Puppet On A Chain Part 13

'Ah, I understand.' He didn't understand at all, which was that I didn't want brows raised or foreheads creased over the sight of Sherman leaving with a large brown parcel under his arm. He gave me the address I didn't want.

I put the parcel in the boot of the police car and drove through the city and the suburbs until I was out in the country, heading north. By and by I knew I was running alongside the waters of the Zuider Zee but I couldn't see them because of the high retaining d.y.k.e to the right of the road. There wasn't much to see on the left hand either: the Dutch countryside is not designed to send the tourist into raptures.

Presently I came to a signpost reading 'Huyler 5 km', and a few hundred yards further on turned left off the road and stopped the car soon after in the tiny square of a tiny picture-postcard village. The square had its post office and outside the post office was a public telephone-box. I locked the boot and doors of the car and left it there.

I made my way back to the main road, crossed it and climbed up the sloping gra.s.s-covered d.y.k.e until I could look out over the Zuider Zee. A fresh breeze sparkled the waters blue and white under the late afternoon sun, but, scenically, one couldn't say much more for that stretch of water, for the encompa.s.sing land was so low that it appeared, when it appeared at all, as no more than a flat dark bar on the horizon. The only distinctive feature anywhere to be seen was an island to the north-east, about a mile off-sh.o.r.e.

This was the island of Huyler and it wasn't even an island. It had been, but some engineers had built a causeway out to it from the mainland to expose the islanders more fully to the benefits of civilization and the tourist trade. Along the top of this causeway a tarmac highway had been laid.

Nor did the island itself even deserve the description of distinctive. It was so lowlying and flat that it seemed that a wave of any size must wash straight over it, but its flatness was relieved by scattered farm-houses, several big Dutch barns and, on the western sh.o.r.e of the island, facing towards the mainland, a village nestling round a tiny harbour. And, of course, it had its ca.n.a.ls. That was all there was to be seen, so I left, regained the road, walked along till I came to a bus stop and caught the first bus back to Amsterdam.

I elected for an early dinner, for I did not expect to have much opportunity to eat later that night and I had the suspicion that whatever the fates had in store for me that night had better not be encountered on a full stomach. And then I went to bed, for I didn't antic.i.p.ate having any sleep later that night either.

The travel alarm awoke me at half-past midnight. I didn't feel particularly rested. I dressed carefully in a dark suit, navy roll-neck jersey, dark rubber-soled canvas shoes and a dark canvas jacket. The gun I wrapped in a zipped oilskin bag and jammed into the shoulder-holster. Two spare magazines went into a similar pouch and I secured those in a zipped pocket of the canvas jacket. I looked longingly at the bottle of Scotch on the sideboard and decided against it. I left.

I left, as was by now second nature to me, by the fire-escape. The street below, as usual, was deserted and I knew that n.o.body followed me as I left the hotel. It wasn't necessary for anyone to follow me for those who wished me ill knew where I was going and where they could expect to find me. I knew they knew. What I hoped was that no one knew that I knew.

I elected to walk because I didn't have the car any more and because I had become allergic to taxis of Amsterdam. The streets were empty, at least the streets I chose were. It seemed a very quiet and peaceful city.

I reached the docks area, located myself, and moved on till I stood in the dark shadow of a storage shed. The luminous dial of my watch told me that it was twenty minutes to two. The wind had increased in strength and the air had turned much colder, but there was no rain about although there was rain in the air. I could smell it over the strong nostalgic odours of sea and tar and ropes and all the other things that make dockside areas smell the same the world over. Tattered dark clouds scudded across the only fractionally less dark sky, occasionally revealing a glimpse of a pale high half-moon, more often obscuring it, but even when the moon was hidden the darkness was never absolute, for above there were always rapidly changing patches of starlit sky.

In the brighter intervals I looked out across the harbour that stretched away into first dimness and then nothingness. There were literally hundreds of barges to be seen in this, one of the great barge harbours of the world, ranging in size from tiny twenty-footers to the ma.s.sive Rhine barges, all jammed in a seemingly inextricable confusion. The confusion, I knew, was more apparent than real. Close packed the barges undoubtedly were but, although it would call for the most intricate manoeuvring, each barge had, in fact, access to a narrow sea lane, which might intersect with two or three progressively larger lanes before reaching the open water beyond. The barges were connected to land by a series of long wide floating gangways, which in turn had other and narrower gangways attached at right angles to them.

The moon went behind a cloud. I moved out of the shadows on to one of the main central gangways, my rubber shoes quite soundless on the wet wood, and even had I been clumping along in hob-nailed boots I question whether anyone -- other than those who were ill-intentioned to me -- would have paid any heed, because although all the barges were almost certainly inhabited by their crews and in many cases their crews and families, there were only one or two scattered cabin lights to be seen among all the hundreds of craft lying there: and apart from the faint threnody of the wind and the soft creaking and rubbing as the wind made the barges work gently at their moorings, the silence was total. The barge harbour was a city in itself and the city was asleep.

I'd traversed about a third of the length of the main gangway when the moon broke through. I stopped and looked round.

About fifty yards behind me two men were walking purposefully and silently towards me. They were but shadows, silhouettes, but I could see that the silhouettes of their right arms were longer than those of their left arms. They were carrying something in their right hands. I wasn't surprised to see those objects in their hands just as I hadn't been surprised to see the men themselves.

I glanced briefly to my right. Two more men were advancing steadily from land on the adjacent paralleling gangway to the right. They were abreast with the two on my own gangway.

I glanced to the left. Two more of them, two more moving dark silhouettes. I admired their co-ordination.

I turned and kept on walking towards the harbour. As I went, I extracted the gun from its holster, removed the waterproof covering, zipped up the covering again and replaced it in a zipped pocket. The moon went behind a cloud. I began to run, and as I did so I glanced over my shoulder. The three pairs of men had also broken into a run. I made another five yards and glanced over my shoulder again. The two men on my gangway had stopped and were lining up their guns on me, or seemed to be, because it was difficult to see in the starlight, but a moment later I was convinced they had for narrow red flames licked out in the darkness although there was no sound of shots, which was perfectly understandable for no man in his right senses was going to upset hundreds of tough Dutch, German and Belgian bargees if he could possibly help it. They appeared, however, to have no objection to upsetting me. The moon came out again and I started to run a second time.

The bullet that hit me did more damage to my clothes than it did to me although the swift burning pain on the outside of my upper right arm made me reach up involuntarily to clasp it. Enough was enough. I swerved off the main gangway, jumped on to the bows of a barge that was moored by a small gangway at right angles and ran silently along the deck till I got in the shelter of the wheelhouse aft. Once in shelter, I edged a cautious eye round the corner.

The two men on the central gangway had stopped and were making urgent sweeping motions to their friends on the right, indicating that I should be outflanked and, more likely than not, shot in the back. They had, I thought, very limited ideas about what const.i.tuted fair play and sportsmans.h.i.+p: but there was no questioning their efficiency. Quite plainly, if they were going to get me at all -- and I rated their chances as good -- it was going to be by this encircling or outflanking method and it would obviously be a very good thing for me if I could disabuse them of this idea as soon as I could; so I temporarily ignored the two men on the central gangway, a.s.suming, and correctly, I hoped, that they would remain where they were and wait for the outflankers to catch me unawares, and turned round to face the left gangway.

Five seconds and they were in view, not running, but walking deliberately and peering into the moon-shadows cast by the wheelhouses and cabins of the barges, which was a very foolhardy or just simply foolish thing to do because I was in the deepest shadow I could find while they, by contrast, were almost brutally exposed by the light of the half-moon and I saw them long before they ever saw me. I doubt whether they ever saw me. One of them, for a certainty, did not, for he never saw anything again: he must have been dead before he struck the gangway and slid with a curious absence of noise, no more than a sibilant splash, into the harbour. I lined up for a second shot, but the other man had reacted very quickly indeed and flung himself backwards out of my line of sight before I could squeeze the trigger again. It occurred to me, for no reason at all, that my sportsmans.h.i.+p was on an even lower level than theirs, but I was in the mood for sitting ducks that night.

I turned and moved for'ard again and peered round the edge of the wheelhouse. The two men on the central gangway hadn't moved. Perhaps they didn't know what had happened. They were a very long way away for an accurate pistol shot by night, but I took a long steady careful aim and tried anyway. But this duck was too far away. I heard a man give an exclamation and clutch his leg, but from the alacrity with which he followed his companion and jumped from the gangway into the shelter of a barge he couldn't have been badly hurt. The moon went behind a cloud again, a very small cloud, but the only cloud for the next minute or so and they had me pinpointed. I scrambled along the barge, regained the main gangway and started to run further out into the harbour.

I hadn't got ten yards when that d.a.m.ned moon made its presence felt again. I flung myself flat, landing so that I faced insh.o.r.e. To my left the gangway was empty which was hardly surprising as the confidence of the remaining man there must have been badly shaken. I glanced to my right. The two men there were much closer than the two who had just so prudently vacated the central gangway and from the fact that they were still walking forward in a purposeful and confident manner it was apparent that they did not yet know that one of their number was at the bottom of the harbour, but they were as quick to learn the virtue of prudence as the other three had been, for they disappeared from the gangway very quickly when I loosed off two quick and speculative shots at them, both of which clearly missed. The two men who had been on the central gangway were making a cautious attempt to regain it, but they were too far away to worry me or I them.

For another five minutes this deadly game of hide-and-seek went on, running, taking cover, loosing off a shot, then running again, while all the time they closed in inexorably on me. They were being very circ.u.mspect now, taking the minimum of chances and using their superior numbers cleverly to advantage, one or two engaging my attention while the others scuttled forward from the shelter of one barge to the next. I was soberly and coldly aware that if I didn't do something different and do it very soon, there could be only one end to this game, and that it must come soon.

Of all the inappropriate times to do so, I chose several of the brief occasions I spent sheltering behind cabins and wheelhouses to think about Belinda and Maggie. Was this, I wondered, why they couldn't see me now, for not only would they have known they had behaved so queerly the last time I had seen them? Had they guessed, or known by some peculiarly feminine intuitive process, that something like this was going to happen to me and known what the end would be and been afraid to tell me? It was as well, I thought, that they had been right but their faith in the infallibility of their boss would have been sadly shaken. I felt desperate and I supposed I must have looked pretty much the same way; I'd expected to find a man with a quick gun or a quicker knife lying in wait for me and I think I could have coped with that, with luck even with two of them: but I had not expected this. What had I said to Belinda outside the warehouse? -- 'He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.' But now I had no place to run to for I was only twenty yards short of the end of the main gangway. It was a macabre feeling to be hunted to death like a wild animal or a dog with rabies while hundreds of people were sleeping within a hundred yards of me and all I had to do to save myself was to unscrew my silencer and fire two shots in the air and within seconds the entire barge harbour would have been in life-saving uproar. But I couldn't bring myself to do this, for what I had to do had to be done tonight and I knew this was the last chance I would ever have. My life in Amsterdam after tonight wouldn't be worth a crooked farthing. I couldn't bring myself to do it if there was left to me even the slenderest chance imaginable. I didn't think there was, not what a sane man would call a chance. I don't think I was quite sane then. Was this, I wondered, why they couldn't see me now, for not only would they have known they had behaved so queerly the last time I had seen them? Had they guessed, or known by some peculiarly feminine intuitive process, that something like this was going to happen to me and known what the end would be and been afraid to tell me? It was as well, I thought, that they had been right but their faith in the infallibility of their boss would have been sadly shaken. I felt desperate and I supposed I must have looked pretty much the same way; I'd expected to find a man with a quick gun or a quicker knife lying in wait for me and I think I could have coped with that, with luck even with two of them: but I had not expected this. What had I said to Belinda outside the warehouse? -- 'He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.' But now I had no place to run to for I was only twenty yards short of the end of the main gangway. It was a macabre feeling to be hunted to death like a wild animal or a dog with rabies while hundreds of people were sleeping within a hundred yards of me and all I had to do to save myself was to unscrew my silencer and fire two shots in the air and within seconds the entire barge harbour would have been in life-saving uproar. But I couldn't bring myself to do this, for what I had to do had to be done tonight and I knew this was the last chance I would ever have. My life in Amsterdam after tonight wouldn't be worth a crooked farthing. I couldn't bring myself to do it if there was left to me even the slenderest chance imaginable. I didn't think there was, not what a sane man would call a chance. I don't think I was quite sane then.

I looked at my watch. Six minutes to two. In yet another way, time had almost run out. I looked at the sky. A small cloud was drifting towards the moon and this would be the minute they would choose for the next and almost certainly last a.s.sault: it would have to be the moment I chose for my next and almost certainly last attempt to escape. I looked at the deck of the barge: its cargo was sc.r.a.p and I picked up a length of metal. I again gauged the direction of that dark little cloud, which seemed to have grown even littler. Its centre wasn't going to pa.s.s directly across the moon but it would have to do.

I'd five shots left in my second magazine and I fired them off in quick succession at where I knew or guessed my pursuers had taken cover. I hoped this might hold them for a few seconds but I don't think I really believed it. Quickly I shoved the gun back in its waterproof covering, zipped it up and for extra security stowed it not in its holster but in a zipped pocket of my canvas coat, ran along the barge for a few steps, stepped on the gunwale and threw myself on to the main gangway. I scrambled desperately to my feet and as I did I realized that the d.a.m.ned cloud had missed the moon altogether.

I suddenly felt very calm because there were no options open to me now. I ran, because there was nothing else in the world I could do, weaving madly from side to side to throw my would-be executioners off aim. Half a dozen times in not three seconds I heard soft thudding sounds -- they were as close to me as that now -- and twice felt hands that I could not see tugging fiercely at my clothes. Suddenly I threw my head back, flung both arms high in the air and sent the piece of metal spinning into the water and had crashed heavily to the gangway even before I heard the splash. I struggled drunkenly and briefly to my feet, clutched my throat, and toppled over backwards into the ca.n.a.l. I took as deep a breath as possible and held it against the impact.

The water was cold, but not icily so, opaque and not very deep. My feet touched mud and I kept them touching mud. I began to exhale, very slowly, very carefully, husbanding my air reserves which probably weren't very much as I didn't go in for this sort of thing very often. Unless I had miscalculated the eagerness of my pursuers to do away with me -- and I hadn't -- the two men on the central gangway would have been peering hopefully down at the spot where I had disappeared within five seconds of my disappearance. I hoped that they drew all the wrong conclusions from the slow stream of bubbles drifting to the top of the water and I hoped they drew them soon, for I couldn't keep up this kind of performance very much longer.

After what seemed about five minutes but was probably not more than thirty seconds I stopped exhaling and sending bubbles to the surface for the excellent reason that I had no more air left in my lungs to exhale. My lungs were beginning to hurt a little now. I could almost hear my heart -- I could certainly feel it -- thudding away in an empty chest, and my ears ached. I pushed clear of the mud and swam to my right and hoped to G.o.d I'd got myself orientated right. I had. My hand came in contact with the keel of a barge and I used the purchase obtained to pa.s.s quickly under, then swam up to the surface.

I don't think I could have stayed below for even a few seconds longer without swallowing water. As it was, when I broke surface it took considerable restraint and will-power to prevent me from drawing in a great lungful of air with a whoop that could have been heard half-way across the harbour, but in certain circ.u.mstances, such as when your life depends on it, one can exercise a very considerable amount of will-power indeed and I made do with several large but silent gulps of air.

At first I could see nothing at all, but this was just because of the oily film on the surface of the water that had momentarily glued my eyelids together. I cleared this but still there wasn't much to see, just the dark hull of the barge I was hiding behind, the main gangway in front of me, and another parallel barge about ten feet distant. I could hear voices, a soft murmuring of voices. I swam silently to the stern of the barge, steadied myself by the rudder and peered cautiously round the stern. Two men, one with a torch, were standing on the gangway peering down at the spot where I had so recently disappeared: the waters were satisfactorily dark and still.

The two men straightened. One of them shrugged and made a gesture with the palms of both hands held upwards: the second man nodded agreement and rubbed his leg tenderly. The first man lifted his arms and crossed them above his head twice, first to his left, then to his right. Just as he did so there was a staccato and spluttering coughing sound as a marine diesel, somewhere very close indeed, started up. It was obvious that neither of the two men cared very much for this new development, for the man who had made the signal at once grabbed the arm of the other and led him away, hobbling badly, at the best speed he could muster.

I hauled myself aboard the barge, which sounds a very simple exercise indeed, but when a sheer-sided bull is four feet clear of the water this simple exercise can turn out to be a near-impossibility and so it turned out for me. I made it eventually with the aid of the stern-rope, flopped over the gunwale and lay there for a full half minute, gasping away like a stranded whale, before a combination of the beginnings of recovery from complete exhaustion and a mounting sense of urgency had me on my feet again and heading towards the barge's bows and the main gangway.

The two men who had been so lately bent on my destruction and were now no doubt full of that righteous glow which comes from the satisfaction of a worthwhile job well done were now no more than two vaguely discerned shadows disappearing into the even deeper shadows of the storage sheds on sh.o.r.e. I pulled myself on to the gangway and crouched there for a moment until I had located the source of the diesel, then stooped, ran,quickly along the gangway till I came to the place where the barge was secured to a side gangway, first dropping to my hands and knees, then inching along on knees and elbows before peering over the edge of the gangway.

The barge was at least seventy feet in length, broad in proportion and as totally lacking in grace of design as it was possible to be. The for'ard three quarters of the barge was given up entirely to battened holds, then after that came the wheelhouse and, right aft and joined to the wheelhouse, the crew accommodation. Yellow lights shone through the curtained windows. A large man in a dark peaked cap was leaning out of a wheelhouse window talking to a crew member who was about to clamber on to the side gangway to cast off.

The stern of the barge was hard against the main gangway on which I was lying. I waited till the crew member had climbed on to the side gangway and was walking away to cast off for'ard, then slithered down soundlessly on to the stern of the barge and crouched low behind the cabin until I heard the sound of ropes being thrown aboard and the hollow thump of feet on wood as the man jumped down from the side gangway. I moved silently for'ard until I came to an iron ladder fitted to the fore end of the cabin, climbed up this and edged for'ard in a p.r.o.ne position till I was stretched flat on the stepped wheelhouse roof. The navigation lights came on but this was no worry: they were so positioned on either side of the wheelhouse roof that they had the comforting effect of throwing the position in which I lay into comparatively deeper shadow.

The engine note deepened and the side gangway slowly dropped astern. I wondered bleakly if I had stepped from the frying-pan into the fire.

CHAPTER TEN.

I had been pretty certain that I would be putting out to sea that night and anyone who did that under the conditions I expected to experience should also have catered for the possibility of becoming very wet indeed; if I had used even a modic.u.m of forethought in that respect I should have come along fully fitted out with a waterproof scuba suit: but the thought of a waterproof scuba suit had never even crossed my mind and I had no alternative now but to lie where I was and pay the price for my negligence.

I felt as if I were rapidly freezing to death. The night wind out in the Zuider Zee was bitter enough to have chilled even a warmly clad man who was forced to lie motionless, and I wasn't warmly clad. I was soaked to the skin with sea-water and that chilling wind had the effect of making me feel that I had turned into a block of ice -- with the difference that a block of ice is inert while I s.h.i.+vered continuously like a man with black-water fever. The only consolation was that I didn't give a d.a.m.n if it rained: I couldn't possibly become any wetter than I was already.

With numbed and frozen fingers that wouldn't stay steady I unzipped my jacket pockets, took both the gun and the remaining magazine from their waterproof coverings, loaded the gun and stuck it inside my canvas coat. I wondered idly what would happen if, in an emergency, I found that my trigger finger had frozen solid, so I pushed my right hand inside my sodden jacket. The only effect this had was to make my hand feel colder than ever, so I took it out again.

The lights of Amsterdam were dropping far behind now and we were well out into the Zuider Zee. The barge, I noticed, seemed to be following the same widely curving course as the Marianne had done when she had come into harbour at noon on the previous day. It pa.s.sed very close indeed to a couple of buoys and, looking over the bows, it seemed to me as if it was on a collision course with a third buoy about four hundred yards ahead. But I didn't doubt for a minute that the barge skipper knew just exactly what he was doing.

The engine note dropped as the revolutions dropped and two men emerged on deck from the cabin -- the first crew to appear outside since we'd cleared the barge harbour. I tried to press myself even closer to the wheelhouse roof, but they didn't come my way, they headed towards the stern. I twisted round the better to observe them.

One of the men carried a metal bar to which was attached a rope at either end. The two men, one on either side of the p.o.o.p, paid out a little of their lines until the bar must have been very close to water level. I twisted and looked ahead. The barge, moving very slowly now, was no more than twenty yards distant from the flas.h.i.+ng buoy and on a course that would take it within twenty feet of it. I heard a sharp word of command from the wheelhouse, looked aft again and saw that the two men were beginning to let the lines slip through their fingers, one man counting as he did so. The reason for the counting was easy to guess. Although I couldn't see any in the gloom, the ropes must have been knotted at regular intervals to enable the two men who were paying them out to keep the iron bar at right angles to the barge's pa.s.sage through the water.

The barge was exactly abreast the buoy when one of the men called out softly and at once, slowly but steadily, they began to haul their lines inboard. I knew now what was going to happen but I watched pretty closely all the same. As the two men continued to pull, a two-foot cylindrical buoy bobbed clear of the water. This was followed by a four-bladed grapnel, one of the flukes of which was hooked round the metal bar. Attached to this grapnel was a rope. The buoy, grapnel and metal bar were hauled aboard, then the two men began to pull on the grapnel rope until eventually an object came clear of the water and was brought inboard. The object was a grey, metal-banded metal box, about eighteen inches square and twelve deep. It was taken immediately inside the cabin, but even before this was done the barge was under full power again and the buoy beginning to drop rapidly astern. The entire operation had been performed with the ease and surety which bespoke a considerable familiarity with the technique just employed.

Time pa.s.sed, and a very cold, s.h.i.+vering and miserable time it was too. I thought it was impossible for me to become any colder and wetter than I was but I was wrong, for about four in the morning the sky darkened and it began to rain and I had never felt rain so cold. By this time what little was left of my body heat had managed partially to dry off some of the inner layers of clothing, but from the waist down -- the canvas jacket provided reasonable protection -- it just proved to have been a waste of time. I hoped that when the time came that I had to move and take to the water again I wouldn't have reached that state of numbed paralysis where all I could do was sink.

The first light of the false dawn was in the sky now and I could vaguely distinguish the blurred outlines of land to the south and east. Then it became darker again and for a time I could see nothing, and then the true dawn began to spread palely from the east and I could see land once more and gradually came to the conclusion that we were fairly close in to the north sh.o.r.e of Huyler and about to curve away to the south-west and then south towards the island's little harbour.

I had never appreciated that those d.a.m.ned barges moved so slowly. As far as the coastline of Huyler was concerned, the barge seemed to be standing still in the water. The last thing I wished to happen was to approach the Huyler sh.o.r.e in broad daylight and give rise to comment on the part of the inevitable s.h.i.+p-watchers as to why a crew member should be so eccentric as to prefer the cold roof of the wheelhouse to the warmth inside. I thought of the warmth inside and put the thought out of my mind.

The sun appeared over the far sh.o.r.e of the Zuider Zee but it was no good to me, it was one of those peculiar suns that were no good at drying out clothes and after a little I was glad to see that it was one of those early-morning suns that promised only to deceive, for it was quickly overspread by a pall of dark cloud and soon that slanting freezing rain was hard at work again, stopping what little circulation I had left. I was glad because the cloud had the effect of darkening the atmosphere again and the rain might persuade the harbour rubber-neckers to stay at home.

We were coming towards journey's end. The rain, now mercifully, had strengthened to the extent where it was beginning to hurt my exposed face and hands and was hissing whitely into the sea: visibility was down to only a couple of hundred yards and although I could see the end of the row of navigation marks towards which the barge was now curving, I couldn't see the harbour beyond.

I wrapped the gun up in its waterproof cover and jammed it in its holster. It would have been safer, as I'd done previously, to have put it in the zipped pocket of my canvas jacket, but I wasn't going to take the canvas jacket with me. At least, not far: I was so numbed and weakened by the long night's experience that the cramping and confining effects of that c.u.mbersome jacket could have made all the difference between my reaching sh.o.r.e or not: another thing I'd carelessly forgotten to take with me was an inflatable life-jacket or belt.

I wriggled out of the canvas jacket and balled it up under my arm. The wind suddenly felt a good deal icier than ever but the time for worrying about that was gone. I slithered along the wheelhouse roof, slid silently down the ladder, crawled below the level of the now uncurtained cabin windows, glanced quickly for'ard -- an unnecessary precaution, no one in his right mind would have been out on deck at that moment unless he had to -- dropped the canvas jacket overboard, swung across the stern-quarter, lowered myself to the full length of my arms, checked that the screw was well clear of my vicinity, and let go.

It was warmer in the sea than it had been on the wheelhouse roof, which was as well for me as I felt myself to be almost frighteningly weak. It had been my intention to tread water until the barge had entered harbour, or at least, under these prevailing conditions, it had disappeared into the murk of the rain, but if ever there was a time for dispensing with refinements this was it. My primary concern, my only concern at the moment, was survival. I ploughed on after the fast receding stern of the barge with the best speed I could muster.

It was a swim, not more than ten minutes in duration, that any six-year-old in good training could have accomplished with ease, but I was way below that standard that morning, and though I can't claim it was a matter of touch and go, I couldn't possibly have done it a second time. When I could clearly see the harbour wall I sheered off from the navigation marks, leaving them to my right, and finally made sh.o.r.e.

I sloshed my way up the beach and, as if by a signal, the rain suddenly stopped. Cautiously, I made my way up the slight eminence of earth before me, the top of which was level with the top of the harbour wall, stretched myself flat on the soaking ground and cautiously lifted my head.

Immediately to the right of me were the two tiny rectangular harbours of Huyler, the outer leading by a narrow pa.s.sage to the inner. Beyond the inner harbour lay the pretty picture-postcard village of Huyler itself, which, with the exception of the one long and two short straight streets lining the inner harbour itself, was a charming maze of twisting roads and a crazy conglomeration of, mainly, green and white painted houses mounted on stilts as a precaution against flood-water. The stilts were walled in for use as cellars, the entrance to the houses being by outside wooden stairs to the first floor.

I returned my attention to the outer harbour. The barge was berthed alongside its inner wall and the unloading of the cargo was already busily under way. Two small sh.o.r.e derricks lifted a succession of crates and sacks from the unbattened holds, but I had no interest in those crates and sacks, which were certainly perfectly legitimate cargo, but in the small metal box that had been picked up from the sea and which I was equally certain was the most illegitimate cargo imaginable. So I let the legitimate cargo look after itself and concentrated my attention on the cabin of the barge. I hoped to G.o.d I wasn't already too late, although I could hardly see how I could have been.

I wasn't, but it had been a near thing. Less than thirty seconds after I had begun my surveillance of the cabin, two men emerged, one carrying a sack over his shoulder. Although the sack's contents had clearly been heavily padded, there was an unmistakable angularity to it that left me in little doubt that this was the case that interested me.

The two men went ash.o.r.e. I watched them for a few moments to get a general idea of the direction they were taking, slid back down the muddy bank -- another item on my expense account, my suit had taken a terrible beating that night -- and set off to follow the two men.

They were easy to follow. Not only had they plainly no suspicion that they were being followed, those narrow and crazily winding lanes made Huyler a shadow's paradise. Eventually the two men brought up at a long, low building on the northern outskirts of the village. The ground floor -- or cellar as it would be in this village -- was made of concrete. The upper storey, reached by a set of wooden steps similar to another concealing set of steps from which I was watching at a safe distance of forty yards, had tall and narrow windows with bars so closely set that a cat would have had difficulty in penetrating, the heavy door had two metal bars across it and was secured by two large padlocks. Both men mounted the stairs, the unburdened man unlocking the two padlocks and opening the door, then both pa.s.sed inside. They reappeared again within twenty seconds, locked the door behind them and left. Both men were now unburdened.

I felt a momentary pang of regret that the weight of my burglar's belt had compelled me to leave it behind that night, but one does not go swimming with considerable amounts of metal belted around one's waist. But the regret was only momentary. Apart from the fact that fifty different windows overlooked the entrance to this heavily barred building and the fact that a total stranger would almost certainly be instantly recognizable to any of the villagers in Huyler, it was too soon yet to show my hand: minnows might make fair enough eating but it was the whales I was after and I needed the bait in that box to catch them.

I didn't need a street guide to find my way out of Huyler. The harbour lay to the west, so the terminus of the causeway road must lie to the east. I made my way along a few narrow winding lanes, in no mood to be affected by the quaint old-world charm that drew so many tens of thousands of tourists to the village each summer, and came to a small arched bridge that spanned a narrow ca.n.a.l. The first three people I'd seen in the village so far, three Huyler matrons dressed in their traditional flowing costumes, pa.s.sed me by as I crossed the bridge. They glanced at me incuriously, then as indifferently looked away again as if it were the most natural thing in the world to meet in the streets of Huyler in the early morning a man who had obviously been recently immersed in the sea.

A few yards beyond the ca.n.a.l lay a surprisingly large car park -- at the moment it held only a couple of cars and half a dozen bicycles, none of which had padlock or chain or any other securing device. Theft, apparently, was no problem on the island of Huyler, a fact which I found hardly surprising: when the honest citizens of Huyler went in for crime they went in for it in an altogether bigger way. The car park was devoid of human life nor had I expected to find an attendant at that hour. Feeling guiltier about it than about any other action I had performed since arriving at Schiphol Airport, I selected the most roadworthy of the bicycles, trundled it up to the locked gate, lifted it over, followed myself, and pedalled on my way. There were no cries of 'Stop thief!' or anything of the kind.

It was years since I'd been on a bicycle, and though I was in no fit state to recapture that first fine careless rapture I got the hang of it again quickly enough, and while I hardly enjoyed the trip it was at least better than walking and had the effect of getting some of my red corpuscles on the move again.

I parked the bicycle in the tiny village square where I'd left the police taxi -- it was still there -- and looked thoughtfully first at the telephone-box, then at my watch: I decided it was still too early, so I unlocked the car and drove off.

Half a mile along the Amsterdam road I came to an old Dutch barn standing well apart from its farm-house. I stopped the car on the road in such a position that the barn came between it and anyone who might chance to look out from the farm-house. I unlocked the boot, took out the brown paper parcel, made for the barn, found it unlocked, went inside and changed into a completely dry set of clothing. It didn't have the effect of transforming me into a new man, I still found it impossible to stop s.h.i.+vering, but at least I wasn't sunk in the depths of that clammily ice-cold misery that I'd been in for hours past.

I went on my way again. After only another half-mile I came to a roadside building about the size of a small bungalow whose sign defiantly claimed that it was a motel. Motel or not, it was open, and I wanted no more. The plump proprietress asked if I wanted breakfast, but I indicated that I had other and more urgent needs. They have in Holland the charming practice of filling your gla.s.s of jonge Genever right to the very brim and the proprietress watched in astonishment and considerable apprehension as my shaking hands tried to convey the liquid to my mouth. I didn't lose more than half of it in spillage, but I could see she was considering calling either police or medical aid to cope with an alcoholic with the DT's or a drug addict who had lost his hypodermic, whichever the case might be, but she was a brave woman and supplied me with my second jonge Genever on demand. This time I didn't lose more than a quarter of it, and third time round not only did I spill hardly a drop but I could distinctly feel the rest of my layabout red corpuscles picking up their legs and giving themselves a brisk workout. With the fourth jonge Genever my hand was steady as a rock.

I borrowed an electric razor, then had a gargantuan breakfast of eggs and meat and ham and cheeses, about four different kinds of bread and half a gallon, as near as dammit, of coffee. The food was superb. Fledgling motel it might have been, but it was going places. I asked to use the phone.

I got through to the Hotel Touring in seconds, which was a great deal less time than it took for the desk to get any reply from Maggie's and Belinda's room. Finally, a very sleepy-voiced Maggie said: 'Hullo. Who is it?' I could just see her standing there, stretching and yawning.

'Out on the tiles last night, eh?' I said severely.

'What?' She still wasn't with me.

'Sound asleep in the middle of the day.' It was coming up for eight a.m. 'Nothing but a couple of mini-skirted layabouts.'

'Is it -- is it you!'

'Who else but the lord and master?' The jonge Genevers were beginning to make their delayed effect felt.

'Belinda! He's back!' A pause. 'Lord and master, he says.'

'I'm so glad!' Belinda's voice. 'I'm so glad. We -- '

'You're not half as glad as I am. You can get back to your bed. Try to beat the milkman to it tomorrow morning.'

'We didn't leave our room.' She sounded very subdued. 'We talked and worried and hardly slept a wink and we thought -- '

'I'm sorry. Maggie? Get dressed. Forget about the foam baths and breakfast. Get -- '

'No breakfast? I'll bet you had breakfast.' Belinda was having a bad influence on this girl.

'I had.'

'And stayed the night in a luxury hotel?'

'Rank hath its privileges. Get a taxi, drop it on the outskirts of the town, phone for a local taxi and come out towards Huyler.'

'Where they make the puppets?'

'That's it. You'll meet me coming south in a yellow and red taxi.' I gave her the registration number. 'Have your driver stop. Be as fast as you can.'

I hung up, paid up and went on my way. I was glad I was alive. Glad to be alive. It had been the sort of night that didn't look like having any morning, but here I was and I was glad. The girls were glad. I was warm and dry and fed, the jonge Genever was happily chasing the red corpuscles in a game of merry-go-round, all the coloured threads were weaving themselves into a beautiful pattern and by day's end it would be over. I had never felt so good before. I was never to feel so good again.

Nearing the suburbs I was flagged down by a yellow taxi. I stopped and crossed the road just as Maggie got out. She was dressed in a navy skirt and jacket and white blouse and if she'd spent a sleepless night she certainly showed no signs of it. She looked beautiful, but then she always looked that way: there was something special about her that morning.

'Well, well, well,' she said. 'What a healthy-looking ghost. May I kiss you?'

'Certaintly not,' I said with dignity. 'Relations.h.i.+ps between employer and employed are -- '

'Do be quiet, Paul.' She kissed me without permission. 'What do you want me to do?'

'Go out to Huyler. Plenty of places down by the harbour where you can get breakfast. There's a place I want you to keep under fairly close but not constant surveillance.' I described the window-barred building and its location. 'Just try to see who goes in and out of that building and what goes on there. And remember, you're a tourist. Stay in company or as close as you can to company all the time. Belinda's still in her room?'

'Yes.' Maggie smiled. 'Belinda took a phone call while I was dressing. Good news, I think.'

'Who does Belinda know in Amsterdam?' I said sharply. 'Who called?'

'Astrid Lemay.'

'What in G.o.d's name are you talking about? Astrid's skipped the country. I've got proof.'

'Sure she skipped it.' Maggie was enjoying herself. 'She skipped it because you'd given her a very important job to do and she couldn't do it because she was being followed everywhere she went. So she skipped out, got off at Paris, got a refund on her Athens ticket and skipped straight back in again. She and George are staying in a place outside Amsterdam with friends she can trust. She says to tell you she followed that lead you gave her. She says to tell you she's been out to the Kasteel Linden and that -- '