Leslie Charteris - The Saint on the Spanish Main

“It’s a good thing I only want you to do some swimming, and not as a technical expert,” Jack Donohue said caustically, “if you can’t tell a real octopus from a prop.”

“I thought it looked extraordinarily lifelike,” said the Saint. “But I’ve heard they can do anything in Hollywood. I should be more careful what publicity I read.”

They sat out on the terrace of Bluebeard’s Castle again, watching the lights kindle below them as the brief twilight deepened over the town. April was with them, but she was not talking much.

“You’re lucky I don’t have to send you a bill that’d keep you broke for three years,” Donohue said. “Some fishermen found Marilyn drifting around Cruz Bay. She wasn’t damaged much. But I’m going to be more careful the next time anyone comes to me to borrow an artificial octopus.”

“The only way I can figure it, the real one must have had an unsatisfactory tussle with her,” Simon said, “whether he saw her as an unwilling sweetheart or a rival male. Anyway, before he found out she was only a prop, he’d torn her loose from her moorings, and she floated away. The real octopus liked the look of the spot and decided to settle down there himself.”

“And why he didn’t grab you for breakfast as soon as you came within reach, I’ll never know.”

“Maybe he’d just had a good breakfast and wasn’t hungry. Didn’t you ever go fishing and wonder why sometimes they’ll bite anything and other times they seem to be on a hunger strike? Of course when Rawl shot a spear into it, that was different. Even an octopus must have its pride.”

“And it was a break for you that it was smart enough to know who shot at it.”

“It’s too bad your camera crew wasn’t there. It was a better scene than you’ll ever direct.”

April shuddered.

“Please don’t,” she said. “I know he meant it to kill us, but I’ll have nightmares every time I remember that thing wooshing up at him. I never knew they could move so fast, and his face...”

“Don’t let that Saint name fool you,” Donohue said. “He’s a ghoul. No, I take that back. He’s a thing ghouls won’t speak to.”

“He is not!” she said indignantly. “As soon as he’d got me up to the boat, he went back to see if he couldn’t do anything, even though all he had was a knife. But he couldn’t see anything.”

“All right,” Donohue said. “He’s a hero. But don’t forget to count those gold bars every time he goes near them.”

“He can have anything he wants,” April said.

Jack Donohue finished his Peter Dawson and stood up.

“I’m expecting a call from the studio, and I’ve got to work on the script tonight,” he said. “But before I ruin your evening by leaving you, would someone tell me why the Saint always ends up with a billion dollars and the most beautiful girl in sight?”

“Doesn’t that go with every old treasure story?” said the Saint.

It was intolerably hot in Port-au-Prince, for the capital city of Haiti lies at the back of a bay, a gullet twenty miles deep beyond which the opening jaws of land extend a hundred and twenty miles still farther to the west and north-west, walled in by steep high hills, and thus perfectly sheltered from every normal shift of the trade winds which temper the climate of most parts of the Antilles. The geography which made it one of the finest natural harbors in the Caribbean had doubtless appealed strongly to the French buccaneers who founded the original settlement, but three centuries later, with the wings of Pan-American Airways to replace the sails of a frigate, a no less authentic pirate could be excused for being more interested in escaping from the sweltering heat pocket than in dallying to admire the anchorage.

As soon as Simon Templar had completed his errands in the town, he climbed into the jeep he had borrowed and headed back up into the hills.

Knowing what to expect of Port-au-Prince at that time of year, he had passed up the ambitious new hotels of the capital in favor of the natural air-conditioning of the Châtelet des Fleurs, an unpretentious but comfortable inn operated by an American whom he had met on a previous visit, only about fifteen miles out of the city but five thousand feet above the sea-level heat. He could feel it getting cooler as the road climbed, and in a surprisingly short time it was like being in another latitude. But the scenery did not seem to become any milder to correspond with the relief of temperature: the same brazen sun bathed rugged brownish slopes with few trees to soften their parched contours. Most of the houses he passed, whether a peasant’s one-room cottage or an occasional expensive château, were built of irregular blocks of the same native stone, so that they had an air of being literally carved out of the landscape, but sometimes in a sudden valley or clinging to a distant hillside there would be a palm-thatched cabin of rough raw timbers that looked as if it had been transplanted straight from Africa. And indisputably transplanted from Africa were the straggling files of ebony people, most of them women, a few plutocrats adding their own weight to the already fantastic burdens of incredibly powerful little donkeys, but the majority laden fabulously themselves with great baskets balanced on their heads, who bustled cheerfully along the rough shoulders of the road.

He came into the little town of Pétionville, drove past the pleasant grass-lawned square dominated by the very French-looking white church, and headed on up the corkscrew highway towards Kenscoff. And six kilometers further on he met Sibao.

As he rounded one of the innumerable curves he saw a little crowd collected, much as some fascinating obstruction would create a knot in a busy string of ants. Unlike other groups that he had passed before where a few individuals from one of the ant-lines would fall out by the wayside to rest and gossip, this cluster had a focal point and an air of gravity and concern that made him think first of an automobile accident, although there was no car or truck in sight. He slowed up automatically, trying to see what it was all about as he went by, like almost any normal traveler, but when he glimpsed the unmistakable bright color of fresh blood he pulled over and stopped, which perhaps few drivers on that road would have troubled to do.

The chocolate-skinned young woman whom the others were gathered around had a six-inch gash in the calf of one leg. From the gestures and pantomime of her companions rather than the few basic French word-sounds which his ear could pick out of their excited jabber of Creole, he concluded that a loose stone had rolled under her foot as she walked, taking it from under her and causing her to slip sideways down off the shoulder, where another sharp pointed stone happened to stick out at exactly the right place and angle to slash her like a crude dagger. The mechanics of the accident were not really important, but it was an ugly wound, and the primitive first-aid efforts of the spectators had not been able to stanch the bleeding.

Simon saw from the tint of the blood that no artery had been cut. He made a pressure bandage with his handkerchief and two strips ripped from the tail of his shirt, but it was obvious that a few stitches would be necessary for a proper repair. He picked the girl up and carried her to the jeep.

“Nous allons chercher un médecin,” he said, and he must have been understood, for there was no protest over the abduction as he turned the jeep around and headed back towards Pétionville.

The doctor whom he located was learning English and was anxious to practice it. He contrived to keep Simon around while he cleaned and sewed up and dressed the cut, and then conveniently mentioned his fee. Simon paid it, although the young woman tried to protest, and helped her back into the jeep.