The captain poured out two more schnapps. He downed his own glassful at once, and sniffed, but Collis paused before he drank any more. There appeared to be a point, with schnapps, when warmth faded rapidly into lightheadedness, and he didn’t want to be incoherent when the time came for the deal to be clinched.

‘I think I know of a storehouse, where I can put those blankets away, and sell them piecemeal,’ Collis explained. ‘The storehouse owner is a friend of mine, so he won’t charge too much in the way of rental. Admittedly, I still won’t make too much profit, but what’s profit between friends, especially when we can make ourselves the price of a few good meals and a few good women for no trouble at all?’

Captain Heikefelt stared at him out of his fuzzy blond face, his eyes still bright but unfocused now, as if he were seeing Collis in triplicate.

‘What do you want to do, then?’ he asked. ‘A little private deal?’

‘You could call it that. I’ll buy those blankets from you at seventy cents the blanket. Only you’ll tell your owners that all you could get for them was sixty cents the blanket. Now, that leaves ten cents times ten thousand for your own private fee, and ten cents times ten thousand is one thousand dollars.’

Captain Heikefelt took off his cap again and laid it upside down on his desk. ‘One thousand dollars, huh?’ he asked. He leaned forward and peered into his cap as if he expected the money to be there. ‘One thousand dollars?’

‘That’s right. All for yourself.’

‘Drink your drink,’ said Captain Heikefelt, nodding towards Collis’s glass of schnapps. Collis picked it up, said, ‘Skoal,’ and tossed it back. He was beginning to wonder if he really liked it or not. The movement of the Aria at anchor, combined with the stuffiness of Captain Heikefelt’s cabin, was making him sweat, and feel distinctly bilious.

‘What I want to know,’ said Captain Heikefelt, ‘is what you think you will make out of it. Why do you want blankets, if they won’t sell?’

Collis smiled his most reassuring smile. ‘I made a little too much money out of a deal I was doing on behalf of a business partner. What I have to do now is lose some of that money by investing it, not disastrously, because that would be too suspicious, but poorly. I have to bury my extra profits under something that will keep them warm and quiet for a few months, and I can’t think of anything more appropriate than blankets.’

Captain Heikefelt nodded. He seemed to accept that explanation. He poured out two more glasses of schnapps, with considerable unsteadiness, and then took a long swig from the neck of the bottle.