Saint Overboard (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  “I would rather like to come,” said the Saint frankly, as he poured out the whisky.

  “Then we’ll expect you definitely. Loretta is coming, too.”

  “Who’s coming?”

  “You know—Miss Page—”

  Simon eased a drop of liquid from the neck of the bottle on to the rim of the glass with a hand as steady as a rock, and looked up with a smile.

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” he murmured. “Who is the lady?”

  “She was with us—I beg your pardon,” Vogel said quickly. “My memory is playing me tricks—I had an idea she was with us when we met this morning. Perhaps you will meet her in Guernsey.”

  “If she’s as pretty as her name, I hope I do,” said the Saint lightly.

  He passed the glass over and sat down again, feeling as if his stomach had been suddenly emptied with a vacuum pump.

  “We shall be sailing about eleven,” proceeded Vogel urbanely. “But we shan’t take long on the trip—we marine motorists have rather an advantage in speed,” he added deprecatingly. “I don’t wonder you thorough-going yachtsmen despise us, but I’m afraid I’m too old to learn your art.” Simon nodded vaguely. But there was nothing vague in his mind. Every fibre of his being seemed to have been dissected into an individual sentience of its own: he was conscious of the vitality of every cell and corpuscle of his body, as though each separate atom of him was pressed into the service of that supercharged aliveness. His whole intellect was waiting, cat-like, for Vogel to show his hand.

  Vogel gave him no sign. His smooth aggressively profiled face might have been moulded out of wax, with its appearance of hard and uniform opacity under the thin glaze of skin. The Saint’s keenest scrutiny could find no flaw in it. He had watched Vogel working up through a conspiracy of intricate and marvellously juggled tensions towards a climax of cunning that had been exploded like a soap-bubble at the very instant of crisis; he knew that even after that Vogel must have taken, a re-staggering shock when he discovered the vanishment of their prisoner and the slumber of Otto Arnheim; he could guess that even Vogel’s impregnable placidity must have felt the effect of a cumulation of reverses that would have shaken any other man to the beginnings of fear; and yet there was not a microscopical fissure in the sleek veneer of that vulturine face. Simon admitted afterwards that the realisation of all that was implied by that immovable self-command gave him a queer momentary superstitious feeling of utter helplessness, like nothing else that he had ever experienced in the presence of another human being.

  He took hold of the feeling with a conscious effort and trod it ruthlessly down. Vogel was holding his drink up in one steady hand, imperturbably surveying the details of the saloon, with the eyelids drooping under the shadow of his black overhanging brows, and Simon watched him without a tremor in the careless good humour of his gaze.

  “But this is a charming boat,” Vogel, remarked idly. “What is her tonnage?”

  “About twenty-five.”

  “Delightful…” Vogel got up and began to wander around, studying the panelling, touching the fittings, investigating the ingenious economy of space with all the quiet pleasure of an enthusiast. “I envy you, really—to be able to have something like this all to yourself, without bothering about crews and formalities. If I were twenty years younger…Did you have her fitted out yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course. And are all the other rooms as attractive as this one?”

  So that was how it was coming. The Saint felt a tiny pulse beginning to beat way back in the depths of his brain, like the frantic ticking of a distant clock racing with time.

  “They’re pretty comfortable,” he said modestly, and Vogel caught him up without a second’s hesitation.

  “I wish I could see them. I’m tremendously interested—I had no idea a small boat could be so luxurious. You might even convert me!”

  Simon brought the tip of his cigarette to a red glow, and feathered a fading cloud of smoke through his lips.

  He was for it. The fuse was lighted. There was no excuse, however plausible, no tactful way of changing the subject, however fluent, from which Vogel would not draw his own conclusions. Vogel had got him, exactly as he had got Loretta a few hours before. He had paid that belated call, transparently, with the one object of discovering whether the Corsair would yield any connecting link with the night’s disturbances, and he would not be prepared to go home satisfied after one brief confined session in the saloon. Simon could see the man’s black unswerving eyes fixed on him intently, outwardly with no more than the ingenuous eagerness which made the granting of his request a favour that it would be difficult in any circumstances to refuse—inwardly with a merciless insistence of which no one without the

  Saint’s knowledge would have been conscious. The fuse was lighted, and how soon the mine would go up depended only on Orace’s perception of the secondary uses of keyholes.

  Now that the die was cast, Simon felt a curious contented relaxation.

  “By all manner of means,” he said amicably. “Let me show you the works.”

  3

  He stood up, lighting a second cigarette from, the stub of the first. The movement gave a few seconds’ grace in which Orace, if he had been listening, might prepare for the emergency as best he could. But it could not be prolonged a moment beyond the requirements of the bare physical facts, and with an inaudible prayer to the hard worked gods of all good buccaneers, the Saint flattened his discarded butt in the ashtray and opened the communicating door.

  Simon Templar could rake over his memory at any time and comb out an impressive crop of moments which he had no desire to live over again. In spite of the ultimate balance of success that showed on the books of his meteoric career, his life had contained its full quota of occasions that definitely looked their best in distant retrospect. But of all that collection of unenjoyable contingencies there were very few to which he would so fervently have refused an encore as those hectic instants during which the vista beyond the saloon unrolled itself before the opening door. The spectacle of Orace sitting curled up in the diminutive galley, alone, with a paper-covered detective story on his knee, was such a dizzy anti-climax that it made the Saint feel somewhat light-headed. He could have raised the protective curtain of Orace’s moustache and kissed him.

  Fortunately the presence of Kurt Vogel precluded any such regrettable demonstration. Simon cleared his throat and spoke almost hesitatingly through the ecstatic glow which enveloped him.

  “This is the kitchen, where we heat the tins and open the bottles. On the right, the refrigerator, where we keep the beer warm…”

  He exhibited all the features of the galley with feverish pride, and Vogel, as flatteringly impressed as any proud owner could want a guest to be, admired them all in turn—the cunningly fitted glass and crockery racks, the planned compartments for all kinds of provisions, the paraffin geyser that provided hot water at the turn of a tap, the emergency stove slung in gimbals for use when the weather was too rough for a kettle to stand on the ordinary gas cooker, and all the other gadgets which had been installed to reduce discomfort to the vanishing point. All the time Simon was casting hopeful glances at Orace, searching for a hint of what his staff had done to meet the situation, but the staff had returned phlegmatically to its volume of blood, and its battle-scarred race offered as many clues as a boiled pudding.

  Eventually they had to move on. Beyond the galley there was a short alleyway, and

  Simon led the way briskly down it.

  “That’s the bathroom and toilet,” he explained casually, indicating the first door on the left as he went by, and he would have gone quickly on, but Vogel stopped.

  “A bathroom—really? That’s even more remarkable on a boat this size. May I look at it?”

  Simon turned, with the glow of relief on him dying down again to a cold resignation.

  Of all the places where Orace might have been expected to dump his charge in a hurry, the bathroom seemed th
e most probable. Simon looked innocently at Vogel, and the edge of his gaze, overlapping his guest, sought frantically for inspiration over Vogel’s shoulder. But Orace was deep in his sanguinary literature; only the back of his head could be seen, and he had not moved.

  “There’s nothing much to see,” began the Saint diffidently, but Vogel had already turned the handle.

  Simon leaned sidelong against the bulkhead and very deliberately estimated the chances of a shot going unheard by the seaman whom Vogel had left outside in charge of his speedboat. He also gave some consideration to the exact spot on Vogel’s anatomy where a bullet could be made to do a regulated amount of damage without leaving any margin for an outcry to add itself to the noise. His left thumb was tucked loosely into his belt; his right hand was a little behind his hip, the fingers hovering on the opening of the pocket into which he had slipped his gun. The cigarette between his lips slanted out at a rakish angle that would have made certain people who knew him well stand very still while they decided what scrap of cover they were going to dive for when the storm broke loose. And yet there was the ghost of a smile lingering on his mouth, and a shifting twinkle in his blue eyes, which might have misled those who were not so well informed.

  “But that’s almost luxurious!” came Vogel’s bland ingratiating accents. “And a shower, too…I certainly am learning a lesson—I almost wish I could find something that you’ve forgotten.”

  Simon prised himself off the bulkhead and let his right hand fall to his side. He didn’t take out a handkerchief and mop his brow, but he wished he could have indulged in that sedative gesture. His shirt felt damp in the small of his back.

  “I hope you won’t do that,” he said earnestly. “Now, this is just a small single cabin—” The tour went on. Vogel praised the small single cabin.

  He studied the berth, the lockers under it, and peeped inside the wardrobe.

  The Saint began to wonder if he was simply undergoing one of Vogel’s diabolically clever psychological third degrees. There was something as nightmarish as a slow-motion avalanche about Vogel’s patient thoroughness, a suggestion of feline cruelty in his velvety smoothness that burred the edges of Simon’s nervous system into crystals of jagged steel. He felt an almost irresistible temptation to throw guile to the winds—to say, “Okay, brother. I have got Steve Murdoch here, and he is the bird who paid you a call earlier this evening, and so what?”—to do any foolish thing that would wipe that self-assured smirk off the other’s face and bring the fencing match to a soul-satisfying showdown. Only the knowledge that that might very well be what Vogel was playing for eased the strain of holding himself in check.

  On the starboard side there was one double cabin. Vogel admired this also. There were two fitted wardrobes for him to peer into, and also a large recessed cupboard for storing blankets and other dry gear, besides the usual lockers under the berths. As Vogel methodically opened each door in turn, to the accompaniment of a tireless flow of approbation, the Saint felt himself growing so much older that it wouldn’t have surprised him to look down and see a long white beard spreading over his shirt.

  “This is the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.” Vogel was positively purring by then: his waxen skin shone with a queer gloss, as if it had been polished. “You should have made this your profession—I should have been one of your first clients…And that door at the end?”

  Simon glanced up the alleyway.

  “The fo’c’sle? That’s only Orace’s quarters—”

  And at the same time he knew that he might just as well save his breath. Vogel had already declared himself, at the bathroom door and since then, as a sightseer who intended to see every sight there was, and it would have been asking a miracle for him to have allowed himself to be headed off on the threshold of the last door of all.

  The Saint shrugged.

  At any rate, the gloves would be off. The nibbling and niggling would be finished, and the issue would be joined in open battle, and the Saint liked to fight best that way. Behind that door lay the showdown. He knew it, as surely as if he could have seen through the partition, and he faced it without illusion. Even at that transcendental moment the irrepressible devil in him came to his aid, and he was capable of feeling a deep and unholy glee of anticipation at the thought of the conflicting emotions that would shortly be chasing each other across Vogel’s up-ended universe.

  He opened the door and stood aside, with a sense of peace in the present and a sublime faith in the exciting future.

  Vogel went in.

  Perhaps after all, Simon reflected, his gun could stay where it was. A clean sharp blow with the edge of his hand across the back of the other’s neck might achieve the same immediate effect with less commotion, and with less risk of letting him in for the expenses of a high-class funeral later. Of course, that would still leave the loyal mariner outside, but he would have had to be dealt with anyhow…And then what? The Saint’s brain raced through a hectic sequence of results and possibilities…

  And then he heard Vogel’s voice again, through a kind of giddy haze that swept over him at the sound of it.

  “Excellent…excellent…Why, I’ve seen a good many boats in which the owner’s accommodation was not half so good. And this is all, is it?”

  If a choir of angels had suddenly materialised in front of him and started to sing a syncopated version of Christmas Day in the Workhouse, Simon Templar could hardly have had a more devastating reason to mistrust his ears. If the Corsair had suddenly started to spin round and round like a top, his insides couldn’t have suffered a more cataclysmic bouncing on their moorings. With a resolute effort he swallowed his stomach, which was trying to cake-walk up into his mouth, and looked into the fo’c’sle.

  Vogel was coming out, and his cordial smile was unchanged. If he had just suffered the crowning disappointment of his unfortunate evening, there was no sign of it on his face. And behind him, quite plainly visible to every corner, Orace’s modest cabin was as naked of any other human occupancy as the ice-bound fastnesses of the North Pole.

  The Saint steadied his reeling brain, and took the cigarette from between his lips. “Yes, that’s all,” he answered mechanically. “You can’t get much more into a fifty-footer.”

  “And that?” Vogel pointed upwards.

  “Oh, just a hatchway on to the deck.”

  Forestalling any persuasion, he caught the ladder rungs screwed to the bulkhead, drew himself up, and opened it. After all he had been through already, his heart was too exhausted to turn any more somersaults, but the daze deepened round him as he hoisted himself out on to the deck and found no unconscious body laid neatly out in the lee of the coaming. They had been through the ship from stern to stem, and that hatchway was the last most desperate door through which Murdoch’s not inconsiderable bulk could have been pushed away. If Orace hadn’t dumped the man out there, he must have melted him and poured him down the sink, or ordered a fiery chariot from Heaven to take him away: the Saint was reaching a stage of blissful delirium in which any miracle would have seemed less fantastic than the facts.

  He stretched down a hand and helped Vogel to follow him out. They stood together under the dimly luminous canopy of the masthead light, and Vogel extended his cigarette-case. There were only the ordinary shadows on the deck, and the one seaman sat patiently smoking his pipe in the cockpit of the speed tender tied up astern.

  “I’m afraid my enthusiasm ran away with me,” said Vogel. “I should never have asked you to show me round at this hour. But I assure you it’s been worth it to me—in every way.”

  He laid the faintest and most innocent emphasis on the last three words.

  Simon leaned on the mast, with one arm curled round it, as if it had been a giant’s lance. The stub of his old cigarette fizzed into the water.

  “It’s been no trouble at all,” he murmured courteously. “What about one for the road?”

  “Many thanks. But I’ve kept you up too late already.”

  “Yo
u haven’t.”

  “Then I’ll leave before I do.” Vogel waved a hand to his marine chauffeur. “Ivaloff!” He smiled, and held out his hand. “We’ll look out for you, then, at St Peter Port?”

  “I’ll be there by tea-time, if we have any wind.” The Saint sauntered aft beside his guest. Beyond all doubt, the stars in their courses fought for him. If he could have given vent to his feelings, he would have serenaded them with crazy carols. He thought about the munificent rewards which might suitably be heaped on the inspired head of Orace, when that incomparable henchman could be made to reveal the secrets of his wizardry.

  His right hand trailed idly along the boom. And suddenly his whole body prickled with an almost hysterical effervescence, as if the two halves of some supernal seidlitz powder had been incontinently fused under his belt.

  “Goodnight,” said Vogel. “And many thanks.”

  “Au ’voir,” responded the Saint dreamily.

  He watched the other step down into the tender and touch the starter. The seaman cast off and the speedboat drew away, swung round in a wide arc, and went creaming away up the dark estuary.

  Simon stood there until the blaze of its spotlight had faded into a brilliant blur, and then he put his hands on the companion rail and slid down below. First of all he poured himself out a large drink, and proceeded to absorb it with profound deliberation. Then he grasped Orace firmly by the front of his shirt and drew him forward.

  “You god-damned old son of a walrus,” he said, with his voice torn between wrath and laughter. “Men have been shot for less.”

  “I couldn’t think of nothink else, sir, sudding like,” said Orace humbly.