Leslie Charteris - The Saint Abroad

He was coming down the companionway, but the cabin, with a bunk on either side, was scarcely large enough for the four people who were already in it.

“Never mind, Rogers,” Peterson interrupted. “Go pace around up top until you’re dried out.”

“It’s foggy! It’s freezing! What’ll I do?”

“Try catching pneumonia,” suggested the Saint.

The man lunged at him, but Peterson pushed him back.

“Let’s keep our heads,” Peterson said. “There’s no point getting this far and then fouling things up.”

“We don’t need him!” Rogers said. “Let’s drown the blasted nosey...”

Mary Bannerman broke in. Her voice was full of panic.

“What’s the point?” she asked. “I mean, what’s the point to any of this? Haven’t we done enough?”

Simon rolled over on his side so that he could see the speakers without twisting his neck.

“Not as long as Liskard’s still on his throne!” Peterson said.

“Or until your father is on it?” Simon asked.

Peterson turned on him.

“What do you know about my father?”

“Quite a lot. I think you could find a better cause than trying to avenge him. He may have been an able man, but he was sick.”

“No sicker than Liskard’s own wife,” said Peterson.

“Liskard’s wife isn’t helping run a government,” Simon said. “Even if your father got a rough deal, it’s no reason to try to wreck your own country.”

“Getting rid of Liskard would be a favor to my country,” Peterson said.

“Amen,” said Benson.

Simon nodded with new and somewhat sad understanding.

“I see. You people are the sturdy band of young patriots who are going to cast out the tyrant and make your country free, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Tom Liskard is a tyrant!” Mary said to the Saint.

“I don’t agree,” Simon answered. “I’ve been there, you know, and I’ve seen Nagawiland. Without Liskard, the place would fall apart... at least, right at this moment. I’m not saying he’s indispensable forever.”

“You’re damned right he’s not,” Jeff Peterson put in. “The sooner we get rid of him the better it’ll be.”

Mary Bannerman looked at him with worried eyes.

“I wish you wouldn’t put it that way,” she said. “You promised me there wouldn’t be any getting rid of anybody. I mean, discrediting Tom is one thing, and I agreed. That’s why I gave you the letters. But...”

“If you think he’s got dangerous ideas about Liskard,” Simon said, “wait till you see what he does to me.”

“What will you do, Jeff?” she asked.

“Let him go when we’ve finished.”

Peterson did not sound very convincing.

“And what’ll I do?” the Saint gibed. “Recommend you for a knighthood? If you let me go you’ll get ten years in jail.” He looked at the girl. “Don’t you see where this is leading? If you’re really just after revenge, haven’t you had it? If you quit the whole thing now it won’t be...”

Suddenly Peterson’s hand lashed out and struck Simon’s face so hard that he was knocked back against the wall of the boat.

“Jeff!” the girl screamed. “Stop it!”

“I’m going,” Peterson said, avoiding the Saint’s steady, burning eyes. “The letters will have gotten to Liskard’s wife by now.”

“You sent them?” Mary Bannerman asked in astonishment. “You said he’d have two days, and it’s not...”

“That’s not the point, is it?” Peterson asked crisply. “The point is to bring him down, and there’s timing involved.”

“What kind of timing?” the girl asked, puzzled.

The three men — Benson, Rogers, and Peterson — looked at one another. None of them answered Mary Bannerman’s question.

“Keep her here,” Peterson said, jerking his head toward her. “I want to be in town when this breaks. I’ll take her car and I’ll be at her flat. Even if anybody thinks I’m involved I should be safe enough there, and I’ll be near a phone.”

“Involved in what?” the girl asked desperately.

“Involved in the revolution,” he said coldly.

She stared.

“Revolution? What...”

“Call it what you like,” Peterson said. “You don’t think we could bring down Liskard without replacing him, do you?”

“But that’s no revolution. There are men who’ll take over automatically...”

“And be no better than Liskard.”

“If you turn this into a racial thing, Peterson — stirring up the people down there, playing on the Africans’ grievances — you’ll have another Congo blood bath.”

Peterson was halfway up the companionway. He smiled.

“Well, as Lenin said, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”

He disappeared on to the deck. Simon looked at Mary.

“We who are about to be cracked salute you.”

“Jeff wouldn’t!” she said foolishly.

Simon settled back on the bunk with weary resignation.

“Oh, I think he would. In fact, I think he will. If he’s going to cause the deaths of several thousand people, what’s one egg more or less? As a matter of fact, you’re quite a dish yourself. Omelet?”

Mary turned to run up to the deck, calling out Peterson’s name. Rogers, the most muscular of Peterson’s fellow patriots, stopped her on the companionway.

“Sorry,” he said. “Jeff wants you here.”

“I don’t care what he wants! He doesn’t own me. I’m not his prisoner.”

“Look again,” Simon murmured.

The girl tried once more to shake off Rogers, who thoroughly enjoyed holding her. She yanked herself away and sat down furiously on the land-side bunk on the other side of the boat from Simon.

“What’ll we do?” she said angrily.

Obviously she was not the type to fall apart under pressure, and she did not take kindly to being pushed around — both qualities being in Simon’s favor.

“Why don’t we try escaping?” he suggested.

Rogers laughed, but the thin man, Benson, took offense.

“Shut up!” he barked. “Both of you!”

Rogers chuckled again.

“Well, Bill, which of us guards these tigers and which stands watch out there in the fog?”

“Who’d come here now?” Benson asked.

“Never mind what you think might happen. One of us has got to keep posted where we can keep an eye on the road, and get Templar’s car out of sight while we’re at it.”

Benson heaved a grudging sigh.

“All right, then. We’ll toss for it.”

They flipped a coin, and Rogers was chosen to stand first watch ashore. He took Simon’s car key, put on a slicker, and left the boat

“Better keep on your toes, Benson,” the Saint said.

Benson looked around uneasily.

“What are you talking about?

“Miss Mary might bash you in the head when your back’s turned.”

“My back won’t be turned,” Benson said.

He sat down on the steps of the companionway facing into the cabin. At that point the Saint sat up and swung his legs, which were not tied, to the floor. Benson was alarmed and instantly on his own feet.

“Lie down,” he ordered.

Simon stood up. Time was too short to allow for planning and caution. It was better to do something brash than nothing at all. He could only hope that Mary Bannerman would get the idea and go into action.

“Make me,” said the Saint with a look of mystifying and total confidence.

The look threw Benson off balance. For anybody trapped in a tiny bit of space with his hands tied behind him to look confident was completely unnerving.

“I told you to lie back down,” Benson said nervously.

“Going to call your mate to help?” Simon taunted him.

That did it. Benson’s spidery frame marked him as a man without much physical strength, which increased his hesitation to get involved with a man of the Saint’s reputation — even if his hands were tied — but at the same time made him all the more sensitive to aspersions on his courage. He moved toward the Saint, whose back was now to the door which led to the forward compartment of the boat.