"Put your gun away," said the Saint "You won't need it."
"But-"
"Put it away," said the Saint.
Gallipolis spoke softly and said: "You come in now."
Simon complied, and cleared the doorway. Jennet came in next, boosted by Mr Uniatz's ready knee. Mr Uniatz followed, and saw the Thompson gun. His hand started to move, and nothing but the Saint's steady nerves and ancient familiarity with Mr Uniatz's reflexes could have stopped the movement short of disaster. But the Saint said, exactly at the critical moment, in a voice of level confidence: "Don't be scared, Hoppy. It's just a house custom."
In spite of which he felt hollow in the pit of his stomach for an instant, until Hoppy's arm relaxed. All the theories in the world would have little bearing on the subject if Gallipolis had cause to get nervous.
"Okay, boss." Mr Uniatz had been in houses with unusual customs before. "Where is dis bar?"
"Through there," said Gallipolis.
They all went through. Gallipolis came last, heeling the door shut behind him. He crossed to behind the bar and laid the weight of his gun on the counter. He reached behind him, without averting his eyes, and hitched over a bottle. With a repetition of the same movement he brought over four glasses, wearing them on his fingers like outsized thimbles, and plunked them on the bar beside the bottle.
"Help yourselves," he said, "and let's hear more about this."
It was the merest chance that Simon happened to be standing in a position which gave him a direct sight through the shutter peephole on to a lone black shape that was stalking across the waste outside. It was an additional accident of eyesight and observation which identified the figure to him with instant certainty, even at that distance, and even though the identification left him windmilling on the brink of the ultimate chaos whose possibility he had barely divined three minutes ago.
Very deliberately he uncorked the bottle and poured himself out a glass.
"Before we do that," he said, "maybe you'd better put the thunder iron away."
"For why?" The Greek's voice had a delicate edge of invitation.
"Because, literally, we're all in the same boat," Simon remarked conversationally. "You've taken away my gun, but Hoppy still has a concealed arsenal. And you can't even conceal yours. It might make it awkward to explain things to the Sheriff-and I just happened to see him ambling over this way."
Gallipolis turned back from a quick stare through the peephole, and Simon had an uneasy feeling that the crisis would have no amusing features at all if the Greek failed to grasp his cue.
Gallipolis said, in a low and rapid monotone: "What sort of a plant is this? There's more men hidden in the trees. I saw them move. I've a notion to drill you, you dirty stool!"
Oddly, his surprise seemed as sincere as his anger. But there was no time to puzzle out nuances like that. The Saint said: "Drilling me won't get you anywhere. And if you don't know how Haskins got here, I don't either."
"Talk fast," said Gallipolis, "and don't lie. The Sheriff never spotted this barge. Who tipped him off?"
"On my word of honour," said the Saint steadily, "I wish I knew."
Over the bar, Gallipolis gazed at him with relentless penetration. The slender fingers of his right hand twined with deceptive laxness about the pistol grip of his weapon. The liquid eyes roved through impenetrable fancies, as though he were working out lyrics for a ballad entitled "Death Comes to the Houseboat", or something else equally delightful. But when he grinned again, he looked exactly the same as he had before.
"Look, master mind," he said. "The Sheriff is your problem. You brought Jennet here. Nobody can prove I ever saw him before. If this is a plant, it stinks. If it isn't, you find a way out of it"
"We can both find a way out of it, if you'll give me a chance. But get rid of the typewriter, or you're in deeper than anyone."
Gallipolis digested the thought, and seemed to make his choice.
"This is a hell of a way to make a living," he remarked, and gave a tired sigh. The hole in the floor under the bar was still exposed. He deposited the sub-machine-gun tenderly in it, and slid the bar back, and said: "I may be a sucker, but I just wish I knew when you were levelling. There's something screwy going on, but I don't get it."
"Neither do I," said the Saint, and his manner was almost friendly.
Gallipolis looked hopeful.
"If you want to scram now, you've still got time."
"I think I'll stay."
"I was afraid so," said Gallipolis sadly. It was at that moment that another sound made itself heard.
It was a raucous and rasping sound, a primitive ululation that seemed to bear little relation to any vocal effort that might have been wrung from the diaphragm of an articulate human being. An experienced African hunter might have associated it with some of the more hideous rumblings of the wild, such as the howl of an enraged rhinoceros, or the baffled bellow of a water-buffalo which has arrived at it's favourite wallow only to find it parched and dry. This doughty hunter would have been pardonably deceived. The sound did have a human origin, if Mr Uniatz can be broadly classified as human. It was his rendition of a groan.
Simon turned and looked at him.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Mr Uniatz stood gazing at a bottle without making any attempt to assimilate its contents, gripped in a kind of horripilant torpor like a rabbit fascinated by a snake.
"What's the matter?" Simon demanded with real alarm.
Mr Uniatz tried to speak, only to find himself impeded by the bulk of a painfully dust-caked tongue. Mutely he pointed with a trembling finger, which indicated the contents of the bottle better than words. In a shaft of afternoon sunlight through the gun port, the liquid gleamed with the translucent clarity of a draught from the backyard pump-refreshing, innocuous, unsullied, colourless, and clear. A shudder of abhorrence jarred his gargantuan frame. To one who in his opulent days had quaffed the finest and most potent liquors on the market, such an offering was an affront. To one who in less prosperous times had uncomplainingly got by with snacks of rubbing alcohol, lemon extract, Jamaica ginger, or bay rum, this disgusting fluid promised to titillate his palate about as much as a feather would tickle an armadillo.
"It's a bottle of dat stinkin' Florida water, boss," Hoppy got out miserably. "I smelled dat stuff before. Dis ain't no bar -it's a wash-room."
Gallipolis turned insultedly from staring through the window.
"That's the hottest water you ever tasted, big boy. It comes fresh from a local spring. Why don't you try it?" He filled his own glass, grinned at Simon, and said: "Here's to crime!"
The Saint sniffed his portion experimentally. It didn't seem at first as if Hoppy could be entirely wrong. The bad-egg bouquet brought back memories of sulphur springs flowing through fetid swamps. But Hoppy had to be given a lesson in good manners.
Simon closed his eyes and drank the liquor down.
He realized the gravity of his error before the saber-toothed distillation of pine knots and turpentine was half through making scar tissue of his tongue. But by that time it was far too late. He tried to gasp out "Water!", but the descending decoction had temporarily cauterised his throat in one clean searing tonsillectomy. Smouldering vocal cavities excavated into strange shapes by the toxic stream sent out the request in an impotent whisper. Tear ducts dilated in salty sympathy. He propped himself feebly against the bar, believing that the power of speech was lost to him for ever.
Through a watery haze he watched Hoppy Uniatz, reassured, lift up the bottle, tilt back his head to the position of a baying wolf, and lower the contents by three full inches before he straightened his neck again.
"Chees.boss . . ."
Mr Uniatz momentarily released his lips from the bottle with the partly satiated air of a suckling baby. He stared at it with a slightly blank expression. Then, as if to batter his incredulous senses into conviction, he raised the bottle a second time. The level had dropped another four inches when he set
it down again, and even Lafe Jennet's graven scowl softened in compulsive admiration.
"Chees, boss," said Mr Uniatz, "if dat's de local spring water I ain't drinkin' nut'n else from now on!"
The Saint wiped his scorched lips with his handkerchief, and looked at it as if he expected to find brown holes in the cloth. He was even incapable of paying much attention to the entrance of Sheriff Haskins into the bar. He breathed with his mouth open, ventilating his anguished mucous tissues, while Haskins draped himself against the door and said: "Hullo, son."
"Hullo, daddy." The Saint valiantly tried to coax his voice back into operation. "It's nice to see you again so soon. You know Mr Gallipolis?-Sheriff Haskins."
"Shuah, I know him." Haskins chewed ruminatively. "He's a smart young feller. Runs a nice quiet juke we've knowed about for a yeah or more. I figgered to raid it one o' these days, but I gave up the idea." He nodded tolerantly towards the reddening Greek. "He ain't big enough to use that much gas on. I'd have no time for anythin' else if I started knockin' off every ten-cent joint around Miami that runs a poker game an' sells a bad brand o' shine."
Gallipolis leaned his elbows on the" bar.
"Then what did you come for, Sheriff?"
"This."
Haskins moved like a striking rattler, snatching off the dark glasses that Simon had bought for Jennet.
Jennet snarled like a dog, and snatched at the bottle on the bar. It must always be in doubt whether Hoppy Uniatz's even faster response was the automatic action of a co-operative citizen or the functioning of a no less reflex instinct to retain possession of his newly discovered elixir. But no matter what his motivation might have been, the result was adequate. One of his iron paws grabbed Jennet's wrist, and the other wrenched the bottle away. There was a click of metal as Haskins deftly handcuffed the struggling convict.
"Thanks," said the Sheriff dryly, giving Hoppy the benefit of the doubt, and at the same time giving Mr Uniatz his first and only accolade from the Law. "You re wanted up near Olustee, Lafe, to do some road work you ain't never finished. Might think you were a tourist, the way you were ridin' around town.'
"I was kidnapped," Jennet whined. "Why don't you arrest them, too?" His manacled hands indicated the Saint and Hoppy. "They drug me out here at the point of a gun."
"Now, that's right interestin'," said Haskins.
He turned his back on Jennet and walked to a place beside Simon at the bar. He moved his left thumb, and Gallipolis produced another bottle of shine, Hoppy having cautiously taken the first bottle out of range of further accidents. Haskins refilled the Saint's glass, and poured himself a liberal drink.
Simon Templar contemplated the repeat order of nectar unenthusiastically. The stuff had an inexhaustible range of effects. At the moment, the first dose was still with him: his throat was cooling a little, but his stomach now felt as if he had swallowed an ingot of molten lead. Besides which, he wanted to think quickly. If there were going to be a lot of questions to answer, he had to decide on his answering line. And disintegrating as the idea might seem, he simply couldn't perceive any line more straightforward, more obvious, more foolproof, more unchallengeable, more secure against future complications, and more utterly disarming, than the strict and irrefutable truth-so far as it went. It was a strange conclusion to come to, but he knew that subterfuge was a burden that was only worth sustaining when its objective was clearly seen, and for the life of him he couldn't see any objective now. So he watched in silent awe while the Sheriff filtered his four ounces of sulphuretted hydrochloric acid past his uvula without disturbing his chew.
"Gawd A'mighty," Haskins exclaimed huskily, eyeing his glass in mild astonishment "Must have squeezed that out of a panther. Did you come all the way out here to get a drink of that scorpion's milk? Give me an answer, son."
"I'm glad somebody else thinks it's powerful," said the Saint relievedly. "Actually, Sheriff, I came out here looking for a man."
Haskins found a place between vest and pants, and scratched himself over the belt of his gun.
"I'll feel a sight better, son, if you tell me more."
"There's nothing much to hide." Simon felt even more certain of the rightness of his decision. "A few minutes after you left this morning, Jennet took a shot at me from the bushes. If you want to, we can drive back in and you can dig his mushroom bullet out of the Gilbecks' wall."
The Sheriff pushed back his hat, found a wisp of hair, twisted it into a point, and said: "Well, now!"
"My friend Hoppy Uniatz-that's him over there, under the bottle-caught Jennet. We also got a rifle with his fingerprints on it-it must have 'em, because he wasn't wearing gloves. You can have that, too, if you want to come back for it, and prove that it fired the bullet in the wall."
Haskins' shrewd grey eyes stayed on the Saint's face.
"Guess you wouldn't be so keen for me to prove it, son, if it warn't true," he conceded. "So I'll save myself the trouble. But it still don't say what you're doin' with Lafe out here."
"After we caught him," said the Saint, "we worked on him a little. Nothing really rough, of course-he didn't make us go that far. But we persuaded him to talk. I didn't have the least idea why he or anybody else should be shooting at me. He told me he was forced to do it by a guy named Jesse Rogers who knew he was a lamster; and he said he met this Rogers out here. So we just naturally came out for a look-see."
"That's a lie," said Gallipolis. "Jennet was just playing for time. He hasn't been here since he was sent up, and you can't prove anything else."
"That was only what he told me," Simon confessed.
Haskins replaced his corkscrewed forelock.
"I shuah am bein' offered a lot of easy provin' to do," he observed morosely. "What I want is the things you-all ain't so ready to show me. How about this guy Rogers?"
"He comes here," said Gallipolis. "But he's been coming on and off for two years."
"Know anythin' about him?"
"No more than anybody else who comes here. I know what he looks like and how much he spends."
The Greek's limpid-eyed sincerity was as transparent as it had been when he told Simon quite a different story.
Haskins ambled over to a comer and ejected his chew with off-hand accuracy into a convenient cuspidor.
"This business is gettin' so danged tangled up," he announced as he came back, "it's like watchin' a snake eatin' its own tail. If it keeps on long enough there won't be nuth'n left at all."
"Perhaps," Simon advanced mildly, "you'd save yourself a lot of headaches if you took Lafe back to your office and saw what you could get out of him there."
The Sheriff was troubled. He searched beyond the Saint's serious tone for some justification of his feeling of being taken for a ride. It was difficult to define the glint in the Saint's scapegrace blue eyes as one of open mockery; and yet . . .
"An' where will you be," he asked, "while that's goin' on?"
"I might see if I can get a line on this Rogers bird," said the Saint. "But you know where to get in touch with me if you need me again."
"Look, son." Haskins' long nose moved closer, backed by a narrowing stare. "Whether or not you know it, you've done me a right smart good turn today. Lafe's meaner 'n gar broth, an' wanted bad. I'll be plenty happy to see him tucked away. But I don't want no more trouble on account o' you. Suppose now we all go back to town peaceable like, an' you leave the findin' of this Rogers to me."
Simon took out a pack of cigarettes and meditatively selected one.
He felt even more uncannily as if he were a puppet that was being taken through some conspicuous but meaningless part of a complex choreography, while the real motif was still running in incomprehensible counterpoint Too many people seemed to be too completely genuine to too little purpose.
There was, of course, the girl Karen, who might be classed as an unknown quantity. But it was impossible to visualise the pickle-pussed Lafe Jennet, no matter what his status as a marksman might be, as an embryo Mach
iavelli. Gallipolis had displayed several paradoxical characteristics, but the Saint felt ridiculously and unreasonably certain that among all of them there was a perplexity which contradicted the part of a conspirator. And there could be no doubt at all about the Sheriff. Newt Haskins might speak with a drawl and chew tobacco and move slothfully under the southern sun, but his slothfulness was that of a lizard which could wake into lightning swiftness. He had quite unmistakably the rare gem-like clarity of character of a man whom no fear or fortune could ever swerve from his arid conception of duty. And yet his arrival that afternoon had a timeliness which seemed to be an integral part of an elusive pattern.
No abstract extrapolation could ever make order out of it, Simon concluded. And so the only thing still was to find out -to let his own natural impulses take their course, and see where they led him.
"I just hate being shot at," he said amicably, "especially by proxy. And I don't think I'd be violating any law by looking for a guy named Rogers if I wanted to. Or would I?"
Haskins stared at him for the briefest part of a minute. His lean weatherbeaten face was as unemotional as a piece of old leather.
"No. son," he said at last. "Just lookin' for a guy named Rogers won't be violatin' no laws . . ." He turned abruptly, grasped Jennet by the collar, and propelled him towards the door. "Git goin', Lafe." He glanced back at the Saint once more, from the doorway. "I'll be around," he said, and went out.
Simon lounged languidly against the bar, and tried to put a smoke-ring over the neck of a bottle.
Gallipolis used the peephole to assure himself that Haskins and Jennet had really gone. He turned his face back from the aperture with a discouraged air.
The Saint in Miami s-22 Page 10
