'Ja, herr direktor.'
'Put about at once and return to Bovaagen Hval at full speed,' Jorgensen ordered.
Again there was the fat chuckle over the loudspeaker. 'I have done this six hours before,' Lovaas replied. 'I thought you will be interested. See you Tommorow, herr direktor.' The double whistle as he signed off was almost derisive. Silence settled on the chartroom. The fat, jovial voice with the sing-song intonation of Eastern Norway had left me with the impression of a big man — a big man who enjoyed life and was also a rogue. I was to get to know that voice too well in the days that followed. But I was never to revise my first impression.
'Who was Schreuder?' I asked Jorgensen.
He looked up at me. 'I do not know,' he said.
But he did know. Of that I was certain.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Whaling Station
That night I hardly slept at all. The voice of Captain Lovaas and the information he had broadcast dominated my mind. Why had he wanted a description of Farnell? Why had he spoken in English and not Norwegian? Above all who was Hans Schreuder? These questions kept hammering at my tired brain. Jorgensen had recognised the name Hans Schreuder. I was certain of it. And if he recognised the name — recognised the significance of it in the mystery of Farnell's death — then he had shown that Farnell was not alone on the Jostedal. Had Farnell been murdered? Had this man Schreuder killed Farnell for the information he had? How else explain those, 'little pieces of rock' Lovaas had discovered among the man's things. I had no doubts about what those little pieces of rock would prove to be. They would be samples of thorite. As soon as Jorgensen obtained those from his whaling captain, then he would know as much as I knew.
My watch took over at four in the morning. The ship was heeling to a warm sou'-westerly breeze. The moonlight showed a long, flat swell marching northwards and the surface of the sea ruffled and corrugated by the new direction of the wind. Dahler came up with us. He sat on the chartroom roof gazing out towards Norway. He sat there without moving, a little, hunched-up figure, watching the moonlight fade and the dawn come up out of the east, waiting for the first sight of his homeland. Jill was silent. She, too, had her face turned to the east and I wondered again what Farnell had meant to her.