Chapter 7

MONDAY MORNING. THE USUAL ROUTINE. AWAKENED in the cold gray dawn by Frederick shaking my shoulder…

I blinked at him. Then I sat up, which is not easy when you’re zipped into a sleeping bag.

“What are you doing out of bed? I thought I told you-”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Frederick. “It’s getting light. Hurry.” He walked out of the room.

It had been too dark for me to see his face. His voice and his walk seemed to be normal; and yet I could have sworn that he had a light heart attack the previous night. I had a hell of a time getting him back to the house after he collapsed on the hotel terrace. He refused help, and anyway, Sir Christopher was too busy fussing over Jim to insist on accompanying us. Frederick was still shaky when I sent him off to bed; the fact that he let me order him around proved how shaken he was. Now the old rat was himself again, and I didn’t know what I was going to do about him.

I figured he might have another heart attack if I frustrated him, so I dragged myself out of the sack and went to the kitchen. Frederick had boiled water, so I had a cup of coffee, watching him all the while.

I didn’t like what I saw. He was moving with forced briskness, as if he were trying to prove something. I had not questioned him the night before; I couldn’t third-degree a man in his condition. Now I decided I had to know.

“Do you feel all right?” I asked.

“Certainly.”

“What made you pass out the way you did?”

“I have attacks now and then. The result of that lung condition, perhaps. Nothing to worry about.”

“Then it wasn’t what Jim said, about the German officer?”

Frederick made a sound that was probably supposed to be a light laugh. It was more like a sick hen cackling.

“What sort of trashy novels have you been reading?”

“I haven’t read anything but books on archaeology for days,” I said indignantly. “You don’t even have a murder mystery in your library. Look, Frederick, I can’t go ahead with my work if I’m worrying about you. Sir Christopher told me about Crete -”

“Indeed. What did he say?”

“Just what happened. About your friend, the one who was killed.”

“Vince.” Frederick sat down at the table and reached for a jar of marmalade. “What about him?”

“Jim is his nephew,” I said.

“I thought he might be. There is a distinct resemblance.”

I looked at him incredulously. He sat there stolidly eating bread and marmalade. He had a passion for marmalade; it was the only food he really seemed to enjoy.

“Sir Christopher knows who I am,” I said, forgetting about his presumed weak heart in my desire to jar his smug impassivity.

“That was to be expected. I suppose he guessed-challenged you-and you fell for it.”

“Uh,” I said, taken aback. It had been rather like that.

Frederick went on. “That doesn’t matter, so long as he has no suspicions about your diving.”

“Oh, but he does,” I said. “He warned me to be careful. He said you wouldn’t give a damn.”

That got him. He started to speak, choked on a mouthful of bread, and had quite a struggle before he got it down.

“Damn his impudence,” he exclaimed, still sputtering. “I hope you weren’t fool enough to admit that too?”

“Oh, I denied it. I doubt that he believed me. But he said he wasn’t planning to do anything about it.”

“There is nothing he can do at this moment.” Frederick brushed crumbs off his hands and stood up. “There is no law against swimming. The trouble will begin when you start using scuba gear. When do you think that will be?”

He was halfway to the door when he finished this speech; if I wanted to reply I had to follow him, so I did.

“What do you mean, when do I think? I can’t begin till I get air tanks and the use of a compressor. The air in those tanks is only good for-”

“I know, I know. We’ll have to go to Phira for them. One day this week, perhaps.”

“And a boat,” I went on. “I’m working some distance from shore now, and the distance will increase as I go on. If I do get in trouble, I want something to hold on to.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Frederick agreeably. “I wonder… How much can you accomplishwithout the scuba gear? I have heard of divers descending to almost two hundred feet without a self-contained air supply.”

“I heard of it too,” I said. “I also heard that the diver spent considerable time in the hospital afterward.”

The sun was up by the time we started for the bay of the villa. The bright rays dazzled my eyes. I was still seething. Frederick was being unusually obtuse this morning, and his remarks were more than normally provocative. Was he trying to keep my mind off certain subjects? If he thought I intended to nag him about his health he was mistaken. Right then I wouldn’t have cared if he had fallen down and breathed his last at my feet.

He could keep me from talking about the other subject, but he couldn’t prevent me from thinking. I could see the pattern. It was pretty clear-and pretty queer, too. Wasn’t it a coincidence that all these people should have gathered in the same remote spot at the same time? Two of the Three Musketeers, the heroes of the Cretan underground-and the surviving relative of the third hero? I might have accepted that as coincidence, or rather as the consequence of the interests and specialties of these men. But Frederick ’s reaction to the news that the mystery man in the villa was a former German officer stretched coincidence to the breaking point.

I got that far in my reasoning and then my common sense rebelled. I mean, it was like the plot of one of those trashy novels, as Frederick called them. It would really be too much if the man in the villa turned out to be one of Frederick ’s former enemies from Crete.

We had reached the bay by the time I reached this point in my thinking, so I gave it up. I didn’t have enough facts to make sensible deductions anyway.

Frederick perched himself on a rock, with an air of exaggerated patience. I passed him without speaking, adjusted my mask and fins, and went into the water.

As always, it cooled me off in more senses than one. It was too beautiful and too peaceful down there for rancor to last. Nor could I pursue the train of thought that had occupied me on the way to the beach. I had to concentrate on what I was doing. The farther out I went, the more jumble there was on the bottom. Once my heart leaped at the sight of a long, straight ridge of tumbled stone that could have been a wall. Examination proved I was wrong. I disturbed my first octopus, though. He came boiling out of a hole in the stone, exuding ink. He was about a foot across, tentacles included, and he was as cute as could be. I wondered how you went about making friends with an octopus. I had already found one buddy, a big fat blue-and-white-striped fish of a species I didn’t recognize. He had been following me with an air of inquisitive interest, probably hoping I would stir up some food for him.

I finished my crossing and pulled myself out on the rocks at the far side to rest. Frederick was still sitting in the same spot. When I waved, he flapped a limp arm at me.

I hadn’t gone far on my way back before my friend the fish joined me. I decided to call him Alice; his facial markings gave him a distinct resemblance to Alice Cooper. We went down together to look at a clump of unusually luxuriant anemones; plants will often cluster on decayed wood. This time they had not. When I surfaced I saw that Frederick had disappeared.

I guess I had been half expecting some such development, because I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t even very angry, just disgusted.

I was hanging there, treading water and cursing, when something made me look around. I don’t know why I should have looked in the direction of the villa. I had almost forgotten it was there; I had seen no signs of life. Now, however, there was a figure standing on the cliff looking down.