The Saint Meets the Tiger (13 page)

He ended up with a flippant account of the sport chez Bittle after he had helped her get away.

“And there you have it,” he concluded. “Heard in cold blood, with the sun shining and all that, it sounds preposterous enough to make dear old Munchausen look like gospel. But you’ve seen a bit of it yourself, and perhaps that’ll make it easier for you to believe the rest. And what it boils down to is that the Tiger is in Baycombe, and so am I, and so are the pieces of eight; and the Tiger wants my head on a tin tray, and I want his ill-gotten gains, and we’re both pretty keen to hang on to our respective possessions. So, taken by and large, it looks like we shall come to blows and other Wild and Woolly Western expressions of mutual ill feeling. And the point is, Pat, and the reason why I felt you had a right to know all the odds—is that you’ve gone and cut in on the game. By last night, the Tiger had to face the risk that I might have talked to you, and the way you behaved generally won’t have eased his mind any. You might be a danger or you might not, but he can’t afford to take chances. To be on the safe side, he’s got to assume that you and I are as thick as thieves. So you see, old soul, you’re slap in the middle of this here jamboree, whether you like it or not. You’re cast for second juvenile lead in the bloodcurdling melodrama now playing, and your name’s up in red lights all round the Tiger’s den—and the question before the house is. What Do We Do About It?”

He was leaning forward so that he could see her face, and she knew that he was desperately serious. She knew also, instinctively, that he was not a man to exaggerate the situation, however’ much he might play the buffoon in other directions.

“Now, here’s my suggestion,” said the Saint. “I know a bloke called Terry Mannering, who lives on the other side of Devonshire, and he can deal with fun and games as well as I can. He has a wife, whom you’ll love, and a very good line in yachts, being nearly as rich as I should like to be since his Old Man kicked the bucket. If I took you over and told Terry that it’d be good for all your healths if you went cruising way off for a few months, till the tumult and the shouting dies, so to speak, and the Tigers and their Cubs depart—well, I know the three of you’d be on the high seas in no time. And the Tiger and I would be rude to each other for a bit, and when it was all over and he was decently buried I’d let you know and you could come back. What about it?”

Patricia studied her shoe; and she said, in a very Saintly way:

“What, indeed?”

“You said?” rapped Simon.

“What about it?” queried Patricia. “It might be rather a good idea some time, but you can’t rush it like that. Besides, I’m rather enjoying myself in Baycombe.”

Simon got up.

“Well, I’m not enjoying your enjoyment,” he said bluntly. “That sort of courage is all very fine when it’s to some purpose—but this time it isn’t. I’ve never dragged a woman into my little worries yet, and I’m not starting now. Perhaps you think this is going to be a picnic. I thought I’d made it plain enough that it isn’t. If you want to pack a few thrills into your young life, I’ll arrange a big-game shooting trip, or something else comparatively tame, later. But this particular spree is not in your line one bit, and you’d better be sensible and admit it.”

Patricia raised her eyebrows.

“So I gather you propose to kidnap me,” she said calmly. “I believe ‘shanghai’ is the word. Well, I should start planning right away—because nothing short of that is going to move me.”

“You’re a damned fool,” said the Saint.

She laughed, standing up to him and laying a hand on his shoulders.

“Dear man,” she said, “I refuse to lose my temper, because I know that’s just what you want me to do. You think that if you’re rude enough I’ll dash off and leave you to stew. And I can promise you I shan’t do anything of the sort. I know it isn’t going to be a picnic—but I’m sorry if you think I’m a girl that’s only fit for picnics. I’ve always fancied myself as the heroine of a hell-for-leather adventure, and this is probably the only chance I Shall ‘ever have. And I’m jolly well going to see it through!”

Something held him in check with an effort. He had a frantic impulse to take this stubborn slip of a girl across his knee and spank some sense into her; and coincidently with that he had an equally importunate desire to hug her and kiss her to death. For there was no doubt that she was determined to ride on to the kill, however dangerous the country her obstinate intention led her over. Why she should be so set on it beat the Saint. He could imagine a high-spirited girl fancying herself as the heroine of just such an adventure, but he had never dreamed of meeting a girl who’d go on fancying herself quite so keenly when it came to the point, and when she’d had a peek at some of the stern and spiky disadvantages. But there she was, smiling into his eyes, tranquilly announcing her resolution to see the shooting match through with him, and boldly averring that she was perfectly prepared to eat the whole cake as well as the icing. She was going to be the blazes of a nuisance and the mischief of a worry to him—“But, hell!” swore the Saint to himself—“I’m darn glad of it!” Wherein he betrayed his egotism. It would be a gruelling test for her, but he’d have her with him all the time. And if she came through it with flying colours, well, maybe after all he’d go the way of most confirmed bachelors….

And since he saw that neither cajoling nor cursing would budge her, he accepted the situation like a wise man. And even then (with such an inferiority complex is Love afflicted) the sublime egotist did not spot the foundation of her determination, though it stuck out a mile. Nevertheless, in his blindness he was very near to blundering straight into the heart of the affair. His scowl relaxed, and he took her hand from his shoulder and held it,

“I’ve known some fool women,” said the Saint, “but I never met one whose foolishness appealed to me more than yours.”

“Then— it’s a bet?” she asked.

He nodded.

You said it, partner. And the Lord grant we win. It’s not my fault if you insist on jazzing into the Tiger’s den, but it’ll be my unforgivable fault if I don’t yank you out again safely. Shake!”

“Bless you,” said Patricia softly.

Chapter IX

PATRICIA PERSEVERES

“Well,” remarked Simon Templar, breaking a long silence as lightly as he could, “where do we go from here, old Pat?”

She disengaged her hand and sat down again; and he shifted his own chair round so that they were knee to knee. She was chilled by the defi-niteness with which he reverted to pure business, though later she realized that he did so only because he was afraid of letting himself go, and possibly incurring her displeasure by forcing the pace.

“I’ve also a story to tell,” she said, “and it came out only last night.”

And she gave him a full account of Agatha Girton’s confession.

For such a loquacious man, he was an astonishingly attentive listener. It was a side of his character which she had not seen before-the Saint concentrating. He did not interrupt her once, sitting back with his eyes shut and his face so composed that he might well have been asleep. But when she had finished he was frowning thoughtfully.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said the Saint. “So Aunt Aggie is one of the bhoys? But what in the sacred name of haggis could anyone blackmail Aunt Aggie with? Speaking quite reverently, I can’t imagine she was ever ravishing enough, even in her prime, to acquire anything like a Past.”

“It does seem absurd, but—”

The Saint scratched his head.

“What do you know about her?”

“Very little, really,” Patricia replied. “I’ve sort of always taken her for granted. My mother died when I was twelve—my father was killed hunting three years before that—and she became my guardian. I never saw much of her until quite recently. She spent most other time abroad, on the Riviera. She had a villa at Hyeres. I stayed on at school very late, and I was generally alone here during the holidays—I mean, she was away, though I usually had school friends staying with me, or I stayed with them. She didn’t do much for me, but my bills were paid regularly, and she wrote once a fortnight.”

“When did she settle down in Baycombe, then?”

“When she came back from South Africa. About six years ago I had a letter from her from Port Said saying that she was on her way to the Cape. She was away a year, and I hardly had a line from her. Then one day she turned up and said she’d had enough of travelling and was going to live at the Manor.”

“And did she?”

“She used to go abroad occasionally, but they were quite short trips.”

“When was the last expedition?”

She pondered.

“About two years ago, or a bit less. I can’t remember the exact date.”

“Now think,” suggested the Saint—“roughly, you hardly saw her at all between the time she introduced herself as your guardian, when you were twelve, until she came back from South Africa, when you were sixteen or seventeen.”

“Nearer seventeen.”

“And in that time anything might have hap-pened”

She shrugged.

“I suppose so. But it’s too ridiculous….”

‘Of course it is,” agreed Simon blandly. “It’s all too shriekingly ridiculous for words. It’s ridiculous that our Tiger should have broken the Confederate Bank of Chicago and lugged the moidores over to Baycombe to await disposal. It’s ridiculous to think that there are some hundredweights of twenty-two carat gold hidden somewhere not two miles from here. But there are. What we’ve got to assume is that on this joy ride nothing is too ridiculous to be real. Which reminds me—what do you know about the old houses in Baycombe? There must be something conspicuously old enough for Fernando to have thought the Old House was sufficient address.”

He was surprised at her immediate answer.

“There are two that’d fit,” she said. “One is just out of the village, inland. It used to be an inn, and the name of it was the Old House. It’s falling to bits now—the proprietor lost his license in the year Dot, and nobody took it over. It’s supposed to be haunted. The windows are all boarded up, and a dozen men could live there without being seen if they went in and out at night.”

The Saint smashed fist into palm, his eyes lighting up.

“Moonshine and Moses!” he whooped. “Pat, you’re worth a fortune to this partnership! And I was just thinking we’d come to a standstill. Why, we haven’t moved yet! .. . What’s the other one?”

“The island just round the point.” She waved her arm to the east. “The fishermen call it the Old House, but you wouldn’t have noticed it because if only looks like that from the sea. The sides are very steep, and on one side it juts right out over the water, like those old houses where the first floor is bigger than the ground floor.”

Simon jumped up and walked to the edge of the cliff, so that he could see the island. It was about a mile from the shore—nothing but an outcrop of rock thickly overgrown with bushes and stunted trees. He came back jubilant.

“It might be either,” he said exultantly, “or it might be both—the Tiger may have a home from home in your defunct pub, and he may have parked the doubloons on the island. Anyway, we’ll draw both covers and see. Thinking it over, I guess I’ve hit it. The Tiger’d want to have the gold someplace he could ship it from easily—remember, it’s got to go to Africa. And by the same token … Here, hold on half a sec.”

He disappeared into the Pill Box and came back in a moment with field glasses. Then he focussed on the horizon and began to sweep it carefully from west to east. He had covered three quarters of the arc when he stopped and stared for a full minute, suddenly rigid.

“And there she blows,” he muttered.

He handed her the binoculars and pointed northeast.

“See what you make of it.”

“It looks like a couple of masts sticking up.”

“Motor ship—no funnels,” he explained. “The Bristol shipping passes here, but we’re back in a sort of big bay, and I don’t think they’d stand in as near as that. But we’ll just make sure.”

He took the glasses from her again and went into the Pill Box, and she followed. He fossicked about in the kitchen till he found a piece of board, the remains of a packing case, and this he settled in one of the embrasures, truing it up level with little wedges of newspaper. Then he put the field glasses on it and took a sight on one of the masts by means of a couple of pins stuck in the board.

“We’ll give her five minutes.”

She grasped his meaning at once.

“You think they’re waiting to come in after dark?”

“No less. Comrade Bloem hasn’t done all he’d like to with T. T. Deeps, but he’ll have some weeks’ grace while the stuffs getting to the mine. And he daren’t let it lie around here any longer, in case my luck holds and I don’t get bumped off according to schedule. I’ve rattled the Tiger!”

He was keeping an eye on his watch, and the minutes ticked away very slowly.

“Is Dr. Carn a detective?” she asked.

“That’s hit it in one,” affirmed the Saint. “But don’t let on you know. It wouldn’t be sporting not to give the boy a fair run.”

“Then aren’t you a detective?” she stammered in bewilderment. “I thought you were friendly rivals–-that was the only explanation I could work out last night.”

The Saint smiled grimly.

“Rivals—more or less friendly—yes,” he said. “But I’m not a detective, and never was. I’m playing for my own hand, with an enormous quantity of ha’pence coming to me if I win, and everybody’s kicks if I lose. Profession, gentleman adventurer: i.e., available for any job involving plenty of money and plenty of trouble, suitable for a man who doesn’t bother much about the letter of the law and who’s prepared to take his licking without a yelp if he gets landed. That’s me. Like this. I happened to find Fernando, and as soon as I’d got the thing taped out I took a trip to Chicago and saw the boss of the Confederate. ‘Here’s nearly ayear since your strong room was busted,’ I said, ‘and the dicks haven’t brought you back one cent of the almighties. Now suppose you let me have a shot. Terms, twenty per cent. commission if I bring it off. Not a bean if I don’t. Me to work on my lonesome, without reporting to anybody, and to take all the blame if I’m run over.’ Well, that put them on something to nothing, so they bit. And there you are.”