Leslie Charteris: The Saint on the Spanish Main

It has been said by certain skeptics that there are already more than enough stories of Simon Templar, and that each new one added to his saga only adds to the incredibility of the rest, because it is clearly impossible that any one man in a finite lifetime should have been able to find so many adventures.

Such persons only reveal their own failure to have grasped one of the first laws of adventure, which can only be stated quite platitudinously: adventures happen to the adventurous.

In the beginning, of course, Simon Templar had sought for it far and wide, and luck or his destiny had lent a generous hand to the finding of it. But as the tally of his adventures added up, and the name of the Saint, as he called himself, became better known, and the legends about him were swollen by extravagant newspaper headlines and even more fantastic whisperings in the underworld, and finally his real name and likeness became familiar to inevitably widening circles, so the clues to adventure that came his way multiplied. For not only were there those in trouble who sought him out for help that the Law could not give, but there were evildoers with no fear of the Law who feared the day when some mischance might bring the Saint across their path. So that he might be anywhere, quite innocently and unsuspectingly, in a vicinity where some well-hidden wickedness was being hatched, but no guilty conscience could possibly believe that the Saint’s appearance on the scene could be an accident, and therefore the ungodly, upon merely hearing his name or glimpsing a tanned piratical profile which was not hard to identify with photographs that had been published several times in eye-catching conjunction with stories not easily forgotten, would credit him with knowledge which he did not have, and would be jolted into indiscretions that they would never have committed at the name of Smith or the sight of any ordinary face. In their anxiety to redouble their camouflage or to destroy him, they actually brought themselves to his attention. Thus the proliferation of his adventures tended to perpetuate itself in a kind of chain reaction. By the time of which I am now writing, he no longer had to seek adventure: it found him.

This story is as good an example as I can think of.

Don Mucklow met him in Florida at the Miami airport because they had shared more than one adventure in the Caribbean in years gone by.

“Well, what brings you here this time, Saint?”

“Nothing in particular. I just felt in the mood for some winter sunshine, so I thought I’d go island-hopping and see what cooked.”

“God, you have a tough life.”

Don was now married, a father, and the overworked manager of a boatyard and yacht basin.

“So it’s back to the old Spanish Main again, eh?” Don said. “There must be something in that pirate tradition that you can’t get away from. Which of the islands are you planning to raise hell on first?”

“I haven’t even decided that yet. I may end up throwing darts at a map. Anyway, we’ve got to spend at least one night out on this town before I take off.”

“You want to go to the Rod and Reel with me tonight?”

“What’s on?”

“The usual Wednesday night dinner. And on this distinguished occasion, the presentation to Don Mucklow of his badge for catching the world’s record dolphin for three-thread line — thirty-seven and a half beautiful pounds of it, even on the official certified scale.”

Simon turned and beamed at him.

“Why, you cagey old son of a gun,” he said affectionately. “Congratulations! How did you ever manage to stuff all those sinkers down its throat without anyone seeing you?”

“I just live right. But I certainly had my fingers crossed till the IGFA approved it.”

“Now who has the tough life? What I wouldn’t give to tie into a really important fish!”

“Why don’t you stick around and try? I’ll fix you up with a good skipper.”

“Don’t tempt me. What other entertainment is the Rod and Reel offering, besides the privilege of seeing Mucklow look smug, like an Eagle Scout with his new badge?”

“There’s a talk by Walton Smith on some new discoveries they’ve made about the migration of tuna.”

“That should be most educational.”

“And then, just to please people like you, we’re having a girl called Lorelei, who takes her clothes off in a fish bowl.”

“Now you’re starting to sell it,” said the Saint.

So by seven o’clock that evening they were part of a convivial mob of members and guests at the bar of the exclusive Rod and Reel Club on Hibiscus Island. Don, who knew everybody, contrived to elude conversational ambushes until he had attained the prime objective of getting their first drink order filled; then, when they each had a tall Peter Dawson in hand, he reached into the milling crowd and pulled out a short broad-shouldered man with ginger hair surrounding a bald spot like a tonsure.

“Patsy, who let you in here?”

“I was brought by a member an’ a foine gentleman,” said the other with dignity. “Although judgin’ by yourself as a member, that might sound like two different people.”

“I’ve a friend here who’s looking for you, Patsy.”

“Indade?”

“This is Captain O’Kevin,” Don said to the Saint. “Patsy, meet Simon Templar.”

O’Kevin shook hands with a strong bony grip. His pug-nosed face was a mosaic of freckles and red sunburn that would never blend into an even brown, out of which his faded green eyes twinkled up from a mass of creases.

“That sounds like a name I should be knowin’. Wait — this couldn’t be the fellow they call the Saint?”

“That’s him,” Don said. “And I just hope you haven’t got any skeletons in your locker.”

“Fortunately, I earn an honest livin’ instid of operatin’ a thievin’ boatyard.” O’Kevin’s bright little eyes searched Simon’s face more interestedly. “Now why would the Saint be trailin’ a poor hard-workin’ charter-boat captain, for the Lard’s sake?”

“Because he wants to go fishing,” Don said. “He isn’t satisfied with being the most successful buccaneer since Captain Kidd, he wants to try and take my only record away from me. So I said I’d put him on to a good skipper. Naturally I picked you, because your customers never catch anything. You can give him a nice boat ride, and I won’t have a thing to worry about.”

“Sure, an’ ’twould be a pleasure to foind him something bigger than that overgrown mullet ye’re boastin’ about. How long would ye be stayin’ down here, Mr Templar?”

“Not more than a day or two,” said the Saint.

“That’s too bad. I’ve a party waitin’ for me in Bimini right now, an’ I’m leavin’ first thing in the marnin’. I’ll be gone three or four days.”

“What’s your hurry, Simon?” Don protested. “Those islands have been out there in the Caribbean a long time. They won’t run away.”

“Where are ye makin’ for, Mr Templar?” O’Kevin asked.

Simon grinned. Only a few hours ago he had talked about throwing darts at a map. Now a dart had been thrown for him. It was one of those utterly random choices that appealed to his gambling instinct.

“I’ve just this minute decided,” he said. “I’m going to Bimini too.”

“Then I’ll most likely run into ye over there. It’s been nice ’meetin’ ye, sorr, even though somebody should o’ warned ye about the company ye’re keepin’.”

He shook hands again, winked amiably at Don, and was swept aside by an eddy of thirsty newcomers.