Saint Overboard (3 page)

“No,
no!
I’m not going to let
you row me back.”

“Then I take it you’ve made up your mind
to stay. That’s
what I was talking about. And while we’re on the subject,
don’t
you know
that it’s immoral for anyone to have legs like yours?
They put the wickedest ideas——
”

“Please.” There was a beginning of
reluctant anger creeping
into her gaze. “It’s been nice of you to
help me. Don’t spoil
it now.”

Simon Templar inhaled deeply from his
cigarette and said
nothing.

Her grey eyes darkened with a scrap of half-incredulous fear
that clashed absurdly with the careless good humour
of his un
varying smile. Then, as if
she was putting the ridiculous idea
away,
she came forward resolutely and tried to pass him.

One of his long arms reached out effortlessly
and closed the
remainder of the passage. She fought against it, half
playfully at
first,
and then with all her lithe young strength; but it was as
immovable as a bar of iron. In a sudden flash of
panic savagery
she beat at his chest
and shoulders with her fists, but it was like hitting pads of toughened rubber.
He laughed softly, without
resentment;
and she became aware that his other hand had been
carefully exploring the form of the curious little
pouch on her
belt while she fought.
She fell back quickly, staring at him.

“I thought it clunked,” he
murmured, “when I pulled you in.
And yet you don’t look as if you had
a cast-iron vanity.”

Her breath was coming faster now, and he knew
that it was
not only from her exertions.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Will you let me
out?”

“No.”

He liked her spirit. The trace of mischief in
her eyes was gone
altogether by this time, frozen into a sparkle of
dangerous exasperation.

“Have you thought,” she asked slowly, “what would
happen if
I screamed?”

“I suppose it couldn’t help being pretty
musical, as screams
go. Your ordinary speaking voice——
”

“I could rouse half the harbour.”

He nodded, without shifting his strategic position on the com
panion.
“It
looks like being a noisy night.”

“If you don’t let me go at once——
”

Simon Templar extended his legs luxuriously
and blew smoke-
rings.

“Sister,” he said, “have you
stopped to consider what would
happen if I screamed?”

“What?”

“You see, it isn’t as if this was your
boat. If I’d swum out and
invaded you at this hour, and you’d been
wearing pyjamas in
stead of me, and more or less the same argument had
taken place —well, I guess you could have screamed most effectively. But
there’s a difference. This tub is mine, and you’re trespassing.
Presumably
you couldn’t put up a story that I kidnapped you,
because then people
would ask why you hadn’t screamed before.
Besides, you’re
wearing a wet bathing costume, which would
want a whole lot more
explaining. No—the only thing I can see
to it is that you invited yourself. And
the time is now moving on
to half-past three
in the morning. Taking it by and large, I can’t
help feeling that you’d be answering a lot of embarrassing ques
tions about why you took such a long time to get
frightened.
Besides which, this is a
French port, with French authorities, and
Frenchmen have such a wonderful grip on the facts of life. I am
a very retiring sort of bloke,” said the
Saint shyly, “and I don’t
mind
telling you that my modesty has been outraged. If you
make another attempt to assault me——
”

The grey eyes cut him with ice-cold lights.

“I didn’t think you were that sort of
man.”

“Oh, but I am. Now why don’t you look at
the scenery, dar
ling? We could have quite a chat before you go home. I
want to know what this gay game is that starts shooting in the night and
sends you
swimming through the fog. I want to know what
makes you and
Hooknose string along with the same crazy story,
and what sort of a
bet it is that makes you go bathing with a
gun on your
belt!”

The last fragment of his speech was not quite
accurate. Even
as he uttered it, her hand flashed to the waterproof
pouch; and
he looked down the muzzle of a tiny automatic that was
still
large enough to be an argument at point-blank range.

“You’re quite right about the gun,”
she said, with a new glacial evenness in her voice. “And, as you say,
Frenchmen have such a
wonderful grip on the facts of life—haven’t
they? Their juries
are pretty easy on a woman who shoots her lover… .
Don’t
you think you’d better change your mind?”

Simon considered this. She saw the chiselling
of his handsome
reckless face, the bantering lines of devil-may-care
mouth and
eyebrow, settle for a moment into quiet calculation, and
then go
back to the same irresponsible amusement.

“Anyway,” he remarked, “she
does give the fellow his fun
first. Stay the night and shoot me after
breakfast, and I won’t
complain.”

The magnificent unfaltering audacity of him
left her for a
moment
without words. For the first time her eyes wavered, and
he read in them something that might have been an unwilling
regret.

“For the last time——
”

“Will I let you go.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” said the Saint gently.
“From the brief gander I had
at Hooknose just a little while back,
he looked like a man’s job
to me. I know you’ve got what it takes, but
these games can get
pretty tough. Tough things are my job, and I hate being
jock
eyed out of a good fight.”

“I’m going now,” she said. “I
mean it. Don’t think I’m afraid to shoot, because I’m ready for accidents. I’ll
count five while
you get out of the way.”

The Saint looked at her for a second, and
shook his head.

“Oh, well,” he said
philosophically. “If you feel that way
about it …”

He stood up unhurriedly. And as he stood up,
one hand slid up the bulkhead with him and touched the light switch.

For the first instant the darkness in the
cabin was absolute. In
the sudden contrasting blackness that
drenched down across her
vision she lost even a silhouette of him in
the opening above the
companion. And then his fingers closed and
tightened on her wrist like a steel tourniquet. She struggled and tripped
against
the couch, falling on the soft cushions; but he went down with
her, and
her hand went numb so that she had no power even to
pull the trigger
while he took the automatic away. She heard his
quiet chuckle.

“I’m sorry, kid.”

As they had fallen, his lips were an inch
from hers. He bent
his head, so that his mouth touched them. She fought him
wildly, but the kiss clung against all her fighting; and then suddenly she
was
passive and bewildering in his arms.

Simon got up and switched on the lights.

3

“I’m Loretta Page,” she said.

She sat wrapped in his great woolly bathrobe,
sipping hot
coffee and smoking one of his cigarettes. The Saint sat
opposite her, with his feet up and his head tilted back on the bulkhead.

“It’s a nice name,” he said.

“And you?”

“I have dozens. Simon Templar is the only
real one. Some
people call me the Saint.”

She looked at him with a new intentness.

“Why?”

“Because I’m so very, very
respectable.”

“I’ve read about you,” she said.
“But I never heard anything
like that before.”

He smiled.

“Perhaps it isn’t true.”

“There was a Professor Vargan who—got
killed, wasn’t there?
And an attempt to blow up a royal train and
start a war which
went wrong.”

“I believe so.”

“I’ve heard of a revolution in South
America that you had
something to do with, and a plot to hijack a
bullion shipment
where
you got in the way. Then they were looking for you in
Germany about some crown jewels. I’ve heard that there’s a
Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard who’d sell his
soul to pin some
thing on you; and
another one in New York who thinks you’re
one of the greatest things that ever happened. I’ve heard that there
isn’t a racket running that doesn’t get cold shivers at the
name of a certain freelance vigilante——
”

“Loretta,” said the Saint, “you
know far too much about this
life of sin.”

“I ought to,” she said. “I’m a
detective.”

The immobility of his face might have been
carved in bronze, when the light-hearted mockery left it and only the buccaneer
remained. In those
subtle transformations she saw half his spell,
and the power that must have made him what he was. There was
a dance of alertness like the twinkle of a rapier
blade, a veneer
of flippant
nonchalance cored with tempered steel, a fine humour
of unscrupulousness
that demoralised all conventional criterions.

And then his cigarette was back in his mouth
and he was smil
ing
at her through a haze of smoke, with blue eyes awake again
and both wrists held out together.

“When arrested,” he said, “the
notorious scoundrel said: ‘I never had a chance. My parents neglected me, and I
was led
astray by bad companions. The ruin of my life is due to Night
Starvation.’ Where are the
bracelets?”

She might not have heard him. She sprang up,
stretching her
arms so that the sleeves of the bathrobe fell back from
her
wrists.

“Oh, no!
…
It’s too
perfect. I’m glad!” The mischief was in her eyes again, matching his own,
almost eclipsing it for that
moment of vibrant energy. “You’re
telling the truth, I know.
The Saint could only have been you. You would go out and take on
any racket with your hands. Why didn’t you tell me at once?”

“You didn’t ask me,” answered the
Saint logically. “Besides,
modesty is my long suit. The threat of
publicity makes me run
for miles. When I blush——
”

“Listen!”

She wheeled and dropped on the berth beside
him; and he
listened.

“You’ve stolen, haven’t you?”

“With discretion.”

“You’ve tackled some big things.”

“I pick up elephants and wring their
necks.”

“Have you ever thought of stealing
millions?”

“Often,” said the Saint, leaning
back. “I thought of burgling
the Bank of England once, but I
decided it was too easy.”

She stirred impatiently.

“Saint,” she said earnestly,
“there’s one racket working to-day
that steals millions.
It’s been running for years; and it’s still
running. And I don’t mean any of the old
things like bootlegging
or kidnapping. It’s
a racket that goes over most of the world,
wherever there’s anything for it to work on; and it hits where
there’s
no protection. I couldn’t begin to guess how much money
has been taken out of it since it began.”

“I know, darling,” said the Saint
sympathetically. “But you
can’t do anything about it. It’s quite legal.
It’s called income
tax.”

“Have you heard of the
Lutine?”

He studied her with his gaze still tantalising
and unsatisfied, but the eagerness of her held him more than what she was ac
tually saying. He was
discovering something between her soft-
lipped
beauty and her fire of anger; something that belonged
equally to the lurking laughter of her eyes and
the sober throb of
persuasion in her
voice, and yet was neither of these things;
something that made all contradictions possible.