The Saint and Mr. Teal: Formerly Called "Once More the Saint" (15 page)

And then he saw a dinghy putting out from the shore, and Mr. Ronald Nilder in the stern.

His cigarette canted up alertly, and the blue far-seeing eyes ranged out over the water. In a few moments he was able to pick out the dinghy’s objective-a trim white fifty-foot motor cruiser that rode lazily at its moorings in midstream. It looked fast-faster than anything else in the perspective-and at the same time it had a sweetly proportioned breadth of beam that guaranteed it seaworthy as well.

The Saint hunched himself off the parapet and strolled along to the lane down which Nilder’s car had disappeared. Wandering through the yards, he had glimpses of the cruiser which showed him Ronald Nilder’s progress in a series of illuminating snapshots.

He saw the dinghy come alongside and the oarsman holding it steady while Nilder climbed aboard. Then he saw Nilder disappearing into the cabin and the oarsman making the dinghy fast to a cleat on the stern. Then the oarsman going forward over the cabin roof and lowering himself into the cockpit. Then Nilder appearing again beside him, having exchanged his grey homburg for a white-topped yachting cap, and not looking very nautical even then… .

By which time the Saint was leaning on the bows of an old M.L. hull directly opposite the Seabird-he was close enough to read the name painted on a shining white lifebuoy.

A whiskered old salt a couple of yards away was parcelling the ends of a frayed length of rope; Simon caught his eye and waved vaguely towards the Seabird.

“That’s a nice boat,” he said.

The old salt looked out over the water and spat.

“Not bad, sir, if you like that sorter thing. I wouldn’t be seen dead in it, sir, if you ask me.”

“Nothing like sail, eh?” murmured the Saint sympathetically.

“Ar,” said the old salt, spitting emotionally. “Now yer talkin’. Them jiggery things is all right fer ladies an’ fancy toffs; but wot I says is, give me a man’s boat every time.”

Simon screwed up his eyes. The Seabird had cast off and was sliding smoothly down towards the Channel. The man who had rowed the dinghy held the wheel, and Ronald Nilder stood with his hands in his pockets and gazed backwards towards the bridge benevolently.

“All the same,” Simon remarked, “she looks as if she could stand some weather.”

“She goes to France all right,” conceded the salt reluctantly. “The gentleman wot owns ‘er often does it. Says ‘e likes to look inside a casino now an’ then.”

The Saint proffered a packet of cigarettes and switched a casual glance round the yard. Parked up beside the wall of a boathouse he saw the shape of a car under a waterproof dust cover, and identified the number on the exposed plate.

“Looks as if she might have gone there today,” he said, indicating the Buick.

” Shouldn’t be surprised if she ‘ad,” said his informant, accepting the smoke. ” Can’t be going for long, though, because the gentleman said ‘e’d be back tomorrow.”

Simon nodded thoughtfully and lounged back on the M.L.

“I suppose you haven’t got a little motorboat for hire, have you?” he asked.

The old salt’s scornful attitude towards power underwent a rapid change when he found that the Saint professed his complete -personal indifference to the merits of canvas. Yes, he had an excellent motorboat. It was, he implied, such an exceptional motorboat that it could not be included in any general denunciation of mechanical craft. It could be chartered by the day, the week, the month, the year, or, presumably, by the century; and it was the property of a gentleman wot owned racehorses wot always seemed to win when ‘e said they would, which naturally raised its virtues to a pitch that surpassed perfection.

Simon looked it over, decided that it would suit him, and arranged to take it out the next morning.

“I just feel like floating around and doing a spot of fishing,” he said.

He drove down to the inn at Warsash, and put a call through to Patricia.

“Ronald has gone to hit up the casinos, and I’m going to buy some string and bend a pin,” he said. “We may say ‘Ship ahoy!’ to each other at seven bells.”

With a tremendous effort, which could only have been inspired by an unfaltering loyalty to his sense of duty, he managed to breakfast at six o’clock the next morning, and to parade at the boatyard at seven with a reasonably professional-looking array of gear. He chugged down to the Solent and cruised up and down opposite the mouth of the Hamble with a cigarette in his mouth and a baited line over the side. Moreover, he caught a fish, which greatly lowered his estimation of piscine intelligence.

And whilst he was doing that he produced a Thought.

“There are boats tooling in and out of here every day during the season, and nobody gives a damn. It isn’t the shortest crossing to the French coast, but for anyone running cargo it must have its advantages.”

It was nine o’clock when he sighted the Seabird’s bow wave making up the Solent towards him, and it told him that Ronald Nilder’s boat could certainly move fast. It was making over twenty knots, and he had very little time to prepare for the scene which he intended to stage.

He let his line go to the bottom and shut off the idling motor. He was directly in the Seabird’s course as she headed for the entrance of the river, and as she came within hailing distance he stood up and flagged her vigorously, yelling some despairing sentence about a breakdown. It was an even chance that Nilder would ignore his signals and cut round him; but the Saint’s luck was working that day. He saw the cruiser’s white bow wave sink down and the water foaming astern as her engines went into reverse. She manoeuvred deftly alongside him, and they rolled together in the slight swell.

“I’m awfully sorry to trouble you,” said the Saint, “but my motor’s conked out, and I haven’t any oars or anything.”

“Where do you want to get to?” asked Nilder.

He stood in the cockpit, with his cap tilted to what he obviously thought was a rakish angle.

“Bursledon,” said the Saint. “But I expect someone could come out to me from wherever you’re going to —”

“We’re going there ourselves. We’ll take you in tow.”

At a nod from Nilder, the helmsman went aft and flung out a rope. He seemed to comprise the entire crew of the Seabird, and seen at close quarters he appeared noticeably lacking in that winsome benignity of countenance which is found on the dials of governors of infant orphanages.

Simon made the rope fast, and Nilder leaned over the side.

“Why don’t you come up here?” he suggested amiably. “I’m afraid you’ll get rather wet if you stay where you are.”

Simon had proposed to get aboard somehow from the beginning, but he had not expected such a prompt invitation. He climbed into the cockpit rather watchfully, with a tiny question mark roving through his mind. It was a perfectly normal invitation in itself, but if Mr. Nilder was revealing a little more astuteness than the Saint had credited him with … And then the morning breeze wafted over to him the fragrance of Ronald Nilder’s breath, and Simon realized that the man was more than a little drunk.

“It’s quite a coincidence that we should meet again so soon, isn’t it?” Nilder remarked suddenly, as the engines picked up again and the one-man crew took the wheel. “I had an excellent view of you in my driving mirror yesterday.”

His close-set eyes were fixed on the Saint with the peculiarly rigid stare of mild intoxication, and Simon understood in a flash that Ronald Nilder had oiled himself up to the exact stage of tiddliness at which a man becomes conscious of a verve and brilliance which no one else can perceive and which he himself never knew he possessed.

Simon returned the man’s stare coolly. He had set out that morning with no intention of doing anything desperate, but he was always ready to adapt his style to circumstances. And Ronald Nilder was being so frantically and unnecessarily clever that he was asking for a suitable retort with both hands.

“Why, yes-it does seem odd, doesn’t it?” murmured the Saint.

He tapped the helmsman gently on the shoulder, and the man half turned. In that position, the point of his jaw offered itself to the Saint’s fist as a target that could not in common politeness be ignored. Simon duly obliged-gracefully, accurately, and with a detonating release of energy that lifted the helmsman clear onto the balls of his feet before he dropped.

“Perfectly priceless weather, isn’t it?” murmured the Saint, conversationally.

He spun the wheel hard over, so that the Seabird heeled to starboard and came about in a flat skid. Simon straightened her up smoothly and let her run south, away from the river mouth.

His eyes returned to Nilder’s face with a blue challenge of devilment to match his smile. It was on such moments of inspired unexpectedness that the Saint’s greatness was founded. Looking at Ronald Nilder, he saw that the tipsy courage which had induced the man to take such a recklessly incalculable bull by the horns had wheezed down like a punctured tire. There was a kind of panic in Ronald Nilder’s face, and he was trying clumsily to draw a gun.

Simon took it away from him quite good-humouredly and dropped it over the side.

“You know, that’s another mistake, Ronald,” said the Saint calmly. “Respectable yachtsmen never pull guns when their crew are assaulted. They just go mauve in the frontispiece and say: ‘What the devil, sir, is the meaning of this outrage ?’ “

Nilder stared at him whitely; and the Saint de-clutched the engine and allowed the Seabird to lose way.

“And now that the audience has gone to sleep, Ronald,” he remarked, “I’ll tell you a secret. While I was sitting out here hoping that some young fish who’d never heard of my reputation would accept one of my worms, I thought to myself what a useful base this would be for anyone who didn’t want to advertise his cargo.” He saw Nilder crouch a little, and did not smile. “I’m afraid several girls must have been sorry they accepted an invitation to go yachting with you. But what do you bring back with you on the return journey, Ronald ?-that’s what worries me.”

Nilder licked his lips and did not answer.

Then a hand like steel gripped his arm, and a brown face that had lost all its geniality looked down into his.

“Shall we go and look?” said the Saint.

He thrust Nilder through the door that led into the saloon aft. There were a couple of wicker hampers on the table, and Simon surveyed them thoughtfully. That, of course, was the simplest way of bringing any reasonably sized cargo ashore.

“Champagne and caviare sandwiches?” drawled the Saint. “That’s just what the doctor ordered for me.”

He pushed Nilder onto one of the sofa berths and snapped up the lid of one of the baskets.

He was not quite sure what he expected to find, but it was certainly not what he saw. He looked at it in silence for several seconds, and then he raised the lid of the other hamper. The contents of that one were the same.

“So it’s Tommy guns, is it?” he said quietly. “I wondered when that was coming. And how long have you known Tex Goldman?”

Still Nilder did not answer.

Without losing sight of him for an instant, Simon carried out the hampers one by one and dumped them overboard into the deepest part of the Solent. He came back and lifted Nilder off the sofa by his collar.

“I asked you a question, you horrible little scab,” said the Saint. “How long have you known Tex Goldman?”

Nilder shook his head in a dumb travesty of stubbornness. And the Saint’s fist crashed into his mouth and knocked him back against the bulkhead.

“If you don’t talk now you won’t smile for months,” said the Saint equably. “It’ll be too painful. I don’t like you, and I loathe your trade. How long have you known Tex Goldman?”

Nilder wiped his bleeding lips.

“I don’t know him, I tell you. What right have you —”

But in three more minutes he was glad to talk.

“I knew him six years ago, before he went to America. He was flying kites-passing bad checks. He got to know something about a girl I-I found a job for. She was only fifteen, but how was I to know ? It wasn’t my fault. … He was deported. Then when he came back he made me help him. It was blackmail. I didn’t want to do it —”

“That’s nearly all I want to know,” said the Saint. “How many trips have you made so far?”

“This is the first-I swear it is —”

Simon flung him back into a corner.

“That’s as much of your voice as I can stand, Ronald -really.”

He went and found the small cramped engine room, and drained every drop of oil out of the sumps into an empty two-gallon can which he found. In instalments, he poured it away over the side, without letting Nilder see what he was doing; and then he returned to the saloon.

“I expect you’ll be leaving the country as soon as you can,” he said. “If it will help you to see the indications for a spot of travel, I may tell you that if I ever see you again the rest of your travelling will be done behind two black horses with flowers round you. And you won’t make any complaints about this little voyage before you go, because if I were arrested I should feel fearfully talkative.”

“You’ll pay for this, you dirty bully!” snarled Nilder furiously. “Goldman will have something to say to you —”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said the Saint contemptuously. “Tex has the guts to say it, which you haven’t.”

He climbed out of the saloon by the after door and hauled up his own motorboat.

Thirty seconds later he was creaming up the river towards Bursledon, while the Seabird drifted on down the Solent on the falling tide.

CHAPTER VI
HE was back at Warsash in another twenty minutes, and as he stepped out of his car beside the inn he was just able to catch a sight of the Seabird turning to race up towards the Hamble. Even while he paused to watch it for a moment, the bow wave sank down and the ship’s bows began to yaw round as she lost way. Simon grinned happily to himself and went through to the dining room.

He twitched his nostrils appreciatively at the aroma of crisping bacon which greeted him. Three hours in the fresh sea air after the sketchy meal he had swallowed at six a.m., plus a certain amount of useful exercise, had done their full share towards setting up his appetite to its ordinary matutinal proportions.