Leslie Charteris - The Saint in Miami

"When is you-all goin' away?"

The Saint flipped a half dollar in the air, caught it, and placed it on the edge of the laden tray.

"That was one of the best breakfasts I ever ate, Desdemona," he told her. "I think we'll wait until Mr Gilbeck gets back." He added deliberately: "Are you sure they didn't give you any idea how long they'd be away?"

" 'Deed they didn't." Desdemona's eyes grew round as they moved from Simon to the shiny coin. "Sometimes they's gone a week acruisin'. Sometimes 'tain't moh than foh a day."

She departed stolidly on that enlightening note, and Peter grinned.

"You'd better try some folding money next time," he suggested. "She doesn't seem to thaw for silver."

"All artists are temperamental." Simon stretched his legs and took up from where he had been interrupted. "Yes, I was talking about that letter which I was clever enough to invent." "What makes you think they believe in it any more?" "Perhaps they don't. But on the other hand, they don't know for certain. That's the catch. And even if they've decided that I really didn't have a letter last night, the idea's been put into their head. There might be a letter. I might even write one myself, having seen how they reacted to the idea. It's a discouraging risk. So they won't bump us off until they're quite sure about it"

"How nice," Peter said glumly. "So instead of being bumped off without any mess, we can look forward to being tortured until they find out just where they do stand."

Patricia straightened suddenly.

Simon looked at her, and saw that her cheeks had gone pale under the golden tan.

"Then," she said slowly, "if Gilbeck and Justine haven't been murdered — if they've only been kidnapped—"

"Go on," said the Saint steadily.

She stared at him from a masklike face that mirrored unthinkable things.

"If you're right about all these things you've guessed — if March really is up to the neck in dirty business, and he's afraid of Gilbeck giving him away—" One distraught hand rumpled her corn-gold hair. "If Gilbeck and, Justine are prisoners somewhere, this gang will do anything to make them talk."

"They wouldn't need to do much," said the Saint. "Gilbeck would have to talk, to save Justine."

"After which jolly interlude," Peter said woodenly, "he can allow himself to be slaughtered in ineffable peace, secure in the knowledge that March and Company have nothing but affection for his fatherless little girl."

"But they'd never believe him now," Patricia said, shakily. "When he says he doesn't know anything about any such letter, they'll think that that's just what he would say. They'll torture him horribly, perhaps Justine too. They'll go on and on, trying to find out something he can't possibly tell them!" The Saint shook his head. He stood up restlessly, but his face was quite calm.

"I think you're both wrong," he said quietly. "If Lawrence Gilbeck and Justine are still alive, I think that letter will be their insurance policy. While he believes in it March won't dare have them killed. And he won't need to torture them. Directly he asks about it… well, Gilbeck didn't make all his money by being slow on the trigger. He'll catch on to the possibilities at once. He'll say, sure, he left a letter, and what are they going to do about it? Isn't that what you'd do? And what are they going to do about it? There's no use torturing anyone who's ready to tell you anything you want to hear. Gilbeck hasn't got any secret information that they want."

"How do you know?" asked Peter.

"I don't," Simon admitted. "But it isn't probable. My theory is perfectly straightforward. Gilbeck just went into March's Foreign Investment Pool. He was ready to overlook a few minor irregularities, as a lot of big business men would be. You don't make millions by splitting ethical hairs. Then Gilbeck got in deeper, and found that some of the irregularities weren't so minor. He got cold feet, and wanted to back out. But he was in too deep by that time — they couldn't let him go. Now, our strategy is that he knew there'd be trouble, so he left a protective letter. All right. So there's a letter, and I've got it."

Patricia kept looking down, moving one hand mechanically over the contour of her knee.

"If only you had got it," she said.

"It might help us a lot. But as It is, the myth is a pretty useful substitute. Unwittingly, we've put Gilbeck in balk. March has got to believe in the letter. I was firing a lot of shots in the dark, but they hit things. He won't be able to figure where I got all my information, unless it was out of this imaginary letter. Which means that he's got to take care of me before he can touch Gilbeck. And he's got to be awfully cautious about that, unless he's quite sure what angles I'm playing."

"I'll have to order some wool," said Peter. "It sounds like a winter of sitting around and knitting while March's outfit are sinking ships and wondering about you in their spare time."

Simon crushed out his cigarette and took another one from the packet on the table. He sat down again and put his feet up.

"I read the morning papers in bed," he said. "They've picked up a few bodies from that tanker, but no live ones. The way it happened, it wasn't likely that there'd be any. The cause of the explosion is still an official mystery. There was no mention of a submarine, or any other clues. So perhaps we gummed up the plot when we caught that lifebelt."

"It's not so easy now to believe that we really saw a submarine," said Patricia. "If we told anyone else, they'd probably say we'd been drinking."

"We had," answered the Saint imperturbably. "But I don't know that we want to tell anyone else — yet. I'd rather find the submarine first."

Peter leaned against a pillar and massaged his toes.

"I see," he soliloquised moodily. "Now I take up diving. I tramp all over the sea's bottom with my head in a tin goldfish bowl, looking for a stray submarine. Probably I find Gilbeck and Justine as well, tucked into the torpedo tubes."

"There are less unlikely things," said the Saint. "The sub must have a base on shore, which has got to be well hidden. And if it's so well hidden, that's where we'd be likely to find prisoners."

"Which makes everything childishly easy," Peter remarked. "There are approximately nine thousand, two hundred, and forty-seven unmapped islands in the Florida Keys, according to the guide-book, and they only stretch for about a hundred miles."

"They wouldn't be any good. A good base wouldn't be too easy to hide from the air, and the regular plane service to Havana flies over the Keys several times a day."

"Maybe it has a mother ship feeding it at sea," Patricia ventured.

Simon nodded.

"Maybe. We'll find out eventually."

"Maybe you'd better call in the Navy," said Peter. "That's what they're for."

The Saint grinned irreverently,

"But it would make things so dull for us. I thought of a much more exciting way of invoking the Law. I called the Sheriff's office in the middle of the night and told them that they could find a dead body on the March Hare. I hope it gave Randy a lot of fast explaining to do."

"I hope you've got plenty of fast explanations yourself," Peter said dampeningly, and pointed with one finger.

Simon looked round towards the driveway.

White dust swirled around the wheels of an approaching car. It disappeared behind the corner of the house. A minute later, Desdemona plodded heavily towards them across the patio. She came to anchor in front of the Saint, her brawny arms akimbo, and glared down at him with a face which intimated that she had found all her darkest forebodings justified.

De she'iff man's hyah at de doah," she announced indig-nantly. "He wants to see you!"

"I think," said Patricia, getting to her feet, "that Peter and I will let you amuse him while we have another swim." Simon waved them away.