Saint Overboard (33 page)

Vogel stood in front of him.

“Perhaps you were justified in calling
my former assistant an
amateur,” he remarked urbanely.
“Judged by your own exceptional standard, I fear he was not so efficient
as I used to think.”

“It’s hardly fair to compare anyone with
me,” murmured the
Saint modestly. “And so where do we go
after the compliments, Birdie?”

“You will go to your cabin below while I
consider what is to
be done with you.”

He left the Saint with a satirical bow, and
went on to give further instructions to the two replacement divers who were
waiting to have the straps
tightened on their corselets. Simon sat
on a
stool and loosened the cords and straps of his boots, while
his own breastplate was taken off. As he wriggled
out of the cum
bersome twill and
rubber suit he managed to get the instrument
in his sleeve into his
hand, and during the process of peeling off the heavy woollen sweater and pants
with which he had been
provided to protect
him against the cold of the water he man
aged to transfer it undetected into an inside pocket of his
clothes.
He was not dead yet—not by a million light-years… .

He fished out a crumpled packet of
cigarettes and lighted one
while he sought a sign from Loretta. The
smoke caressed the
hungry tissue of his lungs and sent its narcotic balm
stealing
gratefully
along his nerves; and over by the rail he saw her, slim
and quiet and desirable in her scanty white dress, so that it was
all he could do not to go over and take her
quietly into his arms. Even to see her and to desire her in helpless silence
was a part of
that supreme ecstasy of
the return to life, a delight of sensual
survival that had its place with the smell of the sea and the red
dening retreat of the sun, a crystallisation of
the voluptuous
rapture of living; but she only looked at him for a
moment, and
then turned away again. And
then he was seized by the arms and
hurried
down the companion.

Loretta heard him go, without looking round.
She heard the
feet of men on the deck, and the whine of the winch as
the second pair of divers were lowered. Presently she heard Arnheim’s
fat voice:

“How much longer will this take?”

And Vogel’s reply:

“I don’t know. Probably we shall have to
send Ivaloff down again, with someone else, when Orbel and Calvieri are tired.
I
expect it will be dusk before we can reach St Martin.”

“Are they expecting us?”

“I shall have to tell them. Will you attend to the
telephone?”

Loretta rested her elbows on the rail and her
chin on her
hands. Her face slid down between her hands till her
fingers
combed through her hair. She heard without hearing, gazed over
the sea
and saw nothing.

A touch on her shoulder roused her. She
shivered and straight
ened up, shaking the hair out of her eyes.
Her face was white
with a sort of lifeless calm.

Vogel stood beside her, with his hands in
his pockets.

“You are tired?” he said, in his
cold grating voice.

She shook her head.

“Oh, no. It’s just—rather dull, waiting,
isn’t it? I suppose
you’re interested in the work, but—I wish they’d be quick.
We’ve been here for hours… .”

She was talking aimlessly, for the sake of talking, for the sake
of any distraction that would reassure her of her
own courage.
His thin lips edged
outwards in what might have been a smile.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Yes.”

He touched her arm.

“Come.”

He led her into the wheelhouse and pressed
the bell for a stew
ard.
As the man entered silently, he said: “A highball?—I think
that would be your national prescription.”

She nodded, and he confirmed the order with a
glance. He held
out an inlaid cigarette-box and struck a match. She
inhaled the
smoke and stood up to him without recoiling, with her
head
lifted in that white lifeless pride. Her heart was beating in quick
leaden strokes, but her hand was steady.

Was it to be so soon? She wished it could be
over before she was weakened by her fear; and yet the instinct of escape prayed
for a respite, as if time could give cold logic a more crushing mastery of her
revulsion. What did it amount to after all, this
physical sacrifice,
this brief humiliation? Her mind, her self that
made her a living
personality, her soul or heart or whatever it
might be called,
could not be touched. It was beyond reach of all
the assailments of
the body for so long as she chose to keep it so.
“You don’t burn
your house down because a little mud has been
trodden into the
floor.” She, her essential self, could triumph
even in the defeat of
the flesh. What a lot of exaggerated nonsense was talked about that one crude
gesture… . And yet her heart throbbed with that leaden pulse before the
imminent real
ity.

“Excuse me a moment.”

Either he had observed nothing, or he was
insensible to her emotions. Without touching her, he turned away and moved over
to the bookcases
at the after end of the room.

She had her respite. The steward returned, and
put down a
tray on
the table beside her; he poured out a drink and went out again without
speaking. Loretta took up the glass and tasted it:
after she had sipped, it occurred to her that it might be drugged,
and she almost put it down. And then her lips
moved in the
ghost of a wry grimace.
What did it matter?

She looked to see what Vogel was doing. He
had taken a chair
over to the bookcase and sat down in front of it. The
upper
shelves had opened like a door, carrying the books with them, and in the
aperture behind was the compact instrument panel of
a medium-powered radio transmitting
station. Vogel had clipped
a pair of
earphones over his head, and his long white fingers were
flitting delicately over the dials—pausing,
adjusting, tuning his station with quick and practised touches. Somewhere in
the still
ness she could hear the
faint whirr of a generator… . And
then
she heard a clearer, sharper, intermittent tapping. Vogel had
found his correspondent, and he was sending a
message.

The staccato rhythm of the transmitter key
pattered into her
brain
and translated itself almost automatically into letters and
words. Like everyone else in Ingerbeck’s, she had
studied the Morse code as part of her general training: it was second nature
to interpret the rattle of dots and dashes, as
effortless a perform
ance as if she
had been listening to Vogel talking. She did it so
instinctively, while the active part of her mind
was too turbulent
with other thoughts
to pay attention, that it was a few seconds
before she coordinated what
she was hearing.

Dot-dot-dash-dot … dot-dot-dash …
dash-dot-dash-dot …
She searched through her memory: wasn’t that
the call signal of
the radio station at Cherbourg? Then he was giving his own
call signal. Then, with the swift efficiency of a professional
operator,
he was tapping out his message. A telegram.
“Baudier
,
Herqueville… . Arrive ce soir vers 9 heures demi.
Faites pr
é
parer phares
…”

The names meant nothing to her; the message
was unimpor
tant—obviously Vogel must have a headquarters somewhere,
which he
would head for at such a time as this. But the fact that was thundering through
her head was the radio itself. It wasn’t
merely in touch with
a similar station at his headquarters—it
could communicate
openly with Cherbourg, and therefore pre
sumably with any
other wireless telegraph receiving station that
it could reach. The
Niton station in the Isle of Wight, for in
stance, might easily
be within range; from which a telegram
might be relayed by
cable to St Peter Port … There seemed
to be no question
about the acceptance of the message. Ob
viously the
Falkenberg
was on the list of registered transmitters,
like any Atlantic
liner. She almost panicked for a moment in
trying to recall the
signal by which Vogel had identified himself,
but she had no need to
be afraid. The letters were branded on
her memory as if by
fire. Then, if she could only gain five minutes alone in the chair where Vogel
was sitting …

He had finished. He took off the headphones,
swung over the
main switch in the middle of the panel, turned out the
light
which illuminated the cupboard, and closed the bookshelf door.
It latched
with a faint click; and he came towards her again.

“I
didn’t know you were so well
equipped,” she said, and
hoped he would not notice her breathlessness.
.

He did not seem to notice anything—perhaps he
was so
confident that he did not care. He shrugged.

“It is useful sometimes,” he said.
“I have just sent a message
to announce that we shall soon be on our
way.”

“Where?”

“To Herqueville—below Cap de la Hague, at
the northern end
of the Anse de Vauville. It is not a fashionable place,
but I have
found it convenient for that reason. I have a chateau
there
where you can be as comfortable as you wish—after to-morrow. Or, if you
prefer, we can go for a cruise somewhere. I shall be
entirely at your
service.”

“Is that where you’ll put the Saint
ashore?”

He pressed up his under lip.

“Perhaps. But that will take time. You
understand—I shall
have to protect myself.”

“If he gives you his word——
”

“Of course, that word of a
gentleman!” Vogel smiled sarcastically. “But you must not let
yourself forget the other knightly
virtue: Chivalry … He might be
unwilling to leave you.”

Loretta had put down her glass. Her head ached
with the
tumultuous racing of her brain; and yet another part of
her
mind was numb
and unresponsive. She had reached a stage of
nervous
exhaustion where her thoughts seemed to be torn be
tween the turmoil of fever and the blank stupor of
collapse.
What did anything matter? She passed a hand over her forehead,
pushing back her hair, and said hazily: “But he mustn’t know.”

“Naturally. I should not attempt to
reconcile him to our bar
gain. But he will want to know why you are staying with us, and
we shall have to find a way to satisfy him.
Besides, I have too
much to risk…”

She half turned her head towards a window, so
that she need
not look at his smooth gloating face. Her head was
throbbing
with disjointed thoughts that she could not discipline.
Radio. Radio. Peter Quentin. Roger Conway. Orace. Steve Murdoch.
The
Corsair.
At St Peter Port. The Royal Hotel, If only a mes
sage could get through to them … And
Vogel was still talking,
with leisured
condescension.

“You understand that I cannot go about
with such a cargo as
we shall have on board. And there have been other similar car
goes. The banks are no use to me, and they take
time to dispose
of. Therefore I have
my own bank. Down at the bottom of the sea off Herqueville, under thirty feet
of water, where no one
could find it
who did not know the exact bearing, where no one
could reach it who did
not possess equipment which would be
beyond
the understanding of ordinary thieves, I have such a
treasure in gold and jewels as you have never
dreamed of. When
I have added to-day’s plunder to it there will be
nearly twelve millions; and I shall think that it may be time to take it away
somewhere where I can enjoy it. It is for you to
share—there is
nothing in the world
that you cannot have. To-night we shall
drop anchor above it, and the gold of the
Chalfont Castle
will be
lowered to the same place. I think
that perhaps that will be
enough.
You shall go with me wherever you like, and queens will
envy you. But I
must see mat Templar cannot jeopardise this treasure.”