form pose by the rail and then leap down into the sea. Without stopping to think, Solo ran like a hare for the rail, launched himself into a low dive, struck the water cleanly and plunged deep. Kicking, he arched over and shot back to the surface.

"A light!" he yelled. "Give us a light!"

Seconds later he heard Illya on the bullhorn. "Launch ahoy! Man overboard, port side!"

Then, very soon, a white beam split the darkness, and the launch snored capably through the water to pick them up, willing hands hoisted him inboard.

"Thanks," he gasped, "but it's not me you're looking for. There's another man down. I was right behind him, he can't have gone far."

He crouched in the bows, shivering and wet, while a sea man swung the searchlight on the wheelhouse roof and the launch quartered the sea patiently, but there was no sign. After half an hour Woods called him from the wheel."

"Dead or alive, Mr. Solo, he's a mile away by now. We'll never find him in this. She's starting to blow hard. Might as well give it a miss. Scrub around. You need a change of clothing anyway."

The launch put back to Trojan. So did the small boat that had carried the stop and check party. This time the gathering in the Trojan wardroom had a different feel about it. Hope made his own position clear.

"My orders were to render all assistance to you two. I think you'll agree matters have gone a bit beyond that now. I'm radioing a full report back, plus a message from Miss Perrell to her superiors. For now, I propose to put a skeleton crew aboard the yacht and escort her back to Harwich, where the higher ups can sort things out whichever way they think fit. That's for later. Right now I have a different kind of problem. You see, we're just a destroyer. We're not designed to accommodate guests. Or prisoners. Hanged if I know which you are, to be honest. So look here, if you can give me assurance that there'll be no more malarkey, I propose putting you back on that yacht. After all, she's got the space."

"Sounds like fun." Nan Perrell grinned her crooked grin. "A trip on a millionaire's yacht, plus a naval escort. It will be something to look back on while I'm in jail."

"You won't do any time in jail," Walker growled. "Not if I have anything to say about it. I saw that fishing line!"

"You'll get your chance to talk at the proper time, Walker. All right, then, let's get you lot back there and get moving, shall we?"

The three of them gathered in the cabin where it had all started, now silent and a little weary. Solo found a seat and sagged.

"It's all gone cockeyed," he complained, and she stared at him.

"Don't run yourself into the ground, Napoleon. You've done wonders, you and Illya. Green's gone. Beeman's gone. The customs people will take this craft apart and find—"

"They won't find a thing!" Kuryakin disagreed. "Oh, Beeman and Green were smuggling something, sure enough, but I doubt if it's here. If only we could have held Green, made him talk!"

"Sorry about that, Illya. I hit him too hard."

"Now look!" She came to stand between them indignantly. "What about me? You saved my life, remember?"

Solo looked up at her. "You're safe, yes, and we're glad of that. Very glad. You see, as soon as we saw Beeman's note it was obvious that we had blazed a trail back to you that even a blind man could have followed. So it was our fault that you fell in. And to be honest, we never expected to see you alive again. Knowing Beeman's form, we had to assume you written off."

"But you came just the same."

"Because he had given us a clue where to find him, that's all."

A tap at the door interrupted them, brought Walker with a companion, the small steward. Solo saw now that he was Chinese and very woebegone.

"Fu Manchu, here, is a good boy now," Walker chuckled. "Anything you want, just order. He's brought coffee."

The Chinese bobbed humbly. "Name Joe Lee, not Fu Manchu. You want supper, maybe?" He got no offers on that. Kuryakin asked:

"How about sleeping space?"

Lee blinked, recited as if from a map in his head. "This cabin, port forward, belong top guests. Four beds, two this side, two that. Clean and fresh all the time. Starboard forward used only for dinner and company, no sleeping, no sheets but can fix. Two little cabins midships. Two more aft, one for Missa Green. Which you want?"

"We hadn't better disturb Green and the evidence. If you can make up the two midships cabins for me and Illya—"

"That's enough!" Nan Perrell cut in again. "If I could sleep, which I doubt, I am not staying all alone in this cabin. Joe, you make up three of the four here. I'll help you."

Beneath their feet engines started to throb. Lee looked up from the sheet he was smoothing down and sighed. "Go now. Be in harbor soon. Then police come, plenty trouble."

"For everybody," Kuryakin agreed, and added something that made the little man turn his head abruptly and then scuttle for the door.

"Bring breakfast, one bell. Egg-bacon-coffee-grapefruit for everybody, is O.K.?" and then he was gone.

"What did you say to him, Illya?"

"Very wise old Chinese saying, not by Chairman Mao. A wise man stops when he has one hand full of trouble."

"In other words, don't bite off more than you can chew?"

"Something like that. It looks as if we have chewed up a lot more than we can bite off, this time."

"And we can't call out for help, either," Solo pointed out. "Not this time."

"You keep on writing me off," she said, unbuttoning her dress and draping it over the foot of the bunk. "I'm still here, thanks to you. And this, I think, is where you are going to see just what Charles can do, when he tries. We will be taken care of, don't you worry

"I hope you're right," Solo poured a cup for himself and sipped it. "Incidentally, how did you come to get suckered into Beeman's clutches."

"Confession." She sat, extended a leg and began unbuckling her gun straps. "I overlooked the number one rule about phone calls. I got one, at seven-thirty. I was expecting Charles. Instead it was Monty Hagen, from Danby Hall. Would I care to run over and explain about your queer behavior the night before? And—I blush to admit it—I fell for it."

"How do you mean, fell for it?" Kuryakin asked, crossing over and dropping to a knee beside her. "Here, let me help. Your fingers aren't straightened out yet."

"I should have rung back. Obviously. I could kick myself. Especially when I think about it. I mean, when in the world did any of the Danby household ever see daylight before eleven A.M.?"

"So it was a fake?"

"But of course!" She smiled gently, changed legs. "I should have known. Monty would be easy enough to mimic. Anyway, off I went, eyes full of stars about you two. And you may remember that dip in the road, just before the left hand curve away past the turnoff for Beeman's place?"

Kuryakin looked up from his unbuckling. "Don't tell me you went down there to take a look at the wreckage?"