Read Online Bear Island by Alistair MacLean - Free Book Online Page A

for riddles, Tadeusz.”
        “Grapefruit and sunflower seeds. That was about what he lived on. One of those vegetarian nuts.”
        “Walk softly, Tadeusz. Those nuts may yet be your pallbearers."
        The Count grimaced again. "A singularly ill-chosen remark. Antonio never ate meat. And he'd a thing against potatoes. So all he had were the sprouts and horse-radish. I remember particularly well because Cecil and I gave him our horse-radish, to which, it seems, he was particularly partial." The Count shuddered. "A barbarian food, fit only for ignorant Anglo-Saxon palates. Even young Cecil has the grace to detest that offal." It was noteworthy that the Count was the only person in the film unit who did not refer to Cecil Golightly as the Duke: perhaps he thought he was being upstaged in the title stakes but, more probably, as a dyed-in-the wool. aristocrat himself, he objected to people taking frivolous liberties with titles.
        "He had fruit juices?”
        “Antonio had his own homemade barley water." The Count smiled faintly. It was his contention that everything that came out of a can had been adulterated before it went into that can. Very strict on those matters, was Antonio.”
        “Soup? Any of that?"
        "Oxtail.”
        “Of course. Anything else? That he ate, I mean.”
        “He didn't even finish his main course-well, his sprouts and radish. You may recall that he left very hurriedly.”
        “I recall. Was he liable to seasickness?"
        “I don't know. Don't forget, I've known him no longer than yourself. He's been a bit off-colour for the past two days. But, then, who hasn't?"
        I was trying to think up another penetrating question when John Cummings Goin entered. His unusual surname he'd inherited from a French grandfather in the High Savoy, where, apparently, this was not an altogether uncommon name. The film crew, inevitably, referred to him as Comin" and Goin', but Goin was probably wholly unaware of this: he was not the sort of man with whom one took liberties.
        Any other person entering the dining saloon from the main deck on a night like that would have presented an appearance that would have varied from the wind-blown to the dishevelled. Not one hair of Goin's black, smooth, centre-parted, brushed-back hair was out of place: had I been told that he eschewed the standard proprietary hairdressing creams in favour of cowhide glue, I would have seen no reason to doubt it. And the hair style was typical of the man-everything smooth, calm, unruffled, and totally under control. In one area only did the comparison fall down. The hair style was slick, but Goin wasn't: he was just plain clever. He was of medium height, plump without being fat, with a smooth, unlined face. He was the only man I'd ever seen wearing pince-nez, and that only for the finest of fine print which, in Goin's line of business, came his way quite often: the pince-nez looked so inevitable that it was unthinkable that he should ever wear any other type of reading aid. He was, above all, a civilised man and urbane in the best sense of the word.
        He picked up a glass from a rack, timed the wild staggering of the Morning Rose to walk quickly and surely to the scat on my right, picked up the Black Label and said: "May l?"
        "Easy come, easy go," I said. "I've just stolen it from Mr. Gerran's private supply."
        "Confession noted." He helped himself. "This makes me an accessory. Cheers."
        “I assume you've just come from Mr. Gerran," I said.
        "Yes. He's most upset. Sad, sad, about that poor young boy. An unfortunate business." That,-,as  something else about Goin, he always got his priorities right: the average company accountant, confronted with the news of the death of a member of a team, would immediately have wondered how the death would affect the project as a whole: Goin saw the human side of it first. Or, I thought, he spoke of it first: I knew I