Saint Errant (6 page)

“For another thing,” Pat put in, “we were invited here.”

The Admiral removed his uneasy eyes from the Saint’s blue stare. His face broke into a mass of uplifting wrinkles.

“Invited?” he said genially. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“You didn’t ask,” the Saint said. “Mrs Verity asked us to join her.”

This name impressed the admiral. His eyes widened.

“Mrs Verity? Then come aboard!”

“We intended to,” the Saint said. “Ready, Pat?”

“Aye, aye, sir. Boarding party, forward.”

The Admiral fawned on the Saint more than befitted his dignified dress.

“I hope you’ll pardon me, sir, for- Oh!” Somehow, his hand was convenient for the Saint to reach. His white glove closed around what the Saint put there. “Thank you, sir!”

Simon took the girl’s arm and steered her along a short companionway, brass-railed on either side, to a doorway which bore a small brass plate: LOUNGE.

The big room fanned out to impressive dimensions in three directions; but it was stocked with enough tables and patrons to avert any impression of bleakness.

On the tables were numbers in patterns, pertaining to dice, roulette, and faro. On the feminine patrons were the fewest glittering scraps permitted by current conventions. Bare backs and white ties made a milling chiaroscuro backgrounded by hushed murmurs and the plastic chink of chips.

The cash customers, in fact, were the only discrepancy in an otherwise desperately consistent decor. The roulette wheels were set in a frame intended to be a ship’s wheel. The crap table was a lifeboat, its deck the playing surface. Everywhere was the motif of the sea, polished and brazen. Waiters were dressed as stewards, with “Quarterdeck” embroidered on their gleaming jackets. The cigarette girl was dressed in white shorts, a sailor’s cap, and two narrow straps that crossed over her pneumatic bosom. The croupiers wore three-cornered hats emblazoned, aptly, with the Jolly Roger.

Patricia’s blue eyes took in the big room one customer at a time.

“I don’t see Lida,” she said presently. “She said she’d be waiting.”

“Probably she’s just late,” Simon answered. “It has happened to women before.” He ignored the daggered glance which his lady launched at him. “Shall we mingle with the elite, and lose a fortune in the well-bred fashion of wealthy suckers?”

“The next time I have to wait for you-” Patricia began; and then Simon stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“Don’t look now,” he said in a low voice, “but something tall, dark, and rancid is coming up on our starboard quarter.”

The newcomer wasn’t really tall. He stood several inches be low the Saint’s seventy-four, but he gave the impression of height by his manner: suave, completely poised.

“Good evening,” he said, his dark eyes flickering up and down Pat in appreciation. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Esteban. Welcome to the Quarterdeck.”

“How do you do, Esteban?” said the Saint. “Quite well, I guess, from the looks of things.”

Esteban smiled, and made a comprehensive gesture at the crowd.

“Always there are many people at the Quarterdeck Club. We conduct honest games. But what will you play? Roulette, faro, blackjack?”

“None but the brave chemin de fer,” murmured the Saint. “It’s nice of you to give us a choice of weapons. But as a matter of fact, we’re looking for a friend. A Mrs Verity.”

The dark eyes went flat.

“Ah,” Esteban said without expression. “Mrs Verity.”

Pat said: “You know her?”

“Who does not, seńorita? Of course.”

“She’s here, isn’t she?”

“I am afraid you are to be disappointed. I think Mrs Verity has gone.”

“You think?” Simon repeated pointedly. “Did you see her go?”

Esteban shrugged, his face still blank and brown.

“There are so many. It is hard to say.”

Simon’s stare could have been fashioned in bronze. “You wouldn’t be stalling, would you, Esteban?” he asked with gentle deadliness.

“She told us she’d wait for us,” Pat said. “When did she leave?”

Esteban smiled suddenly, the accommodating host.

“I try to find out for you. Mrs Verity like to play the big, big stake, take the big risk. Maybe she hit too many times wrong at the blackjack; perhaps she went for more money… . Please, will you have a drink on the promenade deck while I make inquiries? Out here…”

He ushered them towards french doors that opened on one side of the gaming room, and bowed himself away. The patio was dappled with moonlight and the shadows of palm fronds, but it seemed to have no appeal for the other customers. Simon lighted a cigarette, while Patricia walked to a rail trimmed with unnecessary life belts, and gazed out at the vista of landscaped ground sloping gently to the moongladed sea.

She caught her breath at the scene, and then shivered slightly.

“It’s so beautiful it hurts,” she said. “And yet it seems every time we find a romantic spot like this, there’s something … I don’t know, but this place gives me the creeps.”

“Inside,” the Saint said, “the creeps are giving to Esteban. I don’t know if you’d call that a fair exchange.”

He looked up as a waiter arrived.

“Esteban’s compliments, sir. Would you and the lady care for anything?”

“Very handsome of Esteban,” the Saint said. “Well have double Manhattans made with a good bourbon, and-“

He broke off as a flat splat! broke the silence off in the direction of the sea, seeming to come from a clump of magnolia trees.

“What was that?” Patricia breathed.

“Probably a backfire, miss,” the waiter said. “Somebody having trouble with a car.”

“On account of driving it into the sea?” Simon said, and swung a leg over the rail.

“Could a motorboat do that?” Pat asked.

“No, darling. Come on.”

“About your drinks, sir-“

“Don’t put any cherries in them,” said the Saint.

He sped down a winding path to the deeply shadowed little grove of trees, white with blossoms that were like wax in the moonlight; and Patricia was only a stride behind him.

It took no searching at all to find the body. It lay sprawled under a tree, half in shadow, staring upward with glazed eyes that would never see again. It was-had been-Lida Verity. She hold an automatic pistol in one hand, and under the swell of her left breast was a small dark hole and a spreading stain.

The Saint made a brief examination, and knew while he did it that he was only deferring to a conventional routine. There was no doubt now that Linda Verity had had reason to call him, and the line of his mouth was soured by the recollection of his earlier flippancy.

He knew that Patricia was only obeying the same inescapable conventions when she said: “Simon-is she-“

He nodded.

“Now she isn’t scared any more.”

Lida Verity had lived-gaily, indifferently, passionately, thoughtfully, frantically. Her life had echoed with the tinkle of champagne glasses, Mendelssohn’s solemnity, the purr of sleek motors, the chatter of roulette frets, before the final sound of a gun in the night had changed the tense of the declarative sentence “I am.”

The Saint stood quietly summarizing the available data: the body, the wound, the gun, the time, the place. And as he stood, with Patricia wordless beside him, a whisper of footsteps announced the coming of Esteban.

Simon’s eyes hardened as they moved up the proprietor of that palace of chance in which only the guests took the chance.

“Welcome to the wake, comrade,” he said coldly.

Esteban looked over the situation. His expression was impassive, yet his dark eyes were sharp as he added the factors and came up with an answer.

“The waiter told me there was some trouble,” he said, exactly like one of his headwaiters dealing with some trivial com plaint. “You found her-like this?”

“We did.”

“Is she-“

“You’ve lost your place in the script,” Simon said patiently. “We’ve already read that line.”

“I am sorry,” Esteban said bloodlessly. “She was a lovely lady.”

“Somebody didn’t share your opinion,” the Saint said.

The words hung in the quiet night, as if they were three-dimensional, to be touched, and turned, and examined. The pause lengthened while the Saint lighted a cigarette without taking his eyes off Esteban. His meaning seemed to materialize slowly during the silence.

“But-” Esteban gestured at the body, face upward, black hair glinting in the wash of moonlight. “The gun is in her hand. Surely you cannot mean-“

“She was murdered.”

“But that is impossible!” Esteban protested. “It is so obvious, Mr Templar. It is suicide.”

“Lida wouldn’t have killed herself!” Patricia said hotly. “She was so-so alive. She wouldn’t, I tell you!”

“Madame,” Esteban said sadly, “you do not know. She lose much money tonight at the gaming table. Perhaps more than she should.”

“How much?” Simon asked bluntly.

Esteban shrugged.

“We do not keep accounts. She buy many chips for the roulette table.”

“A few minutes ago you thought ‘perhaps’ she had been losing at blackjack. Now you seem to know different.”

Esteban’s shoulders rose another inch.

“You ask me to find out. I accommodate you. And now I go call the sheriff. I must ask you not to disturb anything.”

“I think,” the Saint said softly, “that before the evening is out we shall disturb many things, my friend.”

Esteban went back up the path, and the Saint took Patricia’s arm and led her off at a tangent to pass around the out side of the building. He had several more questions to ask, and he thought he knew where to start asking them.

In front of the club, the Admiral was admitting new customers on a froth of salt-water argot. He greeted the Saint and Pat with his largest smile.

“Ahoy, mates! Enjoying the trip?”

“That is hardly an accurate description of our emotions at the moment,” Simon said. “We’re after a little information about an incident that occurred a few moments ago.”

“I keep an accurate log, sir. Fire away.”

“Did you see Mrs Verity come out of the club?”

“Aye, that I did, not more than fifteen minutes ago. Fact is, I’d just sounded four bells when she went ashore.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?” Simon asked sharply. “You knew we were waiting for her.”

“Why, shiver my timbers, sir, I supposed she’d already seen you. It’s hardly my place to stop the passengers.”

“Hmm. I see.”

“Did you miss her, sir?”

“We did, but somebody else didn’t. They got her dead center.”

The Admiral blinked, and seemed to examine the remark for some time. A puzzled frown formed on his round face.

“Blow me down, sir, but your message isn’t clear.”

“She’s dead.”

The Admiral’s jaw dropped.

“No! Why, she was smiling pretty as pretty when she passed me, sir. Give me a dollar, too. If I’d known she was going to scuttle herself, I’d have made her heave to.”

Simon gave him a long speculative stare.

“That’s an interesting deduction, chum,” he murmured. “When did I say that she killed herself?”

The man blinked.

“Why, what else, sir? Surely nobody would harm a fine lady like Mrs Verity. Tell me, sir, what did happen?”

“She was shot.” The Saint pointed. “On the other side of the building, down towards the beach. Did you notice anyone wandering about outside?”

The Admiral thought, chin in gloved hand.

“No, sir. Only Mrs. Verity. She went off that way, and I sup posed she was going to her car.”

“But you didn’t see her drive out.”

“I didn’t notice, sir. There were other passengers arriving and leaving at the same time, and I was pretty busy.”

“But you noticed that no one else was wandering around.”

“That’s just my impression, sir. Of course, there’s the back way out to the promenade deck too.”

The Saint’s cigarette glowed brightly again to a measured draw.

“I see. Well, thanks …”

He took Patricia back into the club and located the bar. They sat on high stools and ordered bourbon. Around them continued the formless undertones of the joint, the clink of chips, the rattle of dice, the whir of wheels, the discreet drone of croupiers, the tinkle of ice and glass, a low-key background broken from time to time by the crash of a cocktail mixer or a burst of high excited laughter. For the other guests of the Quarterdeck Club, life went on unaware of the visit of Death; and if the employees had heard anything of it, their faces were trained to inscrutability.

“Do you think I’m nuts?” Simon asked presently. “Do you think it was suicide?”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” Patricia said thoughtfully. “I keep thinking of the dress she was wearing.”

Simon regarded her.

“That,” he said, with some asperity, “would naturally be the key to the whole thing. Was she correctly dressed for a murder?”

“You idiot,” said his lady, in exasperation. “That was a Mainbocher, an original! No pretty girl in her right mind would ruin an expensive dress like that by putting a bullet through it. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.”

“But we didn’t see it, darling,” Simon reminded her gently. “Not with our own eyes.”

He put down his glass and found the silent-moving Esteban at his elbow again.

“The sheriff is here, Mr Templar. You will please come this way?”

It could have been suspected, from his appearance, that Sheriff Newt Haskins had spent all his life in black alpaca. One must admit that his first article of apparel was probably three-cornered, but he wore the tropical-weight black as if he had never changed his clothes since he got any. He sat with his well-worn but carefully shined black shoes on Esteban’s polished maple desk and welcomed Simon with a mere flick of his keen gray eyes, and Patricia Holm with the rather sad faint smile of a man long past the age when the sight of such beauty would inspire any kind of activity.

“Can’t say I’m exactly pleased to see you again, Saint,” said Haskins. “How do, Miss Holm.” The amenities fulfilled, he turned to Esteban. “Well?”

Esteban shrugged.

“I tell you on the phone. You have seen the body?”

“Yep, I saw it. And I’m sure curious”-he looked at the Saint-“Mr Templar.”