Leslie Charteris - The Saint in Miami

He investigated the selection of supplies with a critical eye, secure in the spell of silence which was guaranteed by Mr Uniatz's anguished efforts to interpret his last speech into words of one syllable. Finally he fixed his choice on a row of bottles whose labels met with his approval, and set them up on a tray. A pair of silver ice-buckets from the back of the bar were indispensable accessories, and a built-in refrigerator provided plentiful supplies of ice.

"Let's go," said the Saint.

He moved out on to the deck with his accumulation of booty. He no longer felt that there was any call for stealth. Quite boldly and carelessly he walked aft and came around the end of the deckhouse to an open verandah sheltered by white canvas awnings.

Randolph March was there — Simon recognised him at once from pictures he had seen in the tabloids. The pictures had not shown the colouring of the round pink face and straight fair hair, but they had possibly overemphasised the marks of premature dissipation under the eyes and the essential weakness of the mouth and chin. From the deck chair beside him, a girl with red hair and big violet eyes also looked up with a revelation of complete physical beauty that made Simon's sensitive heart lose its regular rhythm for an instant. She had been listening to something that March had been telling her when Simon came into sight, with an expression of rapt adoration to which any heir to the March millions could legitimately have been held entitled; but a lingering trace of the same expression still clung to her features as she turned, and was responsible for an intervening moment of speechlessness before the Saint could recapture his voice.

Then he recovered himself, and bowed to them both with mildly derisive elegance.

"Good evening, little people," murmured the Saint.

It could not be denied that such a transparently expressive face was no handicap at all to anyone so exquisitely modelled as the red-haired girl. From the topmost waves of her softly flaming hair, down through the unbelievable fineness of her features, down through the unworldly perfect proportions of her curving shape, down to the manicured tips of her sandalled toes, there was nothing about her which any connoisseur of human architecture could criticise. The clarity of expression which in any less flawless creature might have been disillusioning, in her was only the last illuminating touch which crowned a masterpiece of orchidic evolution. And it seemed to Simon Templar that the admiration in her eyes, after they rested on him, lasted just a little longer than a hangover from Randolph March's practised charm should have justified.

Perhaps he flattered himself… But there was no doubt that Randolph March was conscious of a break in the spell of his own fascination. March was notorious for his appreciation of expensive beauty, and he was acutely cognisant of anything that interrupted beauty's appreciation of himself. There was the petulance of a spoiled brat in his face as he shot a glance at the brimming mint julep in his hand and found the frosty glass still full.

He scowled venomously at the Saint in his steward's jacket The captain must have hired new help without consulting him: for the life of him he couldn't remember having seen the man before. Neither could he remember having ordered any champagne. The March Hare had a wine list that could be boasted about; but the hazards of war were making good vintages increasingly difficult to obtain, and Randolph March held good vintages in the fanatical reverence which can only be acquired by a man who has developed epicurean tastes with a studious eye for their snob value rather than out of the sheer gusto of superlative living.

Then, other details percolated through the disintegrating aura of his romantic mood as he incredulously counted the forest of bottles bristling on the tray in front of him. The new steward was blithely swinging a couple of silver ice-buckets in one hand like a juggler waiting to go into an act, while a cigarette slanted impudently up between his lips. And while Randolph March stared at the sight, the steward banged the buckets down on the deck and used the hand thus freed to remove Mr March's feet from the extension rest of his deck chair and make room there for the tray.

Randolph March fought down an imminent apoplectic stroke for which his eccentric life would still not normally have qualified him for at least another ten years, and snapped: "Take that stuff away!"

The steward blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke and plunked bottles into the ice-buckets, giving them a professional twirl which no Parisian sommelier could have bettered.

"Don't call it 'that stuff,'" he said reprovingly. "A '28 Bollinger deserves a little more respect."

The girl laughed like a chime of silver bells, and said: "Oh, do let's have some! I just feel like some champagne."

"There you are, Randy, old boy," said the Saint, giving the bottles another twirl. "The lady wants some. So what have you got to say?"

"You're fired!" March exploded.

The Saint smiled at him tolerantly, as one who humours a fractious child.

"That" s all right with me, Randy, old fruit," he said amiably. "Now let's all have a drink and talk about something else. I've got a few questions to ask you."

He selected a bottle, approved its temperature, and popped the cork. Sparkling amber flowed into a row of glasses while March watched in a paralysis of fuming stupefaction. Once March started to rise, but sank back slowly when Simon turned a cool blue eye on him. The Saint's complete and unperturbed effrontery was almost enough to hold anyone immobilised by itself; but there was also an easy air of athletic readiness in the Saint's bantering poise which was an even more subtle discouragement to March's immediate ideas of personal violence.

Simon passed the tray. The red-headed girl took her glass, looking up at him curiously under her long lashes. March hesitated, and Simon pushed the tray closer to him.

"You might as well, Randy," he said. "Perhaps you'll need it before I've finished."

March took the glass, not quite knowing why he did it. Simon looked around for Hoppy, but Mr Uniatz had already taken the precaution of providing for his own simple tastes. A bottle of Scotch was tilted up to his mouth, and his Adam's apple throbbed in a clockwork ecstasy of ingurgitation. The Saint grinned, put down the tray, and took a glass for himself.

"You'd better talk fast," said March. "I'll give you just five minutes before I turn you over to the police."

"Five minutes ought to be enough, said the Saint "I want to talk to you about a shipwreck."

"This is frightfully exciting," said the girl. Simon smiled at her and raised his glass. "I think so too, Ginger," he drawled. "You and I ought to get together. Anyway, here's to us."

"Whatever you want to talk about," said March, "doesn't make any difference to me."

The Saint chose a vacant chair and settled himself luxuriously. He blew a smoke-ring into the still warm air.

"That ought to make everything quite easy," he remarked. "Because what you think about it doesn't make any difference to me… So about this shipwreck. Not very long ago, a tanker loaded with gasoline blew up just a little. way off the Beach. I saw it happen. It certainly made a very impressive splash. But after the fireworks were over, I saw something else. It looked like the light of a ship sailing away from the wreck. And it kept on sailing away."

March patted a yawn and said: "I like your infernal gall, trespassing on my yacht to tell me a story like that."

"I only did it," said the Saint mildly, "because I wondered if by any chance the ship that sailed away might have been yours."