Free Jack Higgins by Night Judgement at Sinos Page B

it than that, of course. Much more. I had some thinking to do. The business down there in that old wartime wreck had really broughtthings home to me in a big way. I was finished.
    To try with my kind of problem to earn a living as a diver could only lead to one certain end. A quick and messy death.
    I came to that conclusion in a small taverna at the other end of the waterfront after my third glass of retsina . So be it. No more diving. But what was I going to do instead? That was the question. The only other thing I seemed to be much good at these days was drinking.
    I walked back along the waterfront in a world of my own for a while as I considered every angle. It was one hell of a situation, that was for certain. I turned along the jetty and went towards the boat. There was no sign of Morgan, but when I went over the rail to the deck I could smell coffee.
    For some reason, I felt better and went down the companionway briskly. “That’s the ticket, Morg,” I called as I entered the saloon and tossed my cap on the table.
    Lady Sara Hamilton moved out of the galley and stood there, a coffee pot in one hand, a tin of cream in the other. She was wearing light blue linen slacks, a white shirt knotted at the waist and looked about as beautiful as any woman could ever usefully hope to.
    And the face? God help me, that dear, dear face, the wide generous mouth lifting a little in scorn, but not at me, I knew that now. And the calm, grey eyes.
    â€œHello, Savage,” she said crisply. “Pleased to see me?”
    When she smiled, it was as if a lamp had clicked on inside, touching everything in sight.

six
THE SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER
    Anything might have happened in that first golden moment if Dimitri Aleko had not appeared from the galley behind her. I don’t know what he was supposed to be. He wore old denims, faded blue sweatshirt, scarf knotted carelessly at the throat and a battered and salt-stained cap. He looked every boy’s ideal of a hard-line bosun off a Finnish windjammer.
    For some reason he actually seemed pleased to see me and pushed out his hand in that rather stiff Bostonian way of his that was so alien to his Greek background.
    â€œGood to see you, Mr. Savage. You certainly left more than a little confusion behind when we last met.”
    He slipped an arm around Sara Hamilton’s shoulders in another of those little intimate gestures of his that was probably even for my benefit, just to let me know where we stood.
    â€œIt was something to see, wasn’t it, Sara?”
    In a way, she seemed to ignore him and gave all her attention to me. She poured coffee into a cup, addedcream, then gave it to me, a deliberately personal gesture that carried its own intimacy. I was hard put to it to stop the cup from rattling in its saucer.
    â€œColonel Hakim sent a message,” she said. “In case, as he put it, we just happened to run across you in the islands. He said it was a magnificent gesture and he hoped you never had cause to regret making it.”
    â€œHe’d be an unusual man if he didn’t,” Aleko said. “Two hundred and thirty-seven thousand pounds. That’s real money. To anybody, that’s real money.”
    I showed my surprise at the accuracy of his figure and he smiled in a slightly complacent way. “I hope you don’t mind, but I was interested enough to have a few enquiries made in Alex. The figure I quote excludes good will. You haven’t any left, I’m afraid. Not in the United Arab Republic, and I’d keep well clear of their waters if I were you. If they ever lay hands on you, they’ll hang you out to dry.”
    â€œThen I’ll just have to see that they don’t,” I said.
    Sara Hamilton sat drinking her coffee and smoking a cigarette, saying nothing, and there was a kind of hiatus. We all felt it, but Aleko most of all. He was extra ballast and didn’t like the feeling.
    He smiled brightly.