And then he turned his eyes to study a speck of movement on the borders of his field of vision. The speed tender was moving away from the side of the Falkenberg, heading towards the Bec de la Vallée. For a moment he watched it idly, calculating that its course would take it within a few yards of the Corsair; as it came nearer he recognised Kurt Vogel, and with him a stout grey-bearded man in a Norfolk jacket and a shapeless yellow Panama hat.
Simon began to get up from his chair. He began slowly and almost uncertainly, but he finished in a sudden rush of decision. Any action, however vague its object, was better than no action at all. He skated down the companion with something like his earlier exuberance, and shouted for Orace.
“Never mind about lunch,” he said, scattering silk shirts and white duck trousers out of a locker. “I’m going on shore to take up ornithology.”
2
One of the vedettes from St Malo was coming in to the jetty when the Saint scrambled back on deck, and the Falkenberg’s tender was still manoeuvring for a landing. Simon dropped into his dinghy and wound up the outboard.
Fortunately the Corsair had swung round on the tide so that she screened his movements from any chance backward glances from the quay, and he started off up-river and came round in a wide circle to avoid identifying himself by his point of departure. Not that it mattered much, but he wanted to avoid giving any immediate impression that he was deliberately setting off in pursuit.
He cruised along, keeping his head down and judging time and distance as the Falkenberg’s tender squeezed in to the steps and Vogel and his companion went ashore. Looking back, he judged that with any luck no curious watcher on the Falkenberg had observed his hurried departure, and by this time he was too far away to be recognised. Then, as Vogel and the grey-bearded man started up the causeway towards the Grande Rue, the Saint opened up his engine and scooted after them. He shot in to the quay under the very nose of another boat that was making for the same objective, spun his motor round into reverse under a cloudburst of Gallic expostulation and profanity, hitched the painter deftly through a ring-bolt, and was up on land and away before the running commentary he had provoked had really reached its choicest descriptive adjectives.
The passengers who were disembarking from the ferry effectively screened his arrival and shielded his advance as he hustled after his quarry. The other two were not walking quickly, and the grey-bearded man’s shabby yellow Panama was as good as a beacon. Simon spaced himself as far behind them as he dared when they reached the Digue, and slackened the speed of his pursuit. He ambled along with his hands in his pockets, submerging himself among the other promenaders with the same happy-go-lucky air of debating the best place to take an aperitif before lunch.
Presently the yellow Panama bobbed across the stream in the direction of the Casino terrace, and Simon Templar followed. At that hour the place was packed with a chattering sun-soaked throng of thirsty socialites, and the Saint was able to squeeze himself about among the tables in the most natural manner of a lone man looking for a place—preferably with company. His route led him quite casually past Vogel’s table, and at the precise moment when the hook-nosed man looked up and caught his eye, Simon returned the recognition with a perfect rendering of polite interest.
They were so close together that Vogel could scarcely have avoided a greeting, even if he had wished to—which the Saint quietly doubted. For a moment the man’s black expressionless stare drilled right through him, and then the thin lips spread in a smile that had all the artless geniality of a snake’s.
“I hope you didn’t think I was too unceremonious about disturbing you last night,” he said.
“Not at all,” said the Saint cheerfully. “I didn’t leave the baccarat rooms till pretty late, so I was only just settling in.”
His glance passed unostentatiously over the grey-bearded man. Something about the mud pink youthful-looking face struck him as dimly familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“This is Professor Yule,” said the other, “and my name is Vogel. Won’t you join us, Mr…”
“Tombs,” said the Saint, without batting an eyelid, and sat down.
Vogel extended a cigarette-case.
“You are interested in gambling, Mr Tombs?” he suggested.
His tone was courteous and detached, the tone of a man who was merely accepting the obvious cue for the opening of a conventional exchange of small talk, but the Saint’s hand hovered over the proffered case for an imperceptible second’s pause before he slid out a smoke and settled back.
“I don’t mind an occasional flutter to pass the time,” he murmured deprecatingly. “Ah, yes—an occasional flutter.” Vogel’s eyes, like two beads of impenetrable jet, remained fixed on his face, but the cold lipless smile remained also. “You can’t come to much harm that way. It’s the people who play beyond their means who come to grief.”
Simon Templar let a trickle of smoke drift down his nostrils, and that instantaneous instinctive tension within him relaxed into a pervasive chortle of pure glee which spread around his inside like a sip of old brandy. Kurt Vogel, he reflected, must have been taking a diet of the kind of mystery story in which the villain always introduces himself with some lines of sinister innuendo like that—and thereby convinces the perhaps otherwise unsuspecting hero that something villainous is going on. In the same type of story, however, the hero can never resist the temptation to respond in kind—thereby establishing the fact that he is the hero. But the Saint had been treading the fickle tight-ropes of piracy when those same romantic juveniles were cooing in their cradles, and he had his own severely practical ideas of heroism.
“There’s not much chance of that,” he said lightly, “with my overdraft in its present state.”
They sat eye to eye like two duellists baffled for an opening, and the Saint’s smile was wholly innocent. If Kurt Vogel had hoped to get him to betray himself by any theatrical insinuations of that sort, there were going to be some disappointed hearts in Dinard that fine day. But Vogel’s outward cordiality never wavered an iota. He gave away nothing either—the innuendo was only there if the Saint chose to force it out.
“Are you staying long?”
“I haven’t made any plans,” said the Saint nebulously. “I might dart off at any moment, or I might hang around until they make me a local monument. It just depends on how soon I get tired of the place.”
“It doesn’t agree with everybody,” Vogel assented purringly. “In fact, I have heard that some people find it definitely unhealthy.” Simon nodded.
“A bit relaxing, perhaps,” he admitted. “But I don’t mind that. Up to the present, though, I’ve found it rather dull.”
Vogel sat back and stroked the edge of the table with his fingertips. If he was disconcerted, the fact never registered on his face. His features were a flat mask of impassively regulated scenery behind that sullen promontory of a nose.
A waiter equilibrating under a dizzy tray of glasses swayed by and snatched their order as he passed. At the same time an adjoining table became vacant, and another party of thirst-quenchers took possession. The glance of one of them, sweeping round as he wriggled his legs in, passed over the Saint and then became faintly fixed. For a brief second it stayed set, then he leaned sideways to whisper. His companions turned their heads furtively. The name of Yule reached the Saint clearly, but after that the surrounding buzz of conversation and the glutinous strains of the Casino band swallowed up the conversation for a moment. And then, above all interfering undertones, the electric sotto voce of a resplendently peroxided matron in the party stung his eardrums like a saw shearing through tin: “I’m sure it must be!…You know, my dear—the bathy-something man…”
Simon Templar’s ribs lifted under his shirt with the deep breath that he drew into his lungs, and the twirtle of bliss within him rose to a sweet celestial singing. He knew now why the name of Professor Yule had seemed familiar, and why he had tried to place that fresh apple-cheeked face over the trim grey
beard. Only a few months ago the newspapers had run their stories and the illustrated weeklies had carried special pictures: the National Geographic Magazine had brought out a Yule Expedition number. For Wesley Yule had done something that no man on earth had ever done before. He had been down five thousand feet into the Pacific Ocean, beyond any depth ever seen before by human eyes—not in any sort of glorified diving bell, but in a fantastic bulbous armour built to withstand the terrific pressure that would have crushed an unprotected man like a midge on a window-pane, in which he was able to move and walk about on the ocean floor nearly a mile below the ship from which he was lowered. He was the man who had perfected and proved a deep-sea costume compared with which the “iron men” of previous diving experiments were mere amateurish makeshifts, a combination of metallic alloys and scientific construction that promised to revolutionise the exploring of the last secrets of the sea…And now he was in Dinard, the guest of Kurt Vogel, arch hijacker of Davy Jones!
That long pregnant breath floated back through the Saint’s lips and carried a feather of cigarette-smoke with it—the pause during which he had held, it in his lungs was the only physical index of his emotion. He became aware that the Professor was joining in with some affable commonplace, and that Vogel’s black eyes were riveted on him un-winkingly. With a perfectly steady hand he tilted the ash off his cigarette, and schooled every scrap of tension out of his face as he turned his head.
“Of course you’ve heard about Professor Yule?” said Vogel urbanely.
“Of course…” Simon’s rendering of slight apologetic confusion was attained with an effort that no one could have felt but himself. “Now I know who he is…But I hadn’t placed him until that lady said something just now.” He looked at Yule with a smile of open admiration. “It must have been an amazing experience, Professor.”
Yule shrugged, with a pleasant diffidence.
“Naturally it was interesting,” he replied frankly. “And rather frightening. Not to say uncomfortable…Perhaps you know that the temperature of the water falls rapidly when you reach really great depths. As a matter of fact, at five thousand feet it is only a few degrees above freezing point. Well, I had been so taken up with the other mechanical details of pressure and lighting and air supply that I actually forgot that one. I was damned cold!” He chuckled engagingly. “I’m putting an electrical heating arrangement in my improved bathystol, and I shan’t suffer that way next time.”
“You’ve decided to go down again, then?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve only just started. That first trip of mine was only a trial. With my new bathystol I hope to get down twice as far—and that’s nothing. If some of the latest alloys turn out all right, we may be able to have a look at the Cape Verde Basin—over three thousand fathoms—or even the Tuscarora Trough, more than five miles down.”
“What do you hope to find?”
“A lot of dull facts about depth currents and globigerina ooze. Possibly some new forms of marine life. There may be some astounding monsters living and dying down there, and never seeing the light of day. We might even track down our old friend the sea serpent.”
“There are some marvellous possibilities,” said the Saint thoughtfully.
“And some expensive ones,” confessed Yule, with attractive candour. “In fact, if it hadn’t been for Mr Vogel they might not have been possibilities at all—my first descent just about ruined me. But with his help I hope to go a lot further.”
The Saint did not smile, although a sudden vision of Kurt Vogel as a connoisseur of globigerina ooze and new species of fish tempted him almost irresistibly. He saw beyond that to other infinitely richer possibilities—possibilities which had probably never occurred to the Professor.
He knew that Vogel was watching him, observing every microscopic detail of his reactions with coldly analytical precision. To show a poker-faced lack of interest would be almost as suspicious as breaking loose with a hungry stream of questions. He had to judge the warmth of his response to the exactest hundredth of a degree, it he was to preserve any hope of clinging to the bluff of complete unsuspecting innocence which he had adopted. In the next twenty minutes of ordinary conversation he worked harder than he had done for half his life.
“…so the next big descent will show whether there’s any chance of supporting Wegener’s theory of continental drift,” concluded the Professor.
“I see,” said the Saint intelligently.
A man wandering about the terrace with a large camera pushed his way to their table and presented a card with the inscription of the Agence Française Journalistique.
“Vous permettez, messieurs?”
Yule grinned ruefully, like a schoolboy, and submitted blushingly to the ordeal. The photographer took two snapshots of the group, thanked them, and passed on with a vacuous air of waiting for further celebrities to impinge on his autocratic ken. A twice-divorced countess whom he ignored glared after him indignantly, and Kurt Vogel beckoned a waiter for the addition.
“Won’t you have another?” suggested the Saint.
“I’m afraid we have an engagement. Next time, perhaps.” Vogel discarded two ten-franc notes on the assiette and stood up with a flash of his bloodless smile. “If you’re interested, you might like to come out with us on a trial trip. It won’t be very sensational, unfortunately. Just a test for the new apparatus in moderately deep water.”
“I should love to,” said the Saint slowly. Vogel inclined his head pleasantly.
“It won’t be just here,” he said, “the water’s too shallow. We thought of trying it in the Hurd Deep, north of Alderney. There are only about ninety fathoms there, but it’ll be enough for our object. If you think it’s worth changing your plans, we’re leaving for St Peter Port in the morning.”
“Well—that sort of invitation doesn’t come every day,” said the Saint, with a certain well-timed embarrassment. “It’s certainly worth thinking about—if you’re sure I shouldn’t be in the way…”
“Then we may look forward to seeing you.” Vogel held out his hand. He had a firm muscular grip, but there was a curious reptilian coldness in the touch of his skin that prickled the Saint’s scalp. “I’ll give you a shout in the morning as we go by, and see if you’ve made up your mind.”
Simon shook hands with the Professor, and watched them until they turned the corner by the Petit Casino. His blue eyes were set in a lambent glint, like polished sapphires. He had got what he wanted. He had made actual contact with Kurt Vogel, talked with him, touched him physically and experienced the cold-blooded fighting presence of the man, crossed swords with him in a breathless finesse of nerves that was sharper than any bludgeoning battle. He had gained more than that. He had received a gratuitous invitation to call again. Which meant that he was as good as on the prize list.
Or in the coffin.
3
A highly conclusive and illuminating deduction, reflected the Saint grimly. And then all the old reckless humour flickered back into his eyes, and he lighted another cigarette and ordered himself a second drink. So be it. As Loretta Page had said, there were no dividends in guessing. In the fullness of time all uncertainty would doubtless be removed—one way or the other. And when that happened, Simon Templar proposed to be among those present.
Meanwhile he had something else to think about. A man came filtering through the tables on the terrace with a sheaf of English and American papers fanned out in his hand. Simon bought an Express, and he had only turned the first page when a single-column headline caught his eye.
TO SALVE CHALFONT CASTLE
£5,000,000 Expedition Fits Out
A ship will leave Falmouth early in August with a contract for the greatest treasure-hunt ever attempted in British waters.
She is the Restorer, crack steamer of the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association—
Simon skimmed through the story with narrowing eyes. So that was it! If Kurt Vogel was cruising in the vicinity of the Channel Islands on active business, and n
ot merely on a holiday, the Chalfont Castle was his most obvious target. And it seemed likely—otherwise why not take Professor Yule and his bathystol down to some place like Madeira, where there was really deep water close at hand for any number of experiments? The Chalfont Castle could not wait. If an authorised expedition was being organised so quickly, there was not much time for a free-lance to step in and forestall it. Perhaps the underwriters, taught by past experience, had thought of that. But for a man of Vogel’s nerve there might still be a chance…
Simon Templar lunched at the Gallic, and enjoyed his meal. The sting of the encounter from which he had just emerged had driven out every trace of the rather exasperated lassitude which had struck him an hour or two before; this providential hint of new movement swept new inspiration in like a sea breeze. The spice of certain danger laced his wine and sparkled through his veins. His brain was functioning like an awakened machine, turning over the urgencies of the moment with smooth and effortless ease.
When he had finished, he went out into the main foyer and collected a reception clerk.
“You have a telephone?”
“Oui, m’sieu. A gauche—”
“No, thanks,” said the Saint. “This isn’t local—I want to talk to England. Let me have a private room. I’ll pay for it.”
Ten minutes later he was settled comfortably in an armchair with his feet on a polished walnut table.
“Hullo, Peter.” The object of his first call was located after the London exchange had tried three other possible numbers which he gave them. “This is your Uncle Simon. Listen—didn’t you tell me that you once had a respectable family?”
“It still is respectable,” Peter Quentin’s voice answered indignantly. “I’m the only one who’s had anything to do with you.”
Simon grinned gently and slid a cigarette out of the package in front of him. “Do any of them know anything about Lloyd’s?”
“I’ve got a sort of cousin, or something, who works there,” said Peter, after a pause for reflection.
Saint Overboard (The Saint Series) Page 5