"Any time you say to t'row him out, boss," he stated reassuringly, "I got him ready."
Through years of association with the paleolithic machinery which Mr Uniatz's parents had bequeathed to him as a substitute for the racial ability of homo sapiens to think and reason, Simon Templar had acquired an impregnable patience with those strange divagations of continuity with which Hoppy was wont to enliven an ordinary conversation. He took a firmer grip on the wheel and said: "Who have you got ready?"
"De dead one," said Hoppy, exercising a no less noble degree of patience and restraint in elucidating such a simple and straightforward announcement as he had made. "De stiff. Any time ya ready, I can t'row him in."
Simon painfully worked out the association of ideas as the Meteor ate up the silver-speckled water.
"I was referring," he explained kindly, "to our bottle of Peter Dawson, which will certainly be a dead one two minutes after you get your hands on it"
"Oh," said Mr Uniatz, settling back again. "I t'ought ya was talkin' about de stiff here. I got me feet on him, but he don't bodder me none. Any time ya ready."
Patricia gave Simon back the bottle.
"I noticed that Hoppy brought a sack down to the boat," she said, with the slightest of tremors in her voice. "I wondered if that was what was in it ... But has it occurred to you that every coast-guard boat for a hundred miles will be headed here? We might have a lot of explaining to do if they got curious about Hoppy's footrest."
Simon didn't argue. Part of what she said was already obvious. Not so far ahead of them, many new lights were rising and falling in the swell, and searchlights were smearing long skinny fingers over the ocean. The Saint had no definite plan yet, but he had seldom used a plan in any adventure. Instinct, impulse, a fluid openness of approach that kept his whole campaign plastic and effortlessly adaptable to almost any unexpected development-those were the only consistent principles in anything he did.
"I brought him along because we couldn't leave him in the house," he said at length. "The servants might have found him. We may drop him overboard out here or not-I haven't made up my mind yet."
"What about the lifebelt?" said Patricia.
"I peeled the name off and burnt it. There's, nothing else to identify it There wasn't any identification in his clothes."
"What I want to know," said Peter, "is how would a single sailor get lost overboard from a submarine at a time like that."
"How do you know he was the only one?" said Patricia.
Simon put a fresh cigarette between his lips and lighted it, cupping his hands adroitly around the match.
"You're both on the wrong tack," he said. "What makes you think he came off a submarine?"
"Well-"
"The submarine wasn't sunk, was it?" said the Saint. "It did the sinking. So why should it have lost any of its crew? Furthermore, he wasn't wearing a British naval uniform-just ordinary sort of seaman's clothes. He might have come off the ship that was sunk. Or off anything. The only incriminating thing was the lifebelt. A submarine might have lost that. But his wrist was tangled up in the cords in quite a peculiar way. It wasn't at all easy to get it off-and it must have been nearly as difficult to get it on. If he'd just caught hold of it when he was drowning, he wouldn't have tied himself up to it like that. And incidentally, how did he manage to drown so quickly? I could have held my breath from the time the torpedo blew off until I saw him lying at my feet, and not even felt uncomfortable."
Peter took the bottle out of Patricia's hands and drew a gulp from it.
"Just because Justine Gilbeck wrote a mysterious letter to Pat," he said, without too much conviction, "you're determined to find a mystery somewhere."
"I didn't say that this had anything to do with that. I did say it was a bit queer for us all to come to Miami on a frantic invitation, and then find that the girl who sent the invitation isn't here."
"Probably somebody told her about your reputation," Peter said. "There are a few oldfashioned girls left, although you never seem to meet them."
"I'll ask you one other question," said the Saint. "Since when has the British Navy adopted the jolly Nazi sport of sinking neutral ships without warning? . . . Now give me another turn with that medicine."
He took the bottle and tilted it up, feeling the drink forge his blood into a glow. Then, without looking round, he extended his arm backwards and felt the bottle engulfed by Mr Uniatz's ready paw. But the glow remained. Perhaps it had its roots in something even more ethereal than the whisky, but something nevertheless more permanent. He couldn't have told anyone why he felt so sure, and yet he knew that he couldn't possibly be so wrong. The far fantastic bugles of adventure were ringing in his ears, and he knew that they never lied, even though the sounds they made might be confused and incomprehensible for a while. He had lived through all this before . . .
Patricia said: "You're taking it for granted that there's some connection between these two things."
"I'm only taking the laws of probability and gravitation for granted," he said. "We come here and find one screwy situation. Within twelve hours and practically spitting distance, we run into another screwy situation. It's just a good natural bet that they could raise their hats to each other."
"You mean that the kid who was washed ashore with the lifebelt was part of some deep dark plot that Gilbeck is mixed up in somehow," said Peter Quentin.
"That's what I was thinking," said the Saint Patricia Holm stared out at the roving lights that wavered over their bow. She had had even more years than Peter Quentin in which to learn that those wild surmises of the Saint were usually as direct and accurate as if some sixth sense perceived them, as simple and positive as optical vision was to ordinary human beings.
She said: "Why did you want Peter to check up on this fellow March? What has he got to do with anything?"
"What did Peter find out?" countered the Saint "Not much," Peter said moodily. "And I know a lot of more amusing ways of wasting an afternoon and evening in this town ... I found out that he owns one of the islands in Biscayne Bay with one of these cute little shacks like Gilbeck's on it, about the size of the Roney Plaza, with three swimming pools and a private landing field. He also has a yacht in the Bay-a little runabout of two or three hundred tons with twin Diesels and everything else you can think of except torpedo tubes ... As you suspected, he's the celebrated Randolph March who inherited all those patent-medicine millions when he was twentyone. Half a dozen show girls have retired in luxury on the proceeds of divorcing him, but he didn't even notice it The ones he doesn't bother to marry do just about as well. It's rumoured that he likes a sprinkle of marijuana in his cigarettes, and the night club owners hang out flags when he's here."
"Is that all?"
"Well," Peter admitted reluctantly, "I did hear something else. Some broker chappie-I ran him down and scraped an acquaintance with him in a bar-said that March had a big load of money in something called the Foreign Investment Pool."
The Saint smiled.
"In which Lawrence Gilbeck also has plenty of shekels," he said, "as I found out by looking through some of the papers in his desk."
"But that's nothing," Peter protested. "It's just an ordinary investment. If they both had their money in General Motors-"
"They didn't," said the Saint. "They had it in a Foreign Investment Pool.'"
The Meteor canted up the side of a long roller, and above the sound of the engine a deep glug floated forward as Mr Uniatz throatily inhaled the last swallow from his bottle. It was followed by a splash as he regretfully tossed the empty bottle far out over the side.
"You still haven't told us why you were interested in March," said Patricia.
"Because he phoned Gilbeck twice today," said the Saint simply.
Peter clutched his brow.
"Naturally," he said, "that hangs him. Anyone who phones anybody else is always mixed up in some dirty business.
"Twice," said the Saint calmly. The houseboy took the first call
, and told March that Gilbeck was away. March left word to have Gilbeck call him when he got back. Two hours later he phoned again. I took the call. He was very careful to make sure I got his name."
"A sinister symptom," Peter agreed, wagging his head gravely. "Only the most double-dyed villains worry about having their names spelt right"
"You ass," said the Saint disapassionately, "he'd already left his name once. He'd already been told that Gilbeck was away. So why should he go through the routine again?"
"You tell us," said Peter. "This is making me seasick."
Simon drew at his cigarette again.
"Maybe he knew Gilbeck wasn't there, all the time. Maybe he just wanted to impress on that dumb Filipino that Randolph March was trying to get hold of Gilbeck and hadn't seen him."
"But why?" asked Patricia desperately.
"Look at it this way," said the Saint. "Lawrence Gilbeck and Justine left unexpectedly this morning, without saying where they were going or when they'd be back. Now suppose Gilbeck was mixed up with Comrade March in some fruity skulduggery, and Comrade March found it necessary to the welfare of several million dollars to get him out of the way. Comrade March would naturally have an alibi to prove he hadn't been anywhere near Gilbeck on the day Gilbeck disappeared, and a little artistic touch like that telephone routine wouldn't do the alibi any harm."
Peter searched weakly for the second bottle which he had thoughtfully provided.
"I give it up," he said, "You ought to write mystery stories and earn an honest living."
"And still," said Patricia, "we're waiting to know why all this should have anything to do with that ship being sunk."
The Saint gazed ahead, and the clean-cut buccaneering lines of his face were carved out of the dark in a mask of bronze by the dim glow of the instrument panel. He knew as well as they did that there were many other possible explanations; that he was building a complete edifice of speculation on a mere pin point of foundation. But much better than they ever could, he knew that that ghostly tingle in his scalp was more to be trusted than any formal logic. And there was one other thing which had come out of Peter's report, which seemed to tie all the loose fragments of fact together like a nebulous cord.
He pointed.
"That ship," he said, "was some sort of Foreign Investment -to somebody."
Red and green dots that marked a floating village of motley craft rushed up to meet them. A trim white fifty-footer, coldly ornate with shining brass, detached itself from the welter or boats, made a tight foaming turn, and cut across their bow. Simon reversed the propellers and topped the Meteor with the smoothness of hydraulic brakes.
The fifty-footer was earmarked with the official dignity of the Law. A spotlight snapped on, washed the Meteor in its glare, and revealed a lanky man in a cardigan jacket and a black slouch hat standing in the bow.
The man put a megaphone to his lips and shouted: "You better get the hell on in-there's too many boats out here now."
"Why don't you go on in yourself and make room for us?" asked the Saint pleasantly.
"On account of my name's Sheriff Haskin," came the answer. "Better do what I tell you, son."
The simple statement held its own implications for Hoppy Uniatz. It conflicted with all his conditioned reflexes to be using a sacked-up cadaver for a footrest, and to have a policeman, even a policeman as incongruously uniformed as the man on the cruiser, dallying with him at such short range. The only natural method of handling such a situation presented itself to him automatically.
"Boss," he volunteered raucously, leaning forward on the Saint's ear, "I brung my Betsy. I can give him de woiks, an' we can get away easy."
"Put it away," snarled the Saint. He was troubled by a feeling that the spotlight on the police boat was holding them just a little too long. To face it out, he looked straight into the light and shouted amiably: "What happened?"
"A tanker blew up."
Sheriff Haskins yelled the answer back through his megaphone, and waved his free hand. Water boiled at the cruiser's stem, and she began to edge nearer. Thirty feet from the Meteor she reversed again. Haskins stood silent for a time, leaning across the rail and steadying himself against the police boat's roll. Simon had a physical sensation of the sheriff's scrutiny behind the shield of the adhesive spotlight He was prepared for the question when the sheriff asked: "Haven't I seen you before?"
"You might have," he said cheerfully. "I drove around town for awhile this afternoon. We're staying with Lawrence Gilbeck at Miami Beach, but we only got here today."
"Okay," said Haskins. "But don't hang around here. There's nothing you can do."
The spotlight went out, a muffled bell clanged aboard the police launch, and she moved away. Simon eased in the Meteor's clutch, let her pick up speed, and headed round in a wide circle.
"I wonder how long it's going to take that lanky sheriff to figure out that you're you," Peter said meditatively. "Of course you couldn't help talking back to him so that he'd pay particular attention to you."
"I didn't know he was the sheriff then," said the Saint without worry. "Anyway, there'd be something wrong with our destiny if we didn't get in an argument with the Law. And don't get soft-hearted and pass that bottle back to Hoppy. He's had his share."
He settled down more comfortably behind the wheel, and worked the Meteor's bow to port until they were running southwards, parallel with the coast It was the direction in which that single light had moved which he had seen immediately after the explosion, but he didn't know why he should remember it now. On the surface, he was only heading that way because he had enjoyed the outward run, and it seemed too soon to go home.
The ocean was a vast peaceful rolling plain in which they floated halfway to the stars. Along the shore moved a life of ease and play and exquisite frippery, marked by a million fixed and crawling and flickering lights. Among those lights, invisible at the distance, cavorted the ephemerae of civilisation, a strange conglomeration of men and women arbitrarily divided into two incommiscible species. There was the class which might have sober interests and responsibilities elsewhere, but in Miami had no time for anything but diversion; and there was the class which might play elsewhere, if it had the chance, but in Miami existed only to minister to the visiting players. There went the politicians and the pimps, the show girls and society matrons, the millionaires and the tycoons and the literati, the prostitutes and the gamblers and the punks. Simon listened to the lulling drone of the Meteor and felt as if he had been suddenly taken infinitely far away from that world. It was such a tenuous thing, that culture on which such playgrounds grew like exotic flowers. It was so fragile and easily destroyed, balanced on nothing more tangible than a state of mind. In a twinkling that coastline could be darkened, smudged into an efficient modern blackout more deadly than anything in those days which had once been called the Dark Ages. The best brains in the world had worked for a century to diminish Space; had worked so well that no haven was safe from the roaring wings of impersonal death . . .
Even a few seconds ago, the ocean on either side of them had been coloured with the flat soft hues of a deadened rainbow. It was the same caressing water of the Gulf Stream which day by day lapped the smooth tingling bodies of bathers near the shore. But out there it had been covered with sluggish oil, keeping down the blood of shattered men who would never play any more. It was so much easier to tear down than to build . . .
"Look, boy," said Patricia suddenly.
The Saint stiffened and came out of his trance as she caught his arm. She was pointing to starboard, and he looked out in the direction where her finger led his eyes with an uncanny crawling sensation creeping up the joints of his spine as if it had been negotiating the rungs of a ladder.
"Chees, boss," said Mr Uniatz, in a voice of awe, "it's a sea-soipent!"
For once in a lifetime, Simon was inclined to agree with one of Hoppy Uniatz's spontaneous impressions.
Just above the surface of the water, reflect
ing the moon-glow with metallic dullness, moving sluggishly and with a deceptive air of slothfulness, drifted a weird phantasm of the sea. No living movement flexed its wave-washed surface, and yet it was indubitably in motion, splashing its ways forward with logy ponderousness. A sort of truncated oval tower rose from its back and ploughed rigidly through its own creaming wash.
Instinctively Simon spun the Meteor's wheel; but even before the swift craft could swing around the apparition was gone. A bow wave formed against the conning tower, climbed up it, and engulfed it in a miniature maelstrom. For a few seconds he stared in fascination at the single piece of evidence which told him he had not been dreaming: something like a short stubby pipe which went on driving through the water, trailing a thin white wake behind. While he looked, the top of the periscope moved, turned about, and fixed the Meteor with a malevolent mechanical eye. Then even that was gone, and the last trace of the submarine was erased by the smooth-flowing surface of the sea. Peter Quentin drew a deep breath, and rubbed his eyes. "I suppose we all saw it," he said.
"I seen it," declared Mr. Uniatz. "I could of bopped it, too, if ya hadn't told me to put my Betsy away."
Simon grinned with his lips.
"The only thing that's any good for bopping those sea-serpents is a depth charge," he said. "And I'm afraid that's one thing we forgot to bring with us ... But did anyone see any markings on it?" None of them answered. The speedboat lifted her bow under his touch on the throttle and ate up the miles toward the shore. Simon said: "Neither did I."
He sat quietly, almost lazily, at the wheel; but there was a tension in him that they could feel under his repose. It reached out invisible filaments to grip Peter and Patricia with the Saint's own stillness of half-formed clairvoyance, while their minds struggled to get conscious hold of the chimeras that swam smokily out of the night's memories. The only mind which was quite untroubled by any of these things belonged to Hoppy Uniatz; but it is not yet known whether anything more psychic than a sledge-hammer would have been capable of penetrating the protective shield of armour plate surrounding that embryonic organ. Peter reopened his reserve bottle.
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