Señor Saint (The Saint Series) Read online

  “I wouldn’t call it so crazy,” he said. “And I like Loro’s contribution. Now that we’re more or less partners, would you risk telling me what part of the country this cache of golden frogs is in? I bought a map this afternoon to help my feeble geography.”

  He took the map from his pocket and spread it on the table between them. She moved her chair around towards him until their shoulders touched, and the perfume of her hair was sweetly close to his nostrils as she leaned over to study the tinted outlines.

  “We’re here.” She pointed to the south-eastern end of the Canal. “We’d have to charter a boat—the same one that Pappy and I had, if we can get it. We go out here, past Taboga Island, and down the coast to the mouth of this river. Then we go up the river—it’s quite deep, most of the time, and Loro knows all the channels—up—up around here…” Her red lacquered fingernail traced the winding course of the stream more hesitantly, but finally settled on a definite point. “Yes, the head-hunters’ territory starts here, at this third fork. So the cave would be a little farther north, about—there.”

  Simon gazed at the map as if instead of its green ink he were seeing the lush rain jungle itself. Even though he was far more familiar with such stories than most men, he felt the tug of romance in it as appreciatively as the most frustrated slave to a stock market report. There could have been no higher tribute to the cunning with which Mr Nestor had blended its ingredients.

  “I’m going to enjoy this trip,” he said.

  “Would you want to go along?”

  She asked the question for necessary information, but he stared at her almost indignantly.

  “Do I look like a guy who’d miss anything like that?”

  “No—quite the contrary. That’s one thing that bothers me. You’ve got that daredevil look. So I’ll have to make a condition. You’ve got to promise me you won’t try to go beyond that third fork on the river. You’re not an Indian like Loro, and you couldn’t pretend to be. I don’t want your head cut off and shrunk and dried. I wouldn’t want anything at that price. Promise you won’t try to go all the way—or it’s no deal.”

  It was a classic touch. She acknowledged and openly hero-worshipped every valiant quality and impulse that a man would like to be credited with, and in the next breath she absolved him of any uncomfortable risk of having to live up to them, and prettily made it a command. Nobody but the Saint would have been so sincerely ungrateful.

  “You’re the boss,” he said curtly, for there was no doubt that she meant it. “But we go as far as damn—yanquis can. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Okeh. But how are you going to explain this to Pappy?”

  “You know, we’ve got reservations to fly back tomorrow night. This has all been so sudden…The only thing I can think of is that I’ll have to make some excuse and let him go alone. But what excuse is there? I can’t pretend to be sick, or he’d never go.” She was almost suddenly panic-stricken, groping desperately for an answer. “I’ve told him before about wishing I could be a travelling secretary. Could I tell him that you’ve offered me a job? Would you mind if I did that?”

  Simon laughed.

  “If it’s as easy as that, consider yourself hired.”

  She clung to his arm impulsively for a moment.

  “If Loro can do what he says he can, I wouldn’t hold you to it.”

  “I might like being held,” he said. “But we’ll have plenty of time to talk about that. If your father goes for it. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed, because I won’t even be able to help you sell it.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to go over to Cristobal first thing in the morning. I’ve got an old friend in the Navy who’s stationed on that side, and he promised to show me some sensational tarpon fishing on the Chagres River. He can only get two days off, so I’ll be back on Friday. If I find you’ve checked out, I’ll know it was just one of those things.”

  “I’ll be here, I promise,” she said. “And by then Loro should have lined up those guns.”

  When he left her at her hotel several hours later (Professor Nestor did not make his residential headquarters at El Panamá, both for reasons of economy and because it would have been grossly out of character) she kissed him goodnight, not alarmingly, but with a spontaneous warmth which suggested that her full gratitude would be more than perfunctorily enjoyable.

  The Professor was sitting up in bed, wearing a suit of gaudy pyjamas and reading a luridly jacketed paperback.

  “We’re cooking, Pappy,” she said. “Everything went just like the script. Even better—he’s going away for a couple of days’ fishing, so there won’t be any problem about seeing you off.”

  “Splendid,” said the Professor. “But I’d better go up to Santa Clara as usual until after he’s left, so there’ll be no chance of accidentally running into him.”

  Santa Clara is a seaside resort on the Pacific coast which is supported mainly by Service personnel and Canal employees, and the average tourist is unlikely even to hear of it, let alone visit it. The Professor had found it a convenient and pleasant place to lie low in when he was supposed to have flown back to the States.

  “This’ll be one of the long jobs,” Alice said. “He’s determined to go up the river himself as far as I’ll let him. That means I’ll have to get my hands all fishy and my shoulder sore from that blasted shotgun, and pretend I like it.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Oh well, maybe I can get his mind on to something else at least part of the time.”

  “I notice your lipstick is a little smudged,” he remarked. “With a routine as good as we’ve got, I don’t think you need to develop your part so far in that direction as you’ve been doing.”

  “Would you rather get someone else to do it?” she inquired. “I’ll play it the way I feel it, or quit. There isn’t much fun for me in this goddamn place. And this is one John who isn’t a bit hard to take.”

  When the following Friday morning went by without any phone call, she experienced a qualm that was almost as much personal as it was mercenary. She would have sworn that it was practically a toss-up whether Sebastian Tombs was more attracted by herself or the golden frogs, but as the afternoon wore on she began to wonder how both lures could have failed simultaneously. When her phone rang at last, after five o’clock, she was so relieved to hear his voice that her tone was quite angry.

  “Whatever happened to you?”

  “I’ve been busy,” he said mildly. “You sound almost like a wife—or a boss.”

  “I’m sorry.” She recovered herself quickly. “I guess I was getting worried. After seeing my father off and waiting here, I was starting to think how silly I’d look if you never came back.”

  “Two things I never stand up, darling,” he said, “are a beautiful blonde and a chance to make easy money. How’s Loro doing?”

  “He’s been calling me every hour. He’s got all the guns and ammunition, but his friends are pressing him for the money.”

  “Tell him they can have it as soon as the banks open tomorrow.”

  “What have you been so busy with—boss?”

  “I got a tip over on the other side that should be worth a fortune,” he said. “I’ll tell you when I see you. Will you be gorgeous and hungry if I pick you up, let’s say at seven?”

  She had to struggle with an assortment of vague apprehensions until she met him. There were several facts that he might have heard or learned from someone who really knew the country that could have shaken the foundations of his belief in the Professor’s imaginative story, yet he had not sounded at all hesitant or sceptical. And when he greeted her he was unrestrainedly jubilant.

  “This could be the greatest break for us,” he said. “My pal on the other side is a fly boy in the Navy, a full Commander, no less, but he’s never given up hope of getting rich some day. He thinks he has all the opportunities, and all he needs is a bit of luck. He used to dream about making a forced landing on s
ome unheard-of mountain of gold or a dry wash full of diamonds. Lately it’s uranium, and he never takes off without a small Geiger counter in one of his life raft ration cans. Well, every place he goes, he studies up on the local mining laws, because when he strikes pay dirt he doesn’t intend to be horn-swoggled out of it on some technicality. So I told him that I was thinking of scouting for some gold around here myself—without giving away any of your secrets, of course—and he told me that any minerals you find in Panama belong to the Government, unless you’ve bought a prospecting concession in advance for the exact area where you find ’em. Did you know that?”

  “No,” she said with a blankness that did not have to be feigned.

  “Anyway, that’s how it is. But my pal knew all the rules, so as soon as I got back here this morning I went to work to take out a prospecting concession on the area you’d shown me on the map. My trouble was, it’s such a little-known law that half the officials I talked to hadn’t heard of it themselves. Or maybe it’s just been too long since anyone did any serious prospecting around here. It took me half the day to find the right bureaucrat who could issue the concession, and it was even tougher getting him to do it on the spot, instead of mañana, or next month. But I finally made it. Look!”

  He triumphantly unfolded a closely typewritten sheet of heavy paper. It was trimmed and embellished with an imposing variety of stamps, embossings, ribbons, and sealing-wax, with a number of ornate signatures, but it was all written in Spanish, and about the only words that she recognized were the name of Sebastian Tombs.

  “What does it say?”

  “Cutting out all the gobbledegook, and the Castilian whereases and heretofores, it simply says that I have this prospecting concession for the district you showed me, for ten days starting tomorrow. You see, to try and prevent anyone hogging a concession and doing nothing about it, they put the hell of a price on them, a hundred dollars a day, and the longest you can take ’em for is three months. Then, if you make a strike, you can renew ’em by the year, but then naturally you don’t mind the price. That’s why the area we’re interested in wasn’t tied up: nobody would pay that much rent for a prospecting licence except for the time he’d be using it. This fancy scroll cost me a thousand bucks—from what you told me, I figured ten days should be plenty. But it gives us the right to keep all the golden frogs we can find in that time.”

  The release from all her apprehensions was such a let-down that she felt slightly hysterical. It took a titanic effort at that moment to gaze at him with the awed and eager appreciation which she knew was called for, but somehow she achieved it.

  “You’re wonderful,” she said. “I can see now why you must be a very successful speculator. You don’t miss anything. But we shouldn’t need anything like ten days. I’ve already arranged for the boat, and we could leave tomorrow morning if you like.”

  “I like,” said the Saint.

  4

  The departure of Loro on his intrepid mission to contact the head-hunters was in itself almost worth the price of admission. Stripped down to a leopard-skin breechclout, his hair bound in a fillet of brocade that supported a couple of brightly hued parrot feathers, with slashes and curlicues of paint on his face and chest, he would have satisfied any Hollywood studio wardrobe department.

  Professor Nestor had had to work hard to persuade Loro that it was necessary to go to these theatrical extremes. It had been comparatively easy to convince him that when the sucker paid over his money, Loro should not simply disappear with all of it, for Loro could never hope to steal that kind of money again on his own, but by working loyally with the Professor and Alice he could expect to share in such killings at frequent intervals for an unlimited future. So, having shown the Saint a stack of oilcloth-wrapped bundles piled in one of the cabins of the boat, with Alice vouching that she had personally inspected and helped to wrap the guns, and having received a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills as promised, he had taken it docilely to the hired car in which Professor Nestor was waiting to leave for Santa Clara, receiving in return only $3,000 for himself and $3,500 in an envelope to be taken back to Alice.

  But after the first of such divisions, Loro had taken it for granted that they would all three disappear. The Professor had explained that the victim would then complain to the police, which would be a severe handicap to any future activities. In that case, Loro had suggested cheerfully, it would perhaps be better to take the boat some distance out into the Gulf of Panama, tie the victim to some of the weighted bundles, and drop him over the side. The Professor had explained patiently that the mysterious disappearance of an American, especially a wealthy one, could hardly fail to cause an investigation which would be very likely to come embarrassingly close to them.

  “The very best confidence jobs, my dear Loro,” the Professor had pontificated, “don’t even let the sucker know that he’s been taken. Isn’t it worth a little time and trouble to give our customers a real show for their money, and know that we’ll never have to worry about them hollering for the cops?”

  He had eventually secured Loro’s co-operation, but had reason to doubt if he would ever completely make his point.

  Even on this occasion, at the first opportunity Loro had, when the Saint was at the other end of the boat, he said to Alice, “All this waste plenty time. Much better tonight I—”

  He drew an expressive forefinger across his throat. He was half serious and half teasing her, she could tell from his malicious grin, but she was surprised to feel herself shudder.

  “Stop it, Loro…Anyway,” she said, in an attempt to cover up the sharpness of her reaction, “this one is a perfect example of what we’ve tried to explain to you. He’s actually taken out a prospecting licence from the Government, and he must have told a dozen people where he’s going. If he disappeared, we’d have too many tough questions to answer.”

  It was only after she had said it that the fantastic thought crossed her mind that Sebastian Tombs might have done all that, and taken pains to tell her about it, as an elaborate precaution against the very thing that Loro was advocating, and a subtle warning that if perchance that was what they had in mind they had better forget it. But the implications that followed were so far-fetched that she had made herself brush the idea aside.

  Now bundles of alleged rifles and ammunition had been unloaded from the boat and cached at the edge of the jungle, and Loro was ready to play out the last sequence of Professor Nestor’s ingenious script.

  “You go back down river a little,” he said. “One mile, plenty, only so head-hunters no see. Mañana, this time, you come back, you find me with gold frogs.”

  “Be careful, Loro,” Alice said anxiously.

  “Me always careful,” Loro said, with his jolly bandit’s grin. “No worry. Hasta luego, diosa.”

  He spoke in rapid dialect to the boat captain, an uncle of his who had been a fairly honest fisherman before he was conscripted into the team, who was not very bright, but who had a non-speaking part which was almost foolproof since he understood no English and hardly any Spanish. Loro cast off the lines which had held the boat to the bank, and the captain started the engine as it began to drift downstream. Loro stood and waved until it vanished around the nearest bend, and then picked up one of the oilcloth packages which had been providently ballasted with a case of rum and plodded towards the next turn upstream, where there was a village of utterly harmless Indians who were always glad to see him and whose daughters were especially hospitable. He would stay there, very pleasantly, until the boat came back for him in a week or two.

  Simon stood beside Alice on the narrow deck, gazing silently at the wall of tangled greenery that slid past them until the captain turned the boat in mid-stream, aimed the bow diagonally up towards the bank, cut the engine, and shuffled forward to throw a line over a leaning tree and snub the boat to a berth as nonchalantly as any airline pilot ever made a landing.

  The Saint was frowning.

  “I seem to be a bit confused,�
�� he said. “I thought when you came here before you had a lot of native bearers, who got massacred. Then you fought a rearguard action for two days down the river. And yet we came here all the way from Panama in two days, and Loro is going to make a deal with the head-hunters and be back with the golden frogs tomorrow.”

  Again she was barely touched by a fleeting uneasiness, but she was ready with the answer.

  “Last time, we were exploring. We went off on big swings through the jungle, covering as much ground as we could. We were on one of those hikes when we found the cave. We’d left the boat way down near the mouth of the river. When we fought our way back to it, it was along these banks, only we were on foot. We followed the river because it was the only thing that saved us from getting lost, but you can see what rough going it was.”

  (“There’s a limit to how far we can go with this,” the Professor had said, when he taught her the speech. “If we gave ’em a full two-week safari, for that kind of money, we’d be almost legitimate.”)

  Simon nodded uncritically.

  “I should have figured that out for myself,” he said. “It must have been pretty rugged.”

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” she said, and meant every word. She despised herself for the palpitation that his unreserved acceptance of her explanation had set at rest again, but she was in no hurry to expose herself to any more potentially devastating questions. “Shall we try some fishing? Loro says that snook come all the way up here to spawn.”

  He was still studying the banks rather than the water, his keen eyes raking along the ragged edge of the forest as though searching for something more than timber and foliage.

  “I’d prefer to tramp around on shore a bit, as soon as we’ve got some lunch under our belts. I wouldn’t want to have to go back and say I’d never set foot in this wilderness. We can take the shotgun, and maybe pick up something good to eat.”

  She had only her own build-up to thank for his bland assumption that she would not want to be left behind. She thought wildly of all the facile excuses she could make, but she realized that every one of them would have a hollow ring. So far he had only heard talk about her tomboy virtues, and if she seemed to wriggle out of the first opportunity to display them he could hardly help being touched by a flicker of suspicion. And once a man started to doubt, there was no forecasting where his scepticism would turn next.