Color Scheme

At ten o’clock Gaunt went down to the Springs with Colly in attendance, and Dikon hurried away in search of Simon. He found him in his cabin, a scrupulously tidy room where wireless magazines and text-books were set out on a working bench. He was in consultation with Smith, who broke ofï in the middle of some mumbled recital and with a grudging acknowledgment of Dikon’s greeting sloped away.

In contrast to Smith, Simon appeared to be almost cordial. Dikon was not quite sure how he stood with this curious young man, but he had a notion that his passive acceptance of the rôle cast for him in the lake incident as the remover of Barbara, and his suggestion that Simon should drive the car, had given him a kind of status. He thought that Simon disapproved of him on general principles as a parasite and a freak, but didn’t altogether dislike him.

“Here!” said Simon. “Can you beat it? Questing’s been telling Bert Smith he won’t put him off after all, when he cleans us up. He’s going to keep him on and give him good money. What d’you make of that?”

“Sudden change, isn’t it?”

“You bet it’s sudden. D’you get the big idea, though?”

“Does he want to keep him quiet?” Dikon suggested cautiously.

“I’ll say! Too right he wants to keep him quiet. He’s windy. He’s had one pop at rubbing Bert out and he’s made a mess of it. He daren’t come at that game again so he’s trying the other stuff. ‘Keep your mouth shut and it’s O.K. by me.’ ”

“But honestly —”

“Look, Mr. Bell, don’t start telling me it’s ‘incredible.’ You’ve been getting round with theatrical sissies for so long you don’t know a real man when you see one.”

“My dear Claire,” said Dikon with some heat, “may I suggest that speaking in the back of your throat and going out of your way to insult everybody that doesn’t is not the sole evidence of virility. And if real men spend their time trying to kill and bribe each other, I infinitely prefer my theatrical sissies.” Dikon removed his spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. “And if,” he added, “you mean what I imagine you to mean by ‘sissies,’ allow me to tell you you’re a liar. And furthermore, don’t call me Mr. Bell. I’m afraid you’re an inverted snob.”

Simon stared at him. “Aw, dickon!” he said at last, and then turned purple. “I’m not calling you by your Christian name,” he explained hurriedly. “That’s a kind of expression. Like you’d say, ‘Come off it.’ ”

“Oh.”

“And sissy is just a chap who’s kind of weak. You know. Too tired to take the trouble. English!”

“Like Winston Churchill?”

“Aw, to hell!” roared Simon, and then gri

Dikon blinked. “Well,” he said sedately, “I call that very handsome of you. I also apologize. And now, do tell me the latest news of Questing. I swear I shan’t boggle at sabotage, homicide, espionage, or incendiarism. What, if anything, have you discovered?”

Simon rose and shut the door. He then shoved a packet of cigarettes at Dikon, leant back with his elbows on his desk and, with his own cigarette jutting out of the corner of his mouth, embarked on his story.

“Wednesday night,” he said, “was a wash-out. He went into Harpoon and had tea at the pub. You call it ‘di

“You don’t mean to say you bicycled to that headland beyond Harpoon? It must be seven miles.”

“Yeh, that’s right. I beat Questing hands down, too. I sat on that ruddy bluff I till I just about froze to the rock, and I’ll bet you anything you like I never took me eyes off the Peak. I looked right across the harbour. There’s a big ship in and she was loading in the blackout. Gee, I’d like to know what she was loading. I bet Bert Smith knows. He’s cobbers with some of the wharfies, him and Eru Saul. Eru and Bert get shickered with the wharfies. They were shickered last night, Bert says. I don’t think it’s so hot going round with — ”

“The Peak and Mr. Questing,” Dikon reminded him.

“O.K. Well, just when I thought I’d been had for a mug, it started. A little point of light right where I told you on the seaward face. Popping in and out.”

“Could you read it?”

“Neow!” said Simon angrily in his broadest twang. “If it was Morse it was some code. Just a lot of t’s and i’s and s’s. He wouldn’t use plain language. You bet he wouldn’t. There’d be a system of signals. A long flash repeated three times at intervals of a minute. ‘Come in. I’m talking to you.’ Then the message. Say five short flashes: ‘Ship in port.’ That’d be repeated three times. Then the day when she sails. One long flash: ‘To-night.’ Two short flashes: ‘To-morrow.’ Three short flashes: ‘To-morrow night.’ Repeat. Then a long interval, and the whole show all over again. What I reckon,” Simon concluded, and inhaled a prodigious draught of smoke.

“But did you, in fact, see the sequence you’ve described?”

With maddening deliberation Simon ground out his cigarette, made several small backward movements of his head which invested him with an extraordinary air of complacency, and said: “Six times at fifteen-minute intervals. The end signal was three flashes each time.”

“Was it, by George!” Dikon murmured.

“ ’Course I haven’t got the reading O.K. May be something quite different.”

“Of course.” They stared at each other, a sense of companionship weaving between them.

“But I’d like to know what that ship’s loading,” Simon said.

“Was there any answering flash out at sea? I couldn’t know less about such things.”

“I didn’t pick it. But I don’t reckon she’d do anything. If it’s a raider I reckon she’d come in close on the north side of the Peak, so’s to keep it between herself and Harpoon, and wait to see. There’s nothing but bays and rough stuff up the coast north of the Peak.”

“How long did you stay?”

“Till there was no more signalling. The tide was in by then. By heck, I didn’t much enjoy wading back. He beat me to it coming home. Me blinking tyre had gone flat on me and I had to pump up three times. His bus was in the garage. By cripey he’s a beaut. Wait till I get him. That’ll be the day.”

“What will you do about it?”