Leslie Charteris - The Saint Overboard

Orace came in like a baronial butler, put down a tray of whisky and glasses, sniffed loudly, and departed. Murdoch stared at the door which closed behind him with the penumbras of homicide darkening again on his square features.

"I could kill that guy twice, and then drown him." Murdoch grabbed the whisky-bottle, poured three fingers into a glass, and swallowed it straight. He compressed his lips in a grimace, and looked up at the Saint again. "Well, here I am — and who the hell asked you to bring me here?"

"You didn't," Simon admitted.

"Didn't you tell me you'd keep out of the way next time?"

"That was the idea."

"Well, what d'ya think I'm going to do — fall on your neck and kiss you?"

"Not in those trousers, I hope," said the Saint.

The trousers belonged to Orace, who was taller but not so bulky. As a result, they were stretched dangerously across the seat, and hung in a graceful concertina over the ankles. Murdoch glared down at them venomously, and they responded with an ominous rending squeak as he moved to get hold of the whisky again.

"I didn't ask you to pull me out, and I'm not going to thank you. If you thought I'd fall for you, you're wrong. Was that the idea, too? Did you think you might be able to get under my skin that way — make the same sort of monkey outa me that you've made outa Loretta? Because you won't. I'm not so soft. You can slug me again and take me back to the Falkenberg, and we'll start again where we left off; and that's as far as you'll get."

Simon sauntered over to the table and helped himself to a measured drink.

"Well, of course that's certainly a suggestion," he remarked. He sat down opposite Murdoch and put up his feet along the settee. "I've always heard that Ingerbeck's was about the ace firm in the business."

"It is."

"Been with them long?" asked the Saint caressingly.

"About ten years."

"Mmm."

Murdoch's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"What the hell d'you mean?"

"I mean they can't be so hot if they've kept you on the overhead for ten years."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah — as we used to say in the movies. Stay where you are, Steve. If you try to start any rough stuff with me I shall hit your face so hard that you'll have to be fed from behind. Besides which, those pants will split."

"Go on."

Simon flicked open the cigarette-box and helped himself to a smoke. He slipped a match out of the ashstand and sprung it into flame with his thumb-nail.

"Now and for the last time," he said, with the caress in his voice smoothed out until it was as soothing as a sheet of ice, "will you try to understand that I don't give a good God-damn how soon you have your funeral. Your mother may miss you, and even Ingerbeck's may send a wreath; but personally I shall be as miserable as a dog with a new tree. The only reason I interfered on the Falkenberg was because Vogel wasn't half so interested in shooting you as in seeing how Loretta would like it. The only reason I pulled you out again—"

"Was what?"

"Because if you'd stayed there they'd have found out more about you. You're known. Thanks to your brilliant strategy in tearing into the Hotel de la Mer and shouting for Loretta at the top of your voice, the bloke who was sleuthing her this afternoon knows your face. And if he'd seen you to-night on an identification parade — that would have been that. For Loretta, anyway. And that's all I'm interested in. As it is, you may have been recognised already. I had to take a chance on that. I could only lug you out as quickly as possible, and hope for the best. Apart from that, you could have stayed there and been massaged with hot irons, and I shouldn't have lost any sleep. Is that plain enough or do you still think I've got a fatherly interest in your future?"

Murdoch held himself down on the berth as gingerly as if it had been red hot, and his chin jutted out as if Ms fists were itching to follow it.

"I get it. But you feel like a father to Loretta — huh?"

"That's my business."

"I'll say it is. There are plenty of greasy-haired dagoes making big money at it."

"My dear Steve!"

"I know you, Saint," Murdoch said raspingly. His big hands rolled his glass between them as if they were playing with the idea of crushing it to fragments with a single savage contraction, and the hard implacable lights were smouldering under the surface of his eyes. "You're crook. I've heard all about you. Maybe there aren't any warrants out for you at the moment. Maybe you kid some people with that front of yours about being some kind of fairy-tale Robin Hood trying to put the world right in his own way. That stuff don't cut any ice with me. You're crook — and you're in the racket for what you can get out of it."

Simon raised his eyebrows.

"Aren't you?"

"Yeah. I get one hundred bucks a week out of it; and the man who says I don't earn 'em is a liar. But that's the last cent I take."

"Of course, that's very enterprising of you," murmured the Saint, in the same drawl of gentle mockery. "But we can't all be boy scouts. I gather that you think I wouldn't be content with one hundred bucks a week?"

"You?" Murdoch was viciously derisive. "If I thought that, I'd buy you out right now."

"Where's your money?"

"What for?"

"To buy me out. One hundred dollars a week — and that's more than I thought I was going to get out of it."

The other stared at him.

"Are you telling me you'll take a hundred a week to get out?"

"Oh, no. But I'll take a hundred a week to get in. You'll have the benefit of all my brains, which you obviously need pretty badly; and I shall get lots of quiet respectable fun and a beautiful glow of virtue to keep me warm for the winter. I'm trying to convince you that I'm a reformed character. Your loving sympathy has made me see the light," said the Saint brokenly, "and from now on my only object will be to live down my evil past—"

"And I'm trying to convince you that I'm not so dumb that a twister like you can sell me a gold brick!" Murdoch snarled violently. "You came into this by accident, and you saw your chance. You greased around Loretta till she told you what it was about, and you've made her so crazy she's ready to eat outa your hand. If I hadn't come along you'd of played her for a sap as long as it helped you, and ditched her when you thought you had a chance to get away with something. Well, you bet you're going to get out. I'm going to find a way to put you out — but it ain't going to be with a hundred dollars!"

The Saint rounded his lips and blew out a smoke-ring. For a moment he did actually consider the possibilities of trying to convince Murdoch of his sincerity; but he gave up the idea. The American's suspicions were rooted in too stubborn an antagonism for any amount of argument to shake them; and Simon had to admit that Murdoch had some logical justification. He looked at Murdoch thoughtfully for a while, and read the blunt facts of the situation on every line of the other's grim hard-boiled face. Oh, well… perhaps it was all for the best. And that incorrigible imp of buffoonery in his make-up would have made it difficult to carry the argument to conviction, anyway…

The Saint sighed.

"I suppose you're entitled to your point of view, Steve," he conceded mildly. "But of course that makes quite a difference. Now we shall have to decide what we're going to do with you."

"Don't worry about me," retorted Murdoch. "You worry about yourself. Give me my clothes back, and I'll be on my way."

He dumped his glass on the table and stood up; but Simon Templar did not move.

"The question is — will you?" said the Saint.

His voice was pleasant and conversational, coloured only with the merest echo of that serene and gentle mockery which had got under Murdoch's toughened hide at their first encounter; and yet something behind it made the other stand momentarily very still.