Saint Overboard (20 page)

V.
       
HOW
 
SIMON
 
TEMPLAR WALKED IN A GARDEN,

AND
 
ORACE ALSO
 
HAD
 
HIS
 
TURN

IT was half-past four when the
Corsair
came skimming up over
the blue
swell past St Martin’s Point, with her sails trimmed to
coax the
last ounce of power from the mild south-westerly breeze
which had
held steadily on her quarter all the way from the Pierres des Portes. In those
five and a half hours since they
had cleared the rocks and shoals that fringe
the C
ô
tes du N
ô
rd,
Simon Templar had never taken his hands from the wheel:
his
eyes had been reduced to emotionless chips of blue stone, mechanical
units of co-operation with his
hands, ceaselessly watch-
ing the curves of
the canvas overhead for the first hint of a flutter
that would signify a single breath of the wind
going by unus
ed. During those hours
he almost surrendered his loyalty to
the
artistic grace of sail, and yearned for the drumming engines of
the
Falkenberg,
which had overtaken them in the first hour
and left a white trail of foam hissing away to the
horizon.

He hardly knew himself what was in his mind.
With all the
gallant thrust of the
Corsair
through the green
seas under him,
he was as helpless as if he had been marooned on an
iceberg at
the South Pole. Everything that might be meant to happen
on
the
Falkenberg
could still happen while he was out of reach.
Vogel
could say “She decided not to come,” or “There was an
accident”; with all the crew of the
Falkenberg
partnering in the
racket, it would be almost impossible to prove.

The Saint stared at the slowly rising
coastline with a darken
ing of satirical self-mockery in his gaze.
Did he want proof?
There had been many days when he was his own judge and
jury:
it was quicker, and it left fewer loopholes.
And yet
…

It wasn’t quite so simple as that. Revenge
was an unthinkable
triviality, a remote shadow of tragedy that cut grim lines
be
tween his lowered brows. More than any revenge he wanted to
see Loretta
again, to see the untiring mischief in her grey eyes
and hear the smiling huskiness of her
voice, to feel the touch of
her hand again,
or
…
More than any boodle that might lie at
the end of the adventure… . Why? He didn’t know. Some
thing had happened to him in the few hours that he
had known
her—something, he realised
with a twist of devastating candour,
that
had happened more than once in his life before, and might
well happen again.

The breeze slackened as they drew up the
channel, and he
started the auxiliary. As they chugged past the sombre
ugliness
of Castle Cornet and rounded the point of the Castle Break
water, he
had a glimpse of the white aero-foil lines of the
Falkenberg
already
lying snug within the harbour, and felt an odd
indefinable pressure
inside his chest.

He sat side-saddle on the edge of the cockpit
and lighted a
cigarette while Orace finished the work of tidying up.
The
Falkenberg
had probably been at her berth for
three hours by then,
and apart from a jerseyed seaman who was
lethargically washing
off the remains of salt spray from her
varnish, and who had
scarcely looked at the
Corsair
as she came past, there was
noth
ing to be observed on board. Most
likely Vogel and his party
were on
shore; but Loretta
…
He shrugged, with the steel brightening in his
eyes. Presently he would know—many an
swers.

“Wot nex’, sir?”

Orace stood beside him, as stoical as a
whiskered gargoyle;
and the Saint moved his cigarette in the faintest
gesture of direc
tion.

“You watch that boat. Don’t let them
know you’re doing it
—you’d better go below and fix yourself
behind one of the port
holes most of the time. But watch it. If a
girl comes off it, or a
box or a bundle or anything that might
contain a girl, you get on your way and stick to her like a fly-paper.
Otherwise—you stay
watching that ship till I come back or your moustache
grows
down to your knees. Got it?”

“Yessir.”

Orace went below, unquestioningly, to his
vigil; and the Saint
stood up and settled his belt. There was action and contact,
still,
to take his mind away from things on
which it did not wish to
dwell: he
felt a kind of tense elation at the knowledge that the
fight was on, one way or the other.

He went ashore with a spring in his step, and
a gun in his
pocket that helped him to a smile of dry self-derision
when he
remembered it. It seemed a ridiculously melodramatic precaution
in that
peaceful port, with the blue afternoon sky arching over
the
unrippled harbour and the gay colour-splashes of idle holi
day-makers
promenading on the breakwaters; but he couldn’t laugh himself out of it. Before
the end of the adventure he was
to know how wise and necessary it was.

The cross-Channel steamer from Weymouth was standing out on the
continuation of her voyage to Jersey, and Simon threaded his way to the New
Jetty through the stream of disembarked passengers and spectators, and
eventually secured a porter. In
quiries were
made. Yes, the steamer had landed some cargo consigned to him. Simon gazed
with grim satisfaction at the two new
and innocent-looking trunks
labelled with his name, and spread a
ten-shilling
note into the porter’s hand.

“Will you get
 
‘em to that boat over there?
 
The
 
Corsair.

There’s a man on board to take delivery. And don’t mistake him
for a walrus and try to harpoon him, because he’s
touchy about
that.”

He went back down the pier to the esplanade,
fitting a fresh
cigarette into his mouth as he went. Those two trunks
which he
had collected and sent on equipped him for any submarine
emer
gencies, and the promptness of their arrival attested the fact
that Roger Conway’s long
retirement in the bonds of respectable
if not
holy matrimony had dulled none of his old gifts as the
perfect lieutenant. There remained the matter of
Peter Quentin’s
contribution; and the
Saint moved on to the post office and
found
it already waiting for him, in the shape of a telegram:

Latitude fortynine fortyone fiftysix north
longitude two
twentythree fortyfive west Roger and I will
be at the Royal
before you are others will catch first
airplane when you give
the word also Hoppy wants to know why he was
left out if you’ve already made a corner in the heroine we are going
home I have
decided to charge you with the cost of this
wire so have much
pleasure in signing myself comma at your
expense comma yours
till Hitler dedicates a synagogue dash

PETER

Simon tucked the sheet away in his pocket,
and the first
wholly spontaneous smile of that day relaxed the iron set
of his
mouth as he ranged out into the street again. If he had been
asked to
offer odds on the tone of that telegram before he
opened it, he would
have laid a thousand to one to any takers
that he could have
made an accurate forecast; and at that mo
ment he was very
glad to have been right. It was a tribute to the
spell which still
bound the crew of hell-bent buccaneers which he
had once commanded, a token of the spirit
of their old brother
hood which no passage
of time or outside associations could alter, which sent him on his way to the
Royal Hotel with a
quickened stride
and a sudden feeling of invincible faith.

He found them in the bar, entertaining a
couple of damsels in
beach pyjamas who could be seen at a glance
to be endowed with
that certain something which proved that Peter and Roger
had
kept their speed and initiative unimpaired in more directions
than one.
Beyond the first casual inspection with which any new
comer would have been
greeted, they took no notice of him; but as he approached the counter, Roger
Conway decided that an
other round of drinks was due, and came up
beside him.

“Four sherries, please,” he said; and as the barmaid set
up the
glasses, he added: “And by the
way—before I forget—would you
get a
bottle of Scotch and a siphon sent up to my room some
time this evening? Number fifteen.”

Simon took a pull at the beer with which he had been served,
and compared his watch with the clock.

“Is that clock right?” he inquired,
and the barmaid looked up at it.

“Yes, I think so.”

The Saint nodded, pretending to make an
adjustment on his
wrist.

“That’s good—I’ve got an appointment at
seven, and I
thought I had half an hour to wait.”

He opened a packet of cigarettes while Roger teetered back to
his party with the four glasses of sherry adroitly
distributed
between his fingers, and
soon afterwards asked for a lavatory. He
went out, leaving a freshly ordered glass of beer untouched on
the bar; and the man who had taken the place next
to him, who
had been specifically
warned against the dangers of letting his
attentions become too conspicuous stood and gazed at that reassuring
item of still life for a considerable time before being trou
bled with the first doubts of bis own wisdom. And
long before
those qualms became really pressing, the Saint was reclining
gracefully on Roger Conway’s bed, blowing
smoke-rings at the ceiling and waiting for the others to keep the appointment.

They came punctually at seven; and, having
closed and locked
the door, eyed him solemnly.

“He looks debauched,” Peter said
at length.

“And sickly,” agreed Roger.

“Too many hectic moments with the heroine,” theorised
Peter.

“Do you think,” suggested Roger, “that if we both
jumped on
him together——
”

They jumped, and there was a brief but
hilarious tussle. At
the end of which:

“Do your nurses know you’re out?”
Simon demanded sternly. “And who told you two clowns to start chasing
innocent girls to
their doom before you’ve hardly unpacked? Presently I
shall
want you in a hurry for some real work, and you’ll be prancing
over the
hillsides, picking daisies and sticking primroses in your
hair——
Did you speak, Peter?”

“How the hell could he speak,”
gasped Roger, “while you’re
grinding your knee into his neck? You big
bully … Ouch!
That’s
my arm you’re breaking.”

The Saint picked himself off their panting
bodies, sorted the
smouldering remains of his cigarette out of the
bedclothes, and
lighted another.

“You’re out of training,” he
remarked. “I can see that I’ve
only just thought of you in time to
save you from being put in
a vase.”

“I don’t know whether we want to be
thought of,” said Peter, massaging his torso tenderly. “You always
get so physical when
you’re thinking.”

“It only means he’s got into another mess and wants us to get
him out of it,” said Roger. “Or have you found a million pounds
and are you looking for some deserving
orphans?”

Simon grinned at them affectionately, and
threw himself into a
chair.

“Well, as a matter of fact there may be
several millions in it,”
he answered.

There was a quiet dominance in his voice
which carried them
back to other times in their lives when the fun and
horseplay
had been just as easily set aside for the other things
that had bound them together; and they sorted themselves out just as
soberly
and sat down, Roger on the bed and Peter in the other
chair.