Cry Wolf Part 2

"Quite right," Jake agreed. "h.e.l.l of a stink in my engine room." A heavy charged silence settled over the table all of them aware that something explosive was about to happen, that an accusation had been made, but most of them not certain what the accusation was, and at whom it had been levelled. They held up their cards like protective s.h.i.+elds, and their eyes darted suspiciously from face to face. The atmosphere was so tense that it pervaded the gracious room, and the players at the other tables paused and looked up.

I think," Gareth Swales drawled in crisp tones that carried to every corner of the listening room, "that what Mr. Barton is trying to say is that somebody is cheating." That word, spoken in these surroundings, was so shocking, so charged with dire consequence, that strong men gasped and blanched. Cheating in the club, by G.o.d, better a man be accused of adultery or ordinary murder.

"I must say that I have to agree with Mr. Barton." The icy blue eyes snapped with angry lights, and he turned deliberately to the bewildered member of the House of lords beside him.

"I wonder if you would be good enough, sir, to inform us as to the exact amount of our money that you have won." The voice cracked like a whiplash, and the peer stared at him with complete incomprehension for a moment and then his face mottled purple and crimson, and he gobbled angrily.

"Sir! How dare you. Good G.o.d, sir!-" and he rose in his seat, breathless, choking with outrage.

"Have at him!" cried Gareth, and overturned the heavy teak table with a single upward thrust of both hands. It crashed over, pinning the planter and the civil servant under it, and scattering ivory chips and playing cards in such profusion that n.o.body would ever know what cards Gareth Swales had dealt to himself in that last remarkable deal.

Gareth leaned across the struggling ma.s.s of downed players and clipped the peer smartly under the left ear.

"Cheating! Ha! Caught you cheating!" The peer roared like a bull and swung a full-armed punch under which Gareth ducked lightly, but which went on to catch the club secretary between the eyes, as he hurried up to intervene.

The room erupted into violence, as the other members rushed in to a.s.sist the secretary.

Jake tried to reach Gareth, through the sudden seething storm of bodies.

"Not him, you!" he shouted angrily, flexing his arms and knotting his fists.

There were forty club members in the room. Only one person was not dressed in the uniform that showed they belonged Jake in his baggy moleskins and the pack turned on him.

"Watch out behind you, old boy," Gareth warned Jake in a friendly fas.h.i.+on, as he reached out to take the lapels of Gareth's suit in his hands.

Jake whirled to meet the rush of angry members, and the fists that were bunched for Major Swales thudded into the charging group. Two of them dropped but the rest swarmed on.

"Lay on!" Gareth encouraged him merrily. "And d.a.m.ned be he who cries "Enough"." Miraculously he had armed himself with a billiard cue.

By now, Jake was almost totally submerged under a heaving mound of black evening dress. There were three of them riding on his back, two hanging around his legs, and one tucked under each of his arms.

"Not me, you fools. Not me him!" He tried to point to Gareth, but both his arms were occupied.

"Quite right," Gareth agreed. "Dirty cheating dog!" and he wielded the billiard cue with uncanny skill, holding it inverted and tapping the thick end smartly against the skulls of the well-dressed gentlemen riding on Jake's back. They dropped away, and freed of their weight Jake turned to Gareth once more.

"Listen-!" he bellowed, advancing despite the bodies that clung to his legs.

"Listen, indeed." Gareth c.o.c.ked his head, and the sound of a police whistle shrilled, and there was the glimpse of uniforms beyond double doors. "Peelers, by Jove, Gareth announced. "Perhaps we should move on. Follow me, old son." With a few expert swings of the billiard cue, he knocked the gla.s.s from the window beside him, and stepped lightly and unruffled into the darkened garden.

Jake strode along the unlit footpath under the dark jacaranda trees. He followed the main road out towards his camp beside the stream. The outraged cries and the sound of police whistles had long since died away in the night behind.

Jake's anger had also died away, and he chuckled once as he thought of the peer's purple face and his bulging affronted eyes. Then behind him, following along the dark street, he heard the rhythmic squeak of the springs of a ricksha, and the pad of bare feet.

Even before he looked back, he knew who was following.

"Thought I'd lost you," Gareth Swales remarked lightly, his handsome n.o.ble features lit by the glow of the cheroot between his teeth as he lolled against the cus.h.i.+ons of the ricksha. "You took off like a long dog after a b.i.t.c.h. fantastic turn of speed. I was very impressed." Jake said nothing, but strode on towards his camp.

"You can't possibly be bound for bed." The ricksha kept station beside Jake. "The night is still a pup and who can say what beautiful thoughts and stirring deeds Care still to be thought and performed." Jake tried not to grin, and kept going.

"Madame Cecile's?"Gareth wheedled.

"You really do want those cars don't you?"

"I am hurt,"

announced Gareth, "that you should imply gross materialism to my friendly overtures."

"Who is paying? "demanded Jake.

"You are my guest."

"Well, I've drunk your beer, eaten your food why should I stop now?" He stopped and walked to the ricksha. "Move over, then, he said.

The ricksha driver wheeled in a tight turn and trotted back into the town, while Gareth pressed a cheroot between Jake's lips.

"What did you deal yourself?" Jake asked, between puffs of the fragrant smoke. "Four aces? Straight flush?"

"I am appalled at the implied slur on my character, sir. I shall ignore the question." They jogged a little farther in silence until it was Gareth's turn to ask the next question.

"You didn't really roast that poor fellow's chestnuts, did you?"

No, "Jake admitted. "But it made a better story." They reached the door of Madame Cecile's, discreetly set back in a walled garden, with a lamp burning over the lintel.

Gareth paused with his hand on the bra.s.s knocker.

"You know d.a.m.ned if I don't owe you an apology. I've misjudged you all along the line."

"It's been a lot of laughs."

"I think I'm going to have to be honest with you."

"I don't know if I can stand the shock." They grinned at each other and Gareth punched his shoulder lightly.

"It's still my treat, what?" Madame Cecile was so tall and thin and bosorriless that she seemed in danger of snapping off like a brittle stick. She wore a severely cut dress of dark and indeterminate colour which swept the ground and b.u.t.toned up under her chin and at the wrists. Her hair was drawn back tightly into a large bun at the back of her neck and her expression was prim and disapproving, but it softened a little when she let them into the front room.

"Major Swales, it is always a pleasure. Mr. Barton, we haven't seen you in a long while. I was afraid you'd left town."

"Let us have a bottle of Charlie Champers, my dear." Gareth handed his silk scarf to the maid. "Have you run out of the Pal Roger 1923?"

"Indeed not, Major."

"And we'd like to talk alone for a while before meeting any of the young tallies. Is your private lounge vacant?" Gareth was settled comfortably in one of the big leather armchairs with a gla.s.s of champagne in one hand and a cheroot in the other.

Duce is about to put himself in to bat. Though G.o.d alone knows what he hopes to gain by it. From all accounts, it's the most desolate stretch of desert and mountain one could imagine. However, Mussolini wants it perhaps he has visions of empire and glory. The old Napoleonic itch, you know."

"How do you know this?" Jake was sprawled on the b.u.t.toned couch across the room. He wasn't drinking the champagne. He didn't like the taste.

"It's my business to know, old chap. I can smell out a barney before the fellows themselves know they are going to fight. This one is a racing certainty. Duce is going through all the cla.s.sic stages of protestations of peaceful intentions, combined with wholesale military preparations.

The other big powers France, our chaps and yours have given him the wink. Of course, they'll all squeal like blazes, and make all sorts of protests at the League of Nations but n.o.body is about to stop old Benito making a big grab for Ethiopia. hail Sela.s.sie, the king of kings, knows it and so is princes and roses an c ieftains and merry men.

And they are desperately trying to prepare some kind of defence.

That's where I come in, old boy."

"Why must they buy from you at the prices you say they are offering? Surely they could get this sort of stuff direct from the manufacturers?"

"Embargo, old chap. The League of Nations have slapped an arms embargo on the whole of Eritrea, Somaliland and Ethiopia. No imports of war material into the area.

It's intended to reduce tension but of course it works out completely one-sided. Mussolini doesn't have to go shopping for his armaments he has all the guns, aircraft and armour that he needs already landed at Eritrea. just ready to go and the jolly old Ethiopia has a few ancient rifles and a lot of those long two-anded swords. It should be a close match.

You aren't drinking your Charlie Champers?"

"I think I'll go get myself a Tusker. Back in a minute. "Jake rose and moved to the door and Gareth shook his head sadly.

"You've got taste buds like a crocodile's back. Tusker, forsooth, when I'm offering you a vintage Charlie." It was more for a chance to think out his position and plan his moves than desire for beer that made Jake seek the bar in the front room. He leaned against the counter in the crowded room, and his mind went swiftly over what Gareth Swales had told him. He tried to decide how much was fact and how much was fantasy. How the facts affected him and where, if there were any, the profits to himself might lie.

He had almost decided not to involve himself in the deal there were too many thorns along that path and to go ahead with his original intentions, selling the engines as cane-crus.h.i.+ng units when he was made the victim of one of those coincidences which were too neat not to be one of the sardonic jokes of fate.

Beside him at the bar were two young men in the sober dress of clerks or accountants. Each of them had a girl tucked under his arm and they fondled them absentmindedly as they talked in loud a.s.sertive voices. Jake had been too busy making his decision to follow this conversation until a name caught his attention.

"By the way, did you hear that Anglo Sugar has gone bang?"

"No, I don't believe it."

"It's true. Heard it from the Master of the Court himself.

They say they've gone bust for half a million."

"Good G.o.d that's the third big company this month."

"It's hard times we live in. This will bring down a lot of little men with it." Jake agreed silently. He poured the beer into his gla.s.s, tossed a coin on the counter and headed back for the private lounge.

They were hard times indeed, Jake thought. This was the second time in as many months that he had been caught up in them.

The freighter on which he had arrived in Dares Salaam as chief engineer had been seized by the sheriff of the court as surety in a bankruptcy action. The owners had gone bust in London, and the s.h.i.+p had been unable to pay off.

Jake had walked down the gang-plank with all his worldly possessions in the kit-bag over his shoulder abandoning his claim to almost six months" back wages, together with all his savings in the bankrupt company's pension fund.

He had just started to shape up with the cane-crusher contract, when once again the tidal waves of depression sweeping across the world had swamped him. They were all going bang the big ones and the small, and Jake Barton now found himself the owner of five armoured cars for which there remained but a single buyer in the market.

Gareth was standing by the window, looking down to the harbor where the lights of the anch.o.r.ed s.h.i.+ps flickered across the dark waters. He turned to face Jake and went on as though there had been no break in the conversation.

"While we are still being disgustingly honest with each other, let me estimate that the Ethiopians would pay as much as a thousand pounds each for those vehicles. Of course, they would have to be spruced up.

A coat of paint, and a machine gun in the turret."

"I'm still listening. "Jake sank back on the couch.

"I have the buyer lined up and the Vickers machine without which the cars have no value. You have the guns, vehicles themselves and the technical know-how to get them working." Jake was seeing a different man in Gareth Swales now.

The lazy drawling voice and foppish manner were gone. He spoke crisply and once again there was the piratical blue sparkle in his eyes.

"I have never worked with a partner before. I always knew I could do it better on my own but I've had a chance to get a good look at you. This could be the first time. What do you think?"

"If you cross me, Gareth I will truly roast your chestnuts for you." Gareth threw back his head and laughed delightedly. "I believe you really would, Jake!" He crossed the room and offered his hand.

"Equal partners. You put in the cars, and I'll throw in my pile of goodies everything down the middle?" he asked, and Jake took the hand.

"Right down the middle he agreed.

"That's enough business for tonight let's meet the ladies." Jake suggested that Gareth as a full partner might like to a.s.sist in refitting the engines and painting the body work of the cars, and Gareth blanched and lit a cheroot.

"Look here, old chap. Don't let's take this equal partners lark too far. Manual labour isn't really my style at all."

"I'll have to hire a gang, then."

"Please don't stint yourself Hire what and who you need." Gareth waved the cheroot magnanimously. "I've got to get down to the docks, grease a few palms and that sort of thing. Then I'm dining at Government House this evening, making the contacts that may be useful to us, you understand?" In a ricksha, bearing the silver champagne bucket full of Tusker, Gareth appeared at the camp under the mahogany trees the following morning to find half a dozen blacks labouring under Jake's supervision. The colour Jake had chosen was a businesslike battles.h.i.+p grey, and one of the cars had received its first coat. The effect was miraculous.

The vehicle had been transformed from a slovenly wreck into a formidable-looking war machine.

"By Jove," Gareth enthused. "Even I am impressed. The old Ethiops will go wild." He walked along the line of cars, and stopped at the end. "Only three being painted. What about these two?"

"I.

explained to you. There are only three runners." lOok, old chap.

Don't let's be too fussy. Slap paint on all of them and I'll put them into the package. We aren't selling with a guarantee, what?"

Gareth smiled brilliantly and winked at Jake. "By the time the complaints come in, you and I will have moved on and no forwarding address." He did not realize that the suggestion was trampling rudely on Jake's craftsman's pride, until he saw the now familiar stiffening of the wide shoulders and the colour coming up Jake's neck.

Half an hour later they were still arguing.

"I've got a reputation on three oceans and across seven seas that I'm not likely to pa.s.s up for a couple of pox-ridden old bangers like these," shouted Jake, and he kicked the wheel of one of the condemned vehicles. "n.o.body's ever going to say that Jake Barton sold a b.u.m."

Gareth had swiftly gained a working knowledge of his man's temper. He knew instinctively that they were on the very brink of physical violence and quite suddenly he changed his att.i.tude.

"Listen, old chap. There's no point in shouting at each other-2 "I am not shouting-" roared Jake.

"No, of course not, "Gareth soothed him. "I see your point entirely. Quite right too. I'd feel exactly the same way." Only slightly mollified, Jake opened his mouth to protest further, but before sound pa.s.sed his lips, Gareth had pressed a long black cheroot between them and lit it.

"Now let's use what brains G.o.d gave us, shall we? Tell me why these two won't run and what we need to make them do so." Fifteen minutes later they were sitting under the sun-flap of Jake's old tent, drinking iced Tusker, and under Gareth's skilful soothing the atmosphere was once more one of friendly co-operation.

"A Smith-Bentley carburettor?" Gareth repeated thoughtfully.

"I've tried every possible supplier. The local agent even cabled Cape Town and Nairobi. We'd have to order one from England eight weeks delivery, if we are lucky."

"Look here, old son. I don't mind telling you that this means facing a fate worse than death but for the good of our mutual venture, I'll do it." The Governor of Tanganyika had a daughter who was a spinster of thirty-two years, this despite her father's large fortune and respected t.i.tle.