16 The Saint Overboard Page 5

  That long pregnant breath floated back through the Saint's lips and carried a feather of cigarette-smoke with it—the pause dur­ing which he had held it in his lungs was the only physical index of his emotion. He became aware that the Professor was joining in with some affable common-place, and that Vogel's black eyes were riveted on him unwinkingly. With a perfectly steady hand he tilted the ash off his cigarette, and schooled every scrap of tension out of his face as he turned his head.

  "Of course you've heard about Professor Yule?" said Vogel urbanely.

  "Of course. . . ." Simon's rendering of slight apologetic confu­sion was attained with an effort that no one could have felt but himself. "Now I know who he is. ... But I hadn't placed him until that lady said something just now." He looked at Yule with a smile of open admiration. "It must have been an amazing experience, Professor."

  Yule shrugged, with a pleasant diffidence.

  "Naturally it was interesting," he replied frankly. "And rather frightening. Not to say uncomfortable. . . . Perhaps you know that the temperature of the water falls rapidly when you reach really great depths. As a matter of fact, at five thousand feet it is only a few degrees above freezing point. Well, I had been so taken up with the other mechanical details of pressure and light­ing and air supply that I actually forgot that one. I was damned cold!" He chuckled engagingly. "I'm putting an electrical heating arrangement in my improved bathystol, and I shan't suffer that way next time."

  "You've decided to go down again, then?"

  "Oh, yes. I've only just started. That first trip of mine was only a trial. With my new bathystol I hope to get down twice as far—and that's nothing. If some of the latest alloys turn out all right, we may be able to have a look at the Cape Verde Basin— over three thousand fathoms—or even the Tuscarora Trough, more than five miles down."

  "What do you hope to find?"

  "A lot of dull facts about depth currents and globigerina ooze. Possibly some new forms of marine life. There may be some astounding monsters living and dying down there, and never seeing the light of day. We might even track down our old friend the sea serpent."

  "There are some marvellous possibilities," said the Saint thoughtfully.

  "And some expensive ones," confessed Yule, with attractive candour. "In fact, if it hadn't been for Mr Vogel they might not have been possibilities at all—my first descent just about ruined me. But with his help I hope to go a lot further."

  The Saint did not smile, although a sudden vision of Kurt Vogel as a connoisseur of globigerina ooze and new species of fish tempted him almost irresistibly. He saw beyond that to other infinitely richer possibilities—possibilities which had proba­bly never occurred to the Professor.

  He knew that Vogel was watching him, observing every mi­croscopic detail of his reactions with coldly analytical precision. To show a poker-faced lack of interest would be almost as suspi­cious as breaking loose with a hungry stream of questions. He had to judge the warmth of his response to the exactest hun­dredth of a degree, if he was to preserve any hope of clinging to the bluff of complete unsuspecting innocence which he had adopted. In the next twenty minutes of ordinary conversation he worked harder than he had done for half his life.

  ". . . so the next big descent will show whether there's any chance of supporting Wegener's theory of continental drift," concluded the Professor.

  "I see," said the Saint intelligently.

  A man wandering about the terrace with a large camera pushed his way to their table and presented a card with the in­scription of the Agence Française Journalistique.

  "Vous permettez, messieurs?"

  Yule grinned ruefully, like a schoolboy, and submitted blush­ingly to the ordeal. The photographer took two snapshots of the group, thanked them, and passed on with a vacuous air of wait­ing for further celebrities to impinge on his autocratic ken. A twice-divorced countess whom he ignored glared after him indig­nantly ; and Kurt Vogel beckoned a waiter for the addition.

  "Won't you have another?" suggested the Saint.

  "I'm afraid we have an engagement. Next time, perhaps." Vogel discarded two ten-franc notes on the assiette and stood up with a flash of his bloodless smile. "If you're interested, you might like to come out with us on a trial trip. It won't be very sensational, unfortunately. Just a test for the new apparatus in moderately deep water."

  "I should love to," said the Saint slowly.

  Vogel inclined his head pleasantly.

  "It won't be just here," he said—"the water's too shallow. We thought of trying it in the Hurd Deep, north of Alderney. There are only about ninety fathoms there, but it'll be enough for our object. If you think it's worth changing your plans, we're leaving for St Peter Port in the morning."

  "Well—that sort of invitation doesn't come every day," said the Saint, with a certain well-timed embarrassment. "It's cer­tainly worth thinking about—if you're sure I shouldn't be in the way. . . ."

  "Then we may look forward to seeing you." Vogel held out his hand. He had a firm muscular grip, but there was a curious rep­tilian coldness in the touch of his skin that prickled the Saint's scalp. "I'll give you a shout in the morning as we go by, and see if you've made up your mind."

  Simon shook hands with the Professor, and watched them until they turned the corner by the Petit Casino. His blue eyes were set in a lambent glint, like polished sapphires. He had got what he wanted. He had made actual contact with Kurt Vogel, talked with him, touched him physically and experienced the cold-blooded fighting presence of the man, crossed swords with him in a breathless finesse of nerves that was sharper than any bludgeoning battle. He had gained more than that. He had re­ceived a gratuitous invitation to call again. Which meant that he was as good as on the prize list. Or in the coffin.

  3

  A highly conclusive and illuminating deduction, reflected the Saint grimly. . . . And then all the old reckless humour flickered back into his eyes, and he lighted another cigarette and ordered himself a second drink. So be it. As Loretta Page had said, there were no dividends in guessing. In the fullness of time all uncer­tainty would doubtless be removed—one way or the other. And when that happened, Simon Templar proposed to be among those present.

  Meanwhile he had something else to think about. A man came filtering through the tables on the terrace with a sheaf of English and American papers fanned Out in his hand. Simon bought an Express, and he had only turned the first page when a single-column headline caught his eye.

  TO SALVE

  CHALFONT CASTLE

  ——————

  £5,000,000 Expedition Fits Out

  —————

  A SHIP will leave Falmouth early in August with a contract for the greatest treasure-hunt ever attempted in British waters.

  She is the Restorer, crack steamer of the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association——

  Simon skimmed through the story with narrowing eyes. So that was it! If Kurt Vogel was cruising in the vicinity of the Channel Islands on active business, and not merely on a holiday, the Chalfont Castle was his most obvious target. And it seemed likely—otherwise why not take Professor Yule and his bathystol down to some place like Madeira, where there was really deep water close at hand for any number of experiments? The Chal­font Castle could not wait. If an authorised expedition was being organised so quickly, there was not much time for a free-lance to step in and forestall it. Perhaps the underwriters, taught by past experience, had thought of that. But for a man of Vogel's nerve there might still be a chance. . . .

  Simon Templar lunched at the Gallic, and enjoyed his meal. The sting of the encounter from which he had just emerged had driven out every trace of the rather exasperated lassitude which had struck him an hour or two before; this providential hint of new movement swept new inspiration in like a sea breeze. The spice of certain danger laced his wine and sparkled through his veins. His brain was functioning like an awakened machine, turn­ing over the urgencies of the moment with smooth and effortless
ease.

  When he had finished, he went out into the main foyer and collected a reception clerk. "You have a telephone?"

  "Oui, m'sieu. A gauche——"

  "No, thanks," said the Saint. "This isn't local—I want to talk to England. Let me have a private room. I'll pay for it."

  Ten minutes later he was settled comfortably in an armchair with his feet on a polished walnut table.

  "Hullo, Peter." The object of his first call was located after the London exchange had tried three other possible numbers which he gave them. "This is your Uncle Simon. Listen—didn't you tell me that you once had a respectable family?"

  "It still is respectable," Peter Quentin's voice answered indig­nantly. "I'm the only one who's had anything to do with you."

  Simon grinned gently and slid a cigarette out of the package in front of him.

  "Do any of them know anything about Lloyd's?"

  "I've got a sort of cousin, or something, who works there," said Peter, after a pause for reflection.

  "That's great. Well, I want you to go and dig out this sort of cousin, or something, and stage a reunion. Be nice to him—re­mind him of the old family tree—and find out something for me about the Chalfont Castle."

  "Like a shot, old boy. But are you sure you don't want an estate agent?"

  "No, I don't want an estate agent, you fathead. It's a wreck, not a ruin. She sank somewhere near Alderney about the begin­ning of March. I want you to find out exactly where she went down. They're sure to have a record at Lloyd's. Get a chart from Potter's, in the Minories, and get the exact spot marked. And send it to me at the Poste Restante, St Peter Port, Guernsey— to-night. Name of Tombs. Or get a bearing and wire it. But get something. All clear?"

  "Clear as mud." There was a suspicious hiatus at the other end of the line. "But if this means you're on the warpath again——"

  "If I want you, I'll let you know, Peter," said the Saint con­tentedly, and rang off.

  That was that. . . . But even if one knew the exact spot where things were likely to happen, one couldn't hang about there and wait for them. Not in a stretch of open water where a float­ing bottle would be visible for miles on a calm day. The Saint's next call was to another erstwhile companion in crime.

  "Do you think you could buy me a nice diving suit, Roger?" he suggested sweetly. "One of the latest self-contained contrap­tions with oxygen tanks. Say you're representing a movie company and you want it for an undersea epic."

  "What's the racket?" inquired Roger Conway firmly.

  "No racket at all, Roger. I've just taken up submarine geology, and I want to have a look at some globigerina ooze. Now, if you bought that outfit this afternoon and shipped it off to me in a trunk——"

  "Why not let me bring it?"

  The Saint hesitated. After all, why not? It was the second time in a few minutes that the suggestion had been held out, and each time by a man whom he had tried and proved in more than one tight corner. They were old campaigners, men with his own cynical contempt of legal technicalities, and his own cool disre­gard of danger, men who had followed him before, without a qualm, into whatever precarious paths of breathless filibustering he had led them, and who were always accusing him of hogging all the fun when he tried to dissuade them from taking the same risks again. He liked working alone; but some aspects of Vogel's crew of modern pirates might turn out to be more than one man's meat.

  "Okay." The Saint drew at his cigarette, and his slow smile floated over the wire in the undertones of his voice. "Get hold of Peter, and any other of the boys who are looking for a sticky end. But the other instructions stand. Ship that outfit to me personally, care of the Southern Railway—you might even make it two outfits, if you feel like looking at some fish—and Peter's to do his stuff exactly as I've already told him. You toughs can put up at the Royal; but you're not to recognise me unless I recognise you first. It may be worth a point or two if the un­godly don't know we're connected. Sold?"

  "Cash," said Roger happily.

  Simon walked on air to the stairs. As he stepped down into the foyer, he became aware of a pair of socks. The socks were partic­ularly noticeable because they were of a pale brick-red hue, and intervened between a pair of blue trousers and a pair of brown and yellow co-respondent shoes. It was a combination of colours which, once seen, could not be easily forgotten; and the Saint's glance voyaged idly up to the face of the man who wore it. He had already seen it once before, and his glance at the physiog­nomy of the wearer confirmed his suspicion that there could not be two men simultaneously inhabiting Dinard with the identi­cally horrible taste in colour schemes. The sock stylist was no stranger. He had sat at a table close to the Saint's at lunch-time, arriving a few moments later and calling for his bill in unison— exactly as he was sitting in the foyer now, with an aloof air of having nothing important to do and being ready to do it at a minute's notice.

  The Saint paid for his calls and the use of the room, and saun­tered out. He took a roundabout route to his destination, turned three or four corners, without once looking back, and paused to look in a shop window in the Rue du Casino. In an angle of the plate glass he caught a reflection—of pale brick-red socks.

  Item Two. ... So Vogel's affability had not been entirely unpremeditated. Perhaps it had been carefully planned from the start. It would have been simplicity itself for the sleuth to pick him up when he was identified by sitting with Vogel and Yule at the cafe.

  Not that the situation was immediately serious. The pink-hosed spy might have discovered that Simon Templar had rented a room and made some telephone calls, but he wasn't likely to have discovered much more. And that activity was not funda­mentally suspicious. But with Vogel already on his guard, it would register in the score as a fact definitely to be accounted for. And the presence of the man who had observed it added its own testimony to the thoroughness with which the fact would doubtless be scrutinised.

  The Saint's estimation of Kurt Vogel went up another grim notch. In that dispassionate efficiency, that methodical examina­tion of every loophole, that ruthless elimination of every factor of chance or guesswork, he recognised some of the qualities that must have given Vogel his unique position in the hierarchy of racketeers—the qualities that must have been fatally underestimated by those three nameless scouts of Ingerbeck's, who had not come home. . . .

  And which might have been underestimated by the fourth.

  The thought checked him in his stride for an almost imper­ceptible instant. He knew that Loretta Page was ready to be told that she was suspected, but was she ready for quite such an inquisitorial surveillance as this?

  He turned into the next tobacconist's and gained a breathing space while he purchased a pack of cigarettes. To find out, he had to shake off his own shadow. And it had to be done in such a way that the shadow did not know he was being intentionally shaken off, because an entirely innocent young man in the role Simon had set himself would never discover that he was being shadowed anyway.

  He came out and walked more quickly to the corner of the Rue Levasseur. A disengaged taxi met him there, almost as if it had been timed for the purpose, and he stopped it and swung on board without any appearance of undue haste, but with a move­ment as swift and sure as an acrobat's on the flying trapeze.

  "À la gare," he said; and the taxi was off again without having actually reached a standstill.

  Looking back through the rear window, he saw the pink socks piling into another cab a whole block behind. He leaned forward as they rushed into the Place de la République.

  "Un moment," he said in the driver's ear. "Il faut que j'aille premièrement à la Banque Boutin."

  The driver muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath, trod on the brakes, and spun the wheel. By his limited lights, he was not without reason, for the Banque de Bretagne and Travel Agency of M. Jules Boutin are at the eastern end of the Rue Levasseur—in exactly the opposite direction from the station.

  They reeled dizzily round th
e corner of the Rue de la Plage, with that sublime abandon of which only French chauffeurs and suicidal maniacs are capable, gathered speed, and hurtled around another right-hand hairpin into the Boulevard Féart. Simon looked back again, and saw no sign of the pursuit. There were three other possible turnings from the hairpin junction which they had just circumnavigated; and the Saint had no doubt that his pink-socked epilogue, having lost them completely on that sudden swerve out of the Place de la République, and not ex­pecting any such treacherous manoeuvre, was by that time franti­cally exploring routes in the opposite direction.

  They turned back into the Rue Levasseur; and to make abso­lutely certain the Saint changed his mind again and ordered an­other twist north to the post office. He paid off the driver and plunged into a telephone booth.

  She was in. She said she had been writing some letters.

  "Don't post 'em till I see you," said the Saint. "What's the number of your room?"

  "Twenty-eight. But——"

  "I'll walk up as if I owned it. Can you bear to wait?"

  4

  She was wearing a green silk robe with a great silver dragon crawling round it and bursting into fire-spitting life on her shoul­ders. Heaven knew what she wore under it, if anything; but the curve of her thigh sprang up in a sheer sweep of breath-taking line to her knee as she turned. The physical spell of her wove a definite hiatus in between his entrance and his first line.

  "I hope I intrude," he said.

  The man who was with her scowled. He was a hard-faced, hard-eyed individual, rather stout, rather bald, yet with a solid atmosphere of competence and courage about him.

  "Loretta—how d'ya know this guy's on the rise?"

  "I don't," she said calmly. "But he has such a nice clean smile."