The Saint on the Spanish Main (The Saint Series)

by Leslie Charteris

  “I’ll be staying at the Compleat Angler,” he said. “Any time you can shake off this dull slob, let’s have a drink.”

  He started to walk away.

  The third member of the party who had been waiting on the pier intercepted him. He had been with the Uckroses when Simon first saw them, but standing a little behind them. He had not been introduced, and during all the talk that followed he had remained a little apart. He was a slim man of about thirty in a rumpled seersucker suit, with a light panama hat shading a long blue-chinned face and heavy-lidded black eyes. Simon had observed those details at a glance but had taken no other notice of him.

  Now the man had moved so that the Saint either had to back up and make a wide detour or pass along the very edge of the dock through a space that was barely wide enough to admit him. Simon coolly kept going. The man was looking right at him and said, “Mr Uckrose don’t like fresh guys.”

  Then he hit the Saint low in the belly with his left hand and pushed with his right.

  The Saint’s sinewy leanness made it deceptively easy to misjudge his weight, and his reflexes worked on hair triggers. Fantastic as it seemed in that setting, the slim man’s approach had a certain standardized professional quality which had given Simon a split second’s warning. The man’s fist only grazed a set of abdominal muscles that were already braced to the consistency of a truck tire, and the push with his right hand rocked the Saint but did not send him flying off the dock as it should have. For an instant Simon was precariously off balance, and then as the other instinctively pushed again Simon ducked and twisted like a cat, and it was the slim man who incredulously found himself floating off into space to pancake on the water with a fine liquid smack.

  Simon Templar looked down at him as he came spluttering to the surface, shook his head reproachfully, and sauntered on.

  It was only after that that he realized intelligently what he had reacted to intuitively: that for a retired manufacturing jeweler, Mr Uckrose had a champion whose technique was extraordinarily reminiscent of a gangster’s bodyguard.

  3

  Simon surrendered his bag to one of an insistent troop of black boys, as the simplest way of getting rid of the rest, and walked thoughtfully along the one street of Bimini, which follows the shore of the lagoon. Any day now, perhaps, some ambitious commercial enterprise will descend on that little ridge of palm-topped coral and transform it into a tropical Coney Island, but at this time the street still led only from the neighborhood of the small trim Yacht Club, near which Simon had landed, to the vicinity of the homelike Compleat Angler hotel, with a scattering of shacks in between, some of them selling liquor or groceries or souvenirs, which had a paradoxical look of having been left over from a Hollywood picture about the South Seas. The island was still nothing much more than a stopover for yachts cruising into the Bahamas, or a base for fishermen working the eastern side of the Gulf Stream.

  The Saint frowned. Having started to walk away, in a rather effective exit, he could scarcely turn back and say to the slim man, or even to Uckrose, “By the way, chum, are you some sort of gangster?” Besides, there was still something not quite right with the picture. There were plenty of gangsters in the Miami area, which had always appealed to them for the same reasons as it appealed to any other class of wealthy vacationer, but Bimini had only attracted them during Prohibition, when cargoes of potable spirits could be assembled there under the tolerant protection of the British flag, to be loaded on to fast motorboats for a quick night run to the dry coast of the United States. Now the island offered nothing either to enrich or entertain them. Anyhow, he saw no reason to disbelieve the story that Mr Uckrose came there from Europe, not from the States. And somehow he could not exactly visualize Mr Uckrose as a gangster—not even of the modern, big-business, board of directors, crime syndicate chieftain type. Furthermore, if Uckrose had been one of those, the Saint would almost certainly have recognized him.

  No, he might have to take some of it back, about the “gangster” part. But the “bodyguard” feature could not be laughed away—or the fact that the blue-chinned warrior certainly hadn’t learned his methods in any lace-collar school.

  Simon Templar took a leisurely shower, put on a clean pair of denim slacks and a shirt that could have been used to advertise an exotic flower show, and went down to the bar to buy himself a Dry Sack before dinner.

  He was halfway through his meal when the Uckroses and the slim droopy-eyed man came in and sat down at a corner table on the other side of the dining room. If Simon had given more thought to it, he realized that he might have expected that: the island offered no variety of first-class hotels for anyone to choose from. But in the overwhelmingly civilized atmosphere of a British hotel dining room, even in such an unassuming outpost of the Empire, in the presence of soft-footed waiters and a handful of other conventional guests, a situation that might have been explosive seemed to be decisively dampened. Clinton Uckrose and his bodyguard glanced at him only once, and thereafter studiously ignored him. The conversation at their table was inaudible, but seemed to remain at a commonplace desultory level, and the faces of the two men were inexpressive, with the deliberate woodenness of poker players. Only Gloria kept on looking at the Saint, and seemed to be paying little attention to the talk of her companions. She had changed into a low-cut white dress that provided a striking contrast for her brown skin and dark copper hair, and which made her superlative torso even more intriguing than the bra top in which he had first seen it. He found her eyes on him again and again, and her gaze did not waver when he discovered it. A kind of secret smile lurked around her mouth and let him wonder whether it was meant for him to share or not.

  He finished, and went out to the lounge, where he found the proprietor. They exchanged a couple of polite trivialities, and Simon said, “The younger of the two men at the corner table in there, with the show-stopper in white—I feel I’ve met him somewhere before. Do you know his name?”

  The proprietor turned and picked up the register.

  “Mr Vincent Innutio,” he said, pointing to the entry. “From Naples. He came here with Mr and Mrs Uckrose.”

  “No bell.” Simon shook his head. “I guess it must just be a resemblance.”

  Even the Saint could not know every minor malefactor on two continents, but the name sounded as if it would fit very well on some subordinate hoodlum who might have been tagged as an undesirable alien and forcibly shipped home from America to his native Italy, where Mr Uckrose could have found him and adopted him. But why Mr Uckrose would want him was still another question.

  By this time, of course, the Saint knew very well that he had already reached the middle of another adventure without even having noticed the point at which it started to close around him. But he was quite happy to let it continue to enmesh him, without rushing it.

  Exactly as he would have done if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, he arranged for a native guide with a skiff to take him bone-fishing early the next morning, and went to bed. As his one concession to the intrinsic hazards of the situation, he wedged the back of a chair under his door knob, after assuring himself that his window was reasonably inaccessible from outside; aside from that, he relied on his ability to sleep like a watchdog to protect him. He read Time for an hour, turned out the light, and slept tranquilly until dawn. An hour later, fortified with bacon and eggs and coffee, he was rigging a rod loaned him by the hotel proprietor, while a cheerful displaced African ferried him down the bay.

  Again this is no occasion to detail his morning’s stalking of the elusive bonefish, which is esteemed to be the spookiest and at the same time the fightingest thing that swims. He was well satisfied to put two in the boat, the larger of which would scale close to six pounds. By one o’clock his eyes ached from searching the brilliant water, he was hot and thirsty and getting hungry again, and most of the mud flats were high and dry; he was glad to agree with his boatman that they should knock off until the turn of the tide.

 
; As the boy started to row back across the lagoon, Simon saw the Colleen coming through the inlet, riding high on her step with a creaming wave at her bow. In a few minutes she was snug at her berth, and almost at once three figures were walking away from her along the pier. Even at that distance the Saint’s keen eyes could identify them by their silhouettes, and he told his boatman to change course towards the Colleen with the assurance that the Uckroses and Vincent Innutio would be well out of the way by the time he got there.

  Patsy O’Kevin passed Des the hose with which he had been helping his mate to swab down, and gave Simon a hand over the side with a big grin.

  “Faith, ’tis a proud man I am to be shakin’ the hand that pushed that spaghetti merchant into the drink. An’ if only it’d pushed Uckrose in after him, I’d be kissin’ it. As it is, ye can ask me for anything except the Colleen herself.”

  “How about a cold beer?” Simon suggested.

  With the cool nectar freshening his mouth and throat, he said, “You hadn’t warned me about Innutio. Where does he fit in?”

  “I niver met him before, ayther. Uckrose calls him his secretary, but by the cut av his jib I’d say he’d be handier wid the kind o’ typewriter that only prints three letters, RIP. As ye saw for yerself!”

  Simon nodded.

  “Why would Uckrose need that kind of bodyguard?”

  “I couldn’t be guessin’. Although ’tis likely enough he’d always be givin’ someone the notion to be takin’ a poke at him. Now that ye’ve seen him in action, there’s no more I can tell ye.”

  “He is really retired, is he? Or has he ever said anything about still dabbling in business?”

  “Accordin’ to him, the only jewelry he iver wants to see again is what he can hang on his wife.”

  “That’s nice hanging, now you mention it. And the stuff I saw her wearing last night wasn’t colored glass.”

  “Maybe he thinks he needs the wop to take care av it.”

  “Insurance would cost a lot less, unless she’s going around with a maharani’s collection.”

  “Maybe he can’t get insurance,” O’Kevin said.

  Simon took another prolonged swallow of beer. He was feeling better all the time.

  “What brought you back so early today?” he asked.

  “It was like a mill-pond when we set out, which was foine, an’ Uckrose caught a dolphin, about twelve pounds. Thin it started blowin’ just enough to ruffle the water, so pretty soon he says he’s got a headache an’ he wants to go in—the way I told you it always is.” Patsy opened the fishbox aft and held up the dolphin. “But just in case we niver catch anything else, I’m to keep this frozen, an’ this hardly enough for a good dinner, an’ if it should be all he catches he’ll send it back to Miami to be stuffed.” He dropped the fish back on the ice and slammed the lid of the box disgustedly. “Would ye have a little appetite left, Simon? I got some conch last night an’ brewed a foine pot o’ chowder for the Uckroses’ lunch, but His Lard-ship wouldn’t eat while we were out, an’ it’s just goin’ to waste.”

  “We can’t let it do that,” said the Saint.

  It was a good chowder, rich and creamy, with plenty of chewy conch meat in it.

  “If Uckrose had et some av it, he might o’ made Gloria a lot happier,” O’Kevin said as he finished his bowl.

  There is a widespread belief in those parts that the flesh of that giant species of marine snail possesses aphrodisiac properties far exceeding those of the traditionally respected oyster, which was doubtless what O’Kevin was alluding to. His thoughts seemed to continue along that track, for he went on as if it were in the most natural sequence, “If ye don’t give her the benefit av it yourself, ye’re not the man I’ve heard tell ye are.”

  “What makes you think she’d be so amenable?” Simon asked amusedly.

  “Because she’s gettin’ thoroughly tired of Uckrose, as anyone can see. Already today she’s sayin’ how bored she is wid his way o’ fishin’. But he won’t hear o’ me takin’ her out alone if it’s too rough for him. So she tells him she’s a mind to go right back to Nassau where she could do things an’ have fun. She’s as ripe an’ ready for trouble as a woman ever will be, Simon me b’y, an’ if ye don’t take advantage av it it’s a disillusioned owld man I’ll be.”

  Simon accepted a cigarette and a cup of coffee, and then headed back to the hotel. By that time the cumulative effect of the food and beer on top of the long sun-drenched morning was making the ancient tropical custom of a siesta seem remarkably intelligent and inviting. He took a cold shower, closed the jalousie shutters enough to produce a restful twilight, and stretched out naked on the bed to relax and think.

  Somewhere near by, some aspiring native Crosby with a guitar was rehearsing an apocryphal calypso:

  “Oh, le’ we go down to Bimini—

  You never git a lickin’ till you go down to Bimini…”

  Simon wondered idly what historic rhubarb was commemorated in that quaint refrain.

  “Bimini gal is a rock in de harbor—

  You never git a lickin’ till you go down to Bimini!”

  And that also could provide sustenance for extensive speculation.

  Ta-tap…ta-ta-tap!

  The knocks were on his door, very softly yet quite distinctly. In a flash he was on his feet, pulling on his trousers and zipping them up. But as the knocks were repeated, even through their stealthiness he detected a certain flippancy in their odd little rhythm, a kind of conspiratorial gaiety that was persuasively reassuring. It would have taken an almost incredible Machiavelli of an assassin to have put that subtle touch into a knock. Simon was practically sure of what he would see as he turned the door knob.

  Gloria Uckrose came in, wearing a green silk dressing gown and apparently nothing else.

  4

  “I thought,” she said, “I’d see whether you were kidding, about joining you for a drink.”

  “Throw on a dress,” said the Saint agreeably, “and I’ll be waiting for you in the bar.”

  “I’d be more comfortable here.”

  “Then I’d have to go get something.”

  “I don’t really need anything. I’ll settle for just joining.” She had come all the way into the room, walking confidently across towards the window. Now she stood with a cigarette in a short holder in her mouth, her velvet eyes resting on him a little mockingly through the trickle of smoke. “Why don’t you shut the door?”

  Simon leaned on the handle, fanning the door a little wider if anything.

  “Your husband mightn’t understand,” he explained ingenuously. “He might follow you here, and come bursting in, brandishing a revolver. He might even be acquitted if he shot me.”

  She laughed shortly.

  “My husband would be too scared of the bang to pull the trigger. Anyway, he’s snoring his head off. He had three double Daiquiris before lunch, and I know exactly what they do to him. A hurricane wouldn’t wake him up before cocktail time.”

  “Which room do you have?”

  “The third door along to your left. Why?”

  “Would you think me unduly nervous if I went and listened to this snore myself?”

  “Not at all. Go ahead.”

  “In that case I don’t need to,” said the Saint cryptically. He started to shut the door, stopped again, and said, “What about Brother Innutio? Suppose he notices something that he thinks Clinton should hear about?”

  “He took Dramamine on the boat. He could hardly keep his eyes open through lunch.”

  Simon closed the door.

  “It’s nice to meet someone as wide awake as you,” he murmured. “You probably even know already exactly what you’d say if Clinton happened to catch you coming back into the room in that costume.”

  “This?” The careless gesture she made bared a few more inches of brown thigh in the opening of her robe. “Of course. I wanted some ice water, and nobody answered the bell, so I went looking for someone.”

  “It
’s a bore having to think of all these things, isn’t it?” he said disarmingly.

  “You sound rather like a man who’s had the badger game tried on him.”

  “I have,” Simon admitted. “It’s never worked, though.”

  “Don’t even pretend to apologize. I expected you to be careful—I’d have been disappointed if you weren’t. We don’t have to play games, Saint. I know who you are.”

  He dipped into a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table and placed one in his mouth. It was like driving an unfamiliar road full of potholes and blind curves, improvising a serpentine course from instant to instant between the minor pitfalls, while never knowing what major trap might yawn around the next bend. But his hand was light and flexible on the steering, his blue eyes relaxed and receptive for all their vigilance.

  “I had a feeling you connected with the name,” he said. “Even if your gentleman companions didn’t.”

  “Those idiots!” she said contemptuously. “They were so busy with their own yapping, they wouldn’t have heard your name if it had been J. Edgar Hoover.”

  “Brother Innutio at least acted as if he should have recognized that one. Hoover, I mean.”

  “I think Vince has just seen too many gangster movies.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that that’s been his only contact?”

  She shrugged.

  “How should I know? He was recommended by a New York detective agency. Anyway, Clinton encourages the act. It makes him feel big, or something.”

  Perfectly normal, just a common idiosyncrasy.

  “And what’s Clinton’s excuse for needing a bodyguard at all?” Simon inquired conversationally.

  She stared at him blankly.

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “I haven’t the remotest idea.”

  Although he could lie brilliantly when the occasion called for it, the truth could be told with a pellucid simplicity that it would have been almost impossible to give to a falsehood. The incredulous widening of her eyes was merely automatic: his honesty was so obvious that it would have convinced anyone. But for the moment the fact as he stated it left her speechless.