He hesitated. “Are you sure that you can keep him there?”
“You need not worry. I will keep him. But come back to the salone when you have been to the cabin so that I shall know that you have finished. It is understood, chéri?”
“Yes, it is understood.”
It was after nine o’clock and, for the past half hour, Graham had been sitting near the door of the saloon pretending to read a book.
For the hundredth time his eyes wandered to the opposite corner of the room where Banat was talking to Josette and José. His heart began suddenly to beat faster. José had a deck of cards in his hand. He was grinning at something Banat had said. Then they sat down at the card-table. Josette looked across the room.
Graham waited a moment. Then, when he saw them cutting for the deal, he got slowly to his feet and walked out.
He stood on the landing for a moment, bracing himself for what he had to do. Now that the moment had come he felt better. Two minutes-three at the most-and it would be over. He would have the gun and he would be safe. He had only to keep his head.
He went down the stairs. Cabin number nine was beyond his and in the middle section of the alleyway. There was no one about when he reached the palms. He walked on.
He had decided that any sort of stealth was out of the question. He must walk straight to the cabin, open the door and go in without hesitation. If the worst came to the worst and he was seen as he went in by the steward or anyone else, he could protest that he had thought that number nine was an empty cabin and that he was merely satisfying a curiosity to see what the other cabins were like.
But nobody appeared. He reached the door of number nine, paused for barely a second and then, opening the door softly, went in. A moment later he had shut the door behind him and put up the catch. If, for any reason, the steward should try to get in, he would assume that Banat was there when he found the door fastened.