“Couldn’t you have told the crew that?”
“What for? One devil’s better than twenty.”
“And what happens to you?”
“I go over the side with a lump of lead tied to each foot. Hilloran’s got a grudge to settle—and he’s going to settle it. He was so calm about it when he told me that I knew he meant every word. He’s a curious type,” said Dicky meditatively. “I wish I’d studied him more. Your ordinary crook would have been noisy and nasty about it, but there’s nothing like that about Hilloran. You’d have thought it was the same thing to him as squashing a fly.”
There was another silence, while the cabin grew darker still. Then she said, “What are you thinking, Dicky?”
“I’m thinking,” he said, “how suddenly things can change. I loved you. Then, when I thought you were trading on my love, and laughing at me up your sleeve all the time, I hated you. And then, when you fell down in the saloon, and you lay so still, I knew nothing but that I loved you whatever you did, and that all the hell you could give me was nothing, because I had touched your hand and heard your blessed voice and seen you smile.”
She did not speak.
“But I lied to Hilloran,” he said. “I told him nothing more than that my love had turned to hate, and not that my hate had turned back to love again. He believed me. I asked to be left alone with you before the end, to hurl my dying contempt on you—and he consented. That again makes him a curious type—but I knew he’d do it. That’s why we’re here now.”
“Why did you do that?”
“So that I could tell you the truth, and try to make you tell me the truth—and, perhaps, find some way out with you.”
The darkness had become almost the darkness of night.
She said, far away, “I couldn’t make up my mind. I kept on putting myself off and putting myself off, and in order to do that I had to trade on your love. But I forced you into that argument at dinner to find out how great your love could be. That was a woman’s vanity—and I’ve paid for it. And I told Hilloran to dope your coffee, and told you not to drink it, so that you’d be ready to surprise him and hold him up when he thought you were doped. I was going to double-cross him, and then leave the rest in your hands, because I couldn’t make up my mind.”
“It’s a queer story, isn’t it?” said Dicky Tremayne.
“But I’ve told you the truth now,” she said. “And I tell you that if I can find the chance to throw myself out of the boat, or out of the seaplane, I’m going to take it. Because I love you.”
He was silent.
“I killed Morganheim,” she said, “because I had a sister—once.”
He was very quiet.
“Dicky Tremayne,” she said, “didn’t you say you loved me—once?”
He was on his feet. She could see him.
“That was the truth.”
“Is it—still true?”
“It will always be true,” he answered, and he was close beside her, on his knees beside the bunk. He was so close beside her that he could kiss her on the lips.
10
Simon Templar sat at the controls of the tiny seaplane, and stared thoughtfully across the water.
The moon had not yet risen, and the parachute flares he had thrown out to land by had been swallowed up into extinction by the sea. But he could see, a cable’s length away, the lights of the yacht riding sulkily on a slight swell, and the lamp in the stern of the boat that was stealing darkly across the intervening stretch of water was reflected a thousand times by a thousand ripples, making a smear of dancing luminance across the deep.
He was alone. And he was glad to be alone, for undoubtedly something funny was going to happen.
He had himself, after much thought, written Patricia’s letter to Dicky Tremayne, and he was satisfied that it had been explicit enough. “My eyes are red from weeping for you.” It couldn’t have been plainer. Red light—danger. A babe in arms couldn’t have missed it.
And yet, when he had flown nearer, he had seen that the yacht was not moving, and his floats had hardly licked the first flurry of spray from the sea before the boat he was watching had put off from the ship’s side.
He could not know that Dicky had given away that red signal deliberately, hoping that it would keep him on his guard and that the inspiration of the moment might provide for the rest. All the same, the Saint was a good guesser, and he was certainly on his guard. He knew that something very fishy was coming towards him across that piece of fish-pond, and the only question was—what?
Thoughtfully the Saint fingered the butt of the Lewis gun that was mounted on the fuselage behind him. It had not been mounted there when he left San Remo that evening, for the sight of private seaplanes equipped with Lewis guns is admittedly unusual, and may legitimately cause comment. But it was there now. The Saint had locked it on to its special mounting as soon as his machine had come to rest. The tail of the seaplane was turned towards the yacht, and, twisting round in the roomy cockpit, the Saint could comfortably swivel the gun round and keep the sights on the approaching boat.
The boat, by that time, was only twenty yards away.
“Is that you, sonny boy?” called the Saint sharply.
The answering hail came clearly over the water: “That’s me, Saint.”
In the dark, the cigarette between the Saint’s lips glowed with the steady redness of intense concentration. Then he took his cigarette from his mouth and sighted carefully.
“In that case,” he said, “you can tell your pals to heave to, Dicky Tremayne. Because, if they come much nearer, they’re going to get a lead shower-bath.”
The sentence ended in a stuttering burst from the gun, and five tracer bullets hissed through the night like fireflies and cut the water in a straight line directly across the boat’s course. The Saint heard a barked command, and the boat lost way, but a laugh followed at once, and another voice spoke.
“Is that the Saint?”
The Saint only hesitated an instant.
“Present and correct,” he said, “complete with halo. What do your friends call you, honey-bunch?”
“This is John Hilloran speaking.”
“Good evening, John,” said the Saint politely.
The boat was close enough for him to be able to make out the figure standing up in the stern, and he drew a very thoughtful bead upon it. A Lewis gun is not the easiest weapon in the world to handle with a microscopic accuracy, but his sights had been picked out with luminous paint, and the standing figure was silhouetted clearly against the reflection in the water of one of the lights along the yacht’s deck.
“I’ll tell you,” said Hilloran, “that I’ve got your friend at the end of my gun—so don’t shoot any more.”
“Shoot, and be damned to him!” snapped in Dicky’s voice. “I don’t care. But Audrey Perowne’s here as well, and I’d like her to get away.”
“My future wife,” said Hilloran, and again his throaty chuckle drifted through the gloom.
Simon Templar took a long pull at his cigarette, and tapped some ash fastidiously into the water.
“Well—what’s the idea, big boy?”
“I’m coming alongside. When I’m there, you’re going to step quietly down into this boat. If you resist, or try any funny business, your friend will pass in his checks.”
“Is—that—so?” drawled Simon.
“That’s so. I want to meet you—Mr Saint!”
“Well, well, well!” mocked the Saint alertly.
And there and then he had thrust upon him one of the most desperate decisions of a career that continued to exist only by the cool swift making of desperate decisions.
Dicky Tremayne was in that boat, and Dicky Tremayne had somehow or other been stung. That had been fairly obvious ever since the flashing of that red signal. Only the actual details of the stinging had been waiting to be disclosed. Now the Saint knew.
And, although the Saint would willingly have stepped into a burning, fiery fu
rnace if he thought that by so doing he could help Dicky’s getaway, he couldn’t see how the principle applied at that moment. Once the Saint stepped down into that boat, there would be two of them in the consommé instead of one—and what would have been gained?
What, more important, would Hilloran have gained? Why should J. Hilloran be so anxious to increase his collection of Saints?
The Saint thoughtfully rolled his cigarette end between his finger and thumb, and dropped it into the water.
“Why,” ruminated the Saint, “because the dear soul wants this blinkin’ bus what I’m sitting in. He wants to take it and fly away into the wide world. Now, again—why? Well, there were supposed to be a million dollars’ worth of jools in that there hooker. It’s quite certain that their original owners haven’t got them any longer—it’s equally apparent that Audrey Perowne hasn’t got them, or Dicky wouldn’t have said that he wanted her to get away—and, clearly, Dicky hasn’t got them. Therefore, Hilloran’s got them. And the crew will want some of them. We don’t imagine Hilloran proposes to load up the whole crew on this airyplane for their getaway: therefore, he only wants to load up himself and Audrey Perowne—leaving the ancient mariners behind to whistle for their share. Ha! Joke.…”
And there seemed to be just one solitary way of circumventing the opposition.
Now, Hilloran wasn’t expecting any fight at all. He’d had several drinks, for one thing, since the hold-up, and he was very sure of himself. He’d got everyone cold—Tremayne, Audrey, the crew, the Saint, and the jewels. He didn’t see how anyone could get out of it.
He wasn’t shaking with the anticipation of triumph, because he wasn’t that sort of crook. He simply felt rather satisfied with his own ingenuity. Not that he was preening himself. He found it as natural to win that game as he would have found it natural to win a game of stud poker from a deaf, dumb, and blind imbecile child. That was all.
Of course, he didn’t know the Saint except by reputation, and mere word-of-mouth reputations never cut much ice with Hilloran. He wasn’t figuring on the Saint’s uncanny intuition of the psychology of the crook, nor on the Saint’s power of lightning logic and lightning decision. Nor had he reckoned on that quality of reckless audacity which lifted the Saint as far above the rut of ordinary adventures as Walter Hagen is above the man who has taken up golf to amuse himself in his old age—a quality which infected and inspired also the men whom the Saint led.
There was one desperate solution to the problem, and Hilloran ought to have seen it. But he hadn’t seen it—or, if he had, he’d called it too desperate to be seriously considered. Which was where he was wrong to all eternity.
He stood up in the stern of the boat, a broad dominant figure in black relief against the shimmering waters, and called out again: “I’m coming alongside now, Saint, if you’re ready.”
“I’m ready,” said the Saint, and the butt of the Lewis gun was cuddled in to his shoulder as steadily as if it had lain on a rock.
Hilloran gave an order, and the sweeps dipped again. Hilloran remained standing.
If he knew what happened next, he had no time to co-ordinate his impressions. For the harsh stammer of the Lewis gun must have merged and amazed his brain with the sharp tearing agony that ripped through his chest, and the numbing darkness that blinded his eyes must have been confused with the numbing weakness that sapped all the strength from his body, and he could not have heard the choking of the breath in his throat, and the cold clutch of the waters that closed over him and dragged him down could have meant nothing to him at all…
But Dicky Tremayne, staring stupidly at the widening ripples that marked the spot where Hilloran had been swallowed up by the sea, heard the Saint’s hail.
“Stand by for the mermaids!”
And at once there was a splash such as a seal makes in plunging from a high rock, and there followed the churning sounds of a strong swimmer racing through the water.
The two men who were the boat’s crew seemed for a moment to sit in a trance; then, with a curse, one of them bent to his oars. The other followed suit.
Dicky knew that it was his turn.
He came to his feet and hurled himself forward, throwing himself anyhow across the back of the man nearest to him. The man was flung sideways and over on to his knees, so that the boat lurched perilously. Then Dicky had scrambled up again, somehow, with bruised shins, and feet that seemed to weigh a ton, and launched himself at the back of the next man in the same way.
The first man whom he had knocked over struck at him, with an oath, but Dicky didn’t care. His hands were tied behind his back, but he kicked out, swung his shoulders, butted with his head—fought like a madman. His only object was to keep the men from any effective rowing until the Saint could reach them.
And then, hardly a foot from Dicky’s eyes, a hand came over the gunwale, and he lay still, panting. A moment later the Saint had hauled himself over the side, almost overturning the boat as he did so.
“O.K., sonny boy!” said the Saint, in that inimitable cheerful way that was like new life to those who heard it on their side, and drove his fist into the face of the nearest man.
Then the other man felt the point of a knife prick his throat.
“You heard your boss telling you to row over to the seaplane,” remarked the Saint gently, “and I’m very hot on carrying out the wishes of the dead. Put your back into it!”
He held the knife in place with one hand, with the other hand he reached for the second little knife which he carried strapped to his calf.
“This way, Dicky boy, and we’ll have you loose in no time.”
It was so. And then the boat was alongside the seaplane, and Dicky had freed the girl.
The Saint helped them up, and then went down to the stern of the boat and picked up the bag which lay fallen there. He tossed it into the cockpit, and followed it himself.
From that point of vantage he leaned over to address the crew of the boat.
“You’ve heard all you need to know,” he said. “I am the Saint. Remember me in your prayers. And when you’ve got the yacht to a port, and you’re faced with the problem of accounting for all that happened to your passengers—remember me again. Because tomorrow morning every port in the Mediterranean will be watching for you, and on every quay there’ll be detectives waiting to take you away to the place where you belong. So remember the Saint!”
And Simon Templar roused the engine of the seaplane and began to taxi over the water as the first shot spat out from the yacht’s deck and went whining over the sea.
A week later, Chief Inspector Teal paid another visit to Brook Street.
“I’m very much obliged to you, Mr Templar,” he said. “You’ll be interested to hear that Indomitable picked up the Corsican Maid as she was trying to slip through the Straits of Gibraltar last night. They didn’t put up much of a scrap.”
“You don’t say!” murmured the Saint mockingly. “But have some beer.”
Mr Teal sank ponderously into the chair.
“Fat men,” he declined, “didn’t ought to drink—if you won’t be offended. But listen, sir—what happened to the girl who was the leader of the gang? And what happened to the jewels?”
“You’ll hear today,” said the Saint happily, “that the jewels have been received by a certain London hospital. The owners will be able to get them back from there, and I leave the reward they’ll contribute to the hospital to their own consciences. But I don’t think public opinion will let them be stingy. As for the money that was collected in cash, some twenty-five thousand dollars. I—er—well, that’s difficult to trace, isn’t it?”
Mr Teal nodded sleepily.
“And Audrey Perowne, alias the Countess Anusia Marova?”
“Were you wanting to arrest her?”
“There’s a warrant—”
The Saint shook his head sadly.
“What a waste of time, energy, paper, and ink! You ought to have told me that before. As it is, I’m afraid
I—er—that is, she was packed off three days ago to a country where extradition doesn’t work—I’m afraid I shouldn’t know how to intercept her. Isn’t that a shame?”
Teal grimaced.
“However,” said the Saint, “I understand that she’s going to reform and marry and settle down, so you needn’t worry about what she’ll do next.”
“How do you know that?” asked Teal suspiciously.
The Saint’s smile was wholly angelic. He flung out his hand.
“A little Dicky bird,” he answered musically. “A little Dicky bird told me so this morning.”
PUBLICATION HISTORY
Despite its title, Enter the Saint was in fact the third Saint book to be published, following Meet—the Tiger! and The Last Hero (a.k.a. The Saint Closes the Case), which were published in September 1928 and May 1930, respectively.
Like The Last Hero, the stories in this book were first published in The Thriller, a weekly magazine that described itself as “the paper with a thousand thrills.” It had been established by Monty Haydon, a controlling editor at the Amalgamated Press, who was looking to cash in on the popularity of thriller writer Edgar Wallace. Indeed, when the first edition launched on 9 February 1929, it carried a new story by Wallace. But Haydon knew that he couldn’t afford to keep publishing stories by established writers. If he was to stick to his budget, he needed to find writers who were younger, on the verge of breaking through and, perhaps most importantly, significantly cheaper than Wallace.
A young writer came to Haydon’s attention. He had a decent track record, with five novels to his name, and was certainly keen, as those five novels had been published within a couple of years. The novels themselves showed a natural storyteller at work, but one who needed a bit of guidance, perhaps even a mentor.
Haydon extended an invitation to Leslie Charteris to write for the magazine.
Charteris’s first two stories did not feature the Saint. But the third, published in early May 1929 and titled “The Five Kings,” reintroduced the dashing hero. It told of a “ruthless association of reckless young men, brilliantly led, who worked on the side of the law, and who were yet outside the law.”
Enter the Saint (The Saint Series) Page 25
