The Wager

10

The scene on the main floor of the gallery had changed but little when Kek regained the stair landing, slipped into the alcove, and peered through the railing posts to consider the large room. Jamison was still deep in his magazine, the soldier was still hunkered down, suffering the pangs of withdrawal, and the corporal was at the extreme end of the room, studying a full-sized statue that appeared to be bronze and which may or may not have deserved the adulation he seemed to be giving it. The case containing the precious carving was clearly visible in the center of the room, and the path to it was clear of obstacles, but from Kek’s point of view, barely above floor level, it was difficult to properly judge distances. Well, Kek thought philosophically, we’ll just keep walking until we bump into it, and then try to come back the same number of steps without falling down the stairs. He surveyed the scene once more, decided it was too peaceful, and motioned André to pull the switch.

Sudden blackness seemed to explode in the gallery. Kek was trotting lightly up the steps in the shocked moment of silence that followed, but before he had quite reached the top and the main floor, voices seemed to spring up from all sides of the place. Kek was pleased to note that the high-arched room seemed to add a certain echoing resonance that distorted the finer nuances of the various voices.

First, in island French from the corporal at the far end of the room, came a harsh, aggrieved growl. “What in hell happened to the damn lights?” Then in English Jamison said violently, “Damn banana republics, — don’t even know how to run a damn generator! Who the hell has a light?” The startled soldier, scrambling to his feet, merely said, “What—? What—?”

Kek felt it was time to contribute to the conversation. He dropped his voice as low as it would go, rasping it in his best imitation of the corporal, trying to growl to make up any difference.

“Soldier! The fuse box! It’s in the hallway on the second floor! Get up there and see what happened!”

“See what happened?” There was justified resentment in the soldier’s voice “You took my lighter! How can I see inside a fuse box, even if I could find it?”

“Use your hands! Feel! Get upstairs, hear?” Kek growled, and moved steadily toward the case in the center of the room. He was pleased that apparently the thought of an auxiliary power source had not occurred to Paquet et Cie.

“Where are the stairs?”

“Find them! Get up to the second floor!”

“Who’s that talking? Who’s that giving orders?” It was the corporal; from his voice it was obvious he was coming closer. There was a sudden bump and a grunt of pain as the corporal fell over something, but he was on his feet in an instant. Suspicion entered his voice. “I thought the major said you couldn’t speak French!”

Kek felt the smooth glass under his groping hand. As he quietly raised the cover and reached within, he felt a little more confusion could only produce good results. At a time like this one could scarcely have enough of it. Accordingly, he pitched his voice higher, making it nasal and angry.

“I am the major, you fool! It’s fortunate for you that I came back.” He felt the carving, slightly slippery to his touch, and tucked it into his shirt. He lowered the cover of the case carefully, raising his voice again to hide any possible sound. “Why has nobody any matches?”

“Matches?” the corporal repeated, mystified. “But the rules—”

“No cigarette lighters?”

“But Major, the rules—”

“Quiet, Corporal! Rules are made to be broken. Soldier, where are you? Soldier?” Kek started quietly in the direction of the stairs, or in the direction he hoped the stairs were. If Jamison spoke it might help him orient himself — if Jamison hadn’t moved, that is.

The corporal attempted to explain the failure of his subordinate to respond. “I sent him — you sent him—” There was a pause as he considered his words. “Somebody sent him upstairs...”

“Upstairs? In this blackness?” Kek was treading carefully now; Jamison was somewhere in the Stygian night. “What idiot would do that?”

“The fuse box—”

“How could he see?” Where the devil was Jamison? Well, why not ask? “Corporal? Where is the American? This could be a trick! I didn’t like the look of the man in the first place!”

“I don’t know, sir. I... I can’t see.”

“None of us can see, you fool!” Where the devil were those steps? Had he been turned around by the idiotic conversation with the wandering corporal? One thing he certainly didn’t want to do was fall over any statue. He raised his voice, speaking now in a very badly broken English. “Meester Jamey — uh-soon?”

“Here, for Christ’s sake!” Jamison said angrily. “Who’s speaking? You speak English?”

“You hear, Corporal?” Kek’s foot slid into space, he caught his balance with an effort. He felt about and located the first tread underfoot. His hand located the newel post and dropped to the angled railing below, holding it with a feeling of relief. He paused to deliver the coup de grâce. “You locate that American and hold him for interrogation! This is undoubtedly a trick. Do you hear me, Corporal? That’s an order!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Don’t let him near that case with the carving, understand?”

“No, sir!”

“I’ll be back with lights and reinforcements. You wait.”

“Yes, sir—” Triumph suddenly competed with growling in the corporal’s voice. “I have him, Major!”

“Hey!” Jamison yelped, outraged at the sudden hands upon him.

“You cut that out,” the corporal said. There was the sound of a heavy slap.

“Hey!” Jamison responded, and that was the last intelligible sound Kek heard. He trotted silently down the steps, holding the railing, counting the stairs down as he had on the way up. No stumble at this point! He felt the landing underfoot, turned, and went down the balance of the steps to the corridor. Behind him muffled protests and growls alternated as he felt his way along the smooth walls into the storage room.

He closed the door behind him, risked a second’s flash from his light for direction, and then felt his way in darkness to the outer door. He pushed it open carefully to find a tense André waiting. André instantly shut the door and turned the key. As he pulled the key from the lock he looked at Kek.

“How did it go?”

“Fine.”

“You got it?”

“I have it.”

“Then what took you so long!” André’s relief almost caused him to raise his voice in that anger that so often comes when danger is past. “I was about to go back in and see what the trouble was!”

“No trouble,” Kek told him with a grin, and peeked over the edge of the areaway. All was clear. “It was just that I was having such a good time I hated to leave...”

They were through town and on the edge of the deep woods where the dinghy was stored when the first long, baying siren vibrated the night air, drowning out the sounds coming faintly from the bars along Sucker Street. Kek glanced over his shoulder without stopping his even pace, or hurrying it, either. In his mind’s eye he could picture the uproar back at the museum and in the barracks. Unless, of course, the siren was in response to some fire in some part of town, but Kek did not believe it for a moment. Not even the most match-conscious corporal could be expected to stick around in darkness forever when all he had to do was to march up to the front door and open it. The siren was repeated, and then joined by a second. They seemed to be echoing from different parts of the town. Kek glanced up at André.

“Now do you understand why we couldn’t stop for a beer?”

“I knew it all along,” André said, and grinned. The success of their mission was as exhilarating as it was surprising. “All I’m saying is that it’s a shame.”

“True,” Kek admitted. “Burglary is thirsty work.”

“Walking is thirsty work,” André said, and glanced back over his shoulder. The siren had paused in Sucker Street; he could picture the soldiers pouring from their trucks, starting the search of the bars and the ships at the pier.

“What surprises me,” Kek went on, “is that you were able to manage the burglary of the Louvre without an assistant standing by with a keg of beer.”

“It was a sacrifice,” André said with a grin, and dropped from the road to the small incline leading down into the woods where the dinghy awaited them. It was a well-timed move; they had barely made the protection of the trees when a police car, siren wide open, rounded the corner, its spotlight sweeping the area. They watched the lights from the car disappear around a curve and then made their way to the small boat. To Kek’s relief it was still there, and moments later they had launched it and were pulling for Beachcomber.

A fringe of waning moon had arisen and was trying to edge its way through the wisps of cloud that had crept up; it tipped the slowly rising and falling surf with touches of silver. André leaned into the oars with a will. Behind them the central siren rose and fell, coming, Kek assumed, from the barracks, while the whoop-whoop of speeding police cars angled in to them from various parts of the town.

“Busy little bees,” Kek commented, and pressed one arm against the carving inside his shirt.

André merely grunted and pulled harder. Beachcomber seemed to arise from the night like an apparition, a blacker shadow in the gloom, swaying evenly on the sea. André did not seem at all surprised at the ease with which he had located the boat; he pulled alongside, held the dinghy in place until Kek was aboard, and then came up the ladder lightly. One mighty heave and the dinghy was dripping on board. André went forward, raised the anchor, and dropped it against a deck stanchion; there was little time for customary shipboard neatness. He came back and looked at Huuygens.

“The engines are going to make noise.”

“Have you ever been in a car with a siren going in your ear?” Huuygens shook his head. “With that racket nobody will hear.”

“Right.” André nodded and started first one and then the second of the large diesels. He swung the wheel and headed away from the glow that marked Cap Antoine. Somewhere on shore a powerful beacon started to criss-cross the sky, but whether this new activity was supposed to help solve the robbery at the museum was difficult to say. Kek had a feeling that in the excitement the people at the barracks had probably turned on everything they had. The boom of cannon would not have surprised him greatly.

He dropped down to the small cabin, made sure the blackout curtains were tautly in place, and then turned on the lamp over one of the bunks. He sat down and brought the carving from his shirt, turning it in his hands, marveling that he had actually gotten away with burglary — or, at least, so far. Then, with a sigh, he put the activity of the evening behind him and bent to study his acquisition more closely.

His first attention was directed to determining the authenticity of the work, for it would have been truly tragic to have gone through all they had experienced — not to mention the beer André had not gone through — and discover they had picked up a substitute. But there was little doubt he was indeed holding a genuine Chang Tzu T’sien, and an excellent one, at that. The smooth patina of the ivory, still amazingly white after the centuries, the exactness of the artistry, left little question. This matter settled, Kek finally got down to considering the piece itself and had to admit at once that Victor Girard, whatever his other failings, was a man of excellent taste.

The carving was truly exquisite. Kek stared in wonder, appreciating the delicate nuances with which the artist had managed his intricate subject, the warmth he had been able to impart to the cold medium, the humor he had been genius enough to instill in the ivory scene. Each figure in the relaxed yet ritualistic village dance had his own posture, and although there were easily fifty men and women involved, carved with infinite detail on a plaque no larger than six by eight inches, and possibly three inches in thickness, there was no sense of crowding. One could allow himself to be drawn into the carving, Kek felt; to almost imagine movement or to hear the flutes. He sighed and then wrapped it carefully in his handkerchief and then in the paper he had brought with him from his candy dish. He put it down on the small table beside the bunk for the time being; then he lay back and studied the ceiling.

The first and possibly the most difficult part of the job was done. They had the carving in their possession. Now the next job was to get it into the States past Customs without losing it. He carefully reviewed his plans while they plowed steadily back toward Barbados, then suddenly sat erect.

If Ralph Jamison managed to convince the army and the police of Ile Rocheux that he was, indeed, the innocent victim of some unfunny jokester — which should scarcely be difficult, since a search of the man as well as the premises would prove fruitless — then where would Ralph make his next appearance? If I were a betting man, Kek thought, I would lay rather good odds that it would be the MV Andropolis, if only for a visit to see if that naughty man, Kek Huuygens, had possibly rejoined the ship during his absence. Ah, well, Kek thought with a faint smile, if Jamison does show up, maybe we can continue to make his trip an interesting one. Although, if the man does show up again, it might well require a slight change in plans.

Possibly it was just as well that André was booked on the Andropolis. Kek leaned back again, reviewing the changes in his original scheme that would give an added bit of insurance to his plan. He reached up and turned off the lamp, lying in the darkness, listening to the steady growling of Beachcomber’s engines as they drove the boat back toward Barbados.

Their sound made him think of the corporal’s voice.