Angel's Ransom by David Dodge

man to permit a hundred thousand good American dollars to travel with out an escort, particularly since you have invited him to keep an eye on it. It will arrive safely enough. Draw the check .’
    ‘I’m not as sure about it as you are. I’ve got to have a guarantee. If he double-crosses you, do you double-cross me?’
    ‘You are in no position to make demands, Mr Farr.’ Holtz was no longer grinning. ‘I do not bargain. Draw the check .’
    Freddy shook his head, laid down the pen he had been holding, and folded his hands on the desk in a gesture of finality.
    ‘No dice,’ he said.
    Only he, because Holtz stood to one side and behind him, failed to see the beginning of the blow the gang leader struck. To the others it was an action as calculated and as unemotional as the driving of a nail. The heavy pistol rose and fell like a hammer on the unprotected hands clasped on the desk-top. Freddy screamed, and screamed again.

    Cesar was out of breath by the time he had run all the way back to Sûreté Publique . The clear fact of his urgency won him a quick audience with the Bureau sous-chef , a conscientious public servant with bags under his eyes who had listened patiently to a thousand stories of fantastic happenings in the Principality, many of them true. His name was Neyrolle. He chain-smoked Gauloises and made quick notes on a pad of yellow paper while he heard Cesar out. The trouble with Cesar ’s account of the rape of the Angel was that he told it, in all good faith, as he imagined it must have happened, and his imagination was colored by the detective stories that Michaud had rightly accused him of favoring . Neyrolle ’s note-taking grew more infrequent as Cesar went into the details of the piracy. It finally stopped altogether.
    He said, ‘Where were you when these acts of violence occurred?’
    ‘Why - why, here at the Bureau, or on my way here with the rest of the crew. Because of the phony permis , as I have explained.’
    ‘I understand about your visit to the Bureau. What I do not understand is how at the same time you could have been an eyewitness to the forcible seizure of the yacht by the two men whom you accuse of the crime.’
    ‘I wasn’t exactly an eyewitness. I –’
    ‘Then how can you be so certain that the violence took place?’
    ‘It had to take place. The captain is no man to let his ship be grabbed without an argument.’
    ‘How do you know that the ship was in fact grabbed?’ Cesar had a dismayed feeling that time was running out, for him and the Angel alike. He said pleadingly, ‘Your honor , there are certain to be eyewitnesses if you must have eyewitnesses. I did not myself look for them. I came here first so you could stop the getaway. The Angel is still only ten minutes out of the port. Send a boat after her, put a squad of flics aboard, seize these gangsters before they can do harm. Eyewitnesses can come later.’
    ‘You have used the word “gangsters” several times, monsieur. I know the meaning of the word, even though Monaco has so far fortunately escaped the fact. But assuming for the moment that you are correct in your analysis of the characters of two men with whom you had only the briefest of conversations, what would be the purpose of a gangsterism involving the Angel ? You understand? I am trying hard to understand the reason for your certainty that a gangsterism has taken place, when all you know for a fact is that the Angel has sailed unexpectedly.’
    ‘Loot! The yacht itself! An escape from vengeance!’ Cesar flung his arms wide in an appeal for more action and fewer questions. ‘A ravishment, perhaps! There are two women aboard, and one of them would tempt a monk. I do not pretend to know the reasons for it, only that the Angel was grabbed! I came here as quickly as I could so you could get busy!’
    ‘Quite rightly, too.’ Neyrolle drew a reluctant line through the notes he had made on his pad. ‘Unfortunately - or perhaps I mean fortunately - you