Leslie Charteris - The Saint Overboard

"What?"

"Fade. Waft. Pass out into the night. Loretta can go downstairs with you, and you can take a fond farewell in the foyer, with a few well-chosen lines of dialogue from which any listeners can gather that you're an old friend of her father's taking a holiday in Guernsey, and hearing she was in Dinard you hopped an excursion and came over for the day. And then you beetle down to the pier, catch the next ferry to St Malo, and shoot on to the return steamer to St Peter Port like a cork out of a bottle. Vogel will be there to-morrow."

"How do you know that?" asked Loretta quickly.

"He told me. We got into conversation before lunch." Simon's gaze lifted to hers with azure lights of scapegrace solemnity playing in it. "He was trying to draw me out, and I was just devilling him, but neither of us got very far. I think he was telling me the truth, though. If I chase him to St Peter Port, he'll be able to put my innocence through some more tests. So when you're saying goodbye to Steve, he might ask you if you're likely to take a trip to Guernsey, and you can say you don't think you'll be able to — that may make them think that you haven't heard anything from me."

Murdoch took out a cigar and bit the end from it with a bulldog clamp of his jaws. His eyes were dark again with distrust.

"It's a stall, Loretta," he said sourly. "How d'ya know Vogel isn't capable of having an undercover man, the same as us. All he wants to do is get me out of the way, so he can take you alone."

"You flatter yourself, brother," said the Saint coldly "If I wanted to take her, you wouldn't stop me. Nor would you stop Vogel."

"No?"

"No."

"Well, I'm not running."

Loretta glanced from one man to the other. The animosity between them was creeping up again, hardening the square obstinacy of Murdoch's jaw, glittering like chips of elusive steel in the Saint's eyes. They were like two jungle animals, each superb in his own way and conscious of his strength, but of two different species whose feud dated back too far into the grey dawns of history for any quick forgetting.

"Yes, you are, Steve," said the girl.

"When I start taking orders from that—"

"You aren't." Her voice was quiet and soothing, but there was a thread of calm decision under the silky texture. "You're taking orders from me. The Saint's right. We'd better break off again, and hope we can alibi this meeting."

Murdoch was staring at her half incredulously.

"Orders?" he repeated.

"That's right, Steve. At present I'm running this end of it. Until Martin Ingerbeck takes me off the assignment, you do what I tell you."

"I think you're crazy."

She didn't answer. She took a cigarette from a bos on the table and walked to the window, standing there with her arms lifted and her hands on either side of the frame. The silver dragon lifted on her waist.

Murdoch's lips flattened the butt of his cigar. His hands clutched the arms of his chair, and he started to get up slowly. With a sudden burst of vicious energy he grabbed for his hat and thumped it on his head.

"If you put it that way, I can't argue," he growled. "But you're going to wish I had!" He transferred his glare from her unconscious back to the Saint's face. "As for you — if anything happens to Loretta through my not being here—"

"We'll be sure to let you know about it," said the Saint, and opened the door for him.

Murdoch stumped through with his fists clenched; and the Saint half closed it as Loretta turned from the window and came across the room. He took her hands.

"I shall be gone while you're seeing Steve off," he said. "I can't risk the foyer again, but I spotted a fire escape."

"Must you?" The faint irony of her voice was baffled by the enigma of her smiling mouth.

He nodded.

"Not because I want to. But they ought to see me going back to the Corsair before there's too much excitement about my shadow having lost me. You're still sure you mean to go tonight?"

"Quite sure."

"Did I dream the rest of it, after you'd gone last night?"

"I don't know, dear. What did you have for dinner?"

"Lobster mayonnaise. I dreamt that you came back from the Falkenberg. Safe. And always beautiful. To me."

"And then the danger really started."

"I dreamt that you didn't think it was too dangerous."

Her eyes searched his face, with the laughter stilled in them for a moment. The tip of the dragon's tongue stirred on her shoulder as she drew breath. One hand released itself to trace the half-mocking line of his mouth.

"But I am afraid," she said.

Suddenly he felt her lips crushed and melting against his, and her body pressed against him, for one soundless instant; and then, before he could move, she had brushed past him and gone.

Orace was waiting for him anxiously when he got back.

"Yer bin a long time," Orace remarked shatteringly.

"Thousands of years," said the Saint.

He sat out on deck again after he had taken his last daylight swim, and sipped a glass of sherry, and dined on one of Orace's superlative meals. The speed tender had set out again from the Falkenberg and returned about half-past seven with Vogel, in evening dress, sitting beside Loretta. Through the binoculars, from one of the saloon portholes, he had seen Vogel smiling and talking, his great nose profiled against the water.

He sat out, with a cigarette clipped and half-forgotten between his lips and his eyes creased against the smoke, as motionless as a bronze Indian, while the water turned to dark glass and then to burnished steel. There was no fog that night. The river ran blue-black under the wooded rocks of the Vicomté and the ramparts and granite headland of St Malo. Lights sprang up, multiplying, on the island, and were mirrored in St Servan and Dinard, and spread luminous rapiers across the river. The hulls of the craft anchored in the Ranee sank back into the gloom until the night swallowed them, and only their winking lights remained on the water. The lighthouses of the inlet were awake, green and red flashes stabbing irregularly across the bay and twinkling down from Grand Larron. A drift of music from one of the Casinos lingered across the estuary; and the anchorage where the Falkenberg should be was a constellation of lights.

Loretta was there; but Simon saw no need for her to be alone.

The idea grew with him as the dark deepened and his imagination worked through it. In his own way he was afraid, impatient with his enforced helplessness… Presently he sent another cigarette spinning like a glow-worm through the blackness, and went below to take off his clothes. He tested the working of his automatic, brought a greased cartridge into the breech, secured the safety-catch, and fastened the gun to the belt of his trunks. The dark water received him without a sound.

Curiously enough, it was during that stealthy swim that he had a sudden electric remembrance of a news photographer who had been so unusually blind to the presence of all celebrities save one. Perhaps it was because his mind had been unconsciously revolving the subject of Vogel's amazing thoroughness. But he had a startlingly vivid picture of a camera aiming towards him — fully as much towards him as towards Professor Yule — and a sudden reckless smile moved his lips as he slid through the water.

If that news photographer was not a real news photographer, and the picture had been developed and printed and rushed across to England by air that evening, a correspondent could show it around in certain circles in London with the virtual certainty of having it identified within forty-eight hours… And if the result of that investigation was cabled to Kurt Vogel at St Peter Port, a good many interrogation marks might be wiped out with deadly speed.