Simon caught him neatly as he fell.
An open hatch just forward of the deckhouse gave him a view down a narrow companion into a lighted alley-way. Simon hitched the unconscious man on to his shoulder and carried him down.
The alley contained four doors labelled with neatly stencilled letters. The inscription on one door said “Stores.” Open, it revealed a dark locker which exhaled an odour of paint and tar. It took exactly three minutes to truss the victim, gag him with his own socks and handkerchief, and tuck him away inside. After which Simon examined the other resources of that very conveniently located storeroom.
He returned to the deck with a length of rope and a stout piece of wood slotted at each end, known to seafaring persons as a bosun’s chair. He moved along the rail until he was directly over the Meteor, rigged the chair, and lowered it over the side.
A jacketed steward came out on deck amidships, carrying a tray, and turned aft. Simon crouched like a statue by the rail and watched him go. The steward had not even glanced in that direction when he emerged, but there was some slight difficulty in judging how long he would be gone, and on the return trip he could hardly help noticing Simon’s operations at the bow.
Hoppy gave a couple of tugs at the rope to signal that the cargo was ready to load.
There was still no sign of the steward returning.
“Well,” said the Saint, to his guardian angel, “we’ve got to take a chance some time.”
He took a fresh grip on the rope and began to haul. The burden swung free at first, then bumped dully against the side as it came higher. The Saint threw all the supple power of his back and shoulders into the task of speeding its ascent, while he breathed a prayer that no member of the crew had been in a position to notice the thud and scrape of its contact. After what seemed like a year, the lolling head of the body came in sight above the edge of the deck.
And then the Saint’s tautly vigilant ears caught the scuff of the steward’s returning footsteps.
Holding tightly to the rope, Simon stepped rapidly backwards until the deckhouse concealed him. There he fastened the rope to a handy stanchion with a couple of quick half-hitches.
The steward’s footsteps pattered along the deck, slackened hesitantly, and shuffled to a dubious stop. The Saint held his breath. If the steward raised an alarm from where he stood, he might as well take a running dive over the side and hope for the best…But the steward’s nerves were under phlegmatically good control. His footsteps picked up again, approaching stolidly, as he came forward to investigate for himself.
Which was an unfortunate error of judgment on his part.
He came past the corner of the deckhouse into Simon’s field of vision and stood still, looking down movelessly at the lifeless head of the boy dangling against the bottom of the rail. And Simon stepped up behind him like a phantom and enclosed his neck in the crook of an arm that was no more ghostly than a steel hawser…
The steward became gradually limp, carrying his perplexity with him into the land of dreams, and Simon picked him up and transported him over the same route that he had taken with the deck hand. He also treated him in exactly the same way, binding and gagging him and pouring him into the store locker with his still sleeping fellow crewman. The only distinction he made was to remove the steward’s trim white jacket first. The Saint’s humanitarian instincts made him reflect that the atmosphere of the storeroom might grow warmer later with its increasing population, and furthermore another use for that article of clothing was beginning to suggest itself to him.
It was a little short in the sleeves, but otherwise it fitted him fairly well, he decided as he shrugged himself into it on his way back to the deck.
He had an instant of alarm when he returned towards the dangling body and saw a ham-sized hand groping with very lifelike activity above the level of the deck. A moment later he had identified it. He grasped it, and assisted the perspiring Mr Uniatz to heave himself over the rail.
“I ought to push you back into the drink,” he said severely. “I thought I told you to wait in the boat.”
“De stiff stops goin’ up,” explained Hoppy, “so I t’ought dey mighta gotcha. Anyhow, dey ain’t no more drink. I finish de udder bottle while I’m waitin’.” He became aware of the uniform jacket which was now buttoned tightly over the Saint’s torso, and stared at it with dawning comprehension. “I get it, boss,” he said. “We’re gonna raid de bar an’ get some more.”
He beamed at the prospect like an ecstatic votary at the gates of Paradise. Simon Templar had long been aware of the fact that Mr Uniatz’s nebulous notions of an ideal after life were composed of something like floating out through eternity in an illimitable sea of celestial alcohol, but for once the condition of his own palate left him without the heart to crush the manifestations of that dream.
‘I’ve heard you bring up a lot of worse ideas, Hoppy,” he admitted. “But first of all we’d better finish lugging in the stiff, before somebody else comes along.”
A brisk exploration along the starboard side disclosed that the door from which the steward had emerged gave into an alley athwartships from which a lounge opened forward, a dining saloon aft, and a broad stairway descended to the accommodations provided for the owner and his guests. Simon stood at the head of the staircase and listened. No sound came from below. While he stood there, Hoppy Uniatz caught up with him, with the body draped over one herculean shoulder.
Simon beckoned him on.
“We’ll take him below,” he said in a low voice. “Stay far enough behind me so that if anything blows up you’ll be in the clear.”
He stepped quietly down to the bottom and inspected the broad alley-way in which he found himself. He felt no particular anxiety at that point. Randolph March would have no reason to suspect that his yacht was in the hands of a boarding party. From the sounds Simon had heard on deck, Mr March was probably engrossed in a pleasant tête-à-tête which would effectively distract his attention from all such ideas. And all the crew who had not gone ashore were probably asleep, except the watchman who had already been disposed of, and the steward detailed to attend to Mr March’s alcoholic requirements, who had encountered a similar doom but who could at a suitable moment be interestingly replaced…
The elements of the idea took firmer hold on his imagination as he tiptoed over the carpet. His shoes sank two inches into the resilient pile. He reached the door of a stateroom, listened for a moment, and opened it. A pencil flashlight from his hip pocket discovered sycamore panelling and the silken covers of a double bed.
‘This’ll do, Hoppy,” he said, and stood aside while Mr Uniatz brought his burden in.
He closed the door and switched on the lights.
“Put him in the bed and tuck him in,” he said. “He deserves a bit of comfort now.”
Hairbrushes and other personal toilet gadgets on the dressing-table suggested that the cabin might be in current occupation. Simon looked through a couple of drawers, and found a suit of rainbow pyjamas. He threw them on the bed as Hoppy pulled down the covers.
“Fix him up nicely,” he said. “He’s a guest of the management…” Another thought crossed his mind, and he went on speaking more to himself than to any audience. “Maybe he’s been here before. And I wonder what he was then…”
He stood guard by the door while Hoppy carried out his commission, kindling a cigarette and keeping one ear alertly cocked for any sound of human movement in the alley-way outside. But there was none. So far, the adventure couldn’t have gone more smoothly if it had been mounted on roller bearings. He began to feel a glutinous and godless exhilaration rising within him. There was no longer any doubt in his head that this was going to be one of his better evenings…
Hoppy Uniatz finished his task, and turned towards him with the air of a man who, having accomplished a worthy but tiresome duty, feels himself entitled to return to more important and more satisfying projects. “Now, boss,” said Mr Uniatz, “do we take de bar?” The Saint
rubbed his hands gently together.
“You are a single-minded man devoted to the life of action, Hoppy,” he remarked. “But there are times when the wisdom of the ages speaks through your rosebud lips. I think we will take the bar.”
The steward had come out on to the deck from the central alley-way. Returning to the head of the stairway, Simon considered the dining saloon which faced him. It seemed the most likely turning point in the trail, and he was not mistaken. When he went in, he found a very artistic glass and chromium bar set back in an alcove half the width of the deckhouse, the other half probably being taken up by the galley.
“Dis is it,” said Mr Uniatz complacently. “What kind of Scotch have dey got?”
“Control yourself,” said the Saint sternly. “It’s that selfish attitude of yours, Hoppy, which is so discouraging to anyone who is trying to improve your character. Let us try to think first of others, as the good books tell us. We were obliged to remove Mr March’s steward. Mr March, by this time, is probably getting quite impatient for his next round of drinks. Clearly it’s our duty to substitute our services for his incapacitated factotum and see that he gets his gargle.”
He investigated the selection of supplies with a critical eye, secure in the spell of silence which was guaranteed by Mr Uniatz’s anguished efforts to interpret his last speech into words of one syllable. Finally he fixed his choice on a row of bottles whose labels met with his approval, and set them up on a tray. A pair of silver ice-buckets from the back of the bar were indispensable accessories, and a built-in refrigerator provided plentiful supplies of ice.
“Let’s go,” said the Saint.
He moved out on to the deck with his accumulation of booty. He no longer felt that there was any call for stealth. Quite boldly and carelessly he walked aft and came around the end of the deckhouse to an open veranda sheltered by white canvas awnings.
Randolph March was there—Simon recognised him at once from pictures he had seen in the tabloids. The pictures had not shown the colouring of the round pink face and straight fair hair, but they had possibly over-emphasised the marks of premature dissipation under the eyes and the essential weakness of the mouth and chin. From the deck chair beside him, a girl with red hair and big violet eyes also looked up with a revelation of complete physical beauty that made Simon’s sensitive heart lose its regular rhythm for an instant. She had been listening to something that March had been telling her when Simon came into sight, with an expression of rapt adoration to which any heir to the March millions could legitimately have been held entitled, but a lingering trace of the same expression still clung to her features as she turned, and was responsible for an intervening moment of speechlessness before the Saint could recapture his voice.
Then he recovered himself, and bowed to them both with mildly derisive elegance.
“Good evening, little people,” murmured the Saint.
CHAPTER TWO
HOW MR UNIATZ FOUND A GOOD USE FOR EMPTIES, AND SHERIFF HASKINS SPOKE OF HIS PROBLEMS
1
It could not be denied that such a transparently expressive face was no handicap at all to anyone so exquisitely modelled as the red-haired girl. From the topmost waves of her softly flaming hair, down through the unbelievable fineness of her features, down through the unworldly perfect proportions of her curving shape, down to the manicured tips of her sandalled toes, there was nothing about her which any connoisseur of human architecture could criticise. The clarity of expression which in any less flawless creature might have been disillusioning, in her was only the last illuminating touch which crowned a masterpiece of orchidic evolution. And it seemed to Simon Templar that the admiration in her eyes, after they rested on him, lasted just a little longer than a hangover from Randolph March’s practised charm should have justified.
Perhaps he flattered himself…But there was no doubt that Randolph March was conscious of a break in the spell of his own fascination. March was notorious for his appreciation of expensive beauty, and he was acutely cognisant of anything that interrupted beauty’s appreciation of himself. There was the petulance of a spoiled brat in his face as he shot a glance at the brimming mint julep in his hand and found the frosty glass still full.
He scowled venomously at the Saint in his steward’s jacket. The captain must have hired new help without consulting him: for the life of him he couldn’t remember having seen the man before. Neither could he remember having ordered any champagne. The March Hare had a wine list that could be boasted about, but the hazards of war were making good vintages increasingly difficult to obtain, and Randolph March held good vintages in the fanatical reverence which can only be acquired by a man who has developed epicurean tastes with a studious eye for their snob value rather than out of the sheer gusto of superlative living.
Then, other details percolated through the disintegrating aura of his romantic mood as he incredulously counted the forest of bottles bristling on the tray in front of him. The new steward was blithely swinging a couple of silver ice-buckets in one hand like a juggler waiting to go into an act, while a cigarette slanted impudently up between his lips. And while Randolph March stared at the sight, the steward banged the buckets down on the deck and used the hand thus free to remove Mr March’s feet from the extension rest of his deck chair and make room there for the tray.
Randolph March fought down an imminent apoplectic stroke for which his eccentric life would still not normally have qualified him for for at least another ten years, and snapped, “Take that stuff away!”
The steward blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke and plunked bottles into the ice-buckets, giving them a professional twirl which no Parisian sommelier could have bettered.
“Don’t call it ‘that stuff,’ ” he said reprovingly. “A ’28 Bollinger deserves a little more respect.”
The girl laughed like a chime of silver bells, and said, “Oh, do let’s have some! I just feel like some champagne.”
“There you are, Randy, old boy,” said the Saint, giving the bottles another twirl. “The lady wants some. So what have you got to say?”
“You’re fired!” March exploded.
The Saint smiled at him tolerantly, as one who humours a fractious child.
“That’s all right with me, Randy, old fruit,” he said amiably. “Now let’s all have a drink and talk about something else. I’ve got a few questions to ask you.”
He selected a bottle, approved its temperature, and popped the cork.
Sparkling amber flowed into a row of glasses while March watched in a paralysis of fuming stupefaction. Once March started to rise, but sank back slowly when Simon turned a cool blue eye on him. The Saint’s complete and unperturbed effrontery was almost enough to hold anyone immobilised by itself, but there was also an easy air of athletic readiness in the Saint’s bantering poise which was an even more subtle discouragement to March’s immediate ideas of personal violence.
Simon passed the tray. The red-headed girl took her glass, looking up at him curiously under her long lashes. March hesitated, and Simon pushed the tray closer to him.
“You might as well, Randy,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll need it before I’ve finished.”
March took the glass, not quite knowing why he did it. Simon looked around for Hoppy, but Mr Uniatz had already taken the precaution of providing for his own simple tastes. A bottle of Scotch was tilted up to his mouth, and his Adam’s apple throbbed in a clockwork ecstasy of ingurgitation. The Saint grinned, put down the tray, and took a glass for himself.
“You’d better talk fast,” said March. “I’ll give you just five minutes before I turn you over to the police.”
“Five minutes ought to be enough,” said the Saint. “I want to talk to you about a shipwreck.”
“This is frightfully exciting,” said the girl.
Simon smiled at her and raised his glass.
“I think so too, Ginger,” he drawled. “You and I ought to get together. Anyway, here’s to us.”
“Whatever you want to talk about,” said March, “doesn’t make any difference to me.”
The Saint chose a vacant chair and settled himself luxuriously. He blew a smoke-ring into the still warm air.
“That ought to make everything quite easy,” he remarked. “Because what you think about it doesn’t make any difference to me…So about this shipwreck. Not very long ago, a tanker loaded with gasoline blew up just a little way off the beach. I saw it happen. It certainly made a very impressive splash. But after the fireworks were over, I saw something else. It looked like the light of a ship sailing away from the wreck. And it kept on sailing away.”
March patted a yawn and said, “I like your infernal gall, trespassing on my yacht to tell me a story like that.”
“I only did it,” said the Saint mildly, “because I wondered if by any chance the ship that sailed away might have been yours.”
A glibly modulated voice broke into the softly playing music of the radio and said, “Here is the latest bulletin on the Selina, the tanker which blew up off Miami Beach two hours ago. No survivors have yet been picked up, and it is feared that all hands may have perished in the disaster. The cause of the disaster is not yet known, but the explosion appears to have taken place so suddenly that there would have been no time to launch the boats. Coastguard vessels are still on the scene…We now take you back—”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” March said flatly. “We were out taking an evening cruise, but I didn’t see any explosion. I did hear something like a distant clap of thunder, but I didn’t think anything of it.”
Simon jumped up suddenly and snatched a napkin from the tray.
“That’s too bad, Ginger,” he murmured. “I hope it won’t stain your dress. Let me get you another glass.” He worked over her busily, and went on without looking up: “Naturally if you’d had any idea what had happened, you wouldn’t have sailed away. You’d have turned round and gone rushing to the rescue.”
The Saint in Miami (The Saint Series) Page 4