He sat side-saddle on the edge of the cockpit and lighted a cigarette while Orace finished the work of tidying up. The Falkenberg had probably been at her berth for three hours by then, and apart from a jerseyed seaman who was lethargically washing off the remains of salt spray from her varnish, and who had scarcely looked at the Corsair as she came past, there was nothing to be observed on board. Most likely Vogel and his party were on shore, but Loretta…He shrugged, with the steel brightening in his eyes. Presently he would know—many answers.
“Wot nex’, sir?”
Orace stood beside him, as stoical as a whiskered gargoyle, and the Saint moved his cigarette in the faintest gesture of direction.
“You watch that boat. Don’t let them know you’re doing it—you’d better go below and fix yourself behind one of the portholes most of the time. But watch it. If a girl comes off it, or a box or a bundle or anything that might contain a girl, you get on your way and stick to her like a fly-paper. Otherwise—you stay watching that ship till I come back or your moustache grows down to your knees. Got it?”
“Yessir.”
Orace went below, unquestioningly, to his vigil, and the Saint stood up and settled his belt. There was action and contact, still, to take his mind away from things on which it did not wish to dwell: he felt a kind of tense elation at the knowledge that the fight was on, one way or the other.
He went ashore with a spring in his step, and a gun in his pocket that helped him to a smile of dry self-derision when he remembered it. It seemed a ridiculously melodramatic precaution in that peaceful port, with the blue afternoon sky arching over the unrippled harbour and the gay colour-splashes of idle holiday-makers promenading on the breakwaters, but he couldn’t laugh himself out of it. Before the end of the adventure he was to know how wise and necessary it was.
The cross-Channel steamer from Weymouth was standing out on the continuation of her voyage to Jersey, and Simon threaded his way to the New Jetty through the stream, of disembarked passengers and spectators, and eventually secured a porter. Inquiries were made. Yes, the steamer had landed some cargo consigned to him. Simon gazed with grim satisfaction at the two new and innocent-looking trunks labelled with his name, and spread a ten-shilling note into the porter’s hand.
“Will you get ’em to that boat over there? The Corsair. There’s a man on board to take delivery. And don’t mistake him for a walrus and try to harpoon him, because he’s touchy about that.”
He went back down the pier to the esplanade, fitting a fresh cigarette into his mouth as he went. Those two trunks which he had collected and sent on equipped him for any submarine emergencies, and the promptness of their arrival attested the fact that Roger Conway’s long retirement in the bonds of respectable if not holy matrimony had dulled none of his old gifts as the perfect lieutenant. There remained the matter of Peter Quentin’s contribution, and the Saint moved on to the post office and found it already waiting for him, in the shape of a telegram:
Latitude forty-nine forty-one fifty-six north longitude two twenty-three forty-five west Roger and I will be at the Royal before you are others will catch first airplane when you give the word also Hoppy wants to know why he was left out if you’ve already made a corner in the heroine we are going home I have decided to charge you with the cost of this wire so have much pleasure in signing myself comma at your expense comma yours till Hitler dedicates a synagogue dash
PETER
Simon tucked the sheer away in his pocket, and the first wholly spontaneous smile of that day relaxed the iron set of his mouth as he ranged out into the street again. If he had been asked to offer odds on the tone of that telegram before he opened it, he would have laid a thousand to one to any takers that he could have made an accurate forecast, and at that moment he was very glad to have been right. It was a tribute to the spell which still bound the crew of hell-bent buccaneers which he had once commanded, a token of the spirit of their old brotherhood which no passage of time or outside associations could alter, which sent him on his way to the Royal Hotel with a quickened stride and a sudden feeling of invincible faith.
He found them in the bar, entertaining a couple of damsels in beach pyjamas who could be seen at a glance to be endowed with that certain something which proved that Peter and Roger had kept their speed and initiative unimpaired in more directions than one. Beyond the first casual inspection with which any newcomer would have been greeted, they took no notice of him, but as he approached the counter, Roger Conway decided that another round of drinks was due, and came up beside him.
“Four sherries, please,” he said, and as the barmaid set up the glasses, he added: “And by the way—before I forget—would you get a bottle of Scotch and a siphon sent up to my room sometime this evening? Number fifteen.”
Simon took a pull at the beer with which he had been served, and compared his watch with the clock.
“Is that clock right?” he inquired, and the barmaid looked up at it.
“Yes, I think so.”
The Saint nodded, pretending to make an adjustment on his wrist.
“That’s good—I’ve got an appointment at seven, and I thought I had half an hour to wait.” He opened a packet of cigarettes while Roger teetered back to his party with the four glasses of sherry adroitly distributed between his fingers, and soon afterwards asked for a lavatory. He went out, leaving a freshly ordered glass of beer untouched on the bar, and the man who had taken the place next to him, who had been specifically warned against the dangers of letting his attentions become too conspicuous stood and gazed at that reassuring item of still life for a considerable time before being troubled with the first doubts of his own wisdom. And long before those qualms became really pressing, the Saint was reclining gracefully on Roger Con way’s bed, blowing smoke-rings at the ceiling and waiting for the others to keep the appointment.
They came punctually at seven, and, having closed and locked the door, eyed him solemnly.
“He looks debauched,” Peter said at length.
“And sickly,” agreed Roger.
“Too many hectic moments with the heroine,” theorised Peter.
“Do you think,” suggested Roger, “that if we both jumped on him together—” They jumped, and there was a brief but hilarious tussle. At the end of which:
“Do your nurses know you’re out?” Simon demanded sternly. “And who told you two clowns to start chasing innocent girls to their doom before you’ve hardly unpacked? Presently I shall want you in a hurry for some real work, and you’ll be prancing over the hillsides, picking daisies and sticking primroses in your hair—Did you speak, Peter?”
“How the hell could he speak,” gasped Roger, “while you’re grinding your knee into his neck? You big bully…Ouch! That’s my arm you’re breaking.”
The Saint picked himself off their panting bodies, sorted the smouldering remains of his cigarette out of the bedclothes, and lighted another.
“You’re out of training,” he remarked. “I can see that I’ve only just thought of you in time to save you from being put in a vase.”
“I don’t know whether we want to be thought of,” said Peter, massaging his torso tenderly. “You always get so physical when you’re thinking.”
“It only means he’s got into another mess and wants us to get him out of it,” said
Roger. “Or have you found a million pounds and are you looking for some deserving orphans?”
Simon grinned at them affectionately, and threw himself into a chair.
“Well, as a matter of fact there may be several millions in it,” he answered.
There was a quiet dominance in his voice which carried them back to other times in their lives when the fun and horseplay had been just as easily set aside for the other things that had bound them together, and they sorted themselves out just as soberly and sat down, Roger on the bed and Peter in the other chair.
“Tell us,” said Roger.
Simon told them.
2
&nb
sp; “So that’s the story. Now…”
He sat up and looked at them through a haze of smoke, in one of those supreme pauses when he knew most clearly that he would not, could not, have changed his life for any other. It was like old times. It was like coming home. It was the freebooter coming back to the outlaw campfire where he belonged. He saw their faces across the room, Peter’s rugged young-pugilist vitality, Roger’s lean and rather grim intentness, and under the turbulent thoughts that were clouding the background of his mind he knew an enduring and inexplicable contentment.
“As I see it, if all the evidence that’s been collected since Ingerbeck’s took on the case was worked up, there might be enough of it to put Vogel away. But that’s not good enough for the underwriters, and it isn’t good enough for Ingerbeck’s. The underwriters can’t show any dividends on gloating over Vogel sitting in prison for a few years. They want to recover some of the money they’ve lost on claims since he went into business. And Ingerbeck’s want their commission on the same. And we want—”
“Both,” said Peter Quentin bluntly.
The Saint gazed at him thoughtfully for a moment and did not answer directly. Presently he said, “The argument’s fairly simple, isn’t it? Boodle of that kind isn’t exactly ready money. You can’t take a sack of uncut diamonds or half a ton of bar gold into the nearest pawnshop and ask ’em how much they’ll give you on it. It takes time and organisation to get rid of it. And it isn’t so easy to cart around with you while your organisation’s functioning—particularly the gold. You have to park it somewhere. And for similar reasons you can’t use the ordinary safe deposit or keep it in a sock.”
Roger nodded.
“Meaning if we could find this parking-place—” The Saint spread out his hands.
“Find it, or find out where it is. Join Vogel’s crew and get the key. Follow him when he goes there to fetch some of the boodle out, or put some more in. Or something…” He smiled, and reached for his glass. “Anyway, you get the general idea.”
They had got the general idea, and for a minute or two they digested it in efficient silence. The magnitude of the situation which had been unfolded to them provoked none of the conventional explosions of incredulity or excitement: it was only on the same plane with what they had come to expect from the shameless leader who sat there studying them with the old mocking light of irresistible dare-devilry on his dark reckless face. And it is doubtful whether the morality of their attitude ever troubled them at all.
“That seems quite clear,” Peter said at last. “Except for the beautiful heroine.”
“She’s only trying to get at Vogel from his soft side—if he has one. That’s why she had to make that trip today. I…wasn’t in time to stop it. Don’t know whether I could have stopped it anyway, but I might have tried. If she hasn’t arrived here safely…” He left the thought in the air, but for an instant they saw a cold flame of steel in his eyes. And then there was only the glimmer of the scapegrace smile still on his lips. “But that’s my own party,” he said.
“It looks like it,” Peter said gloomily. ‘‘I might have known we couldn’t afford to give you a start like this. If you’re staking a claim on the heroine, I think I shall go home.”
“Is it a claim?” asked Roger seriously.
Simon drew the last smoke of his cigarette deep into his lungs, and shed the butt into an ashtray.
“I don’t know,” he said.
He stood up abruptly and prowled over to the window, almost unconsciously triangulating its exact position in the exterior geography of the hotel, in case he should ever wish to find it without using the ordinary entrances. Automatically his mind put aside Roger’s question, and went working on along the sternly practical lines for which he had convened the meeting.
“Now—communications. We can’t have a lot of these reunions. I had to ditch a shadow to make this one, and yesterday I did the same in Dinard. I think I was pretty smooth both times, but if I do it much more it’ll stop looking so accidental. There’s just a thin chance that Birdie is still wondering how smooth I am, and it’s just possible I may be able to keep him guessing for another twenty-four hours, which might make a lot of difference. So we’ll go back to splendid isolation for a while. Orace and I will get in touch with you here—one or the other of you must look in every hour, in case there’s a message. If we can’t send a message, we’ll put a bucket on the deck of the Corsair, which means you look out for signals. Remember the old card code? We’ll put the cards in one of the portholes. Those are general orders.”
“Anything more particular?”
“Only for myself, at present. Tomorrow they’re going out to try Yule’s new bathystol—and I’ve got an invitation.”
Peter sat up with a jerk. “You’re not going?”
“Of course I am. Any normal and innocent bloke would jump at the chance, and until there’s any evidence to the contrary I’ve got to work on the assumption that I’m still supposed to be a normal and innocent bloke. I’ve got to go. Besides, I might find out something.”
“All about the After Life, for instance,” said Peter.
The Saint shrugged.
“That’s all in the kitty. But if it’s coming to me, it’ll come anyhow, whether I go or not. And if it happens tomorrow…” The Saintly smile was gay and unclouded as he buttoned his coat. “I looks to you gents to do your stuff.”
Roger pulled himself off the bed.
“Okay, Horatius. Then for the time being we’re off duty.”
“Yes. Except for general communications. I just wanted to give you the lie of the land. And you’ve got it. So you can go back to your own heroines, if they haven’t found something better by this time, and don’t forget your powder-puffs.”
He shifted nimbly through the door before the other two could prepare a suitable retaliation, and found his way back to the bar. His glass of beer was still on the counter, and the sleuth who had been watching it, who had been mopping his brow feverishly and running round in small agitated circles for some time past appeared to suffer a violent heart attack which called for a large dose of whisky to restore his shattered nerves.
Simon lowered his drink at leisure. It went down to join a deep and pervading glow that had come into being inside him, in curious contrast to an outward sensation of dry cold. That brief interview with Peter and Roger, the knowledge that they were there to find trouble with him as they had found it before, had given a solid foundation to a courage which had been sustained until then by sheer nervous energy. And yet, as the feeling of cold separateness In his limbs was there to testify, their presence had not altered the problem of Loretta or made her safe, and a part of him remained utterly detached and immune from the intoxicating scent of battle as he set out to find her.
To find her…if she was to be found. But he forced that fear ruthlessly out of his head. She would be found—he was becoming as imaginative as an overwrought boy. If Vogel had taken the risk of letting her sail on the Falkenberg at all, he must be interested, and if he was interested—there would be no point in murder until the interest had been satisfied. Vogel must be interested—the Saint had not watched that scene on the Falkenberg’s deck last night with his eyes shut. And Vogel’s mathematically dehumanised brain would work like that. To play with the attractive toy, guarding himself against its revealed dangers, until all its amusing resources had been explored, before he broke it…Surely, the Saint told himself with relentless insistence, Loretta would be found. The thing that troubled him most deeply was that he should be so afraid…
And he found her. As he walked by the harbour, looking over the paling blue of the water at the inscrutable curves of the Falkenberg as if his eyes were trying to pierce through her hull and superstructure to see what was left for him on board, he became aware of three figures walking towards him, and something made him turn. He saw the tall gaunt aquilinity of Kurt Vogel, the gross bulk of Arnheim, and another shape which was like neither of them, which suddenly melted th
e ice that had been creeping through his veins and turned the warmth in him to fire.
“Good evening,” said Vogel.
3
Simon Templar nodded with matter-of-fact cheeriness. And he wanted to shout and dance. “I was just going to look you up,” he said.
“And we were wondering where you were. We inquired on the Corsair, but your man told us you’d gone ashore. You had a good crossing?”
“Perfect.”
“We were thinking of dining on shore, for a change. By the way, I must introduce you.” Vogel turned to the others. “This is my friend Mr Tombs—Miss Page…”
Simon took her hand. For the first time in that encounter he dared to look her full in the face, and smile. But even that could only be for the brief conventional moment.
“…and Mr Arnheim.”
“How do you do?”
There was a dark swollen bruise under Arnheim’s fleshy chin, and the Saint estimated its painfulness with invisible satisfaction as he shook hands.
“Of course—you helped us to try and catch our robber, didn’t you, Mr Tombs?”
“I don’t think I did very much to help you,” said the Saint deprecatingly.
“But you were very patient with our disturbing attempts,” said Vogel genially. “We couldn’t have met more fortunately—in every way. And now, naturally, you’ll join us for dinner?”
The great hook of his nose curved at the Saint like a poised scimitar, the heavy black
brows arched over it with the merest hint of challenge.
“I’d like to,” said the Saint easily. And as they started to stroll on, “What about the Professor?”
“He refuses to be tempted. He will be working on the bathystol for half the night—you couldn’t drag him away from it on the eve of a descent.”
They had dinner at the Old Government House. To Simon Templar the evening became fantastic, almost frighteningly unreal. Not once did he catch Vogel or Arnheim watching him, not once did he catch the subtle edge of an innuendo thrust in to prick a guilty ear, and yet he knew, by pure reason, that they were watching. The brand of his fist on Arnheim’s chin caught his eyes every time they turned that way. Did Arnheim guess—did he even know?—whose knuckles had hung that pocket earthquake on his jaw? Did Vogel know? There was no answer to be read in the smooth colourless face or the black unwinking eyes.
Saint Overboard (The Saint Series) Page 13
