Leslie Charteris - The Saint Overboard

With which modest summary of his activities, Roger helped himself to one of Vogel's cigars, threw another to Peter Quentin, and subsided exhausted into the most comfortable armchair.

Simon Templar regarded them disparagingly.

"You always were frightfully efficient at clearing up the battlefield after all the troops had gone home," he remarked appreciatively. "And where did you collect the American Tragedy?"

"Oh, him? He crashed on to the Corsair while we were having a drink with Orace, earlier in the afternoon," Peter explained. "Seemed to be all steamed up about something, and flashed a lot of badges and things at us, so we brought him along. He seemed to be very excited about Loretta batting off on this party, so I suppose he's her husband or something. Are you the co-respondent?"

Steve Murdoch dug his fists into his coat pockets and glowered round with his square jaw thrust out. His rugged hard-boiled face made the luxurious furnishings of the wheelhouse seem faintly effeminate.

"Yeah, I'm here," he stated truculently. "And this time I'm stayin'. I guess I owe you something for helpin' me clean up this job, Saint; an' maybe it's good enough to account for those two punches you hung on me. But that's as far as it goes. I'll see that Ingerbeck's hear about what you've done, and probably they'll offer you a share of the reward. If they do, you can go up an' claim it honest. But for the time being I'll look after things myself."

Simon looked at the ceiling.

"What a lot of modest violets there are around here," he sighed. "Of course I wouldn't dream of trying to steal your curtain, Steve, after all the brilliant work you've put in. But what exactly are you going to do?"

"I'm goin' to ask one of you boys to go ashore an' see if you can knock up the gendarmerie. If you can find a telegraph office, you can send one or two cables for me as well. The gendarmes can grab this guy Baudier before he skips, an' come on down to post a guard on board here. That'll do till I can start things movin' from the top. But until I've got that guard posted I'm going to sit over the diving gear myself, in case one of you thought he might go down an' see what he could pick up. I guess you've done enough diving for one day, Saint, an' you're not goin' down again while I can stop you. An' just in case you're thinkin' you can put me to sleep again like you did before, let me tell you that if you did get away with anything like that you'd have to shoot me to stop me puttin' every police organisation in the world on your trail as soon as I woke up. Do you get it?"

"Oh, I get you, Steve," said the Saint thoughtfully. "And I did tell Loretta I was tempted to come in for a share of the commission. Although it does sort of go against the grain to earn money honestly. It's such an anti-climax…"

He slid off the edge of the table and stood up, stroking his chin meditatively for a moment. And then, with a rueful shrug, he turned and grinned cheerfully at the detective.

"Still, it's always a new experience; and I suppose you've got to earn your living the same as I have," he drawled. "We'll let you have your fun. Peter, be a good boy and toddle along and do what Mr Murdoch asks you to."

"Right-ho," said Peter doubtfully.

"Roger, you can keep Steve company on his vigil. You'll have lots of fun telling each other how clever you are, but I'd much rather not listen to you."

The ineradicable suspicion darkened again in Murdoch's eyes.

"If you think you're goin' to talk Loretta round again," he began growlingly, "let me tell you—"

"Write it all down and post it to me in the morning, dear old bird," said the Saint affably and opened the door for them.

They filed out, Murdoch going last and most reluctantly, as if even then he couldn't believe that it was safe to let the Saint out of his sight. But Simon pushed him on, and closed the door after them.

Then he turned round and came towards Loretta.

She sat in her chair, rather quiet and still, with her lips slightly parted and the hint of mischief hushed for the moment into the changing shadows of her grey eyes. The lines of her slim body fell into a pattern of unconscious grace that made him almost hold his breath in case she moved, although he knew that in moving she would only take on a new beauty. He knew that, when all was said and done, in the last reckoning it was only the queer hunger which she could give a man that had tempted Kurt Vogel into his first and fatal mistake. She had so much that a man dreams about sometimes in the hard lonely trails of outlawry. She had so much that he himself had desired. In the few overcrowded hours since they had been thrown together, they had met in an understanding which no words could cover. They had walked in a garden, and talked together before the doors of death. He had known fear, and peace.

He stood looking down at her, half smiling. And then, with a sudden soft breath of laughter, she took both his hands and came up into his arms.

"So you don't like your dotted line?" she said.

"Maybe it grows on one."

She shook her head.

"Not on you."

He thought for a moment. Between them, who had lived so much, a lie had no place.

"This job is finished," he said. "Steve Murdoch's mounting guard over the diving gear, and I promise I won't touch him. We can start again. Wash out the dotted line."

"And then?"

"For the future?" he said carelessly. "I shall still have the fun of being chivvied by every policeman in the world. I shall steal and fight, win and lose, go on — didn't you say it? — wanting so much that I can never have, fighting against life. But I shall live. I shall get into more trouble. I may even fall in love again. I shall end up by being hanged, or shot, or stabbed in the back, or something — if I don't find a safe berth in prison first. But that's my life. If I tried to live any other way, I'd feel like a caged eagle."

"But to-morrow?"

He laughed.

"I suppose I'll have to dump Peter and Roger somewhere. But the Corsair's, still ready to go anywhere. She's not so luxurious as this, but she's pretty comfortable. And about a hundred years ago I was in the middle of a vacation."

His hands were on her shoulders; and she smiled into his eyes.

"What do either of us know about the day after to-morrow?" she said.

Nearly an hour later he came out on deck, as half a dozen palpitating gendarmes were scrambling up the gangway. Murdoch had met the leader of them and was struggling to converse with him in a microscopical vocabulary of French delivered in a threatening voice with an atrocious accent. Simon left him to perspire alone, and drew Peter and Roger to one side.

"We're going back to the Corsair," he said.

"Without the heroine?" protested Peter. "Why, I was only just getting to know her."

The Saint took him by the arm.

"You'll be able to improve the acquaintance tomorrow," he said kindly. "For as long as it takes us to sail back to St Peter Port and get rid of you. On your way."

They dropped into the dinghy; and Simon settled himself lazily in the stern, leaving the others to take the oars. He lighted a cigarette and gazed up at the star-dusted sky.

The lights of the Falkenberg drifted away behind them, and the cool quietness of the night took them in. The voices died away, and there was only the creak of the rowlocks and the gentle plash of the water. The Saint watched his smoke floating in gossamer veils across the stars, and let his mind stray through the lanes of memory. There was the only real knowledge, and all other doubt and disbelief could steal nothing from it. What did either of them know about the day after to-morrow?…

Roger's voice broke into his thoughts.

"Well, that's goodbye to those millions you promised us," he remarked glumly; and Simon sat up with the old buccaneering glint wakening in his eyes.