Leslie Charteris: The Saint Meets the Tiger

The Saint went into the saloon and found Orace braced against the table for support, but still dutifully covering the now terror-stricken trio. Simon used up the remains of the rope which had been employed on Orace and himself, and at the end of the performance Bittle and Bloem and Maggs were trussed hand and foot beyond all possibility of escape. The Samt and Orace between them dragged the men out on deck.

By then the ship had stopped altogether, and rolled low and sluggishly in the oily billows. The pursuing boats were closing in on either side, and the Saint climbed to the upper deck and stood in the full glare of the searchlights. In a moment Carn's voice hailed him through a megaphone.

"What's happened? Are you all right?"

"Marvellous!" Simon called back cheerfully. "We've got three prisoners and one corpse waiting for you."

"I'll be on board in two minutes." said Carn, and was as good as his word.

He came up the rope ladder, and the Saint met him on the deck...

"You look as if you'd been wrecked," were his first words. "We can talk later — better hurry up and get everybody off before she goes down."

The Saint surprised Patricia as much as Carn.

"Wrecked nothing! I told Bittle and Co. we were going down, but we aren't. Orace and I just fixed the pumps and left 'cm running so as to run all the water out of the port ballast tank and fill up the starboard one! I've just reversed the arrangement — see? She's evening up already."

Simon showed Carn all the exhibits, and the detective was staggered.

"That Tiger had us all skinned," he said.

They sat in the saloon and exchanged notes. Carn had been lucky enough to find a couple of new submarine-chasing motor boats lying at II fracombe at the end of a trial run, and he was able to catch them with his posse when they were on the :point of returning to Bristol.

"All the same," he remarked, "I should have been too late to be any use to you. I take my hat off to you, Saint."

"What was Lapping in this?" asked Patricia.

She told him about her interview that afternoon, and the detective smiled.

"Lapping knew all about me, of course," he said. "And I told him all about how the Saint was trying to cut me out. I expect he thought you were having a dab at pumping him for the Saint's benefit."

The Saint did not consider himself bound to say anything about Harry the Duke. Before he let Harry go back to the past of Agatha Girton, he had warned him about the dangers of private feuds, and Harry had seen reason — the Saint had a means to control him.

"You can tell Lapping that Harry the Duke has decided to forgive him," he said enigmatically.

Carn was mystified, but Simon let him be puzzled, and passed on.

"Now we're all satisfied," murmured Simon. "You've got the villains of the piece to take home with you, and I've got the gold."

Carn goggled.

"I'd forgotten that — I was so worried about you and the Tiger," he said, and the Saint chuckled.

"I hadn't forgotten it. I waited to start any ruc— tions until they'd got it all aboard for me — I couldn't bear to think of all my work being wasted." The Saint looked steadily at the detective. "Shall we cry quits, Carn? You know I'm straight, and I want to work this hooker across to New York and return the ducats to the Confederate Bank's agents and collect my reward. It'll just make enough for me to retire on comfortably. And you get all the kudos out of the affair for nabbing the Tiger. Is that a bet?"

Carn held out his hand, and they both smiled,

"Miss Holm goes with you, I suppose?"

"I'll ask her," promised the Saint. "It'll be easy — these motor ships are dead simple to run, and Orace has as much expert knowledge as we need. America's a big place, anyway. We can't miss it altogether, and as soon as we strike the coast we'll be able to find out where we are, and probably get a navigator. We'll only be able to run in daylight, of course, so it won't be a quick passage — but I can think of worse honeymoons!"

One of the motor boats had already been sent back in search of the crew which the Tiger had allowed to go, and Algy and the three prisoners were taken down into the other boat, and the armed men who had swarmed all over the ship returned to their own little craft.

Carn was the last to go.

"Good-bye, Saint, and a good voyage," he said.

"May you fill many prisons in the course of a prosperous career," returned the Saint piously.

It has already been recorded that Orace was in the habit of calling his master every morning with a cup of tea, and commenting on the beauty of the weather.

On a certain morning Orace came up a companion with a cup of tea in each hand. He paused outside a door, and put the cups down so that he could knock. But he did not knock. Instead, he scratched his chin and argued within himself long and earnestly. Then he picked up the cups again and went back to the galley and drank them himself.

Only one thing could upset Orace's ingrained sense of discipline, and that was his ingrained sense of the proprieties.