He fought. As if the shock had wiped away the last fragments of that more than human self-control, his hand shot out and clawed at the Saint's shoulder. His fingers slipped on the coarse twill, and the Saint grasped his wrist and twisted it away.
From the distance of a foot, which might have been the breadth of the Atlantic, Simon Templar looked at him through the wall of water which cut them off, and his blue eyes smiled with a soundless and terrible laughter into the wild distorted face. And he brought down the stone he was holding in a fearful blow on the fingers of Vogel's right hand where they clung to the rock.
A spasm of agony crawled across Vogel's features. And as the crushed hand released its hold, Simon slashed his knife clean through Vogel's air pipe and pushed him away.
Vogel fell, absurdly slowly, toppling backwards from the ladder very gradually and deliberately, with his arms waving and his hands clutching spasmodically at the yielding water. He went down, and the darkness of his own treasure-cave closed on his gleaming helmet. A slender trickle of bubbles curled up out of the gloom. ...
The Saint climbed lumberingly to his feet.
"Otto," he said curtly, still imitating Vogel's voice; and in a moment Arnheim answered.
"Yes?"
"Bring me up alone."
Vogel's life-line, knotted around his waist, tightened against his body. And at once he slashed through the telephone wires which were his last link with his own line.
His feet dragged off the ground, and he rose up through the light, past the lamp, up through the deep green shadowiness beyond. The circle of illuminated sea floor dwindled below him. Down in the darkness of the crypt into which Vogel had fallen he seemed to catch a glimpse of a moving sheen of metal, as if Vogel was trying to fight his way up again. But all that was very far away. He went up alone, up through the darkening shadows and the silence.
4
Coming up from that depth, there was no need for a gradual decompression. In three minutes he was getting his feet on to the rungs of the ladder. There was the sudden release of pressure from his body, and the pull of the weights on his shoulders. He climbed up into the light.
Hands helped him up on to the deck, tapped on his helmet and pointed, guiding him to the stool that was placed behind him. He sat down, facing the sea, and they unscrewed the porthole in the front of his helmet. He felt the sweet freshness of the natural air again.
The round opening where the porthole had been slid sideways across his vision as the helmet was released. He bent his head for it to be lifted off, and at the same time he slipped his knife out of its sheath into his left hand. As the helmet came off, he kept his head bowed and felt for the automatic inside his collar. He found it; and the knife flashed momentarily as he cut through the tie on which he had slung the gun. Then he turned round and faced the deck.
"I think this is the end, boys," he said quietly.
At the sound of his voice, those who had not been looking at him turned round. Calvieri, who was putting down the helmet, dropped it the last six inches. It fell with a deep hollow thud. And then there was utter stillness.
Arnheim had got up out of his chair and had been advancing towards him. He stopped, as if a brick wall had suddenly materialised in front of his toes; and his pink fleshy face seemed to turn yellow. His gross paunch quivered. A glassy film spread over his small pig eyes, turning them into frozen buttons of ink; and his soft moist mouth drooped open in a red O of fluttering unbelief. The Saint spoke principally to him.
"Kurt Vogel is dead. Or he soon will be. I believe there's enough air in a diving suit to last a man about five minutes after his air-line is cut. That is my justice. . . ." The Saint paused for a moment, and his calm gaze swept over the rest of them there with the timeless impassivity of a judge. "As for the rest of you," he said, "some of you may get away with a nice long rest in prison—if you live long enough to stand your trial. But to do that you will have to put your hands high up above your heads and take great care not to annoy me, because if any of you give me a scare——"
The automatic in his hand cracked once, a sudden sharp splash of sound in the persuasive flow of his words; and Otto Arnheim, with his hand halfway to his pocket, lurched like a drunken man. A stupid blankness spread across his face, and his knees folded. He went down limply on to the deck, rolled over, and lay still, with his staring eyes turned to the winking stars.
"——this gun is liable to go off," said the Saint.
None of the men moved. They looked down at the motionless body of Otto Arnheim, and kept their hands stretched well above their heads. And the Saint smiled with his lips.
"I think we shall have to put you away for a while," he said. "Calvieri, you take some of that life-line and tie your playmates together. Lash 'em by the waists about a yard apart, and then add yourself to the string. Then we'll all go below, with you leading the way and me holding the other end of the line, and see about rounding up the rest of the herd."
"That's already been done, old boy," murmured Roger Con-way, stepping out on to the deck from the after companion, with a gun in each hand and Steve Murdoch following him.
IX. FINALE
"IT was quite easy really," said Roger Conway patronisingly. "When we got Loretta's radiogram we set off at once, straight for here. We nearly piled your boat up on several rocks on the way, but Orace managed to see us through. Took us about three hours. The Falkenberg passed us about halfway, somewhere in the distance, and we just managed to keep her in sight. Luckily it was getting dark, so we turned out our lights after a bit and crept up as close as we dared. We dropped our hook about a quarter of a mile away, and as soon as we'd given the Falkenberg time to get well settled in we manned the dinghy and paddled over to reconnoitre. Everybody on deck seemed to be pretty busy with the diving business, so we came aboard on the other side and went below. We collected seven specimens altogether on the round-up, including a bloke who seems to have got a broken jaw. Anyway he's still asleep. The rest of 'em we gagged and tied up and left for inspection. We made a pretty thorough job of it, if I may say so."
With which modest summary of his activities, Roger helped himself to one of Vogel's cigars, threw another to Peter Quentin, and subsided exhausted into the most comfortable armchair.
Simon Templar regarded them disparagingly.
"You always were frightfully efficient at clearing up the battlefield after all the troops had gone home," he remarked appreciatively. "And where did you collect the American Tragedy?"
"Oh, him? He crashed on to the Corsair while we were having a drink with Orace, earlier in the afternoon," Peter explained. "Seemed to be all steamed up about something, and flashed a lot of badges and things at us, so we brought him along. He seemed to be very excited about Loretta batting off on this party, so I suppose he's her husband or something. Are you the co-respondent?"
Steve Murdoch dug his fists into his coat pockets and glowered round with his square jaw thrust out. His rugged hard-boiled face made the luxurious furnishings of the wheelhouse seem faintly effeminate.
"Yeah, I'm here," he stated truculently. "And this time I'm stayin'. I guess I owe you something for helpin' me clean up this job, Saint; an' maybe it's good enough to account for those two punches you hung on me. But that's as far as it goes. I'll see that Ingerbeck's hear about what you've done, and probably they'll offer you a share of the reward. If they do, you can go up an' claim it honest. But for the time being I'll look after things myself."
Simon looked at the ceiling.
"What a lot of modest violets there are around here," he sighed. "Of course I wouldn't dream of trying to steal your curtain, Steve, after all the brilliant work you've put in. But what exactly are you going to do?"
"I'm goin' to ask one of you boys to go ashore an' see if you can knock up the gendarmerie. If you can find a telegraph office, you can send one or two cables for me as well. The gendarmes can grab this guy Baudier before he skips, an' come on down to post a guard on board here.
That'll do till I can start things movin' from the top. But until I've got that guard posted I'm going to sit over the diving gear myself, in case one of you thought he might go down an' see what he could pick up. I guess you've done enough diving for one day, Saint, an' you're not goin' down again while I can stop you. An' just in case you're thinkin' you can put me to sleep again like you did before, let me tell you that if you did get away with anything like that you'd have to shoot me to stop me puttin' every police organisation in the world on your trail as soon as I woke up. Do you get it?"
"Oh, I get you, Steve," said the Saint thoughtfully. "And I did tell Loretta I was tempted to come in for a share of the commission. Although it does sort of go against the grain to earn money honestly. It's such an anti-climax . . ."
He slid off the edge of the table and stood up, stroking his chin meditatively for a moment. And then, with a rueful shrug, he turned and grinned cheerfully at the detective.
"Still, it's always a new experience; and I suppose you've got to earn your living the same as I have," he drawled. "We'll let you have your fun. Peter, be a good boy and toddle along and do what Mr Murdoch asks you to."
"Right-ho," said Peter doubtfully.
"Roger, you can keep Steve company on his vigil. You'll have lots of fun telling each other how clever you are, but I'd much rather not listen to you."
The ineradicable suspicion darkened again in Murdoch's eyes.
"If you think you're goin' to talk Loretta round again," he began growlingly, "let me tell you——"
"Write it all down and post it to me in the morning, dear old bird," said the Saint affably and opened the door for them.
They filed out, Murdoch going last and most reluctantly, as if even then he couldn't believe that it was safe to let the Saint out of his sight. But Simon pushed him on, and closed the door after them.
Then he turned round and came towards Loretta.
She sat in her chair, rather quiet and still, with her lips slightly parted and the hint of mischief hushed for the moment into the changing shadows of her grey eyes. The lines of her slim body fell into a pattern of unconscious grace that made him almost hold his breath in case she moved, although he knew that in moving she would only take on a new beauty. He knew that, when all was said and done, in the last reckoning it was only the queer hunger which she could give a man that had tempted Kurt Vogel into his first and fatal mistake. She had so much that a man dreams about sometimes in the hard lonely trails of outlawry. She had so much that he himself had desired. In the few overcrowded hours since they had been thrown together, they had met in an understanding which no words could cover. They had walked in a garden, and talked together before the doors of death. He had known fear, and peace.
He stood looking down at her, half smiling. And then, with a sudden soft breath of laughter, she took both his hands and came up into his arms.
"So you don't like your dotted line?" she said.
"Maybe it grows on one."
She shook her head.
"Not on you."
He thought for a moment. Between them, who had lived so much, a lie had no place.
"This job is finished," he said. "Steve Murdoch's mounting guard over the diving gear, and I promise I won't touch him. We can start again. Wash out the dotted line."
"And then?"
"For the future?" he said carelessly. "I shall still have the fun of being chivvied by every policeman in the world. I shall steal and fight, win and lose, go on—didn't you say it?—wanting so much that I can never have, fighting against life. But I shall live. I shall get into more trouble. I may even fall in love again. I shall end up by being hanged, or shot, or stabbed in the back, or something—if I don't find a safe berth in prison first. But that's my life. If I tried to live any other way, I'd feel like a caged eagle."
"But to-morrow?"
He laughed.
"I suppose I'll have to dump Peter and Roger somewhere. But the Corsair's, still ready to go anywhere. She's not so luxurious as this, but she's pretty comfortable. And about a hundred years ago I was in the middle of a vacation."
His hands were on her shoulders; and she smiled into his eyes.
"What do either of us know about the day after to-morrow?" she said.
Nearly an hour later he came out on deck, as half a dozen palpitating gendarmes were scrambling up the gangway. Murdoch had met the leader of them and was struggling to converse with him in a microscopical vocabulary of French delivered in a threatening voice with an atrocious accent. Simon left him to perspire alone, and drew Peter and Roger to one side.
"We're going back to the Corsair," he said.
"Without the heroine?" protested Peter. "Why, I was only just getting to know her."
The Saint took him by the arm.
"You'll be able to improve the acquaintance to-morrow," he said kindly. "For as long as it takes us to sail back to St Peter Port and get rid of you. On your way."
They dropped into the dinghy; and Simon settled himself lazily in the stern, leaving the others to take the oars. He lighted a cigarette and gazed up at the star-dusted sky.
The lights of the Falkenberg drifted away behind them, and the cool quietness of the night took them in. The voices died away, and there was only the creak of the rowlocks and the gentle plash of the water. The Saint watched his smoke floating in gossamer veils across the stars, and let his mind stray through the lanes of memory. There was the only real knowledge, and all other doubt and disbelief could steal nothing from it. What did either of them know about the day after to-morrow? . . .
Roger's voice broke into his thoughts.
"Well, that's goodbye to those millions you promised us," he remarked glumly; and Simon sat up with the old buccaneering glint wakening in his eyes.
"Who said goodbye? My dear Roger, we're not going to bed yet! We're going to bring the Corsair up closer and unpack those nice new diving suits we've got on board. And then one of you drawing-room heroes is coming down with me on a little treasure-hunt. Steve and his gendarmes can mount guard over Vogel's diving gear all night for all I care. But they don't know how much boodle is stowed away down there, and what they don't know about they'll never miss. We're going to make sure of our share of the reward to-night," said the Saint.
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16 The Saint Overboard Page 23