Did your phone ever ring in the middle of you-know-what? No? Are you sure? Perhaps you didn't hear. If you'd like to find out what might happen in such situation, read this stunning story...

Imagine you have come to visit a beautiful lady for an amorous interlude and another handsome lady opens the door. How would you treat the situation if she proves eager to volunteer for her absent friend? Perhaps you would choose another approach than our hero, but - given the opportunity to ponder the options - so would he...

Now, picture yourself a police interrogator facing an old friend involved in a criminal case. You realize that if you direct kind enough questions, there will be no accusations against him. After all, he is regarded the victim of the plot - and the other fellow is dead...

Two people boarded a motorboat bobbing on the water at twilight in a sheltered creek. It could have been the setting for romance but instead heralded a night of deceit, treachery and ultimate death for one of the passengers. Was multimillionaire John Berger really the hapless victim of bankrupt Max Schaefer's bungled blackmail plot? What was he desperate to keep from his daughter Lilian, and did his seductive wife have one too many secrets of her own?

Private investigators, suave Robin Webster and optimistic Freddy Larson accidently stumble on hidden evidence vital to the nowclose blackmail case - much to the annoyance of Chief Inspector Robertson and his weaselly sidekick Bronsberg. It became a battle of wits to stay ahead of the game...

In a distance there seemed to be nothing peculiar about the old wooden motor-gig. It was properly moored with its stem to a slooping cliff. The light brown reflection from the hull now and then dissolved to a mosaic pattern in the dying surge from a nearby passing ship. From the pointed aft, the anchor defined a flat curve before vanishing under the water's surface. The two middle-aged men on board could have been old friends on a fishing trip.
The skipper had had the good sense to choose a creek on the little islet, well sheltered from both wind and sea. Actually, sheltered from curious eyes at ferry and freighter bridges as well, but that might be coincidental.
End of August was approaching. Only people in disposition of own time could still spend weekdays in small boats, most of them fishing or enjoying the last warm days of summer. The thronging holiday period in the archipelago was over.
The two men weren't out to delight in the beautiful sunset or tell stories from life over rumgrog. They didn't even notice the tinge of purple in the clouds against the pale blue sky. Still, their built-in clocks informed them that twilight was approaching, the twilight that for one of them was to be his last.
The hatch where they sat facing one another looked like any hatch in any of thousands of motor-gigs. The open space was about ten feet long and as broad as the hull allowed. A large plywood box that covered the old four-cylinder engine dominated the center. A mobile phone looked lonely on the top. The stable wooden benches along the sides and the rounded aft section doubled as storage space. The mate's quarters were sheltered by a small roof, furnished with painted canvas, a luxury article that indicated that the gig was larger than average. People with some knowledge of small boats estimated its length to be about thirty feet. The hatch cover of solid canvas fabric was rolled up and made fast with strips on top of the little roof. The wheel of varnished hardwood was located to the left of the cabin entrance, to the right hung a modern fire extinguisher.

The fairer of the two men pushed forward his chin and flashed his companion a glance full of contempt. By now one of hundreds of similar glances.
'Do you know what's wrong with you, Max.'
The dark, more slender but equally tall man seemed to be thrown into the amidships corner with his shoulder against the bulkhead that separated the cockpit from the cabin. His empty eyes stared into space. During the two days he had been kept prisoner on board the little gig, staring into the pistol muzzle, the insults had piled up. The fair man's icy, metallic voice went gruesomely well with his cold eyes and cleanshaven face.
'You draw the worst out of your fellow man. There's a destructive, provocative element in your nature that brings to life strange qualities that would have been better off resting in piece.'
A grimace emphasized his contempt. Now and then he moved the pistol from one hand to another. His eyes didn't leave his victim's face for a second.
'You know that I'm a civilized, friendly and generous man, but look what you have done to me.' He tapped his chest with his fingers. 'You've drawn out what's base in my character, something I didn't know was there, something I would rather have been spared from discovering, a relic from the caveman. The primitive gene we all carry inside. A part of our inheritance we have learned to keep in check and hide from our fellow man's sight.'

A gull landed on the water near the boat. Another one, for hours watching the two men from top of a cliff, complained with a clucking noise. None of the greedy birds wished the other one the slightest success in their begging for food.
The mobile phone suddenly started beeping. The fair man picked it up and handed it to his apathetic friend with a supercilious smile. His voice dropped to a husky whispering.
'One foolish word, Max and there will be a bullet right between those squinting eyes of yours.'
The darker man's dense brows contracted as he reached for the phone. He pressed the button and listened intently for a moment. As he started speaking, his voice came out as faint as the expression on his face. He knew that more than one person was listening, and if they missed anything there would be a recording for later examination.
'No, Mrs. Berger, nothing has changed. If you want your husband back alive, you'd better follow my instructions.'
The woman at the other end of the line spoke in a loud, hysterical voice, clearly heard in the stillness of the creek. Her heavy German accent gave her words an almost unreal undertune. The fair man flashed another scornful smile but this time his silly wife could have been the target of his contempt. Max's helplessness became visible through an unintented shake of his head as the woman paused to listen.
'Two million Euros, small bills only. And don't get in touch with the police. Here's your husband.'
He returned the phone without looking at Berger. He knew that the police had been listening to all the calls except for the first. It was part of his tormenter's strategy. Helicopters had been buzzing about all day, certainly in a distance as if busy with something else, but he understood that the gig had been detected and that the planning for the release was in full swing. In one hour it should be dark enough. As a reserve army officer, he knew that dusk or dawn was the proper time for this kind of attack. The police were likely to choose nightfall. They were probably eager to get the whole thing over with.

Not a muscle moved in John Berger's face as he pressed the phone to his ear. He was a good actor and managed to make his voice appear just as tired as expected after two days as a desperate kidnapper's prisoner.
'Hello, darling. Yes, I'm all right. Listen carefully. Don't give him any money. We won't allow dirty little bandits to set terms that affect our lifes. He's too cowardly to make use of the weapon.' He paused to leer at Max. 'If something does happen, a copy of my will is deposited at my lawyer's office. The original is in my safe-deposit box. Give my best to Lilian and tell her everything will be all right in the end.'
He turned off the device and returned it to the plywood cover top. Although the name of his antagonist hadn't been mentioned he was certain his little hints had enlightened his wife as to the man's true identity. Perhaps unnecessarily, Max had been her lover for decades.
The prisoner slowly raised his red-rimmed eyes to the impassive individual who kept pointing the pistol towards him. He had ceased to feel fear. Since it had dawned on him that John Berger really meant to shoot him in cold blood, life seemed to have lost its savour. His options were a rat's in a cage. All he felt was tiredness. He hadn't slept for forty-eight hours. Lack of water had swelled his tongue and he heard his speech coming out thickly, as if he were drunk.
'No one will buy this, John. The police know that nobody is that cocky when he is really staring into the muzzle of a weapon pointed by a desperate kidnapper. When things have calmed down and an experienced interrogator re-listens to the tapes he will - with the findings on his desk - ask himself one or two pertinent questions.'
Berger gave a dry laugh. 'After reading your black mail letter?'
Max waited for the croaking to die out.
'I didn't write any letters, but if they exist and you show them to a police inspector, he will probably buy the bluff for a while. He will also believe that I took the money. He'll realize that the amount would provide a life in luxury for me. Then finding out that I spent my life in poverty, he'll give the matter more thought and uncover your second bluff: that you were the one kidnapped.'
'I'm not stupid enough to disclose any letter but the first, the one that proves that you are the most pitiful blackmailer in the history of crime. The other letters are non-existent.' He let out another cold laugh. 'But I will tell them that you didn't receive one cent, and that my refusal instigated this kidnapping madness. You're an idiot, Max.' His temper suddenly changed and his face assumed the hard expression prior to the phone call. 'Where is the money?'
Max returned the glance with a sullen air. He knew that it was the absense of the money that kept him alive. If his arrogant friend had got into his head that it was true that he, Max hadn't blackmailed him, the trigger would have been pressed long ago.
Max also knew that Berger had searched the boat thoroughly before engineering the fake kidnapping. Obviously, he hadn't spent much time investigating the space underneath the bench he was sitting on. Not surprising perhaps, considering it happened to be the storage place for old greasy rags and filthy tarps along with paint, turpentine and not very clean brushes. The false bottom was undetectable. Actually, Max himself hadn't peeped into the secret hiding-place for more than a year. It held only one item, but an item he would have liked seize in this moment, his army pistol.
An indisputable fact was that Berger possessed a copy of the document he considered the black mail motive. Max wondered how the ruthless plutocrat had come by it. The document certainly had existed through many of the years they had known each other, but it had been safely deposited. Except for Max, the only one who knew about it was the woman he had just spoken with on the phone. But she ought to be as keen as Max to keep it from Berger's cold eyes. The information proved not only that Lilian was Max's daughter, it also disclosed the fact that Berger's wife, the beautiful Maud had been unfaithful throughout her marriage. It was common mockery that the successful executive and multimillionaire John Berger had married her only to have something pretty to display at cocktail parties and at the opera.
But Max had nothing to do with the obviously clumsy blackmail letter, and certainly hadn't put together some feeble-minded description of any hiding-place. If he had, he would have sent it to Lilian, not her father. His rumination ended with a deep sigh.

Berger noticed with another leer that his prisoner filled his lungs with the refreshing sea air. He moved the pistol to the other hand and exercised the fingers that had been squeezing it for the last ten minutes. With the sun shining from behind he looked almost bald.
'This is your final option, Max. Tell me where the money is and I might let you see the sun shine tomorrow. The police will pop up any minute.'
A strand of hair moved as the darker man shook his head. He didn't respond. He knew he wouldn't survive whatever he said or did. His lusterless eyes focused on a larger island a quarter of a mile away. If the police attacked from there, Berger would have to turn around at the critical moment. They weren't likely to, they would arrive in boats.

Berger kept staring into the resigned prisoner's dark eyes as if trying to read his mind. A sulky grimace revealed another frustration he just managed to keep from expressing by a substituting growl.
He had systematically gone through all documents in Max's apartment and destroyed those that might indicate relationship between Lilian and this fool. The first blackmail note, glued together with cut out letters - something the jerk probably had picked up in crime stories - hadn't mentioned in detail what it was all about, only informed of the existence of a document worth a little something if kept out of public reach. More than anything, kept from Lilian's eyes. Berger certainly didn't intend to present to the police the enclosed copy of that document. But he knew he had to find the original before someone else did.
His face darkened yet another shade. As to substantiate his stupidity or display his arrogance, Max had also enclosed a description of the place where the money and probably the document were hidden. The direction, too, was put together with cut out letters and in the form of a child's poem. It seemed impossible to decipher.
His knuckles turned white as he squeezed the butt to the limit of his strength. Lilian, the heiress of John Berger's small but solid empire, must under no circumstances find out that she wasn't his natural daughter.
Time and again during the days in the boat he had asked himself if his wife knew who the true father was. Lilian was a carbon copy of her beautiful mother. She bore no resemblance to any of the men. He decided that Maud was too silly and self-occupied to invetigate insignificant matters like paternity. Perhaps Max wasn't her only lover.

A flock of sheep moved over a ridge of the larger island. The scarse vegetation of the barren island was concentrated in clefts and the few beach neadows. The bleating of the leader ewe carried over the calm water.
Max changed his uncomfortable position. He had unmasked Berger's strategy long ago. When the police approached a feigned fight would take place within the range of the headlights. The icy businessman would execute his dirty deed, claim he had tried to wrench the pistol from Max's hand and that it had misfired. He would play a deep remorseful act to find favor. He had exhibited an impressive acting skill, not least when talking to his wife on the phone.
During the last few hours, Max had begun wondering whether Berger had made this whole story up because he, Max had had an affair with Maud, or if someone else really had blackmailed the wealthy man. He doubted the latter option, this unemotional fellow was absolutely capable of faking both blackmailing and kidnapping to reach his goal. He raised his head to meet the cold eyes that kept staring at him.
'You have made another mistake, John.'
Berger twisted his face to one of his many evil-looking expressions. 'I don't make mistakes, Max. That's the chief difference between you and me, the difference between brain and folly.'
Max nodded as if agreeing but he hadn't even taken in the disdainful boast.
'You're not unshaven, John. There ought to be three days bristle on your cheeks. The police will ask why a man in the middle of acute threat to his life cares about anything as trivial as shaving. How come the monstrous kidnapper allowed it and why bring a shaver at all?'
Berger pushed forward his lower lip. He was extremely particular about his appearance. He had to be in the strict business circles in which he moved. Still scornful, he realized that Max had a point. John Berger was notorious for never leaving anything to mere chance.
'Don't worry, I'll throw the shaver overboard before they arrive.'
'You'll have to hurry up then. But that will only serve to increase their suspicion. How come you are so smooth and clean without a shaving device around? You ran it over your cheeks less than an hour ago.'
Berger tried to dismiss the speculations with his dry laugh. 'No one will care about such trifle in such a moment.'
'You don't know the police, John, they love trifles. They can spend days looking for a hairpin.'
'If there is a reason, yes, but in a clear as noon day case with a convicted kidnapper - dead certainly - and with a blackmail letter and a recorded conversation, no one will bother about details like that.'
Max was surprised that it was possible to make a crack in John Berger's armor of dictatorial self-reliance. For a brief moment, the iron hard businessman had actually shown sign of unsteadiness. He couldn't figure out how his slayer planned to treat the frustration, he only knew it wouldn't change anything concerning his own execution.

It was growing dusky. The sun had vanished behind a light cloud. Within short it would drop down below the hosizon. Max he decided to play his last card and tried to sharpen his look. His red-rimmed eyes frustrated his intention and he kept looking as tired as he was. He realized he should have played it earlier, doing it now, Berger might think he was bluffing.
'There is a will in my safe-deposit box, John.'
'You don't have a safe-deposit box, Max. I went through every corner of your mini-apartment and checked every key. My effinciency is awesome. It's common knowledge.'
'You didn't find any money.'
'You had a reason to hide the money but you had no reason to hide a key to a safe-deposit box no one but you could have access to.'
Max smiled for the first time in days and possibly for the last time in his life. A gruff, inward smile.
'The police will find it. Or more precisely, the forensic pathologist will find it - I have swallowed it. The beneficiary is my daugther Lilian, full name Maud Lilian Andresen-Berger, my only descendant.'
Berger ground his teeth so hard that it hurt. 'You're a liar, Max. You always were a liar and a swine. I'll be glad to place a bullet in your heart.'
'There's also a copy of the blood-test document in the box. I made several copies.' His face twisted into a malignant grin and a sound meant to resemble a laugh left his dry throat. 'Think about it, John. Everything you planned and performed will prove meaningless. Lilian will find the truth just the same.'
It wasn't quite true. Certainly, he had swallowed the key along with the only swig of water Berger had allowed, but there was no copy of the blood test document in the will envelope. He had said that only to annoy his torturer. The will was written twenty years ago, long before he had collected the blood-group information. By now, Lilian would be left with his only remaining property, the old motor-gig.
Another incident kept puzzling him. Some months ago, Maud had presented him with an amulet he himself had given the Lilian on her tenth birthday. Lilian had some allergy that prevented her from wearing it. He didn't understand why it shouldn't remain in Lilian's jewel box as a memento even if she didn't wear it.
Still, the piece had become one of his most treasured possessions and he wore it permanently around his neck though it looked a bit girlish. By now, he was so used to it that he had forgotten it was there - until this moment when Berger pointed to it.

John Berger didn't normally bother with such trifle as jewelry, but probably because the item had been in his line of sight for days, he suddenly recognized it and demanded it in a harsh tone of voice.
He didn't get it. As a last act of annoyance, Max tore off the necklace and threw it overboard, all in one single motion.
Roaring boat engines and glaring searchlights interrupted the event. An entire armada seemed to be rounding a cape only a hundred yards from the gig. Max turned his head in astonishment. He couldn't understand how they had managed to sneak that close without making any noise. Severely blinded by the light he felt Berger seizing his shirt collar and wrenching him to his feet. The last thing he felt was warm blood splashing over the hand that tried to protect his chest...