Leslie Charteris - Señor Saint

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 some 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.

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.