16 The Saint Overboard Read online

  "It's just one of those waterproof carriers for cigarettes and a vanity case. Haven't you seen them before?"

  "No." He took his foot down, again from the couch, rather deliberately. "May I look?"

  The note of casual, politely apologetic inquisitiveness was perfectly done. They might have been carrying on an idle con­versation on the beach in broad sunlight; but she stepped back before he could touch the case again.

  "I—I think I'd better be getting back. Really. The others will be starting to worry about me."

  He nodded.

  "Perhaps they will," he admitted. "But you can't possibly go swimming about in this mess. You don't know what a risk you're taking. It's a hundred to one you'd miss your boat, and it's cold work splashing around in circles. I'll run you back."

  "Please don't bother. Honestly, the water isn't so cold——"

  "But you are." His smiling eyes took on the slight shiver of her brown body. "And it's no trouble."

  He passed her with an easy stride, and he was on the compan­ion when she caught his arm.

  "Please! Besides, the bet doesn't——"

  "Damn the bet, darling. You're too young and good-looking to be washed up stiff on the beach. Besides, you've broken the rules already by coming on board. I'll take you over, and you can just swim across if you like."

  "I won't go with you. Please don't make it difficult."

  "You won't go without me."

  He sat down on the companion, filling the narrow exit with his broad shoulders. She bit her lip.

  "It's sweet of you," she said hesitantly. "But I couldn't give you any more trouble. I'm not going."

  "Then you ought to use those towels and decide about the brandy and/or coffee," said the Saint amiably. "Of course, it may compromise you a bit, but I'm broad-minded. And if this is going to be Romance, may I start by saying that your mouth is the loveliest——"

  "No, no! I'm not going to let you row me back."

  "Then I take it you've made up your mind to stay. That's what I was talking about. And while we're on the subject, don't you know that it's immoral for anyone to have legs like yours? They put the wickedest ideas——"

  "Please." There was a beginning of reluctant anger creeping into her gaze. "It's been nice of you to help me. Don't spoil it now."

  Simon Templar inhaled deeply from his cigarette and said nothing.

  Her grey eyes darkened with a scrap of half-incredulous fear that clashed absurdly with the careless good humour of his unvarying smile. Then, as if she was putting the ridiculous idea away, she came forward resolutely and tried to pass him.

  One of his long arms reached out effortlessly and closed the remainder of the passage. She fought against it, half playfully at first, and then with all her lithe young strength; but it was as immovable as a bar of iron. In a sudden flash of panic savagery she beat at his chest and shoulders with her fists, but it was like hitting pads of toughened rubber. He laughed softly, without resentment; and she became aware that his other hand had been carefully exploring the form of the curious little pouch on her belt while she fought. She fell back quickly, staring at him.

  "I thought it clunked," he murmured, "when I pulled you in. And yet you don't look as if you had a cast-iron vanity."

  Her breath was coming faster now, and he knew that it was not only from her exertions.

  "I don't know what you're talking about. Will you let me out?"

  "No."

  He liked her spirit. The trace of mischief in her eyes was gone altogether by this time, frozen into a sparkle of dangerous exas­peration.

  "Have you thought," she asked slowly, "what would happen if I screamed?"

  "I suppose it couldn't help being pretty musical, as screams go. Your ordinary speaking voice——"

  "I could rouse half the harbour."

  He nodded, without shifting his strategic position on the com­panion. "It looks like being a noisy night."

  "If you don't let me go at once——"

  Simon Templar extended his legs luxuriously and blew smoke-rings.

  "Sister," he said, "have you stopped to consider what would happen if I screamed?"

  "What?"

  "You see, it isn't as if this was your boat. If I'd swum out and invaded you at this hour, and you'd been wearing pyjamas in­stead of me, and more or less the same argument had taken place —well, I guess you could have screamed most effectively. But there's a difference. This tub is mine, and you're trespassing. Presumably you couldn't put up a story that I kidnapped you, because then people would ask why you hadn't screamed before. Besides, you're wearing a wet bathing costume, which would want a whole lot more explaining. No—the only thing I can see to it is that you invited yourself. And the time is now moving on to half-past three in the morning. Taking it by and large, I can't help feeling that you'd be answering a lot of embarrassing questions about why you took such a long time to get frightened. Besides which, this is a French port, with French authorities, and Frenchmen have such a wonderful grip on the facts of life. I am a very retiring sort of bloke," said the Saint shyly, "and I don't mind telling you that my modesty has been outraged. If you make another attempt to assault me——"

  The grey eyes cut him with ice-cold lights.

  "I didn't think you were that sort of man."

  "Oh, but I am. Now why don't you look at the scenery, dar­ling? We could have quite a chat before you go home. I want to know what this gay game is that starts shooting in the night and sends you swimming through the fog. I want to know what makes you and Hooknose string along with the same crazy story, and what sort of a bet it is that makes you go bathing with a gun on your belt!"

  The last fragment of his speech was not quite accurate. Even as he uttered it, her hand flashed to the waterproof pouch; and he looked down the muzzle of a tiny automatic that was still large enough to be an argument at point-blank range.

  "You're quite right about the gun," she said, with a new glacial evenness in her voice. "And, as you say, Frenchmen have such a wonderful grip on the facts of life—haven't they? Their juries are pretty easy on a woman who shoots her lover. . . . Don't you think you'd better change your mind?"

  Simon considered this. She saw the chiselling of his handsome reckless face, the bantering lines of devil-may-care mouth and eyebrow, settle for a moment into quiet calculation, and then go back to the same irresponsible amusement.

  "Anyway," he remarked, "she does give the fellow his fun first. Stay the night and shoot me after breakfast, and I won't complain."

  The magnificent unfaltering audacity of him left her for a moment without words. For the first time her eyes wavered, and he read in them something that might have been an unwilling regret.

  "For the last time——"

  "Will I let you go."

  "Yes."

  "No."

  "I'm sorry."

  "So am I," said the Saint gently. "From the brief gander I had at Hooknose just a little while back, he looked like a man's job to me. I know you've got what it takes, but these games can get pretty tough. Tough things are my job, and I hate being jock­eyed out of a good fight."

  "I'm going now," she said. "I mean it. Don't think I'm afraid to shoot, because I'm ready for accidents. I'll count five while you get out of the way."

  The Saint looked at her for a second, and shook his head.

  "Oh, well," he said philosophically. "If you feel that way about it . . ."

  He stood up unhurriedly. And as he stood up, one hand slid up the bulkhead with him and touched the light switch.

  For the first instant the darkness in the cabin was absolute. In the sudden contrasting blackness that drenched down across her vision she lost even a silhouette of him in the opening above the companion. And then his fingers closed and tightened on her wrist like a steel tourniquet. She struggled and tripped against the couch, falling on the soft cushions; but he went down with her, and her hand went numb so that she had no power even to pull the trigger while he took the automa
tic away. She heard his quiet chuckle.

  "I'm sorry, kid."

  As they had fallen, his lips were an inch from hers. He bent his head, so that his mouth touched them. She fought him wildly, but the kiss clung against all her fighting; and then suddenly she was passive and bewildering in his arms.

  Simon got up and switched on the lights.

  3

  "I'm Loretta Page," she said.

  She sat wrapped in his great woolly bathrobe, sipping hot coffee and smoking one of his cigarettes. The Saint sat opposite her, with his feet up and his head tilted back on the bulkhead.

  "It's a nice name," he said.

  "And you?"

  "I have dozens. Simon Templar is the only real one. Some people call me the Saint."

  She looked at him with a new intentness.

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm so very, very respectable."

  "I've read about you," she said. "But I never heard anything like that before."

  He smiled.

  "Perhaps it isn't true."

  "There was a Professor Vargan who—got killed, wasn't there? And an attempt to blow up a royal train and start a war which went wrong."

  "I believe so."

  "I've heard of a revolution in South America that you had something to do with, and a plot to hijack a bullion shipment where you got in the way. Then they were looking for you in Germany about some crown jewels. I've heard that there's a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard who'd sell his soul to pin some­thing on you; and another one in New York who thinks you're one of the greatest things that ever happened. I've heard that there isn't a racket running that doesn't get cold shivers at the name of a certain freelance vigilante——"

  "Loretta," said the Saint, "you know far too much about this life of sin."

  "I ought to," she said. "I'm a detective."

  The immobility of his face might have been carved in bronze, when the light-hearted mockery left it and only the buccaneer remained. In those subtle transformations she saw half his spell, and the power that must have made him what he was. There was a dance of alertness like the twinkle of a rapier blade, a veneer of flippant nonchalance cored with tempered steel, a fine humour of unscrupulousness that demoralised all conventional criterions.

  And then his cigarette was back in his mouth and he was smil­ing at her through a haze of smoke, with blue eyes awake again and both wrists held out together.

  "When arrested," he said, "the notorious scoundrel said: 'I never had a chance. My parents neglected me, and I was led astray by bad companions. The ruin of my life is due to Night Starvation.' Where are the bracelets?"

  She might not have heard him. She sprang up, stretching her arms so that the sleeves of the bathrobe fell back from her wrists.

  "Oh, no! ... It's too perfect. I'm glad!" The mischief was in her eyes again, matching his own, almost eclipsing it for that moment of vibrant energy. "You're telling the truth, I know. The Saint could only have been you. You would go out and take on any racket with your hands. Why didn't you tell me at once?"

  "You didn't ask me," answered the Saint logically. "Besides, modesty is my long suit. The threat of publicity makes me run for miles. When I blush——"

  "Listen!"

  She wheeled and dropped on the berth beside him; and he listened.

  "You've stolen, haven't you?"

  "With discretion."

  "You've tackled some big things."

  "I pick up elephants and wring their necks."

  "Have you ever thought of stealing millions?"

  "Often," said the Saint, leaning back. "I thought of burgling the Bank of England once, but I decided it was too easy."

  She stirred impatiently.

  "Saint," she said earnestly, "there's one racket working to-day that steals millions. It's been running for years; and it's still running. And I don't mean any of the old things like bootlegging or kidnapping. It's a racket that goes over most of the world, wherever there's anything for it to work on; and it hits where there's no protection. I couldn't begin to guess how much money has been taken out of it since it began."

  "I know, darling," said the Saint sympathetically. "But you can't do anything about it. It's quite legal. It's called income tax."

  "Have you heard of the Lutine?"

  He studied her with his gaze still tantalising and unsatisfied, but the eagerness of her held him more than what she was ac­tually saying. He was discovering something between her soft-lipped beauty and her fire of anger; something that belonged equally to the lurking laughter of her eyes and the sober throb of persuasion in her voice, and yet was neither of these things; something that made all contradictions possible.

  "It sank, didn't it?" he said.

  "In 1799—with about a million pounds' worth of gold on board. There've been plenty of attempts to salve the cargo, but so far the sand's been too much for them. Then the Lutina Company took over with a new idea: they were going to suck away the silt through a big conical sort of bell which was to be low­ered over the wreck. It was quite a simple scheme, and there's no reason why it shouldn't have worked. The company received a few letters warning them not to go on with it, but naturally they didn't pay much attention to them."

  "Well?"

  "Well, they haven't tried out their sand-sucker yet. The whole thing was blown sky-high in 1933—and the explosion wasn't an accident."

  The Saint sat up slowly. In that supple movement the buffoonery slipped off him as his dressing-gown might have slipped off; and in the same transformation he was listening intently. Something like a breath of frozen feathers strolled up his spine—an instinct, a queer clairvoyance born of the years of inspired filibustering.

  "Is that all the story?" he asked, and knew that it was not.

  She shook her head.

  "Something else happened in the same year. An American salvage ship, the Salvor, went out to search a wreck off Cape Charles. The Merida, which sank in 1911 and took the Emperor Maximilian's crown jewels to the bottom with her—another mil­lion-pound cargo. They didn't find anything. And fish don't wear jewellery."

  "I remember the Terschelling Island fireworks—the Lutine. But that's a new one."

  "It's not the only one. Two years before that another salvage company went over the Turbantia with a fine comb. She was torpedoed near the Maars Lightship in 1916, and she had seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds' worth of German bullion on her—then. The salvage company knew just where to look for it. But they didn't find it. ... That was quite a small job. But in 1928 the Sorima Company made an official search for a collec­tion of uncut diamonds and other stones worth more than a mil­lion and a quarter, which were on board the Elizabethville when another U-boat got her on her way back from South Africa dur­ing the war. Well, they found a lot of ammunition in the strong­room, and thirty shillings in the safe; which didn't show a big dividend."

  "And this has been going on for years?"

  "I don't know how long. But just look at those three jobs. They average out at over a million pounds a time. Leave out all the other official treasure hunts that are going on now, and all the other millions that may have been sneaked away before the authorised salvage companies get there. Leave out all the other jobs that haven't been discovered yet. Doesn't it tell you any­thing?"

  Simon Templar sat back and let the electric tingles play up his vertebrae and toe-dance airily over the back of his scalp. His whole body felt the pulse of adventure in exactly the same way as a sensitively tuned instrument can detect sounds inaudible to the human ear. And to him the sounds were music.

  In that short silence he had a vivid picture of all the far reaches of the sea on which the Corsair cushioned her light weight. He saw the lift of storms and the raw break of hungry rocks and death stealing out of the invisible to give the waters their treasure. He saw the green depths, the ultimate dim places under the spume and sapphire beauty; saw the vast whale-shapes of steel hulls sunk in the jade stillness, and the gaunt ribs of half-forgotten
galleons reaching out of the fronds of weed. What unrecorded argosies might lie under those infinite waters, no one would ever know. But those that were known, those that the sea had claimed even in the last four hundred years . . . His imag­ination reeled at the thought. The Almirante Florencia, lost treasure‑house of the Armada, foundering in Tobermory Bay with £2,000,000 in plate and jewels. The Russian flagship Rurik, sunk on the Korean coast with two and a half million pounds in specie. The sixty-three ships of the Turkish Navy sent to the bottom of Navarino Bay in 1827 with £10,000,000 between them. The Chalfont Castle, with her steering carried away and her plates sprung below the waterline in the great storm of that very year, drifting helplessly down on to the Casquets to the west of Alderney, and sinking in twenty fathoms with £5,000,000 of bar gold in her strong-room. Odd names and figures that he had heard disinterestedly from time to time and practically forgotten crept back from the hinterlands of unconscious memory and staggered him . . . And he saw the only possible, the only plausible corollary: the ghost pirate stealing through grey dawns to drop her divers and her steel grabs, the unsuspected gangsters of the sea who had discovered the most pluperfect racket of all time.

  He would have thought that he had heard every note in the register of crime, but he had never dreamed of anything like that. The plot to swindle the Bank of Italy by means of one million perfectly genuine 100-lire bills, for his share in which he was entitled to wear the pendant of the Order of the Annunziata in the unlikely event of his ever attending a State function, was mere petty pilfering beside it. Sir Hugo Renway's scheme for pillaging the cross-Channel gold routes was mere clumsy experi­ment in comparison. And yet he knew that the girl who sat look­ing at him was not romancing. She threw up the stark terse facts and left him to find the link; and the supernatural creep of his nerves told him where the link was.

  Her grey eyes were on him, tempting and challenging as they had been when he first saw her with the lights striking gold in her hair and the sea's damp on her slim shoulders; and in his mind he had a vision of the black expressionless eyes of the hooknosed man who stood up in the boat and lied to him.

  "Why?" he said, with a dreamy rapture in his slow deep breath. "Why didn't I know all this before?"