Saint Overboard (19 page)

“Do you think anyone saw you parking our
friend up here?”
he asked.

Orace sucked his teeth.

“I dunno, sir. I brought ‘im aht soon’s I
sore yer go in an’
lugged
‘im along on me stummick. It didn’t take arf a tick to lay
‘im aht on the boom an’ chuck the sile over ‘im,
an’ the other bloke was lightin’ ‘is pipe an’ lookin’ the other way.”
Orace frowned puzzledly. “Yer don’t think them thunderin’ barstids
came back an’ took ‘im orf, do yer?”

“No, I don’t think that. I watched them
most of the way
home, and they wouldn’t have had time to get back here and
do
it. If they saw you, they may come back later. Or something.
The point
is—were you seen?”

Simon’s brow creased over the riddle. If the seaman had ob
served Orace’s manoeuvres, he might have been
clever enough to
give no sign. He would have told Vogel on their way
back. After
which the sunshine would have
come back into Vogel’s ugly life,
Simon reflected malevolently. And then
…

Vogel would know that the Saint didn’t know
he knew. And
the Saint wouldn’t know whether Vogel knew, or whether
Vogel
was banking on the Saint knowing that Vogel didn’t know he
knew he
knew. And Vogel would still have to wonder whether the Saint knew he knew he
knew he didn’t know. Or not. It was
all somewhat involved. But the
outstanding conclusion seemed to
be that the Saint could still go to St Peter
Port with the assur
ance that Vogel wouldn’t know definitely whether the
Saint
knew he knew, and Vogel could issue walk-into-my-parlour in
vitations
with the certainty that the Saint couldn’t refuse them
without admitting that
he knew Vogel knew he knew Vogel
knew. Or vice versa. Simon felt his head
beginning to ache, and
decided to give it a rest.

“We’d better sleep on it,” he said.

He left Orace slapping down the mainsail into
a neat roll with
a condensed viciousness which suggested that Orace’s
thoughts
were concerned with the way he would have liked to
manhandle
Murdoch if that unfortunate warrior had been available
for manhandling, and went below. As he got into his pyjamas he
realised
that there was at least one certainty about Murdoch’s
future movements,
which was that he would try to reach Loretta
Page either that night
or early in the morning with his story. He
would be able to do
it, too. There might be many places on the
continent of Europe
where anyone clothed only in a pair of
trousers couldn’t hope
to get far without being arrested, but
Dinard in the summer was not one of them;
and presumably the
man had parked his
luggage somewhere before he set out on his
pig-headed expedition. The Saint only hoped that their encounter that
afternoon had taught Murdoch the necessity of making his approach with a
discreet eye for possible watchers, but he was
inclined to doubt it.

He was awake at eight, a few moments before
Grace brought
in his orange juice; and by half-past nine he was
dressed and breakfasted.

“Have everything ready to sail as soon
as I get back,” he
called into the galley, where Orace was
washing up.

He went out on deck, and as he stepped up
into the brighten
ing
sunlight, he glanced automatically up-river to where the
Falkenberg
lay at anchor. Something about the ship caught his eye; and after
leisurely picking up a towel, as if that was all he
had come out for, he went back to the saloon and
searched for
his field-glasses.

His eyesight had served Mm well. There was a man sitting in
the shade aft of the deckhouse with a pair of
binoculars on his knee, and even while the Saint studied him he raised the
glasses
and seemed to be peering
straight through the porthole from
which
the Saint was looking out.

Simon drew back, with the chips of sapphire hardening in his
blue eyes. His first thought was that he was now
out of the
doubtful class into the
privileged circle of known menaces; but
then he realised that this intense interest in his morning activi
ties need only be a part of Vogel’s already
proven thoroughness. But he also realised that if he set off hurriedly for the
shore, the
suspicion which already
centred on him would rise to boiling
point;
and if somebody set off quickly to cover him at the Hotel
de la Mer—that would be that.

The Saint lighted a cigarette and moved
restlessly round the
cabin. Something had to be done. Somehow he
had to reach Loretta
, tell her—what? That she was suspected? She
knew that.
That Murdoch was suspected ? She might guess it. That
she must not take that voyage with Vogel? She would go anyway. Simon’s
fist struck
impatiently into the palm of his hand. It didn’t matter. He had to reach
her—even if the entire crew of the
Falkenberg
was lined
up on the deck with binoculars trained on the
Corsair,
arid even if the Hotel de la Mer was
surrounded by a
cordon of their watchers.

With a sudden decision he opened the door of
the galley again.

“Never mind the washing up,
Orace,” he said. “We’re sailing
now.”

Orace came out without comment, wiping his
hands on the legs
of
his trousers. While Simon started the auxiliary, he swung out
the davits and brought the dinghy up under the
falls. While the
engine was warming
up, the Saint helped him to haul up the
dinghy, and then sent him forward at once to get up the anchor.

It was a quarter to ten when the nose of the
Corsair
turned
down the estuary and began to push up the ripples towards
the
sea.

“Let it hang,” said the Saint, when Orace was still
working at
the anchor. “We’ll want it
again in a minute.”

Orace looked at him for a moment, and then
straightened up
and came aft, lowering himself into the cockpit.

“Get ready to drop the dinghy again, and
swing her out as
soon as we’re round the point,” said the Saint.

He turned and and gazed back at the
Falkenberg.
There was a
midget figure standing up on her deck which might have
been
Kurt Vogel.
Simon waved his arm, and the speck waved back.
Then the Saint turned to the chart and concentrated on the
tricky shoals on either side of the main channel.
He brought the
Corsair
round the Pointe du Moulinet as close as he
dared, and
yelled to Orace to get up
into the bows. Then he brought the
control
lever back into reverse.

“Let go!”

The anchor splashed down into the shallow
water and Simon
left
the wheel and sprang to the dinghy. With Orace helping him,
it was lowered in a moment; and Simon dropped
between the
thwarts and reached for the oars. It was quicker than
fitting the
outboard, for a short pull like
that; but the boat seemed to
weigh a
ton, and his shirt was already hot with sweat when the
last fierce heave on the oars sent the dinghy
grinding up on to
the sands of the
Plage de l’Ecluse. He jumped out and dragged it
well up on the beach, and made his way quickly between the
early
sunbathers to the Digue.

It was five-past ten when he climbed up on to
the pavement,
and
there was an uneasy emptiness moving vaguely about under
his lower ribs. That watcher on the
Falkenberg
had
made a
difference of half an
hour—half an hour in which, otherwise, he
could have done all that he wanted to do. He realised that he
had been incredibly careless not to have allowed
for any obsta
cles such as the one
which had delayed him, and it dawned on
him that he only had Vogel’s word for it that the
Falkenberg
would not sail before eleven. Loretta might be
already on board, and they might be already preparing to follow him out to sea.

And then, straight in front of him, as if it
had materialised out
of empty air, he saw the square dour visage of Steve Murdoch
coming towards him. It brought him back to the
urgent practical
present with a jar
that checked him in his stride; but Murdoch
came on without a pause.

“Not recognising me to-day, Saint?”
Murdoch’s grim harsh
voice grated into his ears with a smug
challenge that flexed the
muscles of the Saint’s wrists.

Simon looked him up and down. He was wearing
a suit of his
own clothes again, and every inch of him up to his
glittering eyes
told the story of what he had done in the intervening
hours.

“I’ve only got one thing to say to you,” said the Saint
coldly.
“And I can’t say it here.”

“That cramps your style, I bet. You talk pretty well with
your
fists, Saint. But you can’t have it
your own way all the time.
Where you
goin’ now?”

“That’s my business.”

The other nodded—a curt jerk of his head that
left his jaw set
in a more unbroken square than it had been before.

“I bet it is. But it’s my business too.
Thought you’d get up
early and pick up cards with Loretta again,
did you? Well, you weren’t early enough.”

“No?”

“No. Take your eyes off my chin,
Saint—it’s ready for you this morning. Look at that gendarme down the road
instead. Gazing in a shop window an’ not takin’ any notice of us now, ain’t he?
You’re all right. But this ain’t your boat now. You try to get tough with me
again and he’ll look at us quick enough.
And when he comes up
here, I’ll have something to tell him
about what you tried to do last
night.” Murdoch’s own fists were
quietly clubbed at his sides; and he
was on his toes. There was
vengeful unfriendliness and the bitter memory of another occa
sion gleaming out of his small unblinking eyes.
“You turn round
and go back the
way you came from, Saint, unless you want to
sit in a French precinct house and wait while they fetch over your
dossier from Scotland Yard. And don’t go near St Peter
Port unless you want the same thing again. I said
I was goin’ to put you out, and you’re out!”

Simon took a pack of cigarettes out of his
pocket and tapped a
smoke thoughtfully on the edge of the packet. He put the
ciga
rette in his mouth and slipped the package into the side pocket of
his coat.

“It’s too bad you feel that way about
it, Steve,” he said
slowly, and his right hand jolted forward from
his side like a
piston.

For the second time in that young day Steve
Murdoch felt the
impact of the Saint’s fist. And once again he never saw
it com
ing. The blow only travelled about six inches, and it covered the
distance
so swiftly that even a man who had been watching them
closely might not have seen it. It leapt
straight from the edge of
the Saint’s side
pocket to Murdoch’s solar plexus, with the power
of a pile-driver behind
it; and Murdoch’s face went grey as he
doubled
up.

Simon caught him and lowered him tenderly to
the ground. By
the time the first interested spectator had formed the
nucleus of
a crowd, the Saint was fanning Murdoch with his
handkerchief and feeling for his heart with every symptom of alarm. By the
time the
shop-gazing gendarme had joined the gathering, it was
generally agreed
among the spectators that the Breton sun must
have been at least a
contributory cause to Murdoch’s sudden
collapse. Somebody
spoke about an ambulance. Somebody else
thought he could improve on the system of
first aid which was
being practised; and
Simon handed the case over to him and
faded
quietly through the swelling congregation.

He moved on towards the Hotel de la Mer, as
quickly as he
dared, but with anxiety tearing ahead of his footsteps.
That
chance encounter—if it was a chance encounter—had wasted
more of
his precious and dwindling margin of time.

And then he stopped again, and plunged down
in a shop doorway to tie up an imaginary shoelace. He had seen Kurt Vogel,
smooth and
immaculate in a white suit and a white-topped cap.
turning into the
entrance of the hotel. He was too late. And
something inside him
turned cold as he realised that there was
nothing more that he
could do about it—nothing that would not
risk making Loretta’s
danger ten times greater by linking her
with him. Murdoch had won after all, and
Loretta would have to
make the voyage
unwarned.